This was a last half hour in early 2005, we’d traditionally save selections like this for the last slot, material that was a bit more esoteric and unusual, something to wind down with rather than kick off the show and risk people turning off. It’s a game of two halves but both are played for laughs with the former being country cover versions of hip hop classics and the latter being George Bush cut ups, mainly focused on the War in Iraq.

Ricky V Valentine’s ‘Ghetto Classics’ (split into two halves here) first appeared on the Souvenirs EP via the Leeds-based C Side Trax label and is – as far as I know – the only thing released under that name by whoever was behind it. It’s a brilliantly observed take off of Grandmaster Flash, NWA, Outcaste and Jay Z and more of a skit than a song. Nina Gordon was in mid 90’s band Veruca Salt, an indie/grungy pop band who the UK press loved for a minute which is why it’s so odd to hear her cover NWA in such a delicate way, brilliantly absurd. I probably got it from the internet but it turned up on what looks like a bootleg 45 years later in 2010 with a Richard Cheese cover on the flip which makes an appearance next with his take on Snoop Dogg’s ‘Gin & Juice’.

Through the power of Discogs I’ve finally discovered who did the cover of ‘Boyz In (N) The Hood’ – it was alt rock band Dynamite Hack (no, me neither) – there’s a cheesy frat boy golfing video on YouTube to go with it too. Then we have tales from Boris ‘the hip hop roadie’ from Pitman’s second LP, according to Boris he was the catalyst for most of hip hop’s founding moments. No idea where I found the ‘Ace of Spades’ cover (probably online, it was the file-sharing 00’s) but the vocal is a dead ringer for Lemmy or they found the multi-tracks somewhere.

Now comes the George Bush half of the set with the bizarre George Bush Singers shadowing lines cut from Bush speeches. This comes from a whole album entitled ‘Songs In The Key of W’ which I’m now keen to hear and has sent me down a YouTube/Discogs wormhole. Big City Orchestra have been making cut ups in the tradition of Negativland for decades and they have a special take on George, the origin of which I’ve no idea as their discography is so huge. After another blast of the GWB Singers we finish with ‘Bushwhacked 2’ – a collaboration by Chris Morris and Osymyso released on Warp records with this being a remix by Jonathan Whitehead. Dubya was the subject of many cut ups over the years with his speeches an easy target for re-editing, these weren’t the first or the last to be featured on Solid Steel.

PS: As you can see my KLF mix was also archived on this disc although it wasn’t broadcast on this show, to hear it you can go here https://www.mixcloud.com/strictlykev/the-sound-of-music/

Track list:
Ricky V Valentine – Ghetto Classics Pt.1
Nina Gordon – Straight Outta Compton
Richard Cheese – Gin & Juice
Ricky V Valentine – Ghetto Classics Pt.2
Dynamite Hack – Boyz In the Hood
Pitman – Boris
Twistin Tarantulas – Ace Of Spades
The George W. Bush Singers – 4,000 Hours
Big City Orchestra – F The Leader
The George W. Bush Singers – War in Iraq
10NN – Bushwhacked 2 (Gim Ponavesspa conclusion)

This is a silly one, a short collection of mostly comedy, cover versions or mash up tracks that was probably a last half hour in early February of 2003. The CD says ‘Satan’ but the PRS sheet states, ‘Satanic Messages in Rock pt 492’. Opening with Kenny Everett who loved his Jean-Jacques Perry as a backing track, we slide quickly into a laid back Stereolab remix of The Polyphonic Spree’s ‘Soldier Girl’. By this point, the internet was yielding all sorts of audio treats via numerous illegal file sharing sites and the preacher talking about Satanic messages in rock music is spoken word gold and peppered throughout the mix. Including Missy Elliot’s ‘Work It’ chorus which reverses itself was a nice touch. The Queen classic ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ was mentioned so it made sense to include it and showcase exactly what the preacher was talking about, I’ll let you discover it for yourself.

