One of the greatest bass guitarists in the history of black music, Memphis born Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn, died in his sleep yesterday, following a gig the previous night with Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd at Tokyo’s Blue Note nightclub.
I was particularly sad to hear of his passing. Dunn, as a member of Booker T & The MG’s, played a major role in my youth, for not only was this a group that made some classic recordings of their own, they were, even more importantly, the house band at Stax Studio in Dunn’s home city, originators of the seminal ‘Stax sound’, backing some of the true giants of Soul – Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and Wilson Pickett, to name but some of the artists they worked with. Dunn’s bass underpins so many singles I forever fell in love with as a boy back in the late 60’s - released on the iconic Stax and Atlantic labels, which my brother (who’s 10 years older than me) was particularly partial to, being a Soul loving scooter riding Mod at the time.
The Stax Volt tour, which came to the UK in 1967, saw the band (incorporating the Mar-Keys horn section) back Otis, Sam & Dave, Arthur Conley and Eddie Floyd. If I could have seen any live tour ever, this would have been it. So, as you can appreciate, I’m eternally envious of my brother because he did get to see it. Thankfully the Oslo leg was filmed for posterity and is something I never tire of watching. You can check it out on YouTube
Booker T & The MG’s are also there on stage with Otis Redding at the first major rock festival, California’s Monterey Pop, later in 1967, when Otis won the hearts of ‘the love crowd’ – the performance ending with his prophetic words ‘I’ve got to go now, and I don’t want to go’ – prophetic because Otis would tragically die just under 6 months later, along with most of the members of the Bar Kays, who’d taken over as his live band (Booker T & The MG’s being busy with studio commitments), when the plane they were travelling in crashed on its way from Nashville to Madison, Wisconsin. You can see the Monterey performance here in its full glory:
Dunn’s bandmates were Steve Cropper on guitar, Booker T. Jones on organ / piano, and the late Al Jackson Jr on drums (dubbed ‘the human metronome’, due to the tightness of his beat). This was a beast of a band, breaking down barriers with their racial mix (Jackson & Jones black, Cropper & Dunn white). They scored British hits with ‘Soul Limbo’, ‘Time Is Tight’, ‘Soul Clap 69’ and ‘Green Onions’, the latter of which featured the bands original bassist Lewie Steinberg (Dunn didn’t join until 1964, 2 years after it was recorded), however he did appear on the Mar-Keys US million seller ‘Last Night’ in 1961. ‘Time Is Tight’ kicked off my Random Influences series (see: http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2011/11/random-influences-on-itunes/), and holds a special place in my affection – undoubtedly one of my all-time favourite 45’s. Here they are playing a brilliant live rendition in 1970:
Dunn would be known by a subsequent generation via his appearance, alongside Steve Cropper, in the 1980 film ‘The Blues Brothers’, where he was a member of the band. Apart from Soul / black music artists Dunn also recorded with the likes of Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Rod Stewart, Stevie Nicks and Bob Dylan.
One of the defining moments of my DJ career took place exactly 30 years ago, on Monday May 10th 1982, when my first radio mix was broadcast on Mike Shaft’s show, ‘T.C.O.B’ (Taking Care Of Business), on Manchester’s hugely influential Piccadilly Radio, which played a major part in bringing black / dance music to wider attention during the 70’s and ‘80’s - from Soul, Funk and Disco, through Jazz-Funk and Electro, and on into Hip Hop, House and Techno. I go into its rich legacy in greater depth here: http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/articles/dont_touch_that_dial.html
The mix had been recorded a few days earlier, as live, one afternoon at Legend in Manchester (the club closed at the time). Mike Shaft had brought along a Revox B77 reel-to-reel to record onto, the machine being the portable unit of choice throughout the radio industry in this country back then. This was the first time the Revox, which has since played a constant role in my work, entered my life. At the time I had no means to record at home, but by the end of the year, following the runaway success of the mixes, which would subsequently become a regular feature on Piccadilly, I’d purchase a couple of Technics SL1200’s and a Matamp Super Nova mixer (this was at a time when, with the exception of London DJ, Froggy, who used them for his Roadshow, no UK DJ’s had such equipment at home). To top things off I bought my first B77, so I could put together my mixes at home, which would serve to lead me ever-deeper into my obsession with editing. So glory be to Mike Shaft and to Piccadilly Radio for facilitating this life-defining arc of continued discovery.
The reel of ¼ tape onto which that first mix was recorded onto was, as with most of my radio mixes (the final one, ‘The Best Of ‘83’, being aired in December 1983), lost – probably copied over at some point or other, having been stored at the station. I managed to salvage a few of these mastertapes, most importantly ‘The Best Of ’82, but the original mix wasn’t amongst these, and I only had it on an extremely lo-fi cassette recorded from the radio at the time.
As the author / DJ Dave Haslam once said, the mixes “were probably some of the most taped programmes in Manchester radio history”. These tapes would also spread further afield than the Greater Manchester region that Piccadilly broadcasted to, with copies, and copies of copies, finding their way into cassette players and ghetto blasters in all corners of the country, often without people having a clue about their source – this was the ‘mixtape’ in its earliest form from a British perspective. One such recipient of my mixes was Stafford based Pezz, then a 14 year old lad discovering his musical influences, and later of the fabled Nottingham-based soundsystem and DJ collective, DiY, who were amongst the pioneers of the UK free party scene, having formed in 1989.
I’d meet Pezz at the Liverpool offices of 3Beat, the record shop / label he worked for – this was in 2002, 20 years on from when my radio mixes first aired. My DJ comeback was still in the future, and I was very much an obscure name from the past at best, most people of Pezz’s age brought up on a later generation of DJ’s. So his excitement at meeting me was unexpected – he was talking about this tape from back in my Piccadilly days that had made a big impact on him and his friends at the time, as they set off on their own personal dance music odysseys, and asked me if I could identify a couple of the tracks featured (these id’s having eluded them for 2 decades). It turned out that one of his big mates back then was Dean Meredith, later of Bizarre Inc, who enjoyed chart success in the early 90’s, and more recently Chicken Lips (whose ‘He Not In’ I edited on my first ‘Credit To The Edit’ compilation in 2005), and that this tape had been a major influence on the sound of his latter project, which, along with Bizarre Inc, was produced in collaboration with partner Andy Meecham.
