Sunday - Aug 22nd, 2010 by Fiver
Tags: deejaying, Drum & Bass
Comments: None
Given I haven’t posted anything new in ages, I figured I should share links for a bunch of old mixes you might already have.
These span from 2003 all the way to this year. Some are full mixes that I actually put out on CD (remember those?), some are re-recordings of live sets I played at gigs, and the rest are sets I played on Karl’s and Nick’s radio shows.
Anyways, here they are. In most cases you can find the tracklistings in the Lyrics tabs of each mp3 if you’re using iTunes. If you’re using WinAmp or something else if you’re on a PC… uh, I have no idea.
Enjoy! Feel free to leave feedback on these – I know they’re all old, but that’s better than nothing…. right? Right?
Best of 2005
Futurhythm 2008.09.10
Futurhythm 2009.03.11
Futurhythm 2010.03.17
The Warning 2008.12.12
Live at Turnin’ 30
Live @ Class – St Patrick’s Day 2009
Staying In
Music For Car Stereos, Vol 2
Friday - Mar 12th, 2010 by Fiver
Tags: Bristol, Hip Hop, Massive Attack, Soul II Soul, Tricky, Wild Bunch
Comments: None
I started writing this post about The Wild Bunch a month or two back, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to talk about a crew that I actually know very little about. My lack of knowledge on these guys from their active days (1983-1986) makes sense, given that:
- I was still rocking single digits in years back then, and
- I lived in North America and these guys were from Bristol.
My interest in them mostly comes not from who The Wild Bunch were, but who some of the guys in the crew eventually became; after the Wild Bunch splintered up, Nellee Hooper went on to become a member of Jazzie B’s Soul II Soul soundsystem, Mushroom, Daddy G and 3D teamed up to become Massive Attack and Tricky would have a successful solo career as a vocalist/producer on his own after contributing to Massive Attack’s first two albums. All those post-Wild Bunch projects had a pretty profound effect on me personally.
Soul II Soul put me right on my ass the first time I heard “Keep On Movin’” on Energy 1200 back in 1989. Snagging their full album (on cassette, obviously) ended up being my very first dance music purchase.
Soul II Soul – Keep On Movin’
Club Classics, Vol 1 (1989)
http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxvfmt
Massive Attack’s first 2 albums got heavy heavy rotation on my stereo in the mid-90s. The video for “Karmacoma” was always on MuchMusic (back in the day when they actually played videos instead of the pap that’s on now) so I picked up a copy of the “Protection” LP and was instantly hooked. Soon after that buy I purchased Massive’s first album “Blue Lines”, which easily ranks on my Top 10 Albums of All Time list.
Massive Attack – Unfinished Sympathy
Blue Lines (1991)
http://www.dailymotion.com/videox5svr
Massive Attack – Karmacoma
Protection (1994)
http://www.dailymotion.com/videox1ae65
Tricky was another MuchMusic find; they were playing the video for “Overcome” on a regular basis. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more sombre, brooding tune on the airwaves in 1995, and given that I was a sombre, brooding teenager at the time it’s easy to see why I bought a copy of “Maxinquaye” soon afterward. It was a more challenging listen than any of Soul II Soul or Massive Attack’s output, but the weirdness of it made me a fan.
Tricky – Overcome
Maxinquaye (1995)
I was kind of shocked at first when I found out that these acts all had worked together previously in a UK soundsystem back in the mid-80s, but as I got used to the idea it started to make more sense. They were all on a similar wavelength but took different paths; dance music (Soul II Soul), mood music (Massive Attack) and hybrid rock/hip-hop (Tricky). They all had a relaxed approach to urban music, and they all showed a heavy soul influence.
You can see the common thread that runs through them all in “The Wild Bunch – Story of a Sound System”, a mix that crew retiree DJ Milo put together in 2002. The mix is a showcase of all the different styles (hip-hop, electro, disco, early house) the Wild Bunch pushed when they were up and running. Along with the tunes he used to play, Milo includes short clips of Wild Bunch performances complete with crowd noises to give the listener an idea of what kind of party Bristol’s finest soundsystem hosted.