I’ve no idea where ‘I’m A Mormon’ came from but I thought it was funny, apologies to all Mormons out there. Now into a couple of ska cover version, Mancini’s peerless ‘A Shot In The Dark’ from the Pink Panther and ‘Caravan’, always go down well at parties. The Amelie theme song set to an electronic background was probably found on the web, I loved the film so this connected. More preaching over the end of it in the form of a ludicrous list of performers and films that were deemed ‘satanic’ by the church in the 80’s. Back to the silliness and the Perry & Kingsley, this time paired with the ‘Thong Song’ by Frenchbloke & Son, two of the funniest practitioners of the mash up scene and friends to this day. Moog Country meets Missy next with more backwards lyrics and then into Andy Votel’s cover of the ‘Chatanaga Choo Choo’ from the Finders Keepers Jukebox series of 45s.

We play out with an excerpt from the DJs On Strike Solid Steel mix which was so crazy it was vetoed by the powers that be and self-released on CD by the group as ‘Too Hot For Solid Steel’. I excerpted a couple of bits so that you get the gist and added Kenny in for the final few bars.

Tracklist:

Kenny Everett – Hello/Moog theme
Polyphonic Spree – Soldier Girl (Stereolab remix)
Missy Elliot – Work It
Queen – Another One Bites the Dust
Janine Brady & the Brite Singers – I’m a Mormon
Roland Alphonso – A Shot In The Dark (Take 1)
Roland Alphonso – Ska-ra-van (Take 2)
Unknown – Amelie On Ice
Frenchbloke & Son – Unidentified Flying Thong
Dsico – This Is Missy Country
Andy Votel – Chatanaga Choo Choo
DJs On Strike – Too Hot For Solid Steel (excerpt)

21 years ago this week I rounded up a bunch of current hip hop and presented the first half of a Solid Steel show that also included mixes from Four Tet and DK. The tracks largely fall into two camps, the serious, ‘backpacker’ kind, pushing things forward like the Anticon crew or the good time party kind with an eye of the 90s like the Quannum and Ugly Duckling camps. Samples are still a thing and the music is all the better for it with a mix of US and European artists. A lot of this has aged very well and I had a great trip down memory lane listening back. After the usual Solid Steel intro there’s a snatch of a US news report about the new phenomenon of hip hop where the newscaster actually raps along with a snatch of Beat Street Breakdown, probably found online.

Bristol’s Aspects open the show proper with a spoken word cut up track straight out of the Cut Chemist mould, possibly sampling the Columbia School Of Broadcasting set of ‘How To Be A DJ’ albums. Porn Theatre Ushers came out strong with ‘Me & Him’ in the late 90s and ‘Blah Blah Blah’ is taken from the follow up, Sloppy Seconds. They only released one album in 2004 which I’ve still not heard. PUTS were mining that classic 90s Primo/Pete Rock production style and always had solid tracks on their releases. DJ Vadim remixes Supersoul who released a bunch of singles and a couple of LPs over a ten year period and there’s another snatch of the vintage news report on hip hop.

The A-Trak scratch fest is worth hearing if only to catch DMC’s Tony Prince getting his name wrong from the time he won the Disco Mix Club finals when he was still 15. Def Tex were always underrated IMO, soulful production and decent lyrics, self-releasing before signing to Ninja-affiliated Son Records whose back catalogue is full of gems. It’s party time with the next three tunes kicking up the funk factor with The Nextmen remixing Rae & Christian, Cut Chemist all over Ugly Duckling and Pablo from the Psychonauts giving Lyrics Born and the Poets of Rhythm a bit of turntable grit. This track is a contender for the last great record on MoWax. More Aspects and Def Tex before a lesser known DJ Shadow compilation track makes an appearance.