Pezz takes up the story in the sleevenotes of a limited run CD (300 copies only) from 2007, to mark the 25th anniversary, which he called ‘It Was Back In ‘82’:
As soon as I’d met Greg, an excited call was made to Dean. ‘…. Hey kid, guess what! I just met Greg Wilson – No way – I need you to send me a copy of the tape up as soon as possible….’ Then came the months of waiting more phone call’s hassling to get a copy before eventually with the bribe of digitally remastering it onto CD it finally arrived!
In the meantime I’d had many conversations with Greg and e-mail’s were exchanged, one of which contained a list of essential Electro-Funk releases. This list was full of records I, and anyone I showed it to, had never heard of, apart from some obvious classic’s such as the Peech Boy’s ‘Don’t Make Me Wait’, and Afrika Bambaataa’s ‘Planet Rock’. When I finally sent him a copy of the tape I’d got from Dean he identified mysterious artists and titles like The Gunchback Boogie Band’s ‘Funn’ and Jimmy Spicer’s ‘The Bubble Bunch’. I began hunting down these tracks on the internet, the first to arrive was Larry Graham’s ‘Sooner Or Later’, and the excitement of finally getting my hands on these tunes was unreal, mindblowing! I hadn’t had such a buzz from buying records in years. A goal was then set to collect every track on the tape. Gradually over the coming weeks all but a handful were found. In the meantime, Greg found the old tracklistings for his first ever mixes for Mike Shaft, which just happened to be the two mixes contained on the legendary tape. I was then able to find all but two tracks, or rather two small drum sections he used in the first of the mixes. Not even Greg can recall where these came from!
Before long it seemed obvious that listening to this 20-year-old tape was not enough. After collecting these, and a host of other early 80’s Electro-Funk releases, I decided that the only thing left to do was to re-create the mixes myself! Rather than just re-do them as Greg did back in ‘82 on the decks at Legends. I decided to use the computer to ensure the tightest of mixes and present them in today’s highly polished manner (I also lifted and cleaned the missing drum parts direct from the tape). The whole concept of taking someone else’s work and re-creating it is quite strange, and actually completing it and then re-presenting it to Greg felt even more bizarre. Thankfully he was really into what I’d done, especially as the original ¼” masters have been lost and, like myself, the only copy of these mixes that Greg had was recorded onto cassette from the radio.
So, to mark its 30th anniversary, this reconstructed version of my first ever radio mix, which was painstakingly pieced together by Pezz, has now been uploaded onto my SoundCloud.
The mix would be the first of its type on British radio, and following the fantastic response to mix 1, Mike Shaft decided to make it a regular feature, with new mixes every 3-4 weeks. It would have an instant impact in the clubs, with Legend’s attendance, which was already on the up, going through the roof in a matter of weeks. It was a momentous month, which also saw the release of the seminal Electro track, ‘Planet Rock’ (see: http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/articles/when_the_planet_rocked.html) and the opening of a new Manchester club, which I’d DJ at later down the line, called The Haçienda.
My career was about to go into overdrive, and ‘The Greg Wilson Mix’, as Mike, in his distinctive mid-Atlantic drawl, would introduce it, was a major part of this process.
Beastie Boy Adam Yauch (aka MCA), died last Friday, aged 47. The Brooklyn born rapper and bassist had been diagnosed with cancer in 2009, and, although he initially described his condition as ‘very treatable’, was too sick to attend the crew’s inauguration into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame last year.
Signed to Def Jam Records, the Beastie’s found wordwide fame following the release of their multi-million selling 1986 LP ‘Licensed To Ill’, the first Hip Hop album to top the US chart, their in-yer-face punk rap style appealing to both blacks and whites (the crew had originally started out in 1979 as a Punk band, supporting the likes of the Dead Kennedys and Bad Brains). The Beastie Boys have released 8 albums in all, the most recent, ‘Hot Sauce Committee Part Two’ issued only last year.
This Sunday (May 6th) at 9pm, you’re invited to share a listening session with some likeminded souls, wherever you might be. This can be experienced either alone or communally, and you don’t need to leave the comfort of your own home to participate. Full lowdown here: http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2010/06/living-to-music/
Described by Lloyd Bradley, the author of 'Bass Culture' as 'one of the supreme heavyweight champion dub sets', melodica player / keyboardist, Augustus Pablos, get's the full dub treatment from one of its founding fathers, King Tubby.
King Tubby (real name Osbourne Ruddock) was a Jamaican sound engineer who pioneered dub in the 60's and early 70's, knowing 'how the circuits worked and what the electrons did' in the words of Reggae singer, producer and broadcaster, Mikey Dread. His innovations, along with those of another legendary JA engineer / producer, Lee 'Scratch' Perry (Errol Thompson, who shared mix duties here, is also generally included in this holy trinity of dub), would lay the foundations for remix culture. Tubby's dub 'versions' accentuated and reworked the original recordings, with echo and reverb effects particularly prominent as he transformed the studio mixing desk into an instrument in its own right.
'King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown' is one of the foremost examples of his work, with the assistance of some serious Reggae musicians - brothers Carlton and Aston 'Family Man' Barrett (drummer and bassist with The Wailers and The Upsetters), Robbie Shakespeare (of Sly & Robbie fame - the great Jamaican bassist), legendary guitarist, Earl 'Chinna' Smith (who's appeared on over 500 albums), and, of course, Augustus Pablo himself.
Dub would have a huge influence on dance culture, inspiring New York remixers of the late 70's / early 80's, including Walter Gibbons, Tom Moulton, Larry Levan, Tee Scott, François Kevorkian and Shep Pettibone, to take a more experimental approach in the studio, utilizing the innovations of these sonic alchemists from the Carribean.
King Tubby was shot dead in 1989 outside of his Kingston home in an unsolved murder. Augustus Pablo died 10 years later, as a result of a collapsed lung.
Your own thoughts are always welcomed, and, should you join us for Sunday’s session, it’d be great if you could leave a comment here after you’ve listened to the album sharing your impressions – how the music affected you, who you listened to it with, where you were, plus anything else relevant to your own individual / collective experience.
Alan Moore remains a constant source of inspiration, and since my last post referring to his work, 'The Masked Movement' (http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2011/12/the-masked-movement/), I've read some more of his books, as well as listened to numerous interviews courtesy of the wonderful world of YouTube.
Before I wax lyrical about 2 further Alan Moore favourites, 'From Hell' and 'Promethea', I should rewind to last Christmas, when I received the perfect present from my mate Kermit, who I talked about in my original 'All Along The Watchmen' post just over 10 months ago, when this whole journey of discovery began for me (http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2011/06/all-along-the-watchmen/). As you can imagine, I was overjoyed to unwrap a complete set of the 12 original 'Watchmen' comics, all in mint condition (pictured above) and still in their plastic wrappers - Kermit, being the comics geek he is, had bought 2 copies of each when they'd first come out, keeping a spare set, which have, thankfully, now found their way to me. It was a greatly appreciated gesture from a true spar.
