This Sunday (Sept 5th), 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/
‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ was released when I was 13 and I didn’t pay it much attention at the time. Although I was buying LP’s by this point (that year I took on a part time job in an amusement arcade, investing my hard-earned wages in one David Bowie album per week until I had his complete available back-catalogue, 60’s oddities and all), my main point of reference was very much the UK singles chart (the seeds of my Bowie obsession, as with so many others, planted with the ‘Starman’ appearance on Top Of The Pops in July ‘72), and I suppose that given there were no singles taken from ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ (at least not in the UK), it slipped right under my radar.
It was the longer haired kids at school, those who wore the flares, that liked Pink Floyd and the ‘progressive’ bands – we referred to them as ‘smellies’ (not that they smelt bad, but different), and regarded them as uncool, uncouth, but pretty harmless (although I now realise that some of them were a lot cooler than I’d given them credit for - just another kind of cool). We wore parallels (later bags), big loose knots in our ties, and buttoned our blazers in a different way to the smellies and the normal everyday type of kids. Interestingly there was a crossover with beige suede (or desert) boots for a time, but it seemed we had little else in common.
It wouldn’t be for another few years until I was finally turned on to ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ by a couple of wannabe hippie chicks from Hoylake, who dimmed the lights and set a mood of incense burning ambience (although they hadn’t graduated to more irie enhancements). Thus this magnum opus was appetizingly served up to my appreciative ears (along with another, less nourishing LP, by Camel), and I finally gained an insight as to why some of those proggy types proudly portrayed Pink Floyd and prisms and pyramids all over their canvas haversacks.
You’re own memories 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.
More than interested to recently hear that Liam Gallagher has acquired the rights to one of my favourite Beatles related books, ‘The Longest Cocktail Party’ (1972), and plans to make it into a film.
Told from the perspective of ‘house hippie’, Richard DiLello, this wonderfully entertaining memoir aptly describes itself as ‘An insiders diary of The Beatles, their million-dollar Apple Empire, and its wild rise and fall’. What really sets it apart is that (bar the author, of course) the books central character is neither John, Paul, George or Ringo, but Derek Taylor, the bands press officer who, alongside fellow Liverpudlians Brian Epstein, Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans, played key supporting roles as part of the Beatle inner-circle.
I got to know about Derek Taylor once I became a Beatle bookworm in the mid-80’s, when I was buying everything I could find about them, often from second hand stores (as with my original copy of ‘The Longest Cocktail Party’, a UK first edition, which I stumbled across in a London junk shop). What particularly impressed me about him was that having worked for The Beatles as they conquered America in ’64, he would also thrive when he left their employment and went to live in California, where he’d count some of the biggest West Coast groups amongst his clients – these included The Byrds, The Mamas And The Papas and The Beach Boys. He also left his signature on the fabled Summer Of Love via his involvement with the seminal Monterey Pop Festival, which paved the way for Woodstock two years later. Suffice to say that Derek Taylor was right up there with the 60’s movers and shakers.
In 1968 he moved back to the UK to work with The Beatles once again, taking up an executive position at the newly formed Apple Corps. This is what Richard DiLello’s book documents in such a delightful way, capturing a true taste of those heady times.
Taylor wrote a few books of his own, including ‘It Was Twenty Years Ago Today’, which was published as part of the 20th anniversary celebration of ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ in 1987, plus a great little anecdotal treasure titled ‘As Time Goes By’ (1973). Then there’s his autobiography ‘Fifty Years Adrift’ (1984), which I’d love to devour, only problem is that it’s always been ever so slightly out of my price range. There’s a copy currently on Amazon at a cool £1,478. Or for just under £500 more you could nab yourself this review copy:
As the 60’s closed he coordinated one of the great media events of the century, John & Yoko’s ‘Bed-In For Peace’ at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal (which followed the bed-in at the Amsterdam Hilton after their marriage two months earlier, in March 1969). It was here, in the hotel room, that ‘Give Peace A Chance’ was recorded, with Taylor (who’s namechecked in the lyrics) joining the likes of Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg and Dick Gregory in the chorus.
For someone who began his career as a journalist just a matter of miles from where I grew up, working for the Hoylake and West Kirby Advertiser, Derek Taylor well and truly travelled to the outer limits of the pop cosmos. He died in 1997, but what a life lived!
I got involved with Vintage on the back of ‘Music Played In Discotheques’, the mix of tracks I put together from the years leading up to when I stared deejaying in the clubs in late 1975, illustrating an era when disco music wasn’t a genre as such, but the music played in clubs and discotheques. This was something Wayne Hemingway and his son Jack (who’d been to some of my DJ dates) had asked me to do for the silent disco space they’d curated at Liverpool’s Tate Gallery, the centrepiece being an underlit disco dancefloor.
