WOEBOT

Eskimo Dance.

I put on my wedding shoes and went down to Eskimo dance. Waited two hours in the queue. Purgatory. An incessant struggle twixt security and ravers. The lead security officer ressembling a First AD in the movies. His late-arriving crew greeted him like a commandant. Wiley performed a walk-by with camera crew in tow. The queue stretched the length of the arch. Bristling for nearly half a mile. All along its length shifty guys and gals were hovering, observing possible moments in which to jump in. Our "general" walked its length offering a ten pound entrance to people who doffed in jumpers. Also forcing us onto the pavement. Suddenly people start screaming. The queue behind me dissolves into panic and overwhelms the security, people fill the tunnels breadth. As a wave of fear sweeps through my surrounding group we duck into an enclave to avoid a crush. Gradually things are brought back into control.

Wiley walks by the queue.

Inside the crowd is mellow, cheerful. In fact I get no agression from any punter through the night. Even the girl whose leather boots I soaked with my drink.

First up were two kids from Direct FM in Battersea Nikke and Nyke. A bit squeaky. Then Wiley on his own, not quite commanding the excitement he thinks he should. "You call it garage, you call it urban, I'm a topboy" etc. Security wouldn't let MCs through the crowd. Jammer was kept hanging around at the foot of the stage. Eventually loping on in white, his dreads swaying. We waited while Nasty crew coalesced backsatge. CK Flash spun some more dancehall and Jay Z's Pimp.

Nasty explode onto the platform. All eight of them. Kano seems to be the star. Like early Wu-Tang or Old Skool Jams the individual personalities are often hard to pick up. It's the collective that forms the focus. The other evening, with Davis around, I finally GOT the shows. It's all about excitement isn't it, the best act is the most exciting radio phenomenon. Davis rolled his eyes like I'd been well late on the pickup, "Exactly!". The metaphor extends to Grime, or Eski as Wiley calls it. It's not music really. It's just an expression of excitement, like a rush of adrenaline or crack. The crowd is hyped beyond reckoning as Nasty Crew pitch rhymes at one another. One by one each coming to the boil, triggering a rewind. They jostle one another, not a whiff of the kind of showmanistic entertainerism of Heartless Crew. It's real. Enervatingly so.

Nasty Crew onstage.

Then Donao. Proving one MC aint enough. "Bounce" is always fun though. Wiley steps up as Roll Deep, this time only with Karnage from that crew. Major Ace and Special Delivery filter onstage and all an a sudden there are twenty or thirty MCs on stage. Wiley looking coy but chuffed. For ten miuntes it seems to good to be true. In telekinetic style MC tosses verse to MC from crew to crew, the DJ hitting every switch bang on time.

Then.

Somewhere in the middle of "Countdown" Kano gets into some kind of fight with someone else. The repartee immediately breaks down. The music cuts. The gang on stage heave back and forth. Security sail into the melee dragging Kano from the stage. Wiley intervenes and rather than calming the situation things get worse. This time waves of panic ripple into the audience, the crowd crush back across the dancefloor. I huddle into a fire exit by a speaker stack. The doors spring open onto the street. There people are confused and disorientated.

While the sound is still off, I head back inside and gather my coat. On the way out I'm bowled aside by a phalanx of overexcited security, sprinting backstage looking for a fight. On the street there is now a heavy HEAVY police presence. Dogs howling. The queue, now aware of some kind of struggle happening inside (the doors had been shut) still stretching far along the tunnel.

I walk home.

Wrestling with my own self-importance*

The reason Geeta couldn't show my photo is that I've been working on my moustache. I dyed it and thickened it with wax and its looking superb. Last night I clambered into the Lambourghini and took my new facial hair out on the town with my white tasselled low-cut leather waistcoat and green velour flares. The event? Well courtesy of Kirk Degiorgio I got an invite to the "Secret History" Compilation LP release party.

As it was a music industry do everyone there was looking kind of cool and blase. Me I couldn't disguise my excitement, I've never been along to anything like this. I'll bet Reynolds gets asked to every record company event in Manhatten. As far as the whole payola thing is supposed to work for music journalists, I've got it totally arse about-tit. I pay to go to things like the Rephlex tour and buy their records (thumbs up to The Bug), I should just get on the phone and grease them up. Likewise this "Secret History" Compilation, I should get on the blower to Parlophone and "mwah mwah mwah" get myself a free copy, dammnit it's not like I can afford to buy the fucking thing, but buy it I do. Maybe then I could engineer myself a stream of major label product which I could funnel down the Music and Video Exchange and convert (via what Nick Terry has described to me as: "Hack's Alchemy") into some class second-hand vinyl. I even bought The Junior Boys record (when all around me are content to download it...you heathens!) I'm as straight as the day as the long guv. And (shakes head) more naive than you can possibly begin to imagine.

I have to confess I'm sceptical as to whether I'll ever manage to be a proper journalist, in spite of the fact (inhaling and tightening belt) my chops are not bad. Certainly my track record is dire: Tries to get in with The Lime Lizard (magazine goes bust), Tries to get in with Muzik (magazine goes bust), Tries to get in with The Wire (they say nice things about me...and...and...) THIS IS NOT A HARD LUCK STORY! Really I'm very happy with things as they are, I'm entirely to blame. I mean when did I last send the NYC Free Press something? (C'mon Wanking Tramp!) The problem there being that it's sort of like posting an envelope through a crack in the wall. I don't ever have the pleasure of seeing it in print.

Back to the soiree. I'd begged Nick Kilroy to accompany me, and together we went and said hello to Kirk. Kirk who was, amazingly, delighted to see us. I thought he was just the sweetest dude. Isn't it funny how after that whole mass-debate he ends up spinning for this distinctly European affair. One can't but remark on it. I'm not being spiteful. We chatted a bit, he was going to be playing his set off his laptop. He had encoded a whole bag of records mastered them in Pro Tools and was going to stream them out of "Live to Mix" (can't remember the software's exact name). This is how the big boys do it. No lugging crates of irreplacable vinyl around the world's capitals. Kilroy was charmant in extremis, then disappeared. I think I may have lost points by confessing to Degirogio that I probably wouldn't make his set at 1am. Wet I know, but I only got the invite at 7pm and thought I was being a trooper by just attending. Was to be on my own sans Kilroy. Quite alot of work on right now too. I made a stab at chatting with Dan Keeling, who has put the compilation together: "I do this thing on the net..." "Oh yeah?" (politely interested, eyes glaze over) I did my bit for the global nexus by mentioning Dan Selzer and Acute, then beat a hasty retreat. I'm genuinely sorry I didn't get to hear Kirk play. I'll bet (damn), I'll bet he was rocking.