Guru from Gang Starr’s remix sees him in Jazzmatazz mode of the M, M&W track and then we come to one of my fave Def Tex tracks, ‘Sing Sad Songs’. Produced by Francis Gooding (always asleep by midnight at parties) and Liam Large (he painted my windows once you know) under the name the Large Lefties on a one-off 7” that can criminally still be had for pennies. This is the instrumental part 2 with a scratched story over it but the Def Tex-rapped A side is great too. ‘Basmentized Soul’ is taken from Mr Flash’s debut 7”, ‘Le Voyage Fantastique’ and predates his move to Ed Banger by a couple of years. Changing things up a bit we get a Timmy Thomas cut from his debut LP before Canadian Kunga 219 slips into the mix. His sole album is quite a gem with people like Sixtoo, Buck 65, DJ Moves, Sole and more contributing production or rhymes and has since received a vinyl pressing some years back which you can still find copies of on Bandcamp. ‘Seasus’ brilliantly samples one of my favourite George Duke tracks, ‘North Beach’ so it made sense to finish the set with that.

Track list:
Coldcut – Solid Steel intro
Unknown – 80s Hip Hop News intro
Aspects – Correct English
Porn Theatre Ushers – Blah Blah Blah
People Under The Stairs – Underground Run
Supersoul – Sleepwalker (DJ Vadim remix)
A-Trak – Umbilical Chord
Def Tex – Hey Tune In
Rae & Christian feat. The Pharcyde – It Ain’t Nothing Like (Nextmen remix)
Ugly Duckling – Eye on the Gold Chain (Cut Chemist remix)
Quannum/Lyrics Born & The Poets of Rhythm – I Changed My Mind (Pablo mix)
Aspects – Bristol Fingers
Def Tex – Into The Future
DJ Shadow – Untitled Heavy beat 1&2
Medeski, Martin & Wood – Whatever Happened to Gus (Guru remix)
Def Tex – Sing Sad Songs Pt 2
Mr Flash feat. Mike Ladd – Basmentized Soul
Timmy Thomas – Cold Cold People
Kunga 219 – Seasus
George Duke – North Beach

As James Brown passed away on Christmas Day 2006 I thought it would an idea to do a tribute, but rather than the obvious list of classics we’ve all heard a thousand times, play cover versions, spoken word that referenced him and DJ re-edits for an alternate look at the Godfather of Soul.

Franklin Ajaye opens with the title track from his comedy LP ‘Don’t Smoke Dope, Fry Your Hair’, riffing off JB’s quirks, he’d have had a field day with James’ later shenanigans. Enoch Light comes with a funky (for him) cover of ‘Hot Pants’ from The Brass Menagerie 1973. An easy cover of ‘Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag’ is taken from side 2 of Bobby & Betty Go To The Moon, a similar feat is performed on the uncredited Happy Monsters LP of children’s songs where they tackle the same track under the title, ‘Clap Your Tentacles’. Derek & Clive’s ‘Bo Duddley’ take off owes more to Mr Dynamite than Mr Diddley, analysing afro-American speech in the most British of ways. DJ Harvey’s re-edit of Dick Hyman’s easy take on ‘Give It Up Or Turn It Loose’ extends the original to nearly nine minutes. The Dick version is from ‘The Age of Electronicus’ LP but this re-edit turned up on a 12” on Black Cock records in the late 90’s.

I’ve no idea where the reggae cover of Hot Pants comes from, quite possibly cribbed from online somewhere but Nicky Thomas’ version of Soul Power was featured on the ‘Funky Kingston 2 – Reggae Dance Floor Grooves’ compilation in 2005. I’m sure if James was alive today he’d have capitalised on the energy crisis by remaking this as ‘Solar Power’… (I’ll get me coat). Kenny & the Beach Boys’ ‘Big Payback’ was bootlegged on a 45 in 2004 but I’ve no memory of having a copy, Kenny is a dead ringer for James but the band are no relation to Brian Wilson’s boys. The same Orchestra Werner Muller LP that yielded ‘Get Up I Feel Like Being A Sex Machine’ was pillaged for not one but two tracks by Bentley Rhythm Ace – a fairly easy album to come by entitled ‘The Strip Goes On’. Salaam Remi’s 40th Anniversary megamix of the hardest working man in show business turned up on a promo 12” in the late 90’s which can still be had for cheap on Discogs.