Wayne and Jack told me about the Vintage Festival they were planning to stage at Goodwood the following summer, and asked if I’d be interested in curating the Warehouse and Roller Disco areas. Thus I became involved in an adventure that’s spawned no less than a seminal event.
As I write this, fourty-eight hours after I played the final track, I’m still radiating from the buzz of those three days in Goodwood. This was some trip for sure! There was a special vibe generated in the Warehouse throughout the weekend, especially during the hours of darkness when the arena was in full effect. The sound and lighting were absolutely top notch, worthy of what Vintage proclaimed ‘the greatest line-up of British DJ’s ever assembled’.
My intention from the off was that we should be celebrating the unique qualities of the British DJ in a way nobody has done previously, with the main body of those approached having helped cultivate this rich dance culture of ours via their own individual contributions, all essential to the rhythmic stew that’s been eagerly gobbled up down the years. We wanted pioneers and we got them, putting paid to the myth that Ibiza ’87 was some sort of year zero, but more the culmination of their previous endeavours, for these were the guys who laid the blueprint, some of whom are well-known names, others who’ve never received the props they deserve. Hopefully this will do something to help redress the situation and right a few wrongs.
You feel the weight of what’s been achieved when someone of the stature of Colin Curtis states; "I have been a DJ in the UK for over 40 years and I have seen many developments and progressions through our club fashion and lifestyle cultures. I have NEVER experienced anything like this, a true fantasy with a unique vibe in an unprecedented setting".
Casting my mind back to Friday evening, I was really concerned that our Warehouse weekend was about to be spoilt by the weather. I’d taken a wander around the site and, with the rain pouring down, The Torch, Let It Rock, the Leisure Lounge and the Soul Casino (all enclosed, and each incredible in its own right), were full and thriving. By contrast, the Warehouse‘s open air design was working against it, hardly an appealing place to be without a raincoat during a downpour, so we cursed our luck and crossed our fingers for a dryer night. Then, hallelujah, the rain stopped on cue for A Guy Called Gerald, and things really took on from that point. By the time Noel Watson stepped up to the plate things were really cooking and I was as blown away as everybody else by the ace light show, which perfectly complimented an absolute killer of a sound system. As with all aspects of Vintage, attention to detail is everything – if there was going to be a Warehouse, with a line-up of legendary names, only the best sound and lighting would do – it was a total experience we were after.
One of the biggest thrills for me was when I saw The Warehouse from a distance at night – smoke was raising from its open roof, changing colour with the lights – it was an awe-inspiring sight, glistening away in its full splendour. Inside it was really pulsing with energy – during the final hour, whilst Danny Rampling played, there were so many people trying to get into an already packed arena that the police on site, seeing how swamped it was, all descended upon it to sort things out – it certainly evoked memories of the proper old fashioned illegal warehouse parties of the 80’s for some of the older heads in attendance, we couldn’t have planned it better if we’d employed actors!
The skies opened a couple of times on Saturday, but this didn’t manage to dampen proceedings for long and the arena filled up a lot earlier than the previous day, the festival now at full capacity. By the end of an unforgettable day of highlight upon highlight I said to Jack that even if there was a monsoon on the Sunday the event would be still remembered as a runaway success. Twenty-four hours on from an inspired appearance, Norman Jay, bowled over by the experience, would twitter; "just returned from far & away the BEST UK festival experience this year! For me personally, VINTAGE @ Goodwood had it all." For someone so associated with both festivals and warehouse parties, that’s quite a heavyweight endorsement.
The weather on Sunday was what everyone had hoped for, not even a touch of drizzle, so we were able to end the weekend both dry and super satisfied. Having played the opening track, Aurra’s ‘Such A Feeling Pts 2&3’, almost sixty hours earlier when Luke Unabomber was slightly late on site, I finally arrived at the concluding one, the Bionic edit of the Electric Light Orchestra’s ‘Last Train To London’.
To have a vision is one thing, but to pull it off takes big balls, especially when you’re launching on Friday 13th, so respect and admiration due to Wayne & Gerardine Hemingway and Goodwood owner Lord March, the festival’s founders – what they’ve done really raises the bar. Big thanks to the backstage crew, led by the well crucial Maz Phiri (Artist Liason) and Ross ‘The Boss’ Bowden (Stage Manager) – it was a hub of activity throughout the weekend with a veritable who’s who of DJ’s coming in and out. Being part of a backstage team was certainly an eye-opener for someone like myself, whose previous experience of festivals has been purely on a DJ level (although there was a sense of greater involvement with the Rizla Arena when I was one of the Invisible Players in 2007 and 2008). Finally, big up to Jack Hemingway, who, as co-curator of the Warehouse and Roller Disco, I worked with the most closely. Jack’s ability is matched by his energy and enthusiasm, and whilst he’s Wayne and Gerardine’s son he’s very much a force in his own right. The Warehouse was Jack’s baby, my role being more the mid-wife who helped facilitate a somewhat difficult, yet ultimately joyous birth.