Talking of Mr. Selzer, the Rephlex press release of today said:

"Rephlex are releasing an incredible bit of electronic disco by black devil called disco club - it's extremely rare and brilliant but as a result, expensive to buy so we thought we'd save it from collectors hell and try and give it back its crown as one of the best bits of electronic disco ever recorded.

In fact Morgan Geist from disco surgeons Metro Area called us up when he heard we were putting this out and told us we'd ruined his year - as he'd always the rights to it himself!"

Morgan is Setzer's buddy, and I'll wager they've had a little tete-a-tete subsequent to Dan's Italo submission. You read it in the Woebot Comments Box first people! I know it's pathetic my offering this up, but you know, it makes me feel (sighs) important, useful, loved even! Woebot I love me!

It's been a very Italo week. The tunes they were spinning at the "Secret History" night were totally rocking. Drumkits 50 feet high, basslines like suspension bridge cables, nimble string quartets. It all matched the vintage Saturday-Night-Fever-Style flashing dancefloor an absolute treat. Today in a record store a dwarf was boasting to the staff behind the counter of his Italian connections. I rushed out and had a Spaghetti Bolognese. Italy, it's the new Germany.

*Just a little.

Selekta!

CNWB.....after my own heart.

End of year charts.

coo. look at that. (salivates).

i dunno if i'll get round to doing an end of year thing. the logistics! also, queerly, the year something came out is one of my blindspots (evidently!)

i imagine i'll just chase around trying to hear what everyone else has bigged up. (strokes chin) seeing how it sizes up...

i get in a right tangle trying to trace vinyl that's on these "best-of" charts. recently i've found that other people's lists are between 50% and 75% bluff. (not that i'm suggesting jess's is, seriously). they don't actually OWN the vinyl, i mean why should they? you only have to hear it to have an opinion for chrissakes! having said that (wink) i have extremely entrenched opinions on many things i haven't heard.....

i'm growing a bit of confidence (just a bit!) maybe caring less what other folks love, trusting my own judgement a fraction. its a scary line this division between punter and pundit. it's much more comfortable to be a punter. i'd argue you get much more pleasure as a punter too.

Italo Disco: The Facts.

Hooray! Dan Setzer arrives on his white charger! This rescued from my comments box:

I'm here, I'm here! I've been busy, Metal Urbain just took over NYC for a bit and now I've finally got a new G5 and a cable modemso I'm here! Oh yeah, there is plenty of Italian Italian disco but some of the biggest Italian Disco records are from Canada. Make of that what you will! People site I-F's Mixed up at the Hague as THE italo-disco primer but that's just because it has a few, but really there's as much non italo, Patrick Cowley represents San Francisco, Pluton and the Humanoids' Space Invasion, which most think is Italo, is french canadian, etc etc. And I'd say you're right, Space's Magic Fly, later covered by the obviously french canadian Kebecelectrik as well as anothe frenchie, Cerrone were major influences on italo-disco, in that they were Space Disco. Also see Disco Circus by Martin Circus, 15 minutes of french funk. But that's a tangent. I'm supposed to put something together soon for a friend's site, will forward. Here's the cream of the crop of ITALIAN italo-disco, according to my tastes/whims, top o' the head, briefly from what I see as 3 period of italo, big orchestral morricone cinematic italo of 78-82, dark space electro italo of 82-84(the prime) and big pop new wave freestyle italo of 84-86:

Taffy-Midnight Radio-I mean, this is pretty damned cheesed out but I can't help but to love it. Who else loved it? Emergency in NY and Rhythm King in England. The same year they dropped Renegade Soundwave? My allegiances shift...

Awesome! That's plenty to be getting on with!

Water 10.

Recently read in magazine that it's best to share your knowledge with a lightness of touch. Surely better to really ram your learning down other people's throats until their tonsils are sore?

-

Don't go into the sea when you're on drugs kids! It's like adding another strain to the cocktail. Once upon a time, whilst in a very disturbed drug-induced state of mind I went surfing in Cornwall. It was an October day. I was wetsuited. Cold sand crushing between my toes. A thin mist over the rocks. A man with a goaty playing with a black labrador. The sky grey over the tumbling sea. I swam out on my board. Each time I came upon a wave I ducked beneath it. And.....amazingly.....found myself (zap) in a large black room....opened my eyes as I rose to the surface to catch breath and.....amazingly.....found myself (zap) bobbing on the surface of a stormy winter sea. Again and again. Pretending to myself that I wasn't struggling with the current. Drugs eh! You'd have to be crazy to take 'em.

All of these records have been meticulously selected from the racks at home. The concept is water. In fact, and now I'm showing you my cards, they're all tracks that I think could have been in the discography of David Toop's wondrous "Ocean of Sound." A few of these I'd love to play to Toop (some he may not have heard) but as the legend goes (ha ha I love this): "Needless to say, no correspondence can be entered into regarding the author's record collection."

Bill Fontana: Sounds of The Bay Area.
Post-Cagean environmental recordist Bill Fontana offers up the Sounds of San Francisco's Bay Area. All the recordings marked by deep sloshing water, foghorns, seals and gulls. Best track: "An Expansion Joint on the Golden Gate Bridge" Oh and "Amtrak Trains going through Level Crossings in Berkely" is ALL OVER the KLF's "Chill Out."

Plasmic Life Vol 1: Water Baby.
Burbling water straight offa Can's "Future Days." Squeezed superpitched drums on a Shimon "Predator" tip. Monkey noises. Are we forgetting that for a brief moment the suggestion of "Jungle" sonics actually meant something? Corny I know but also fascinating. Neil Trix visualising to Reynolds the fronds, creepers and marsh of the "Jungle" behind "Gesture without Motion". Strafing doppler effects. The skipping "on the boil" conga/fill/break pattern. That incessant soft phased signal riff issuing from the depths.

Pecheurs de Perles et Musiciens Du Golfe Persique.
One of the really great ethnomusicological recordings. The recorder sits at the aft of the boat clutching his Nagra tape deck as the crew groan, grind (really), moan and wail like a chain gang pulling the pearl fisher's boat further out to sea. Truly scary. Immediately bringing to mind the film adaptation of Steinbeck's The Pearl and The Wailing Soul's epochal endlessless "Row Fisherman Row."

Bruce Johnson: Pipeline.
Classic Disco innit. Starts almost stodgily. Ungainly strings. Bruce (former Beach Boy) Johnson's drums as high in the mix as you'd expect on his own single. But then the hook slides on in: "de de daa la da da da da daa da (la de da)" then "do do do doo" (am i getting this across?) As good a hook as any of Arthur Russell's (and damn he was sparing with them). We segue into the sound of the surf, seagulls caw, Bruce's drums come further to the fore inna tribal style. Yeah you might be in the disco, but your mind maan, your mind is on a longboard riding a ripcurl. Toobing baby! Back to the disco, your working it, the glitterball strobing, sweat glistening off your perfectly formed pecks and damn your date is looking hot hot hot.