*Note: this mix was on the same Cdr that last week’s XFM Superchunk mix came from

Track list:
Franklyn Ajaye – Don’t Smoke Dope, Fry Your Hair
Enoch Light & the Light Brigade – Hot Pants
Bobby & Betty – Bobby & Betty Go To The Moon Pt 2
Derek & Clive – Bo Duddley
Dick Hyman – Give it Up Or Turn it Loose (DJ Harvey edit)
Unknown – Hot Pants
Nicky Thomas – Soul Power
Kenny & the Beach Boys – Big Payback
Orchestra Werner Muller – Get Up I Feel Like Being A Sex Machine
Salaam Remi – James Brown 40th Anniversary mix

The Remix was Eddy Temple-Morris’ Friday night radio show on the London-based XFM station. Eddy did the show for 15 years, featuring a 30 minute ‘Superchunk’ guest mix each week and asked DK and I to do one after the release of our second Solid Steel mix, ‘Now, Listen Again’. The first half is a live recreation of the beginning of the mix, as we did it on the tour upon the mix’s release but then it takes off and goes somewhere else using elements that I would subsequently put into my DJ sets.

If I remember correctly this was the first time I put ‘The Number Song’ with ‘Dark Lady’, a mix that was always a winner on the floor. Here it’s a bit wobbly in places but the vibe is there. As The Remix was the radio show that popularised the mash up genre I thought we should end the set with one and the uncredited mix of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Diana Ross is nothing short of inspired. By 2007 the mash up craze was well and truly old hat but the odd one would pop up and hit the spot and this one does it for me. If anyone knows who did it then please let me know.

There’s not much more to say on this one, if you saw DK and I do one of our 4 deck sets at any point around 2007-2009 then you probably heard a version of most of this, minus the final bootleg. Great times, we toured the 4 deck mix all over the world for around a year or more and then spent a good part of 2008 learning how to edit video, building an AV version. We used the Videocrash event in London that September to launch the set for the first time and I’m pretty sure we were the first 4 deck AV DJs using Serato’s brand new VSL software of which we had a beta version. We hoped we’d repeat the world tour all over again with a video show in tow but the recession of late 2008 put paid to that among other things.

DJ Food & DK – Solid Steel Intro
MVP – Mic Check 1,2
Z Trip – Listen to the DJ
Timbaland feat. Magoo & Missy Elliot – Cop That Shit
Eric B & Rakim – I Know You Got Soul (acappella)
The Human League – Being Boiled
Area Code 615 – Stone Fox Chase
Cut Chemist – A Peek In Time
Jane’s Addiction – Been Caught Stealing
DJ Shadow – The Number Song (Cut Chemist remix)
X Clan – Rockin’ It (acappella)
DJ Food – Dark Lady
Q Tip – Breath & Stop (acappella)
Pepe Deluxe – Salami Fever
The Roots – Here I Come
FGTH /Diana Ross – Relax, I’m Coming (Bootleg)

An eclectic mixed bag with no real theme or consistent musical style, more a general round up of tracks from around that time, 17 years ago this week. We had a competition via the Ninja Tune forum to get people to remix the Solid Steel theme jingle and entries poured in over several months leaving us with bags of versions to use at will. I tried to find ones that would fit the mood of each set’s opening track so that most got an airing. Someone called Zoleede kicks off mix in fine style, no idea who this was the alias of but it reflects the show perfectly.

Madlib remixes The Bees in fine fast funk style – was this track in a film at the time (Tarantino?). The Osmonds kick out the jams with their ‘Hold Her Tight’, I maintain that the Osmonds were a decent outfit when they rocked out with their Moog and got their Led Zep funk on, pretty sure there’s live versions of this with full horn section somewhere on YouTube. It’d be a short mix but there’s definitely an Osmonds selector to be made of their finest moments.

Downtempo psych from Koushik on Stones Throw, he was so good and then disappeared. M83 turn in a beautiful electronic epic and Max & Harvey (actually Paul Frankland aka Journeyman and Mark Butt of Dead Sea Sound) grace us with ’Sleep’. There was supposed to be a Max & Harvey album at one point, it was on the Ninja Tune release schedule but never materialised. Looking on Discogs it seems there was a flurry of releases around 2010-2012 on Woob’s Big Amoeba Sounds label including the 2 track 10” that Ninja released this on and an archival EP.