I was blown away by 'From Hell' (originally published in comic form between 1991-1996, and as a graphic novel in 1999), in which Moore joined forces with illustrator Eddie Campbell to present an astonishingly detailed account of the infamous Jack The Ripper murders, committed in Whitechapel, London in 1888 - still the subject of much speculation all these years on, with a whole sub-culture of 'Ripperologists' ever active, trying to uncover fresh clues. The unsolved slayings of 5 prostitutes, referred to as the 'Canonical Five', between August 31st and November 9th 1888, have generated numerous theories as to who was responsible, with even the royal family implicated. What Moore has done is painstakingly comb through all of these to piece together a coherent story in which Queen Victoria's physician, Sir William Gull, is the killer. The fact that I can tell you this doesn't ruin the story, for what Moore states is that he wasn't focused on the 'whodunnit' aspect, but the 'whydunnit' - the mentality that engendered such a bloodbath, and the social conditions that manifested it. He shines a light on the historical context, at the gateway to the oncoming 20th century, and summons up a number famous figures who were in London at the time of the murders to help illustrate the period in which they happened, including Oscar Wilde, Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man) and Aleister Crowley (then a boy called Alexander).
Like most people, I've never had anything more than a fleeting fascination with these dark deeds, and it's unlikely I'd have had the inclination to read a book about Jack The Ripper had it not been written by Alan Moore. The amount of research he put into this was phenomenal - reading through a mountain of material on the subject and sampling from a whole spectrum of sources. The appendix, where, page by page (over 40 in all) he reveals these sources, is a greatly impressive work in itself. Moore describes the book as 'probably the most thorough dissection of the Whitechapel murders that anyone is ever likely to read', a boast I doubt many would argue with.
There's a part of the book where one of the victims, Mary Ann Nichols, sings 'Green Grow The Rushes, O' to herself as she walks along the road in the panels preceding her murder. I'd completely forgotten this song, lost, as it was, in the shadows of my youth, where I remember singing it in primary school. Described as 'one of the most mysterious oral folk songs', I've since learned that some of the lyrics date back to pagan times. It was always a song I found eerily evocative, especially the line about the mysterious 'lily white boys', whoever they be.
A 2001 film adaptation of 'From Hell' bore little resemblance to the book - Johnny Depp playing Inspector Frederick Aberline, who in reality was a middle-aged man of 45 at the time of the murders, and died of natural causes aged 86, whereas Depp's character doesn't make it beyond his late 30's, dying of an overdose, addicted to opium and absinthe. This, along with the film adaptation of another of Moore's creations, 'The League Of Extraodinary Gentlemen', was behind his decision to ask for his name to be taken off the credits of subsequent movie adaptations of his work.
Although, on the surface, 'Promethea' seems a world apart from 'From Hell', there's a definite crossover with regards to Moore's exploration of occult themes - 'From Hell' centered around Masonic ritual, whilst 'Promethea' enabled him to bring his own magical ideas to the fore, particularly in exploring the tarot and the kabbalah.
Set in an alternate New York of futuristic 'science heroes and villains' as the 20th segues into the 21st century, bestowed with superpowers, student Sophie Bangs becomes the latest in a line of Promethea's, These Promethea's are an assortment of fictional characters come to life via the power of the pen.
Moore drew from actual writings, from different points in time, to conjure up his narrative - hence the fact that there are different Promethea's, each reflecting a separate literary source. This is all outlined in the introduction to the first installment of the 5 book series.
Originally published as 32 individual comics between 1999 - 2005, the hugely ambitious (and thoroughly acclaimed) J.H Williams III / Mick Gray artwork combines a whole spectrum of styles, referencing a number of artists, and often morphing these approaches from one page to the next, providing a visual feast that powerfully compliments Moore's ever-absorbing words.
With a memorable supporting cast, including the Painted Doll, Jack Faust, Tom Strong (moonlighting from his own Alan Moore created comic strips) and the Five Swell Guys, not to mention the fabulous single frame Weeping Gorilla comix, which punctuate the story. Moore also, once again, references historical figures - Crowley is back (this time as an older man), along with fellow occult luminaries, John Dee and Austin Osman Spare. All in all it's an ultra-colourful magical mystical fantasy trip with bags of heart and hidden (as well as not so hidden) meaning.
Moore received some criticism for 'Promethea', the accusation being that his magical themes were indulgent, and too obscure for the everyday comic book fan. He provided an appropriate rebuttal,stating; "there are 1000 comic books on the shelves that don't contain a philosophy lecture and one that does. Isn't there room for that one?". However, the overall response was positive and it stands tall alongside 'Watchmen', 'V For Vendetta', 'From Hell', 'League Of Extraodinary Gentlemen', 'Lost Girls' etc, as yet another acclaimed work by this storytelling giant, whose cultural scope never ceases to amaze me.
Following on from February’s post about the extraordinarily ill-conceived Haçienda DJ Booth (original side of stage location), I’ve since found out something that takes the entire bungling tale, as slapstick as it already was, into a whole new realm of ineptitude!
Before I go any further I should link the original piece for those who haven’t read it – to get the full weight of what I’m about to disclose you’ll need to check out the photo of the booth from hell, paying particular attention to what I described as ‘the infamous Akwil Digitheque mixer…the bane of my life’: http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/02/the-hacienda-dj-booth/
For close on 3 decades, whenever I’ve discussed the predicament I found myself in during my time as Friday night resident at The Haçienda in the latter part of 1983, I’ve cursed the designers of that damned mixer for making it impossible for me to measure up to the reputation I’d acquired, via my mixes on Piccadilly Radio, as well as at Legend and Wigan Pier, as one of the UK’s leading ‘mixing DJ’s’ – I know a bad workman always blames his tools, but, come on, you only need look at the photo to understand exactly what I’m talking about. It was an absolute nightmare to use.