Zap Pow: The River.
The greatest Lee Perry track. And it's on the "Voodoism" Compilation (Pressure Sounds) so there's no excuse for not owning the thing. That noise of Perry's tracks. It's tape hiss bro. It's what studio engineers call bad noise. Lee liked it. He liked it so much he'd feed his tape back into the reel again and again. He'd build that hiss up. He'd let the distortion envelop his tracks. He'd suck those 3 part harmonies into a whirlpool. Forget the 24-track fantasies of MBV this is blissed-out distortion made of mud, ash and guava juice. And the concept here is tighter than Peter Tosh's leather trousers. River of eddying swirling reggae man it's gonna take you home. Home to the spirits in the sky.

Sheila Chandra: Quiet.
All the tracks on this called Quiet (1-10). That's gonna make it easy to discuss. I'm not sure if the H2 on the cover is meant to denote water. But I'm going to give Sheila and Steve the benefit of the doubt. There were lots of of other choices: Tim Souster's "Sw1t Dr1mz", Dave Holland's "Emerald Tears", Seefeel's "Quique", X-103's "Atlantis", er LTJ Bukem's "Atlantis", Herman Chin-Loy's "Aquarius Dub", Drexciya's "Deep Sea Dweller", Julian Priester's "Love, Love", Hugo Largo's "Mettle" etc etc etc. But this is an exquisitely aqueous record. No drums just shimmering jathis, sargam bells, water wok, sitar, tamboura, dilruba, gamelan, whispered hi-hit, santoor, cabassa, wind chimes, cymbals, gongs, madhal, surmandel and eqtara. Truly lovely.

Nelson Riddle: Sea of Dreams.
My favourite track being the lovely "Drifting and Dreaming". Huge, empty, cheap, lazy, orchestral, music. Sublimely effortless and underdrawn with a little twinkling bell. This is what I'll be listening to as I dance with my beautiful wife and baby under the waves. Riddle is a curious one isn't he. Solo Exotica then orchestration for Tom Jobim and Sinatra and finally those CTI LPs. He probably ended up scoring for Broadway or the Movies. Superhack.

Bill Evans/Jim Hall: Undercurrent.
More girls underwater! I bought this record during my brief Blue Note fetish period. Round that time the Young Disciples and A Tribe Called Quest were checking the label. The cover totally sold me. The cruel ear would shout DINNER JAZZ. In fact there is nothing particularly watery about it, except for the way it flows, through the telekinetic improvisation going on between Jim Hall and Bill Evans. That there are no drums helps with this eddying to-and-froing. Anyway Bill Evans isn't as hip as he should be. Nice!

Bola Sete: Ocean.
Bola Sete was one of John Fahey's great contributions to music. Nicer indeed than any of Fahey's recordings. This dude can really play a 12-string guitar. Motifs travel across the fretboard like it was the Isthmus. All you bring to an instrument is your soul aint it, and Sete's is no puddle.

Michel Redolfi: Immersion/Pacific Tubular Waves.
One of my favourite INA-GRM records. I have, well I have shedloads. They're better than the Silver Phillips series because they benefit from beautiful modern production. You know there may have been a golden era of production. I reckon production now is inferior to what it was in the years leading up to 1977. You don't need to be a genius to figure out why. These INA-GRM records may be the best produced records ever.

The Redolfi's record's title is curiously and hilariously reminiscent of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells."Maybe they thought they could shift a few units to hippy stragglers. I quote from the liner notes (well I'm supposed to be a crap writer so I may as well quote as much as I can): "In April 1979, I decided to utilize the work "Pacific Tubular Waves", composed the preceeding winter, so that I could play it and re-record it under the same waves that had been the source of my fantasy during the elaboration of the piece in the studio. Thanks to the water-proof equipment, I was able, hydraphone in hand, to cover the sonorized depths and listen to the natural remodelling of my sounds by the currents of water and the movement of the stones below." So he rebuilds the sounds of the ocean (you know those noises you hear whilst surfing) within the digital domain. The cover of this record is 3D, the specs with my copy have gone unfortunately, but the specs that came with the Detroit Techno "Virtual Sex" Compilation show it off splendidly. (Goggle eyes) Oooh!

Now kids, I've said it before and I'll say it again, that's HARDCORE. Michel Redolfi is hardcore. He's not doing it for money. He's not doing it cos everyone else is doing it. He's not doing it so he can behave like a pompous twat, to build up an image of himself. He's not acting. He's real. He's HARDCORE. He's a nutter. The rest of the world can go do it's thing as far as he's concerned. He's a dreamer, a lover, a believer. Gord bless im.

-

Needless to say, no correspondence can be entered into regarding the author's record collection. (Only kidding!)

Progmetheus Unbound: The Return.

Dear Lord!

Another *astonishing* chapter.

How (isn't it) ironic...me holding forth on Italo Disco!

So are we due a musical revolution or wot?

You know the skit:
Rock'n'Roll,
The Hippies,
The Punks,
Acid House.

All those dance crazes!
So where's the latest?
(checking watch)
(tapping watch to see if it's still working)
It's not fair I want a revolution!
(or do I?)

Was musing recently (in my utterly inconsequential and uninformed way) that what characterises all these "events" is that they amount to a radicalisation of the middle-classes.

Ragga,
Grime,
Bhangra,
Hip-Hop.
Their paradigm shifts don't seem to inflame the tabloids.
They're no less significant but they exist independently of mainstream culture.

Do these "revolutions" only:
1) Come into definition teleologically when they wash up in Woolworths?
2) Acquire an inception date at the hands of lazy popcult commentators?
I don't think so.
I think they really happen.

So what's with the middle-classes?
I reckon they're cowering.
I reckon they think if they behave "well" and responsibly they can expect a comfortable existence.
So current Middle-class culture, Retro Rock and 5th Generation Dance Music, promises the same pleasures as last years model with diminishing returns. I mean do YOU believe in what Jess Harvell called "Middlebrow" culture these days?

Young people (people younger than me) still have faith in the system/sausage factory:
Education>Job>Mortgage.

If the economy goes under any further in the UK then things might change.

Its OK at the moment, but:
a) Interest rates have slipped a bit (mortgages a bit more expensive)
b) and while the housing market is still steady, some people are suggesting a collapse may be round the corner.
c) Employment, well it ain't too hot from where I'm looking!
I hope it doesn't happen.

Because:
A collapse in expectations leads to:
Misery which sometimes leads to:
Depression which can lead to:
Insanity.

And it's insanity that is the forum for a cultural upheaval (along the lines discussed...)
All dem poor Middle-class people with absolutely no chance of "self-realisation" (makes you wanna sob dunnit...)
They just cut loose. Go mental.