The Shortwave Set and Viva Voce were both things I was either sent or found secondhand and took a chance on because they looked interesting. I think sometimes promotional companies would send me oddities that didn’t easily fit into a genre because they thought I’d be more likely to play them on the show. I’m usually the guy who rates the last experimental track on the B side over the commercial lead on the A. I’m not sure they’ve stood the test of time tbh – it’s quite winsome folk stuff when viewed with a bit of hindsight although ‘Is It Any Wonder’ is nice. Busdriver, one of the most gymnastic of MCs at that point, excels on ‘Unemployed Black Astronaut’, in an alternate universe this should have been a huge pop hit, great hook in the chorus.

Tom Tyler is another one who’s dropped off the radar after a couple of albums and singles on DC around 2000, he later morphed into Vincent Markowski for a couple of singles though. The second Viva Voce track here is the one I love, part of a 4 track double 7” I think, big drums and vocal harmonies, bit of mellotron in there too, job done. Really odd mix into Kidda, like a dial turn into another station on beat, it’s a bit of a stylistic switch, I quite like the simplicity of it though. We’re into more beat-y sample territory now but even Divine Sounds sticks out like a sore thumb, not sure why this is in here, maybe I finally scored an original 12” or something. A classic track which DJ Cheese used to cut to pieces in his DMC sets with two copies and of course DJ Shadow had a line out of too. Lemon Jelly changes the tone of it somewhat from NYC street rap to English countryside. I have no recollection of the Nylon Rhythm Machine Black Grass mix but it’s a decent hip hop history cut. We round things out with Four Tet’s ‘Smile Around The Face’, I love the looseness of it, drums samples flamming all over the place.

Track list:
Zoleede – Solid Steel intro
The Bees – Chicken Payback (Madlib remix)
The Osmonds – Hold Her Tight
Koushik – Pretty Soon
m83 – Don’t Save Us From The Flames (Boom Bip remix)
Max & Harvey – Sleep
The Shortwave Set – In Your Debt
Viva Voce – The Tiger And How We Tamed It
The Shortwave Set – Is It Any Wonder?
Busdriver – Unemployed Black Astronaut
Tom Tyler – Forward Going Backward
Viva Voce – One In Every Crowd
Kidda – All I Need
Divine Sounds – Do Or Die Bedsty
Lemon Jelly – Baby Battle Scratch
Nylon Rhythm Machine – White Wind (Black Grass remix)
Four Tet – Smile Around The Face

The B side to last week’s A – apparently made over two sessions and you can certainly hear at least two tape edits during the set so maybe I was getting more experimental or maybe I made some big mistakes. This one definitely has three decks involved because of some fast transitions and the flange pedal is still in effect. Warning, there’s some NSFW language in this one as well as a few comedy riffs that definitely wouldn’t get a pass these days.

Classic mixtape starter skit with radio dialling from Ice Cube’s debut LP – straight RnB, straight RnB, straight… RnB. More JBs with a mystery breakbeat I can’t identify into the Ultimatum Jungle Beats from the free 12” with the UK edition of the Straight Out The Jungle LP. Funkdoobiest porno skit into the very un-PC Blowfly ode to anal sex. This album was a 10p find at a Surrey car boot in the late 80s, the cover showing a topless lady and a costumed Blowfly with very few other details, I had no idea what it was but thought I should investigate. As with all Blowfly records, funk and soul classics of the day are covered with filthy lyrics and no doubt no royalties paid.

The first of four Ballistic Brothers Vs The Eccentric Afros appearances – this was Rocky & Diesel with Ashley Beedle, Dave Hill and Uschi Classen, loads of samples, loads of fun. Justin Warfield made the first psychedelic hip hop record, then sadly changed his style but My Field trip To Planet 9 is a classic in a small genre within hip hop. More breaks, a Terminator X skit and then Coldcut’s mighty ‘The Music Maker’ into Tackhead featuring DJ Cheese. During this section I attempt some scratching which not only sounds like the faders were bunged up with glue but also skips several times.