People here in the UK generally had no idea of what was necessary for a DJ to properly mix records back then. Earlier in 1983, when I’d appeared on ‘The Tube’, to demonstrate mixing for the first time on British TV, the show’s presenter, Jools Holland, had asked me to point out what a turntable was, for the benefit of ‘people who don’t know what a turntable is’ (a record player then being the commonly used name) – and this was a much revered cutting-edge music programme. You can view the clip here: http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/articles/on_the_tube.html
In 2009 I wrote an in-depth article about the evolution of mixing in the UK, which, whilst obviously inspired by, was distinct to what had happened in New York. In the early 80’s, only a small minority of British DJ’s had placed the emphasis on mixing, the overwhelming majority still microphone based in their presentation – hence the title of the piece, ‘How The Talking Stopped – The UK ‘s Microphone To Mix Metamorphosis’: http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/articles/how_the_talking_stopped.html
One of those British mixing pioneers, Froggy, had helped design the Matamp Supanova, which was what I’d bought at the end of 1982, when setting up my home DJ studio, where I recorded my radio mixes for Piccadilly in Manchester from this point onwards. It was the Matamp that I’d used on ‘The Tube’, and this is what I was suggesting The Haçienda invested in to help make my job more bearable, but my pleas, of course, fell on deaf ears.
Not long after I started my nights at The Haçienda, a recently launched magazine called Disco Mix Mag (later to become the major DJ publication, Mixmag) ran a piece I’d written titled ‘The DJ Of A New Breed’, in which I outlined my belief that a shift towards a more New York based approach to deejaying, with mixing coming increasingly to the fore, was now inevitable. Yet, despite championing this new direction, I was unable to practice what I was preaching at The Haçienda, where anybody wanting to hear this new-fangled mixing in full effect would no doubt have wondered what all the fuss was about as I awkwardly attempted to make the unworkable work, whilst wishing pestilence and plague on the creator of this Digitheque anti-mixer.
I’d have gone on forever harbouring this ill feeling for some faceless electrical boffin who’d strayed into the world of the DJ without having a clue about the practicalities of deejaying, as was evident from this totally unfacile piece of kit I was cursed with having to use. However, due to some new information that’s now come to light, delivered straight from the horse’s mouth, a big apology to the manufacturers is in order. Having seen the previous blog post, and had a good laugh in the process, they’ve been able to set finally the record straight, adding an unexpected twist that takes the whole tale to new calamitous depths.
I’ve now found out that the Digitheque, which also doubled up as a sound to light controller, was never intended as a hands-on DJ mixer, but part of a dual unit in combination with the Disco V (pronounced Disco Five), which was exactly the piece of kit I needed, crossfader and all (the 2 units linked via an Aux In on the Digitheque). The problem being that The Haçienda’s management had completely missed the relevance of the Disco V and, incredibly, didn’t bother installing it, leaving the DJ’s to work with what amounted to half a mixer – unfortunately for me the half that wasn’t suitable for mixing with.
As I mentioned in the previous piece, the Haçienda’s manager at the time, Howard ‘Ginger’ Jones, would site the fact that there were only 2 of these mixers in existence as some kind of endorsement of their quality, whenever I complained about its impracticality. The Digiteque didn’t come cheap at around £1000 – so learning that it would only have cost an additional measly £40 for the Disco V only adds insult to injury, especially now I’ve learnt that 3 of these units were installed across town, at another Manchester club of the era, Placemate 7. Akwil mainman, Eddie Akka, told us that Hacienda owner, Tony Wilson, was really into the aesthetic of an all-digital mixer, so the Disco V with its faders was, as a consequence, deemed antiquated and unnecessary – only problem being that Tony Wilson, as visionary as he sometimes was, obviously didn’t have a clue about the rudiments of mixing one record into the next. Akka explained that the Haçienda management listened to the architects more than the sound and lighting advisors, resulting in big mistakes that were never fully rectified in all the years the club was running. Bands, not DJ’s were very much the club’s priority when they opened – either that or somebody had a particularly masochistic streak towards DJ’s. Apart from the mixer debacle, as Akka agreed, ‘the whole idea of the DJ being in a separate room was ridiculous!’
The owners of The Haçienda may have been over to New York, and clubs like Danceteria, the Funhouse and the Paradise Garage, and had the high idea of transferring the NY vibe they’d witnessed to Manchester, but they completely flunked out when it came to enabling their DJ’s to set about this task – they actually hindered, rather than helped them. Had Mark Kamins, ‘Jellybean’ Benitez or Larry Levan, the DJ’s associated with these key NYC clubs, and my transatlantic contemporaries back then, walked into the Haçienda DJ booth at this point in time they’d have thought they’d landed on another planet, let alone in another country.
Legend, where I played every Wednesday would have been much more to their liking, set up, as it was, with the DJ centre stage, and with sound and lighting that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Big Apple itself. The sheer frustration of working in this ideal DJ environment on a Wednesday night, then having to endure the madness of a Friday at The Haçienda, hid away inside that room, is something I’ve never fully shaken off. Nowadays, no matter where I go in the world, people will want to talk to me about The Haçienda, expecting me to wax lyrical about the greatest DJ experiences of my life, but the reality is that my overwhelming impression from my time there is of one big struggle – it certainly took its toll on me. Manchester’s City Life Magazine would write in their review of 1983; ‘Greg Wilson’s faith in New York’s mind hammering electro-beat was confirmed with both growing crowds and colour supplement coverage. Though interestingly, the sound flopped in the vast chasms of The Haçienda. Is this why he is retiring from DJ’ing to concentrate on record production?’
Maybe this did play a larger part in my retirement than I’ve previously considered, although ultimately there were far greater forces at play, not least the emergence of Hip Hop culture in the UK, and how this brought a new dynamic that would change the existing scene (I go into my main reasons here: http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/misc/why_did_i_quit.html). However, hypothetically speaking, had I been given a level playing field at The Haçienda (i.e., with the booth up on the balcony and a mixer I could work with – both improvements later implemented in 1984), it might have provided me with the fresh challenge that was necessary for my love affair with deejaying to continue (whereas it probably facilitated my falling out of love just that bit quicker). There were certainly possibilities, including the proposed DJ exchange that was put to me, where I’d go to New York for a month and work at Danceteria, whilst Mark Kamins came to The Haçienda. That was a scenario that definitely appealed to me, but as fate would have it, it’d be another 22 years before I made my New York debut, and a few years more before I finally got to meet Mark Kamins, who came along to see me DJ at a night I was doing in Vienna, where he lived at the time. Although the exchange idea never transpired, he was invited over for a guest appearance at the club in 1984, and, in doing so, became The Haçienda’s first US guest DJ – something which would become a common occurrence later down the line.