Slash the seats.
Drop out.
Pierce their nose.
Take MDMA.

(twiddles thumbs)

Home.

Blissblog

Heronbone

K-Punk

Worlds of Possibility

Emerald Daze

Gutterbreakz

Uncarved

Grevious Angel

Somedisco

Technicolor

The Original Soundtrack

SFJ

Skykicking

Spizzazzz

I Feel Love

Citta Violenta

Blogistan

It's All in My Mind

Tufluv

Matos

Erase the World

Woebot.

Italo Disco...

...has little to with Italy apparently. I had imagined this whole genre of Italian Disco which I was wholly ignorant of. I was missing out something terrible! It seems I have many of these tunes already and that the term refers to a period of dance music: "The fabulous middleground after discos staged death in the US and it's glorious worldwide revenge..." I'm both disappointed and delighted!

Today picked up the "A Secret History" Compilation which Kirk Degiorgio was thumbing a few posts back. It is the best produced Retro comp I have EVER come across (lavish thick card, gatefold sleeve, fat vinyl) and the line-up is great. The Liasons Dangereuses track, "Problemes D'Amour" and Material's "Secret Life" are superfluous to requirements (anthologised to death already/readily available) but apart from that AMAZING selektion.

The big surprise? Paul McCartney's "Temporary Secretary", you'll not believe it.

BUY! BUY! BUY!

Mastering a Record.

The Beast. Acetate Box at the bottom left.

In my capacity as (cough) self-appointed authority on all things musical, I was invited by Kin Records supremo Nick Kilroy to attend the mastering of (coo) the second Junior Boys EP. The facility was Transfermation in Borough, which has a reputation second to none in this field. Our engineer and host was Noel Summerville, a cool hand who has in the past year or so chalked up clients such as The White Stripes (for "Elephant"), Squarepusher, Prefuse 73, Manitoba, really too many to mention meaningfully.

Notice the tone arm at the back for testing.

What is record mastering? It's the process by which audio is transferred onto acetates. Acetates which are used as a template by the pressing plant who produce as many vinyl copies of it as are required. The process is a crucial part of the chain which connects the artist's vision to the realisation of a finished artifact. It's taken very seriously by many musicians, it turned up in conversation that Beyonce had attended the mastering of her record at Sony, London.

The Producer, or Manager or Artist hands the mastering engineer a reel-to-reel, DAT or CD with the tracks on it. The engineer imports the tracks and EQs them, normalises them (the process of keeping all peaks balanced without there being distortion, bringing to memory the tale of LFO goading the terrified engineer responsible for mastering their epochal first twelve to master the bass preposterously high), and organises them into a sequence which corresponds to the available space on the acetate (be it 7", 10" or 12").

This makes a nonsense of hardline arguments about the superiority of vinyl (analogue) to CD (digital). 99.9% of material supplied to a mastering facility like this is in digital form, and I would guess the norm is as a DAT, which has a ceiling bitrate of 48khz (that's superior to the CD's 44.1khz). How can one argue, as Akin Fernandez of Irdial discs famously did, that analogue is "better" than digital, when at source the signal is so often noughts and ones? Of course, and here is the counter-argument, at even the worst mastering plant, the digital signal is buffered and EQ'd in an analogue environment (an exquisite spartan Neumann mixing desk at Transfermation) and the subsequent signal is transferred to the record in the age-old manner of analogue encoding.

Aw what a cute little hoover!

The method of encoding is as unchanged in essence as it was in the days of the 78. The sound is effectively "shouted" at the recording needle as it travels across the surface of the plate. We rather superstitiously kept quiet during the process of the transfer. After all, in theory, if we talked really loudly, our voices would be imprinted onto the grooves along with Jeremy Greenspan's svelte yet wounded vocals. As the groove was being cut I was amused to notice that a little hoover travels behind the needle, sucking up the scratched out plastic.

The measure of a really good master, Nigel informed us, was lack of surface noise. The less surface noise the better the transfer. He also explained to us the classic pay-off of acetate mastering: The longer the track you're trying to squeeze on the dubplate, the quieter the master will be. Customers, he told us, typically used to complain that their single wasn't as loud as a Motown 7" pressing. Motown's secret? Tracks coming in at 2 and a half minutes. One can hear this pay-off on two extreme instances of mastering: Elvis Costello's "Get Happy" which crammed 25 tracks onto each side the result sounding kind of thin (recently reissued on on a dubble CD Costello fans!) and Double Exposure's "Ten Percent" on Salsoul, the first 12" as we know it today which, as it fitted what once would have been on a 7" onto a 12" plate (more room, more volume!)

It's like summat out of a Soviet Power-Station innit!

When all was done Nick was left with two acetates (the blank acetate alone each costing around $50). You can't record onto the flipside of an acetate, they're one-sided in this sense, so if you're doing a double-sided EP you walk away with two acetates, which are (literally) bolted into a rigid brown cardboard box like the one visible in the bottom left-hand corner of the top image. This is why, as Simon pointed out the other day, many Grime 12"s have the same tracks on both sides, if you're only pressing one acetate, unless you want a blank B-side you've no option but to duplicate the A-side.

You can, in theory, put an acetate onto a normal record deck and play it, however, because the acetate is usually larger than 12"s (about fifteen inches?) on the whole they won't fit onto most record players. That is of course unless they're 10" acetates, which I guess is the default size for the sort of dubplates which circulate in the field of dance music (I once came across Grooverider's 10" acetate of DJ Hype's "Cops" at a stall I used to frequent back inna de day in Camden). The thing about acetates, and this was confirmed by my dear pal Steve Caruana who had a heap of Jamaican dubplates is that they wear out or even fall apart, they're not made of durable material like vinyl.

Mastering matters! Public Enemy scored their splash in some part as a result of the hugely loud mastering of their records which bust out of the airwaves a few decibels above their competition. Worse, bad mastering can suck all the contast and subtlety out of a recording and swamp it with hiss. Thanks to Noel and Nick for letting me witness this fascinating process.

Easy All Over.

Spent ages tracking down a record by the band Novos Baianos. The reason for searching so hard? It was one of Kodwo Eshun's hot-tips, described by him as "the Brazilian Little Feat". When nudged he also revealed: "I was in Sao Paulo last year and I heard some of their albums- kind of choppy and twisty but not too fussy- they were the big post Tropicalia early-to-mid 70s group from Bahia-lived in a big commune, their guitarist was a real icon." The LP doesn't disappoint drawing a line between the quietly-disturbed introversion of Bossa Nova (Tom Jobim style) and seventies melodic AM fodder. The second track is quite stunning.