The Wild Bunch
[excerpt from "Bombin'"]
Anyways, enough yapping.
- The Wild Bunch – Hands In The Air One Time (Live Intro)
- The Russell Brothers – Party Scene
- The Crash Crew – On The Radio
- Spoonie Gee – Love Rap
- T La Rock – It’s Yours
- The Wild Bunch – Tearin’ Down The Avenue (Live)
- Knights Of The Turntables – Techno Scratch
- Newcleus – Jam On Revenge (The Wikki Wikki Song)
- Micronawts – Smurph Across The Surf
- Man Parrish – Hip Hop Be Bop (Don’t Stop) / Sucker DJ (Suckapella)
- Younger Generation – We Rap More Mellow
- Empress – Dyin’ To Be Dancin’
- Fresh Band – Come Back Lover
- BBCS & A – Rock Shock
- Odyssey – Inside Out
- Evelyn “Champagne” King – I’m In Love
- Teena Marie – Behind The Groove
- Thelma Houston – You Used To Hold Me So Tight
- The Wild Bunch – Double Fresh (Live)
- Visual – The Music Got Me
- Montana Sextet – Who Needs Enemies With Friends Like You
- Chain Reaction – Dance Freak
- Mr. Fingers – Can You Feel It
- The Wild Bunch – Dub Plate Fashion (Live)
- The Wild Bunch – The Look Of Love
Download: DJ Milo – The Wild Bunch – Story of a Sound System
Tuesday - Mar 2nd, 2010 by Fiver
Comments: None
One of the most over-the-top 80’s hard rock choruses ever? Yep. Is it still amazing? Yep.
Heart – Alone
Album: Bad Animals (1987)
Friday - Feb 12th, 2010 by Fiver
Tags: the Beatles, Wu-Tang Clan
Comments: None
I got a tip from Soundcloud a couple of days ago that The Smoking Section had upped a new bit of material to the site. I skipped the last few files that they’d shared, but the name of this one intrigued me right from the get-go: “Wu-Tang vs The Beatles – Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers”
Too weird. One of the best hip hop crews of all time against one of the best bands of all time? I was half-intrigued, half-filled with that “urg, this is going to be a trainwreck, some unknown dude’s clamoring for attention, big time” feeling. So I clicked on the thumbnail for the LP cover, saw what you see above, and laughed. I figured that this Tom Caruana dude went all tongue-in-cheek when he put this project together, so I hit play on the file and gave it a listen.
I got four tracks in and I was hooked. Wu-Tang acapellas with beats made with Beatles instrumentals. I went about finding the full release right away.
Now, despite me getting hooked in and whatnot, I wasn’t entirely wrong with my initial “uh oh” feeling. In one sense, this LP definitely isn’t 100% as advertised. It turns out that only 6 of the 27 tunes use genuine Beatles instrumentals; the rest of the tracks use instrumentals from Beatles covers by other bands.
George, you so gangsta.
Knowing this only dampened my initial yes-ness for “Enter the Magical Mystery Chambers” a little bit, and all the bonuses (Beatles outtakes, clips from interviews with crazed Beatles fans, Ol’ Dirty singing “Love Me Do” with John and Paul) made up for it.
LP highlights? Give a listen below:
Killah Priest – Cross My Heart vs Marty Gold’s “Yesterday”
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Method Man’s bit on “Uzi (Pinky Ring)” (@ 2:18), on top of the original “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
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Rae, Ghostface & Cappadonna – Daytona 500 vs “Good Day Sunshine” by Roy Redmond
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Inspectah Deck – Forget Me Not vs “You Won’t See Me” by Ernest Ranglin
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Want to snag the whole project? Download a copy of it here. For all you trainspotting types, I include the names of each Beatles tune sampled in the Comments section of each track.
Let me know what you think.