Hewan Clarke, The Haçienda’s original resident, wasn’t a mixing DJ, so the absence of faders was never as big a deal to him as it was for me (although we were in total accord about the need for the DJ booth to be moved to another part of the club). Working at the Haçienda night after night, Hewan soon got used to the quirky digital ‘mixer’ he had to use. It had a certain simplicity - there were 2 buttons to press, one to make a gradual fade from one track to the next, the other providing an instant switch. He was as surprised as me when told about the Disco V, and thought it was hilarious to learn, after all these years, that there was a missing part. He concluded that “the Disco V looks like a modern conventional mixer. It would have certainly made life a lot easier - if only for not having to mix with one hand on the record and the other hand above your head!”
Had The Haçienda not been so slapdash in its earlier days, and instead instantly become a slick well-run ultra-fashionable club, it would never have gone on to acquire the almost mythical status it’s now bestowed with. It’s a victory from the jaws of defeat type tale, which only adds to its overall resonance. So, when all’s said and done, I’m happy to have my played part in the story, despite the personal frustrations I experienced at the time. Given what we now know about The Haçienda, it was pretty much par for the course. Peter Hook’s book title, ‘The Haçienda – How Not To Run A Club’, said it all, and the Disco V fiasco is yet a further illustration of how this world-renowned clubbing institution was born of a mixture high ideals and gross incompetence. You just couldn’t make this stuff up.
I must thank Dan Smith, Hewan Clarke, Andy Akka and Eddie Akka, without whose help I’d have never uncovered this hidden nugget of Haçienda history, which would otherwise have surely been forever lost to the past.
When the crew behind Manchester’s Electric Chair brought their monthly club night to an end at the beginning of 2008, they’d decided their next move would be from club to pub, opening a bar a few miles outside of the city centre in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, which they called Electrik.
Many people presumed that DJ’s would have a central role in this new venture, as is the case with lots of bars these days, but just as they had with regards to the eclectic music policy they implemented at Electric Chair, which proved to be a major influence on so many subsequent club nights, they bucked the trend, installing a free jukebox and keeping DJ sets for special occasions. On Sundays they host ‘one deck sessions’, which are exactly what they say on the tin – the DJ playing vinyl via a lone turntable, taking one record off and putting the next one on, complete with gaps, crackle and pop. The selector sits in a comfy armchair, and the only house rule is that no headphones are allowed – it’s just a case of dropping the needle at the start of the record and up with the volume.
I was invited to play there on Sunday April 1st, a suitable date for such an endeavour I thought – if anyone turned up expecting a normal type DJ slot from me at least I had a valid April Fools get out clause. Ahead of the night Electrik announced ‘Greg Wilson...no reel to reel...1 record deck...no mixing...mind the gap’.
In such an environment, where I’d been encouraged to play whatever I wanted, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to dig through my early to mid-70’s 7” singles – the type of stuff I’d been carrying with me in the pre-12” days when I was starting out as a DJ, most of which I’d bought between the ages of 12 and 15, leading up to when my club career began, and were played to death in an original one deck stylee, via the record player in my bedroom, where so much beloved music entered my schoolboy ears and etched its way onto my being.
I decided to pick out 40 odd tracks, just enough to fill an old 7” carrying case, and then go with the flow on the night, making it up as I went along, playing as many singles as would fit into my 2 hour spot (31 as it turned out). Going through my records is a process always tinged with a degree of sadness – this dates back to a fateful day in 1985 when my treasured collection was decimated by some kids who’d got into my house in Wigan.
It was my own stupid fault. Life wasn’t going very well for me at the time, I’d stopped deejaying a few years earlier, but my new career as a record producer had stalled and, as I waited for my luck to change, I found myself falling ever deeper into debt. The whole thing eventually exploded in my face – my car, which I’d bought on the never never, was re-possessed, and then the mortgage company informed me they were foreclosing, so I was about to lose my home.
I was in the process of making a move to Liverpool, and had been staying there with friends whilst I’d been working for a small record company, albeit with huge, but ultimately unrealised, ambitions and pretentions. All sounds encouraging on the surface, but it was the money from a stone syndrome – all promises of a payday, until the whole thing went belly up leaving me more stranded than ever.
The plan was to get myself a flat as soon as possible then vacate my house in Wigan, having been served notice to leave. In preparation for this I’d packed all my records into boxes and brought them downstairs (they’d previously been in my home DJ studio, all neatly placed in alphabetical order - I prided myself on being able to lay my hands on any record I owned within a matter of seconds).
My old mate Django, now long gone and greatly missed, then an extremely hyperactive 2 year old Dobermann Pincer, lived in the house with me, so whilst I was away in Liverpool for a few days I paid a local lad I knew to do a spot of dogsitting, taking Django out for walks and feeding him. What I hadn’t bargained for was the house being gatecrashed by some other local lads, who threatened their way in and proceeded to get pissed up, creating carnage that served to defile what had taken me 15 years to amass.
Brian Cannon, who I recently mentioned in my Stone Roses post (http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2011/12/living-to-music-the-stone-roses-the-stone-roses), informed me of the bad news. He phoned me in Liverpool to let me know that he’d heard on the local lad grapevine that something had happened at my house the previous night, and that some of my records may have been stolen. I was obviously alarmed, and drove back straight away to find out what had happened, but I hadn’t bargained for what I’d encounter.
The front garden was strewn with frisbeed plastic, some much loved records snapped and broken (this was also the case, only far worse, in the back garden). Inside the house there were singles that had been melted with lighters and shaped into vinyl ash trays. It was a heartbreaking sight to behold. When I looked in the hallway, where the boxes were, it was clear that a load had been taken, maybe as much as a third of my collection vanished that night, I’ll never know the exact amount.
I’d planned to sort it out myself – it’d be easy enough to find out who was involved. However, when I saw the wanton destruction I decided to call the police - but this would backfire in a big way, and I was about to get my second major shock. On their arrival, I started telling the officers what I thought had happened, but they weren’t the slightest bit interested about some stolen records and, instead, produced a warrant for my arrest! I’d failed to pay a rates bill and I was informed that unless I could stump up £500, money I just didn’t have at the time, I was going to find myself in a cell at Wigan nick for the weekend, until I could be put in front of the magistrates on the Monday morning (it was Friday). I couldn’t believe what was happening to me.
As it worked out, I only had to endure one night’s incarceration, my Mother bailing me out the following afternoon having, fortunately for me, just arrived back from her holiday, but the whole experience really shook me up, bringing the full scope of my vulnerability into focus. I had a lot of dark thoughts during that long night, playing out in my mind possible scenarios of the street justice I might unleash, but I was thankfully able to talk some sense into myself, reasoning that it was just kids who’d done it and that it was ultimately my own responsibility, my own stupid fault for entrusting the keys of my home to a teenager. Knowing there’d be no chance of retrieving what had gone without some serious confrontation taking place, I resolved to move on and lick my wounds, letting karma take care of this one.