Needless to say that there’s going to be an almighty scramble for tickets next year.
You can stream or download my full live mix from the Warehouse here:
Warehouse DJ's 2010, in order of appearance:
Luke Unabomber / Ashley Beedle (with the Trojan Sound System) / A Guy Called Gerald / Noel Watson / Danny Rampling / Lascelles Lascelles / Colin Curtis /Jay Strongman / Norman Jay / Graeme Park / Andrew Weatherall / Les Spaine / George Power / Winston Hazel / Idjut Boys / Optimo / Jazzie B / Greg Wilson.
The first Living To Music exceeded all expectations. Far more people participated than I’d envisaged, so it’s already ahead of itself in terms of growth, whilst the feedback has been exactly what I’d hoped for, with a whole range of insightful and honest perspective further enhancing the overall experience. You can read all the comments here: http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2010/07/living-to-music-1/
Now the foundation is in place I hope we can gradually spread the idea a lot further, starting with the next session on Sunday September 5th (once again commencing at 9pm), when the album will be ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ by Pink Floyd, which I’m sure will be a popular choice.
I’m confident that we can build this pyramid style, so I’d appreciate your assistance in getting the word out via your online social networks, the phone, or good old face to face.
Since we listened to Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’ album, to launch Living To Music, I’ve found myself thinking about his ‘perfect partner’, Tammi Terrell, and the tragedy of her early death in 1970, aged just 24. Terrell will always be remembered for recording some classic Motown tracks with Gaye, including ‘You’re All I Need To Get By’, ‘Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing’ and, of course, the standard for all boy / girl duets , ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’.
Many people believe the undeniable chemistry they emanated is down to them truly loving each other without actually being lovers - although fellow Motown artist, and friend of Terrell’s, Brenda Holloway, has cast doubt on their relationship being totally platonic, stating that ‘only Tammi Terrell and Marvin Gaye know for sure’. Whatever it was, the playful flirtation was infectious and the two combined seamlessly, as illustrated in this wonderful footage:
Not long after this clip was recorded Terrell collapsed into Gaye’s arms whilst they were performing on stage, and in just over two and half years, following numerous operations, she’d die of a brain tumour. Her battle against illness and eventual death would have a profound effect on Marvin Gaye - losing his ‘soulmate’ marked an end of innocence, heralding a far more introspective phase of his career, which would culminate in his masterwork, ‘What’s Going On’.
The author, David Ritz, claimed that Gaye had confided in him that songwriter Valerie Simpson (of Ashford & Simpson) recorded most of Terrell’s parts on the final album, as she was too sick to do it herself, these included ‘The Onion Song’, which would be a hit in Britain in the months leading up to her death. Ritz said that Gaye was obviously unhappy with this deceit, but towed the company line as the royalties earned would pay Terrell’s medical bills. However, Gaye is no longer here to verify this, and Simpson herself denies this happened, saying she only recorded unused guide vocals, and that Terrell battled through the sessions despite the dire circumstances she found herself in.
I first came across Adrian Luvdup in the early 90’s, when he was deejaying as one of the Luvdup Twins. I remember going to a night they played at in Liverpool that was promoted by the Girls On Top, Jill & Sonia, whose parties I used to enjoy (having said this I’d been to Most Excellent at The Brickhouse in Manchester prior to this and I’ve since learnt that Adrian was a resident there). The ‘twins’ were an integral part of that post-Madchester period from which the Chemical Brothers (then students in the city) drew so much inspiration, with DJ’s like Justin Robertson, Richard Moonboots and Greg Fenton, along with Adrian, Mark, and subsequently Mike Luvdup (aka Balearic Mike), evolving a distinctly Mancunian brew of Balearia, which resonates right through to this day.
Nowadays Adrian is no longer a twin, but still very much Luvdup. He has a new partner, Paul Hughes, formerly part of the Last Rites crew, who operated the pre-party for the late great Electric Chair. The two of them host a Thursday night show (10pm-11pm) for the community station Salford City Radio called ‘The Eclectic Circus’, which is fast gaining cult status in Greater Manchester’s second city and, thanks to the internet, far beyond. What I really like about it is that whilst on the one hand it’s got a great knockabout feel to it, its presenters really know their shit and play some top tunes, so you’ve got that balance between entertaining and informing, which is a compelling combination.