I was excited by the idea of Brazilian Soft-Rock. In fact Ethno-Soft-Rock is mightily seductive proposition, you have all the splendour of easy listening and a twist of distantiation. In fact was it Joseph Lanza who pointed out that the easy-listening stations have in reality the broadest, most all-encompassing playlists? Doesn't matter where or when it comes from so long as it's mellifluous and e-e-e-e-easy. Give me Heart FM above Resonance FM anyday.....(seriously)

Another reason I was delighted to find the Novos Baianos LP (and it might not be their finest!) is that I've had this conceptual twinning in mind with it and the pre-YMO Harry Hosono. I've had a bee in my bonnet about making a Ethno-Easy come laid-back 70s rock CD for a while now. Look at these covers:

What STUNNING artwork! I've been trying to get hold of Paraiso, the third of this series for too long now. The best place to get hold his stuff is Far Side Music. Paul Fisher there is really helpful, and actually (gulp) he has a show on Resonance FM. The Hosono CDs are good for about 2 tracks each, but WHAT TRACKS! And to finish where I started off (kissing arse), here's one of Kodwo's own Hosono recommendations: "Have you heard that album World Country Standard-I think its called-an amazing mysterious album which is all imaginary Western theme-banjo filtered thru koto-Far East exoticisation of the frontier?" Maybe that's where my mystery track is from?

Truly Revolting.

Got asked down to the Rephlex gig by none other than Paul Meme (be sure to totally ignore Paul's eulogy for TWANBOC...too nice pal!) and another big fella John Eden. I jumped at the opportunity and paid for the pleasure to meet the Meme-ster in the flesh. He's barking mad, refreshingly larger than lager and I had the feeling that even if the music hadn't been earsplittingly loud he would have been shouting at the same volume.

Aphex was on the decks second. Dead early in the evening. Isn't that cool! Not at 4am shrouded in a cloak and dry ice but just like a regular DJ. More than anything I like Rephlex's attitude. And I like the fact that they've taken us bloggers to their bosom. In case you hadn't noticed we dudes are where it's at! Their new compilation is well nice, I'm particularly into the things like Yee King's "Goodnight Toby", D'Arcangelo's "Shipwreck", Cyclob's "Smack 'em up sharp" and Bochum Welt's "Radiopropulsive" these four are all marked by their subaquatic flavours, backwards techno riddims and fondness for sounds that make you go "ooh!" Really gourgeous and alone worth the entrance fee.

As far as this hardened (deaf) raver is concerned the eternal re-run of early 1990s Idyllitronica is more artisitically respectable than the various strains of Fungle. While beautifully executed Luke Vibert's "Remember This", Bodgan Raczynski's "There are many things" and AFX's "Mangle 11" are verging on the exhausting. Somehow the signifier as it's intended (Jungle Beats=We're Well 'Ard) doesn't work for me on disc. At the Rephlex show this criticism was, however, made irrelevant. When mashed up with 'riginal Ardkore and Jungle from back in the day (I spotted Made in 2 Minutes "21 Seconds", 2 Bad Mice's "Bombscare"(not the remix alas), Splash's "Babylon" and was that Remarc's "Gangsta" off the new Planet Mu comp (jesus creepers that sounded ABSOLUTELY fantastic)? Then it works like a dream, like a funny/goofy sideshow off the main event, softening the old jungle's towering bombast. Other things worthy of a mention on the Rephlexions comp include Pierre Bastien's endearingly silly Gamelan Blues and The Gentle People's "Tiki Mix", the latter all turquoise lagoons and swaying grass skirts.

The thing about Rephlex is that they are what you could term a "POST" label. For them history seemed to end sometime round 1996, the latest datable sonic signposts being the Shadowboxing bassline off Luke Vibert's track, and last through the gate JP Buckle's "Flex" an IDM vision of bashment that needs a bit of a tweak. Maybe it's a result of the dearth of what Reynolds would call "pungent cliches," I'd argue (no really I would!) that Grime is still groping around for a signature sound around which to glom. The hungriest Tiger probably nearly there. But survey the panoply of Hip-Hop, Ragga and R&B. Maybe only Timbaland has produced any enduring sonic innovations. I like the "POST" attitude. I have no problems with it. I liked the fact that AFX remarked in that Wire interview recently given by the Rephlex crew that he was exhausted by novelty, that: "To be honest, I'd be quite happy never to hear anything new again." Yo soundbyte!

At the gig, was it Cyclob (or Smojphace) played a set that was a timeless amalgam of cold techno, mentasm stabs, and ragga flavours. A stranger came up to me and asked me "What track was that?" Do I look like that much of geek that I'd be able to tell you! I'm not craned over the decks like those saddos yonder! I've not got a frigging notebook in my mitts! Mate, I have not a bloomin' clue! "Probably a dubplate I opined", off the hook (phew). The immaculate selection just this, well Rephlex-ive sound. If you were being cruel you could remark: "C'mon get with the program Grandads!" But, unlike the first time around, this is less like a revolt, than a permanent riot. Less Castlemorton more a drifting commune of gypsies. And yes politics are in evidence! Refusal is all over The Bug's LP, whose live show I missed, my ears eventually throttled by AFX's set which seemed to escalate forever in intensity and ferocity eventually suffocating the gaps between the beats. I tried to record the Peel show last night (man like Pete Maplestone asked me to in June!), dammnit I waited up till ten o'clock, I'm usually in bed at 9! I've been informed you can hear it here. And if it's coming to your town BE SURE to check the Rephlex Tour. Rephlex we loves ya!

Ghosts.

Excellent discussion of book 'The Stone Tape" round at k-punk.

Interesting stuff ghosts/records...I'm sure folk don't need reminding about Konstantine Raudive's recordings of ghosts or (bit more obscure this) Queen Elizabeth I's doctor and celebrated Alchemist John Dee's circular spinning black plastic plate which he used to commune with spirits.

I've always thought some of the most meaningful (recorded) music, in the sense of music which fully explores the symbolic properties of both the recording process and the significance of the end result too, is that which pivots on this axis. The voices on a record are here spirits separated from their original bodies. Soul music. Dub Reggae. As Lee Perry said: "I put my mind into the machine."

Records (and CDs) are so often regarded as possessing a charge solely through their relationship to the "real" event. This connection perfectly epitomised by the LIVE recording, the record as souvenir of the concert. The best recorded music works in quite the opposite manner, by insisting rather on the properties of the object housing the recording, the spirits. This must mark the approach of the record-collector, he or she who values the recording above the incident, as one most inclined to the disembodied.

Mark closed with the reflection that as bloggers we are as inclined to the ghostly, the free-floating. That's fine I think as long as one is aware of this aspect of the activity, and is confident of the location of one's body.

The Stamps.

I dreamt last night that I was at my friend Charlie's birthday party. Charlie looking absentminded.