Anyhow, I’ve dwelt too long on this whole bleak saga, it wasn’t supposed to be a tale of woe, but a celebration of my teenage vinyl love affair. The reason I mentioned this was because I stopped collecting vinyl after this – too much had been lost that could never be replaced. For years I’d torture myself by spending hours on end searching for stuff I no longer possessed. It was that heart sinking feeling over and over, as I was constantly reminded of what was lost.
So, selecting the records for the One Deck Session was a largely random process – it was all about finding stuff that fitted into the timescale I’d fixed on, which would provide a cross-section snapshot of those days – including a bit of everything as far as dance music was concerned back in what might now be now be termed the proto-Disco era. This includes the Funk of James Brown, Ohio Players, Jimmy Castor Bunch and Rufus Thomas, Soulful grooves from the Detroit Emeralds, Joe Simon, Jimmy Ruffin and the Trammps, big Pop hits from Carl Douglas, the Four Seasons, Disco Tex & The Sex-O-Lettes and the Elton John Band, plus European releases from Champs Boys (France), Soulful Dynamics (Germany), Adriano Celentano (Italy) and Carl Douglas / Elton John once more (UK). As they used to say, all this and much much more.
I used to put all my singles into white card sleeves (see lead image), onto which I’d write the titles (both A and B sides), the artist name, and the type of music – those selected for the ‘one deck session’ provide anan illustration of how, back in the early–mid 70’s, the term Disco wasn’t being used as a genre description here in the UK (these singles are mainly categorized as Soul or Funk, even the ones that would clearly come under the Disco classification in retrospect). I’d also add my name and phone number, as well as stickering the label with my name, so, if lost, whoever found wouldn’t be in any doubt with regards to who it belonged to - in this way the odd record from my Wigan nightmare has re-surfaced, most recently singles by Marvin Gaye and the Four Tops that a kind soul called Matthew Grainger tried to return to me having spotted them on eBay (I thanked him for his gesture, but told him I’d prefer that he kept them himself, explaining; ‘I’ll never be able to get back what was taken, so it would be satisfying to know that at least some of them found a good home. There’s something more cathartic in that’). Finally, top centre, I’d write the first letter of the artist’s name, for further quick reference. When deejaying I’d carry my 7” singles in wooden soft drinks crates, which were so perfectly sized you’d have thought they’d been specifically designed for this function (plastic ones would also do the job, but there was something special about those wooden crates).
The selected singles were all records I never thought I’d play in public again. I’ve managed to replace of majority of these tracks on CD over the years, but it’s nice to re-connect with the scratchy vinyl once again, although I must admit that that ‘warm crackly’ sound isn’t something I’m overly nostalgic for, preferring to hear a track as clean and crackle free as possible.
I chose to close with an old favourite, ‘Groovin’ With Mr Bloe’ by Mr Bloe, a UK recording from 1970 that I edited to play on my debut at the Electric Chair back in 2005, and which would appear as the concluding track on the first Credit To The Edit compilation later that year. It very much acts as a theme tune here, which brings the curtain down on the session, whilst inter-connecting with that night at the Chair and an earlier Manchester appearance. I’d actually played this 7”, back in 2004, at Manchester’s long-running vinyltastic gathering, Aficionado (then at its old Hulme base in The Arch), hosted by legendary Manchester duo, Moonboots and Jason Boardman. The Electric Chair’s own fabled twosome, The Unabombers, are, of course, partners in Electrik, which has been the venue for Aficionado during more recent times. So, there was a sense of bringing things full circle as far as Mr Bloe is concerned – for more detail check out what I wrote about the track in the Credit To The Edit sleevenotes: http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/credit_to_the_edit/sleevenotes.html
There’s a crossover with a couple of mixes I’ve done documenting the same era, most notably Music Played In Discotheques, which I put together for the silent disco installed in the Tate Gallery, Liverpool, by Wayne & Jack Hemingway back in November 2009. The title relates to the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, Disco wasn’t regarded as a specific genre when I started out, but a catch all term for the music played in clubs and discotheques which was predominantly Soul and Funk. You can check it out here, complete with accompanying text: http://soundcloud.com/gregwilson/music-played-in-discotheques-full-length-by-greg-wilson-for-the-tate-gallery
Further to this, playing in the Soul Casino at last year’s Vintage Festival, held in London’s Southbank, provided me with the opportunity to re-visit this period, albeit with a few extended edits included, plus an early 12” release to round things up: http://soundcloud.com/gregwilson/soul-casino-vintage-southbank
Then there’s the monthly Time Capsule series I put together for Samurai FM, covering Jan ’76 – Sept ’77 (there’s also the introductory ‘First Impressions’, where I play a selection of tracks that were in my record boxes when I did my first club date, as a fresh faced 15 year old, in Dec ’75). This serves to document the gradual emergence of the 12” as the DJ’s format of choice, although the 7” is undoubtedly cast in the starring role: http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2011/11/time-capsule/
Finally I should mention Random Influences, its wider scope taking in the Pop music I grew up with as well as my black music roots – in 12x2 hour parts it’s a celebratory selection of 7” singles from my formative years, all released during the 60’s and on through to the mid-70’s, up until the point when I became a club DJ: http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2011/02/random-influences-phase-2/
When I was in Adelaide in February I received an email from DeFacto, the Nottingham based creative agency whose accounts include the Fred Perry clothing brand. They’d already approached me to appear at one of the monthly Fred Perry Subculture nights they hold at The Garage in London, presenting Reels Of Steel for the first time in the capital, so we’d been discussing a possible line-up for a date later in the year. However, they’d just learned of Afrika Bambaataa’s availability for their 20th April date and, quite rightly, saw this as a perfect fit with me, given my Electro-Funk background, with Bambaataa very much a key inspiration (not to mention that, as serendipity had it, this was exactly 30 years on from his era-defining single with the Soul Sonic Force, the mighty ‘Planet Rock’).
No sooner had I emailed back to tell them that I’d definitely be up for this, I realised that I was scheduled to fly to the US on April 19th, the day before the event would take place. It looked destined to be the one that got away, but, having spoken to my agent, I discovered that, although pencilled in, the US dates weren’t yet set in stone, so I was able to take the booking after all (I’m now flying to New York in time for my Deep Space appearance on April 23rd).