Tuesday - Feb 9th, 2010 by Fiver
Tags: Ashes, Fiver, Karl Haze, Konkrete Jungle Ottawa, Ramza, Shaun Doe
Comments: 1
Karl and I played Konkrete Jungle 15 last Friday.
Considering I hadn’t played out in a long while, I jumped at the chance when Saxon asked us to play. I enjoy playing out, and gigs where I can tag with Karl are opportunities I never say no to, given how similar our tastes and ideas about drum & bass are.
So we hit the spot with Mish and Threesixty in tow around 11 or so, Ramza and Ashes are on set. The kids were jumping around to what they were playing (what it was exactly I find kind of hard to explain), but I wasn’t really feeling it. There was a cartoonish quality to the tunes they were mashing together that really doesn’t do it for me. I put it like this: their set made me think about how Pendulum and Hazard tunes “feel” (not sound), kinda in-your-face and hyper. I can understand a set of that kind of music at 1am, but 11pm? If you’ve read my post about the Scruff gig, you know that for me 11pm’s a bit early for that sort of thing.
Karl and I get on deck at 11.30. As usual for sets at this hour, we decided to play twos: one of us plays two records, then the other plays two records. Twos are good because we both keep our energy up and neither of us can deviate too far from the overall direction of our set.
So Karl gets on and plays two tracks. I get on and play two tracks. Karl gets on, plays two, I get back on, play two. Most often, once we’re 20 minutes deep I’m usually starting to settle into the set and get comfortable. On this night that wasn’t the case. I don’t know if it was the system (I take a while to get used to DJ booths I’ve never played on before) or the venue or the crowd, but I had a hard time getting into our set, and into my mixes in particular. For some reason, it felt like all of my mixes were very slightly off… just enough to annoy me but not enough for most other people to notice. Thankfully, Karl pulled out “Warlock” by Phobia and that started to get me going.
Phobia – Warlock (2005) [Renegade Hardware]
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After that, things smoothed out. Our dancefloor never really thickened up, but I was having fun and that was all I’d been hoping for. I played the Nu:Tone remix of Shy FX’s “Feelings” and that went over pretty well, and then in my last two of the night I threw together some old favorites, mixing High Contrast’s remix of “Renegade Snares” into “Up All Night” by John B.
Shy FX – Feelings (Nu:Tone remix) (2008) [Digital Soundboy]
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John B – Up All Night (2000) [Metalheadz]
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Omni Trio – Renegade Snares (High Contrast remix) (2003) [Moving Shadow]
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After Karl and I got out of the booth, Shaun Doe and Dylan D went on. I hadn’t heard either of them play in ages, so I was pretty curious to see what they were going to come up with. It turned out that they played a bunch of old jump-up (from when jump-up was good) and some classics from the Urban Pressure days here in Ottawa. Most memorable parts of their set were Shaun playing “Can’t Punish Me” by Dom + Roland and Dylan playing “Trick of Technology” by Prisoners of Technology. The crowd seemed to dig their set quite a bit, which made me smile; seeing kids go off to real jump-up was refreshing.
Dom + Roland – Can’t Punish Me (2001) [Moving Shadow]
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Prisoners of Technology – Trick of Technology (1996) [Fresh Kutt]
Overall, I found the whole night interesting. Given the crowd’s overall lukewarm approach to most of the tunes I played, they kind of reinforced what I’ve known for a long time: my taste and popular taste when it comes to drum & bass are very very different. I bet if I’d played something like “No Future” (one of my favorite tunes from 2009) three quarters of the dancefloor would have hit the bar. You really have to hit kids on the head with over-the-top tunes to get their attention nowadays (”Up All Night” vs “Renegade Snares remix” is about as big a sledgehammer I can come up with), and tunes with subtlety don’t seem to have much place on dancefloors anymore. Unfortunate.
Instra:mental – No Future (2009) [NonPlus+]
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Still, I had a good time, despite these realizations. Thanks to Saxon and crew for inviting us to come play.