Ballistic battle with Dust Brothers over several tracks until it all ends with an orchestral flourish and Andrew Dice Clay’s most famous nursery rhyme routine, not for the children. Dice was a comedian on Def Jam (and later Def American) and his shtick was similar to Eddie Murphy’s at the time, un-PC and full of profanity. His signature was a triumphant ‘ooooh!’ after a punchline which was later sampled as the hook to EMF’s ‘Unbelievable’. I think I was trying to be Alex Paterson here, playing odd spoken word over classical music, complete opposites that would raise an eyebrow or a smile.

Tracklist:
Ice Cube – Turn Off The Radio
Jungle Brothers – Jimbrowski
Mystery breakbeat 1
Jungle Brothers – Jungle Beats
Funkdoobiest – The Porno King
Blowfly – Spread Your Cheeks
Ballistic Brothers Vs The Eccentric Afros – Grovers Return
Justin Warfield – Cool Like The Blues
Mystery breakbeat 2
Ballistic Brothers Vs The Eccentric Afros – Save The Children
Terminator X – Juvenile Delinquintz
Coldcut – The Music Maker
Tackhead – Mind At The End Of The Tether
Ballistic Brothers Vs The Eccentric Afros – Anti-Gun Movement
The Dust Brothers – Chemical Beats
Ballistic Brothers Vs The Eccentric Afros – Blacker
Mystery breakbeat 3
The Dust Brothers – One Too Many Mornings
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra – An Der Schonen Blauen Donau
Andrew Dice Clay – Mother Goose
Derek & Clive – Just Another One Of Those Songs

I’ve been looking back to the early 90s a lot recently, partly because of the passing of my old friend Chantal Passamonte, partly with the anniversary of the Beastie Boys’ Check Your Head this week. Nostalgia can be a comfort at times, not only for the times the songs represent but also for a time when your limited access to media meant you digested things more fully rather than the skim-reading/watching/listening it’s so easy to indulge in with the access we have today. After a run through of Check Your Head (still peerless and possibly their pinnacle) I was hungry for more of the same and dug back to a small caché of personal mix tapes made in the early 90s that weren’t broadcast.

These were made in my bedroom in the house I shared with Chantal, Mario and David who formed the Openmind/Telepathic Fish collective at the time. I would make tapes live and dub copies for my friends so only a handful of people have heard these mixes. By this time I had two Technics, a Phonic mixer and an old guitar flange pedal that I’d hook up and use occasionally (my mixer didn’t actually have an FX send and return so I’ve no idea how this actually worked). It’s as rough as you like with some terrible scratching in places but all one take to oversaturated cassette. I’ve rebalanced, de-clicked and levelled things out just to make for a more even listen but here is the first That’s My Boy! mix (there were three in total), a name given by David Vallade.

A quick run through of the tracks: My purile sense of humour still loves the absurdity of Derek & Clive and they crop up on both sides of the tape. Sandoz = Richard H. Kirk at his finest (RIP). Early Dust/Chemical Brothers remix action for The Sandals, loved The Ballistic Brothers vs The Eccentric Afros 12”s, so many great tracks, early trip hop that doesn’t get the props. Manic tempo switch with a snatch of Terminator X’s first LP where the Afros sampled the little sine wave sample from. A needle skipping start to X-rated Schoolly D, gangster before most others, uptempo Cypress Hill before they got obsessed by smoking. Constant record box staple – the Ultimatum (Stereo MCs) beats megamix of the JBs works well into The Orb, then Coldcut’s classic B&P – making the connection to the life-changing Coldcut meets the Orb mix set.

A cringeworthy car crash out of ‘Beats & Pieces’ into Busy Bee freestyle from the Wildstyle soundtrack, never try to beat mix another DJ cutting up two copies of a record. Cypress-sampling Ballistics into Beasties into Depth Charge classic before an A-Team intro insert (?). The Dub of The Sandals’ ‘Nothing’ got some serious play in our house around this time. Transglobal Underground’s ‘Temple Head’ sounds like some kind of cousin to The Primal’s ‘Loaded’ to me, loved this brief era of downtempo piano-led euphoria. The ending with The Prisoner Theme overlaid with more Derek & Clive I’d completely forgotten but still makes me laugh.