It’s no overstatement to say that ‘Planet Rock’, lit the blue touch paper as far as electronic dance music was concerned, following its release back in 1982. 5 years ago, to mark the 25th anniversary, I wrote about it in a piece called ‘When The Planet Rocked’ for my Electrofunkroots website, explaining why it was a controversial track at the time, and how I’d come in for much criticism for playing it. You can check it out here: http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/articles/when_the_planet_rocked.html
I wrote the following for the Subculture website:
Sub-Sonic Live is a key event for me on two fronts.
The first in presenting Reels Of Steel (where I add visuals to the music I play) for the first time in London. So far I've been developing the idea via a series of dates at Manchester's Band On The Wall, and also within the festival environment, at Glastonbury and Bestival last year. This London appearance will be another step in this process, leading up to a planned Reels Of Steel UK tour in 2013, and eventually international dates. It’s a work in progress that will, I hope, become an increasingly important part of what I do.
On top of this, featuring on the same bill as Afrika Bambaataa, exactly 30 years on from the release of his seminal "Planet Rock", which I regard as one of the 20th century's defining recordings, setting the tone for the oncoming electronic dance revolution, whilst helping take Hip Hop global in the early 80s. This was a true hybrid, its impact, influence and inspiration an absolute gamechanger. On a personal level it’s a big one, for I finally get to meet the man who had such a bearing on my own DJ destiny, spinning Electro-Funk in the North of England back in '82, and taking a lot of stick from the black music purists for daring to play something so radically different as "Planet Rock".
So, in a sense, the event represents both the past and the future for me, which is always the equation I’m looking to balance. From old school roots to new horizons, it all connects."
And if that’s not enough, we also have Disco Bloodbath, Psychemagik and Dollop on the bill for what promises to be a memorable groove-packed night. Oh, and tickets are but a measly £5 (I’d advise you to snap them up double quick)!
One of the biggest tunes for me during the past 12 months has been the edit I did of Late Nite Tuff Guy’s ‘One Nite In A Disco’. It’s finally been made available as a digital download, having previously been part of a limited vinyl only EP, which, now digitized, is topping Juno’s Disco download chart as I write this: http://www.junodownload.com/products/1937261-02.htm
Late Night Tuff Guy is Carmelo Bianchetti (aka Cam aka HMC aka LNTG), who, under his HMC (House Master Cam) DJ guise, is revered as one of Australia’s House and Techno pioneers. Dubbed by DJ Magazine as ‘the godfather of the Adelaide scene’, in the 90’s he played dates in Asia and Europe, but an aversion to flying unfortunately put an end to any international aspirations. However, via his Late Nite Tuff Guy edits, he’s now connecting with a new audience of people around the globe, and my bet is that he’s about to blow up in a big way, the quality and consistency of his work currently placing him at the cutting-edge of this ever-growing edits movement. He’s also somewhat prolific, with 5 releases in less than 12 months, a 6th imminent, and a 7th already lined up!
I met Cam / HMC in October ’05, when I played at Sugar, my regular stop in Adelaide, for the first time. Since then I’ve come to realise that DJ’s all over Australia hold him in high regard, as somebody who blazed a trail back in the day, and continues to do things on his own terms. So it’s really good to see him receive some long overdue recognition outside of his home country.
Anyhow, back to May of last year when Driller, the owner of Sugar, sent me an email telling me he’d set up a record label, Dessert Island Discs, and linking me to the inaugural release. This was the first time I heard ‘One Nite In A Disco’, and it really grabbed my attention in a big way. The intro was mesmerising, with ‘one nite in a disco…in a disco…in a disco…in a disco’ rhythmically repeating over and over. Even though it was moulded from a well-known track, Sister Sledge’s ‘He’s The Greatest Dancer’, it wasn’t obvious – that was until after the 8th measure of vocal, when the next line in the song, ‘on the outskirts of Frisco’, burst in and changed the whole vibe for me, abruptly snapping me out of my disco trance.
I was disappointed to hear this line for two reasons. Firstly, I’ve always felt, as I know many others do, that some of the lyrics in ‘He’s The Greatest Dancer’ are, shall we say, a tad corny - the rhyming of ‘Disco’ and ‘Frisco’ the prime example. For this reason I’ve never played the original version since I started deejaying again – the Rodgers / Edwards groove is, of course, sublime, the Chic Organization really on a roll at the time, but I can’t get past those lyrics. I remember hearing Danny Wang play it in Liverpool back in 2004 and it sounded great, but Danny can get away with stuff like that – it just didn’t sit right for me personally.
However, even more important to me was that the line fixes the song in a definite place, whereas I could see the possibility of an edit that would make the track’s location neutral, so that when people are dancing to it the ‘one nite in a disco’ that the words are referring to isn’t somewhere else (anchored to ‘Frisco’ in this case), but here and now, in whichever disco you happen to be in, regardless of where you are. I wanted to make the track universal, so, when I play it, it speaks to that particular ‘nite’, the one we’re experiencing. So I tailored an edit for my own needs, focusing the track’s hypnotic vibe by removing the offending lyrics (annoying would be a better word – I could never be offended by a Rodgers / Edwards song), whilst extending the groove that had hooked me like an opiate.
I’d already been playing an edit of ‘He’s The Greatest Dancer’, which also made excellent rhythmic use of part of the same line, repeating ‘a disco’ during the intro and outro. In October 2010 I received an email from Darren Dalton (aka Daz), who’s over in Waterford, Ireland. He linked me to a number of edits, including his take on ‘Greatest Dancer’. I told him that ‘your Sister Sledge is a masterstroke. You’ve got the cheesy lyrical content out, which, to be honest, is probably what stops me from playing it. It was all good and well back in ’79, but it detracts from the wonderful groove – you’ve done a version I can play, and with that great in and out you’ve really nailed it’. Check it out here: http://soundcloud.com/getdownedits/sister-sledge-greatest-dancer-daz-digs-disco-re-edit-1
The Daz Digs Disco edit of ‘Greatest Dancer’ would become a massive tune for me, and appears in a number of my online mixes. Interestingly I was playing it the following month in Osaka, Japan, when who should come up to me to say hello, but Danny Wang, who unbeknown to me at the time, was appearing at another club in the city later that night. Definitely some karmic forces at work, taking things full circle from when I heard him dig out the original 7 years previous in that Liverpool basement.
I tipped off a couple of the people I know who release edits, and this resulted in Daz’s edit being issued last July on limited vinyl, along with three of his other reworks, as ‘Get Down Edits Vol 1’. Daz was always very gracious about the support I’d given it, but really it’s a two way street and I’m obviously thankful that he put together something that fitted so well into what I do (which is the case with all DJ’s who thank me for playing their edits, when they’re the ones who are deserving of the real thanks for doing them in the first place).