I became aware of it when Adrian emailed me to ask if I’d be up for an interview, which has just been broadcast and has now been uploaded onto their SoundCloud page, where they archive their shows. It’s their second interview, their first being something of a coup – none other than the father of the remix, Tom Moulton.
I loved the Moulton interview, it has a real ease about it and there are loads of nuggets for those, like myself, who are fascinated by the nuances of NYC 70’s Disco culture – it’s great to hear it coming from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, bringing to life some of the stories I’ve previously read about in books about the Disco era, like the wonderful ‘Love Saves The Day’ by Tim Lawrence and Peter Shapiro’s ‘Turn The Beat Around’. The Moulton interview was pure knowledge, made all the more precious for me by the fact that this was being played on a small station in Salford. Tom Moulton enjoyed the encounter so much that he sent the guys an exclusive to play on the show – a truly titanic eighteen minute version of the already epic ‘Papa Was A Rolling Stone’ by The Temptations, which he remixed in 2008, but remains unreleased.
Down the years, so many people have told me about how they got into dance music as a result of the Street Sounds Electro series, which had such a massive impact on a significant chunk of British youth, both black and white, following its launch in late ’83, but is bafflingly absent in so many accounts of UK dance history. Would welcome any comments here about how this seminal series affected and inspired you, and why you think it has never received anything like its proper dues from the wider dance community.
I’ve just put my article online about the evolution of mixing in the UK, with the Electro series an important part of the story. Here’s the section I wrote about it:
“With a wealth of experience in club promotion, Morgan Khan launched his Streetwave label in the early 80's. Struggling to get the hits he'd hoped for he began releasing compilation albums, featuring tracks that had been big on import in the specialist clubs. His 'Street Sounds' series proved to be a great success, resulting in no less than six Top 50 albums in 1983. This led to a further series, 'Street Sounds Electro' (first volume released in Oct '83), but this time, rather than it being the normal grouping of separate tracks, Khan decided the album's would be mixed. He approached Mastermind, led by Herbie Laidley, but also including Max LX and Dave VJ (later Max & Dave of Kiss FM), to mix the first release, which proved to be a masterstroke when it went all the way into the Top 20. These LP's (not forgetting the cassettes, regarded as breakdance essentials for crews up and down the country) would become something of an institution, with a run of eighteen consecutive chart entries (the majority of which were mixed by Herbie Laidley) right up until August '87, when 'Electro' was finally phased out of the title and the series continued as 'Street Sounds Hip Hop' (having been re-branded as 'Street Sounds Hip Hop Electro' since March '86). It's a major flaw on the part of UK dance historians that the impact and influence of these albums has been largely underplayed and, more often than not, completely omitted.”
Halfway through this series of two hour selections, which will culminate in a full twenty-four hours of music from the 60’s through to the mid-70’s and is all about my love affair with the 7” single, which I grew up with in my pre-DJ youth. It’s not a mix, the tracks are included in their entirety, one following the other. The series was launched back in February to mark my 50th birthday.
It’s a smörgåsbord of the sweet, the savory, the spicy and the succulent. So tuck in. You can download for yourself, for your parents, and for some of you, your grandparents – scary!
This Sunday, at 9pm, you’re invited to share a listening experience 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/
To launch Living To Music, I’ve chosen an album that’s widely acclaimed as one of the greatest ever recorded, Marvin Gaye’s 1971 masterpiece, ‘What’s Going On’. If you intend to take part, but don’t have a copy of the album yet, I’d suggest you buy the Deluxe Edition CD, which was issued in 2001 to mark the 30th anniversary of the release: http://www.discogs.com/Marvin-Gaye-Whats-Going-On-Deluxe-Edition/release/354757
The two disc Deluxe includes the ‘Detroit Mix’, a fascinating alternative version of the entire album, which, as it says on the can, was mixed in Detroit, but never made in onto vinyl – a subsequent mix done in Los Angeles, the following month, being the one released (and what we’ll be listening to on Sunday). Amongst the other extras there’s the wonderful ‘Rhythm & Strings’ mix of the title track, which some of you might have heard me play out, and a live presentation of the album (plus a medley of Marvin’s 60’s hits) from Washington D.C. in 1972 – this was the first time he’d performed live in a number of years. I honestly can’t think of a better way you could spend a tenner- this is value for money to the max!
I hope you’ll join us this Sunday for the inaugural Living To Music session. I’ll be driving back from Dorset, where I’m appearing at Camp Bestival the previous night, to listen at home. You might have never heard ‘What’s Going On’ before, or, like myself, you may have heard it countless times, but that doesn’t matter – what does is that you set aside any previous experience with this album and listen, purely, to a great artist at his most inspired and inspirational.
After you’ve listened to the album it’d be great if you could leave a comment here 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.
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