In the background was this strange music; sounding like a shambling folk-oi group. "Part-time Punks" meets singalong down an East-end pub. I asked Charlie what the band's name was:

"The Stamps," he said.

I was thrust into their pop video, which for some reason I can tell you was on a DVD. Sitting in the concrete garden of a four-story council-estate block, the band seemed quite small arranged around a large round table, all wearing various ethnic garb, with faces artificially blackened or yellowed in accordance with the continent they were representing.

Mailbag.

One former correspondent has recently taken me to task for publishing excerpts from his "private correspondence" to me, going as far as threatening legal action (!) I'd like to make it quite clear that unless you specify any email content to me as being "off-the-record", i'll feel free to quote it. I'd like to reassure my regular readers that I'm a good judge of what needs to be private and that any truly confidential info offered up will be treated with the respect it's due.

(phew)

Nice couple of emails from man like Michael Manners. The first:

"i have a copy of the 12" by les vampyrettes on an old sony tape which has been played to death. would you consider sending me a copy or maybe even selling your 12"? (have you ever considered putting up the cash and re-pressing it on your own white label and selling it on this way??)

this is one of the greatest ever records and still 20 or so yrs later i still want a copy of my own!

Jim Clarke and me were talking over the whole reissue business over a whiskey the other night (in the company of none other than Job de Wit and legendary Reggae hound Steve Caruana). Jim mentioned Jason Gross's extremely cool recent letter to The Wire in which it was revealed that Antilles/Island were asking a fee of $1,000 a track for the rights to reissue the classic No New York compilation. (And you'd still struggle to listen to the whole LP). Yeah sure bootlegging is a thoroughly enticing option in these times. I worked it all out, how I would slip Holger a fat cheque under the record company's nose when the figures were in. Come to think of it offering up mp3s isn't much more ethical EXCEPT that one isn't making any money out of the venture (but then again neither is the artist....)

Then today (after I belatedly got round to getting back to Michael- ALL EMAILS ANSWERED). I got this jolly note from him:

"the good news is i've got a copy on cd and even better the man himself, holger czukay has sent it to me!"

How cool is that!

-

I love getting emails from Kirk Degiorgio, particularly as it underlines that there was no love lost after my (basically respectful) but pretty cheeky tete-a-tete a few months back. This was especially cool as Kirk is obviously not blinkered to the euro impact on Deetroit.

He says:

"check out the forthcoming New Religion-EMI compilation called 'Secret History'... feats many Euro-electronic tracks that influenced the Detroit scene...

and many more...

Yeah that sounds WICKED, I'll look forward to that.

And then get this:

"(btw - I was DJing in Japan with Carl Craig last week and we discussed the euro-electro-pop stuff in some depth... not many more tracks surfaced in our discussions that I haven't already mentioned - except Soft Cell's 'Memorabilia', Prince 'Let's Pretend We're Married' and the Visage track...)

Cool!

-

One of the best things about doing this blog is the incredible connections one can make. Do you remember this from June 22nd, where I dug out a couple of Egyptian Son et Lumiere records? Well i'll be blown if I didn't get an email from Didier Papeloux:

"nice to see that you liked my father's son et lumière records ..."

Evidently as shadowy as his Dad, as mysterious as the swirling sands of the Sahara, as nebulous as the riddle of the sphinx; cos that's all he said, and my consecutive email imploring Didier for the story of the records inception went unanswered.

-

As you might imagine (smug) I got some great correspondence following my African film, and thanks to everyone who has emailed me and said they enjoyed it. There is a CD available which has an exquisite 25fps MPEG on it playable on just about any computer made in the past ten years. If anyone hasn't seen the film, can't get their head round the QuickTime requirements or doesn't have the luxury of a broadband connection drop me a line (Get Personal>I need you to know) and I'll sort you out. There will be a fee levied of $15, though at a push I'll accept a trade, oh and Luka can 'ave one for free. On the downside despite emailing Dan Curtin, Kirk, Planet e and Underground Resistance I was slightly disappointed to hear nothing from the Detroit crew themselves. That would have dignified proceedings a bit. I wonder if that UR thread is still raging at uk-dance?

However (put your specs on now) I did get a brace of fascinating caffeine-fuelled emails from H Arefe Aine who is the mastermind behind the Womex World music organisation/networking-event, mainly in consequence of the comments I made about Putmayo (don't like), but mopping up the World music notions that were heavily in the air round at TWANBOC at that date. H is based in......wait for it....Addis Ababa. Hardcore! Me here in purple, H in bronze. I've edited H a bit where I feel (raises eyebrows) he may want to be discreet. It's quite lengthy but I think it's all good stuff.

(email 1)

Been offline for the past 10 days so just saw the Indian series and the latest, as well as Tom's short comment in NYLPM so thought I'd email you both as I was thinking about the issues raised by both.

(ps matt, the only 2 raves in Ethiopia I know about is one some friends of mine gave a last year as a going away party for other friends, and one a couple of years back down at en ecocamp some British guys were running at the time. So they have happened but def not an ongoing thing)

(email 2)-H replying to my lengthy self-opinionated waffle:

No major quibbles or arguments with most of what you said, just in a couple of places.

As far as I'm concerned, as a marketing principle, what's missing is...............GLAMOUR. And that is entirely a problem this end, nothing to do with what's being sold.

In regards to that, well with Putamayo I do have lots of problems with what is being sold, just nowhere close to what is the best out there, even in not challenging areas (see your comment on the Putamayo reggae comp eg)

as to fusion, well I've always seen most musics as being fusions to begin with so I don't have a problem with pppl mixing it up now. Ethiopiques which you
said you liked is a mix of traditional and western soul and jazz which was popular at the time. I don't think anyone here would deny its Ethiopainess tho, and what i like for in fusions is the same kind of thing 'hey, thats cool, lets use that' as opposed to mixcing for the sake of mixing. so there is stuff i like and others that fail that test for me. The TBS live album for me succeeded marvelously, especially the track Mengedegna - based on a Gigi track(young ethiopian singer if you're not familiar) it has her trading vocal lines with ustad Sultan Khan and his sarangi underpins the 14 minutes featuring funk bass by bill laswell, tablas by zakir hussain, DJ Disk and Midival punditz scratching and mixing and the whole thing should be a mess but is glorious instead.

(email 3)

My only problem with the dance fusion stuff is it's either too fake or not fake enough. For example I'd praise some of the Rai or South African Bubblegum pop as electronically "wild" as you get, and on the other hand hail the indo-tinged R+B and Ragga like Get UR Freak On/React/Diwali as being satisfyingly fake. Somehow I feel the middle ground, your Frederic Galliano's and Banco de Gaia's or even Talvin Singh/Nitin Sawtney's stuff as being somehow compromised.

agreed actually. galliano's african divas project never did that much for me. talvin also disappoints. (excerpt) talvin has done some good stuff and his live show at least was great (a huge saving point for me)

as to fusion, well I've always seen most musics as being fusions to begin with so I don't have a problem with pppl mixing it up now.