By the time I received Driller’s email, ‘Greatest Dancer’ was something I’d been playing for a fair while, so it was time to move onto other stuff anyhow, and the edit I’d done of ‘One Nite In A Disco’, which slipped effortlessly into the vacuum (taking up the Sister Sledge baton), would blow up big time for me. Soon I’d inform Driller that ‘this is going to be one of the biggest tracks of the year for me. You should see how the atmosphere in the room lifts when I put it on – there’s a real buzz of anticipation when people realise what it is. The build is awesome – the bit where the sound all of a sudden fattens out is a real moment, takes it up a level and the floor just rides it like a communal mass of groove jockeys.’
After a bit of confusion as to whether I was offering to let them put out my edit on Dessert Island, or was asking them to get Cam to do something similar, the situation was clarified and now the ‘GW Rework’ is finally out and about in time for the summer ahead, as part of an EP that also includes 2 newer LNTG edits that both feature in my recent mix from the Queen Of Hoxton in London, which only went up on SoundCloud a couple of days ago – these are ‘I Don’t Like Acid’ (10cc’s ‘Dreadlock Holiday’) and ‘You Got Me Groovin’’ (Yarbrough & Peoples ‘Don’t Stop The Music’). Check out the QOH mix here: http://soundcloud.com/gregwilson/queen-of-hoxton-london-23-03
So finally, here are the 2 versions of ‘One Nite In A Disco’, the first being the original, followed by my rework. I’m sure there are plenty of people who, unlike me, love the cheesy lyrics, and see me as a bit of a killjoy for taking them out, but, by the same token, there are plenty of others who’ll thank me for sparing them the cringe factor. Both versions work in their own context, but, from a personal perspective, it’s a deeper track for the loss of those words – something that gets into your bones, and not on your nerves.
That’s what it is with an edit, you’re coming at it from your own angle – the blade cutting diagonally.
LATE NITE TUFF GUY ‘ONE NITE IN A DISCO’ – ORIGINAL VERSION:
This Sunday (April 1st) at 9pm, you’re invited to share a listening session with some likeminded souls, wherever you might be. This can be experienced either alone or communally, and you don’t need to leave the comfort of your own home to participate. Full lowdown here: http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2010/06/living-to-music/
Portishead are part of a Bristolian bass lineage that also includes Massive Attack, Tricky, the Wild Bunch and Smith & Mighty, who, between them, stirred up groove cauldrons of Hip Hop, Funk, Electro, Soul, Jazz, Dub and Lovers Rock, with a pinch of Punk thrown in for good measure, distilling a unique British flavour that could only have come from this city. Mixmag would eventually coin the term Trip Hop to describe Bristol’s new musical styles, but this catchy tag would never sit well with those who made the tunes.
Dub Hop would have perhaps been a more appropriate word coupling, for Bristol fused Hip Hop and Reggae like no other UK city. In both the North and the South of the England, Reggae, on the one hand, and Soul / Funk, on the other, were opposite sides of the black music coin - people might like both, but they were usually played on separate nights, especially at the cutting edge of the black scene. Bristol was tucked away from everywhere else – you could keep up to date regarding what was happening in London / the South, and black scene strongholds North of Watford (like Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds etc) via Blues & Soul and Black Echoes, but Bristol was rarely mentioned and most people elsewhere had no idea what had been fermenting there until the mid-80’s when the Wild Bunch, the Sound System DJ’s who originally made their name at The Dug Out, the club at the heart of this West Country movement, began to gain kudos from London’s dance underground, not least Nellee Hooper, who’d become one of Britain’s most innovative producers of the late 80’s / 90’s, working, most notably, with Soul II Soul, Massive Attack and Björk. Bristol would also encompass a number of hugely respected graffiti writers, creating the environment from which the city’s now world renowned street artist, Banksy, would thrive.
Named after a coastal town near to Bristol, Portishead would go all the way to #2 on the UK album chart with ‘Dummy’, which would spawn 3 memorably haunting singles, ‘Numb’, ‘Glory Box’ and ‘Sour Times’. Their music was described back then as the aural equivalent of film noir, Beth Gibbons often angst-ridden lyrics and beautifully tortured vocal set perfectly against the moody soundscapes created by DJ / producer Geoff Barrett, who’d previously assisted on Massive Attack’s classic ‘Blue Lines’ LP, and co-producer, Northampton born Adrian Utley, who played guitar, bass and keyboards. Utley’s background as a veteran of cabaret venues and holiday camps certainly added an unusual sonic twist to their style, which helped set them apart as different to anyone who’s come before, or since for that matter. The chemistry between the 3, and engineer Dave McDonald, was irresistible, and ‘Dummy’ was not only the soundtrack for many an end of night chill out, but also became the album of choice for the dinner parties of a more upwardly mobile audience. With the wave of acclaim it garnered, it was little surprise that ‘Dummy’ picked up the Mercury Music award in ‘95.
Your own thoughts are always welcomed, and, should you join us for Sunday’s session, it’d be great if you could leave a comment here after you’ve listened to the album sharing your impressions – how the music affected you, who you listened to it with, where you were, plus anything else relevant to your own individual / collective experience.
I’m a DJ from Merseyside. I started out in 1975, but stopped for almost 20 years, between 1984 and the end of 2003, at which point I started again.
One night during the period I wasn’t deejaying, turning off my mind, relaxing, and floating downstream I had what might be termed a moment of clarity. Paradoxically, although I was no longer a DJ in the literal sense I suddenly became aware that I’d never actually stopped being a DJ, for even if I was in a room with just one person I couldn’t help but ask them ‘have you heard this?’, and not only ‘heard’, but ‘have you seen this / read this?’, for it goes beyond music. Already taken somewhat aback by this nugget of self-discovery, I realised, in true eureka style, that this all pre-dates my being a DJ and goes back as far as I can remember – I’ve always had an inherent need to share, it’s absolutely central to my nature. This was quite a revelation.
So it’s no wonder that I became a Disc Jockey, for once I fell in love with those circular pieces of magical plastic during my formative years, it wasn’t a matter of choosing this as a path, the path pretty much chose me.
I don’t intend this to be a DJ blog as such, but more a blog by someone who happens to be a DJ – a place where personal emphasis takes precedence over professional, although, as I’ve already explained, the two aspects are, of course, inescapably entwined.
If you want info about my DJ appearances, email greg@gregwilson.co.uk for regular updates.
now with
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