Another thorny one. One man's fusion is another's....

well, i guess so, but look at groups like bembeya, or baoboab, or any of the artists on ethiopiques. that stuff is a fusion but ppl back at home will be able to say, yeah this is coming from this ethnicity, this style this root and stil feel connected. (using those as from the same time period)

another example, the peul tribe in mali say they are ethiopian and muisc has many similarities to northern ethiopian styles but when ali farka toure is basing stuff on it i don't think it has stopped being malian and is ethiopian. i just don't think that you can find any truly authentic/original style, particularly in urbanized or semi-urbanized areas, its all based on crossfertilization, whether between neighboring ethnicities, religins etc. or further via trade routes.

Big up to H. Great talking to you mate.

-

And finally I was chuffed to get this nice note from David Toop:

"I'm quite happy for you to display the post-colonial chart I did. In fact, I'd totally forgotten I'd done it. It's interesting to realise that there was an influence from that to the Ocean of Sound CD which came three years later. By the way, I didn't release anything by African Connexion. That was my friend Musa Kalamulah and I either played, produced or co-produced on a lot of his tracks, though not the early African Connexion. My label was Quartz, back in late 70s-early 80s, releasing ethnographic and improvised recordings."

I think I put the record straight at the time. If you haven't heard Ragnar Johnson's recordings of Sacred Flute Music from New Guinea which David Toop put out on Quartz in the 1970s (now reissued on Rounder) then you're missing out big time. Plays exquisitely back to back with Oval's Diskont.

So yeah keep 'em coming! Always nice to hear from you!

Coarse for celebration.

Stunned upon entry to my local Grime emporium to be greeted by banners and bunting. A lady in a sequined bra and knickers with an overflowing plume on her head presented me with a bouquet of flowers. Behind the counter the staff cheered and raised glasses of champagne.

Well, OK. Though I was thanked personally for supporting MC Garage throughout the year. Isn't that nice! A firework went off in my heart. We did both feel there was cause for celebration. For the first time every tune I picked up had.......a label! Oh yeah I know we're not supposed to celebrate things like this but I think it's fine. It needn't be the end of a scene when folk are getting their shit together, working on their rhymes, using the playstation for what it's best suited. These MC tracks are a hundred times better than the ones which were coming out at the end of last year.

J2K feat Wiley: They will not like you
Cyborg Cello, Tympani and a whipcrack. Later volcanic spring bleeps and Miami Vice synths. "Hello my name's Wiley" Hello Wiley. And hilariously "I am the hungriest Tiger......Wooly as the E3 Tiger." Visions of Alan Patridge as the Ford Mondeo-equipped travelling insurance salesman in a motorway service station growling into the gents mirror. "The most unreliable artist ever." A proud boast this, how many no-shows YOU chalked up? Can't but help flash on (you KNOW I'm joking mate) indigenous raver Luka's protestations of his ferreal unpopularity: "They will not like you." It's funny isn't it, time was everyone would be boasting of their popularity! "Love anything that involves cheques." Wiley isn't a great MC, but he's pretty entertaining. J2K who produced this something like his endorsed prodigy.

Durrty Doogz: Hold me Down
Doogz on the other hand a thoroughbred MC, fascinating seductive delivery. "Daily I say a prayer or a psalm." Swerving into patois. The most ecstatic thing being the beautiful swooning voices in the background fully reminiscent of MBV Glider-era on a Turkish tip. What they doing here? Breakbeat sneaks in and roughs up the 8-bar stagger. Doogz pulls a funny face: "It's real." Another contender for tune of the year.

Wizzbit feat MC Riko: Popadomz
Any premature categorising of this scene ought to be kept on ice. After all here is Darkstep auteur Wizzbit of the Dumpvalve recordings stable and Riko of East Connection together on the same track. "We keep it gangsta and we keep it ends-ish......we keep it road-ish" Ends-ish? Was that in the Heronbone Glossary? Road-ish? That certainly beats saying "street" all the time. Some dead Sterns-ish chinese mandolin riff; yeah and lets not forget (winces) original samurai Rupert Parkes. Wizzbit's trademark modulating "Jamhot" synth that little bit higher in the mix than the chat, so you knows whose in charge. Volume wars.

Ity: Wait a minute (Sticky Remix)
Once again signalling currents through the grime triangle. Sticky continuing to try and forge a detente between slinky 2-step which dem girls like and MC Garage. Upfront Wookie-style organ riff, staccato vocals singjay chorus but long love-rap too. Cool bitmapped bassline, flamenco-ish guitar like those all over the current crop of Ragga. A bit too wet, but still nice.

Wiley: Ground Zero
Not much I'd want to add. Thought Mark used it exquisitely and appositely as a spring board for talking bout Threads (not seen that). Sonic antecedents P.I.L's Metal Box (yeah and REALLY this time) also, and there's no getting away from it, Basic Channel. Enough depth and fatness to separate it from the too-shiny Darkstep riddims. Haven't heard any MCs on it yet, though there's enough sonic detail for it to sustain interest on it's own.

Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fashion.

My lovely wife was feeling blue, so I took her shopping. I love showing y'all what a nice romantic dude I am. I've a new theory that (in spite of the creeps, you know who you are!) the internet is full of love. All those beautiful isolated people like yourselves too genuine to be mashed up by Babylon have fled here to practise the fine art of being sensitive, helpful and generous.

She has expensive tastes my missus, but she doesn't really indulge them terribly often. Going clothes shopping with her is awesome, suddenly I'm thrust out of the dingy basements I frequent in search of vinyl blinking into the neon glare. As it stands today the "youf" fashion industry is divided into two halves. On the one hand you have clothes which are influenced by Hip-Hop. These are easy to spot by their unisex nature, their simple colours, "practical materials" and by staple items like T-shirts, hoods, jeans and trainers, also by the abundance of apes (groan) and wild-style graphics.

On the other hand you have Electroclash clothes. Slightly more upmarket, or pitched as "slumming", slashed garments (holes everywhere in fact), lots of black material, neon highlights, touches of chrome and silver, flowing diaphonous silk, punk style stencilling, items such as long dresses, high-heels, wierd furry open-topped boots, decorated denim and everywhere reflective sunglasses and the whiff of cocaine.

Really it's a clear as daylight the divide. On the one hand Hip-Hop. On the other Electroclash. It caused me to think of the way in which what becomes style is first felt as a sonic idea. The dematerialised weirdos who lurk at the boundaries of this dimension pick up cosmonic echoes and transmit them into the first wave of solidifaction.....sound. Then that sonic impact causes ripples to radiate outward, first into the cohort of sounds which follow it, echoing the original's patterns, often unsure as to it's meaning, but wide-awake to it's sensations. Rippling from the domain of sonics into the word, then on to more substantiated matter. Til, ha ha, fashion picks up the baton. It's too easy to scoff here really. It's a hell of a alot harder to manifest a clothing range than it is to make a 1,000 white labels. Isn't Wiley working on his own clothing range? I was wondering how it'd look, probably devolved Wu-Wear of course, but why not reclaimed charity shop clothes hewed into bizarre forms?

Fashion always runs about 5 years behind the latest sonics. Take the new branch of Voyage in London. Voyage was for a few years THE clothing shop in London. Run like an exclusive club Madonna was famously refused entry, Naomi Campbell too. Their clothes used to be a Lenny Kravitz-meets-Victoriana vision of South-East Island frills. Always preposterously over-tailored. They usually had a naff Ambient 4th World CD playing, or Jimi Hendrix. The shops I visited today with the Mrs had either Hip-Hop on the deck or like Vivienne Westwood and the new Voyage shop, Electroclash. Yeah that's right Voyage has done an about turn! I always thought the last shop was evidence of Ambient House lapping on the shore six years late, and now they've gone Electropunk. Bankrupted in the meantime, jeez how symbolic is that!

Voyage's look trickled down into the mainstream. All those frilly things girls were buying in Top Shop and Monsoon, that was (via Voyage) the distant echo of post-rave utopianism. While they couldn't claim to have invented the Electroclash look, just a reassemblage of an imagined notion of what dystopian punk electro chic might have looked like (working their imagination harder than the music scene in many cases), like Donna Karan, Versaci and Vivienne Westwood Voyage have capitalised on it, produced it to mirror the music.

We got her some nice boots.

Surgeon at Werk.

Just about to recommend this hot mix, but it seems the site is down. Hang in there!

Extended Solo.

So much great new stuff!

Bass innit.

Fantastic Wiley Interview by Martin Clark at Hyperdub
I especially liked Wiley talking frankly about being transformed by Dizzy: "I wasn’t converted to an artist, that’s one thing. And I was just an MC. Listening to him made me convert to an artist, it made me open up my mind that it’s not just about garage. It’s music, just make music. Before that I didn’t have it in me, but I got energy from him." That seems to be the crucial thing about the axis around Roll Deep and it's influenced Grime too, there is a creative agenda. The problem with the "Ardkore continuum" is that the tradition is so lateral that it's easy for folk to just notch up another mark on the stick, to contribute without using their own mind, to float on the collective imagination. It's not like he's saying categorically that he doesn't belong to Grime, just that he's working on his own thing. Nice to see Wiley check Crazy Titch, his recent tune "I Can C U, U can C Me" on Aftershock, that was indeed a creative track. And yes, down at Sterns checking the latest Oriental releases!

Interesting Lemon D Interview by Mickey Toughlove.
A behind the scenes snapshot of Lemon D's and Dillanja's antics with the Big Bad Bass sound-system. Quite alot of Industry talk here. These boyz be working hard. I thought that their move into the sound-system territory was mighty brave and about the most avant thing conceivable in the static drum and bass arena, as if to acknowledge the music had settled down in the way Roots Reggae did. When you visit Abashanti or witness the Jah Shaka "sound" you're not expecting novelty and flashy thrills (back to Jess's piece here), but an assertion of fundamentals, an acknowledgment (akin to going to church) that in the end everything remains the same. It's a proud timeless refection and while not the way I prefer to digest culture, can be moving and powerful.

Stadium Rap.

Just got a stereo in my car. Everytime I get a stereo it gets teefed. I've had four stolen. Omar my friend and neighbour, who has a choice crack habit that cost him his marriage, smokes fags by his window at night. There's a big pile of ends there in the morning. Omar warns off kids from the motor. He IS my mate Omar. I don't think it bothers him that Sandra moved out. Sandra's last kid looked suspiciously unlike Omar. When I listen to the radio I tend to skip relentlessly from one station to the next. Most be pants.

I'm feeling the stadium rap at the moment. Three tracks have blown me away. Spizzazzz. Well lets face it E-crunk probably got a pillow call from Ludacris telling him bout these releases sometime mid-June. That's not to say these are Spizzazzz endorsed tracks, I haven't been taking notes recently (ha ha). These tunes probably be so old Mr Marcello "Heart FM" Carlin is down wid dem too. Me and Marcello at the labour club, Marcello says to me "What's that smell old fellow?", "Oh crikey I'm terribly sorry Carlin my bladder has just given way again." Carlin gets the Bacardi in. Barman tells him they don't serve Albanian refugees. Carlin beating chest, "Don't you fucking know who I am young man" peeling a vaste pile of paper tied together with twine from his leather satchel pounding the counter with it. Rod Stewart on the jukebox. I start singing "Oh nestle me into your bosom."

Fatman Scoop's "Be Faithful". Love this tune. Love its incredible video. That's what I call animation! Love the way his eyes appear dead. And a very apposite render of the sonic too, track dominated by that disembodied voice. Shouty voice be 2 miles from twangy backdrop; Fatman built of a head, sneakers and hands. Kids like it. Grannys like it (probably not my Granny). I was so surprised when I found it was number one! I saw Fatman Scoop on Top of the Pops and he was priceless. Near the end of the performance peeling off his shirt. Jesus he really IS fat! He couldn't give a toss. I don't care if everyone hates I think it's brilliant. This and the Fast Food Rockers (I know all the moves, get me drunk!)

Ludacris's "Stand Up" is by far and away the best thing he's done since "Southern Hospitality." There's a similarity between the flow of them both. Darn this rolls. I was amazed at how much of this stuff gets played on Radio One. Never really listened to it before. Heard Scott Mills' show. He's a pretty good selecta. Quite a buttoned-down subdued presence, very English (we like) makes a welcome contrast to the tiresome Chris Moyles. What is the attraction of this man? He's a witless slug. I heard a brace of nice tracks on Mills' show. At last got to hear Missy's (frankly shite) "Pass the Dutchie" and the rubbish Outkast tune. Outkast, in my humble opinion are useless. "Elevators" was brilliant, forget the rest.

Also digging Obie Trice's "Got some teeth" brilliant spongey zinging production. Pity poor Eminem and Dre though. Here's another great single which will soon spawn a stillborn career. 50 cent is a lifeless turd isn't he? They capitalised on his Frankenstineity on "In Da Club" though now it's clearly a problem, such a berk in the PIMP video. I saw Obie on MTV's TRL, and (though I love this) he had the charisma of an unemployable freelance animator.

Let's see if Brian Eno Googles his own name.

Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno. Brian Eno.