Thanks so much to everyone old and new for tuning in for over 100 uploads now, it’s really appreciated and gives me a motive to digitise my archive each week. Side B next week…

Tracklist:
Derek & Clive – Blind
Sandoz – White Darkness
The Sandals – Feet (Dust Brothers remix)
Ballistic Brothers Vs The Eccentric Afro’s – Valley of The Afro Temple (on 45)
Terminator X – Vendetta… The Big Getback
Ballistic Brothers Vs The Eccentric Afro’s – Valley of The Afro Temple (on 33)
Schoolly D – Saturday Night (X-Rated)
Cypress Hill – Light Another
Jungle Brothers – Ultimatum Ultramix
The Orb – Perpetual Dawn
Coldcut – Beats & Pieces
Busy Bee & DJ AJ – At the Amphitheatre
Ballistic Brothers Vs The Eccentric Afro’s – And It Goes Like This
Beastie Boys – 33% God
Depth Charge – Depth Charge (Death Drum version)
The A-Team TV show intro
The Sandals – Nothing (Dub)
Transglobal Underground – Temple Head (Pacific Mix – Airwaves)
Lynne Hamilton – On the Inside (Prisoner Theme)
Derek & Clive – Coughin’ Contest

22 years ago this week, just as the ‘Kaleidoscope’ album was released, I was invited onto Mary Anne Hobbs’ Breezeblock show on Radio 1 to record a live mix in the studio. I think this was three turntables and an FX pedal, I can’t quite remember. The set is a few Food bits from the album and contemporary tracks from around the time, peppered with spoken word and the odd jazz piece.

My track, ‘Nocturne’ obviously features elements of Dudley Moore’s ‘The Millionaire’ from the Bedazzled soundtrack so I dropped in a snatch of that just to ram the point home. Position Normal were a really interesting outfit who made sample-heavy cut and paste pieces and were later dubbed ‘the Godfathers of Hauntology’ by Simon Reynolds in typically grandiose fashion. Two Banks of Four were a collective featuring Galliano’s Rob Gallagher and ‘Skylines Over Rooftops’ is from their debut album. Scratched over the top is the flute of Yussef Lateef’s beautiful ‘Lowland Lullaby’, something I would regularly play about with in DJ sets at the time.

PC’s Hustler’s Convention-sampling ‘Break’ is lightened up by a Dr Rockit’ track which completely escapes me now, I’ve looked for it everywhere in my collection but can’t find it. I think it was on Clear but don’t quote me, if anyone knows… A snatch of Andy Votel and Cherrystones leads into The Third Wave, a quintet of teenage girls who made an album with George Duke on MPS with several covers including Herbie Hancock and The Beatles. This was reissued in 1999 by Crippled Dick Hot Wax! hence it’s appearance here. They overlap into ‘The Sky At Night’ where there may be some tuning issues and then out into the epic finale – ‘Minitoka’ into Bent’s ‘Invisible Pedestrian’ laced with the acappella of Jelisha’s ‘Friendly Pressure’ – all live on three turntables. A brief food-related outro concludes and what you can’t hear here is Mary Anne bellowing “ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE!” or some such descriptive, completely destroying the ambience I’d just spent 30 minutes building.

PS: I was actually sent a CDr copy of this by Wise Buddah, the promo company that dealt with the show, after the set, complete with stickered, embossed sleeve.

Tracklist:
Now Is The Time For Food radio ad intro
DJ Food – Nocturne
Dudley Moore – The Millionaire
DJ Food – Nocturne
Position Normal – Nostrils and Eyes
Two Banks of Four – Skylines Over Rooftops
Yussef Lateef – Lowland Lullabye
DJ Food – Break
Dr Rockit – unknown
Andy Votel & Cherrystones – A Patterns Emerges
The Third Wave – Eleanor Rigby
DJ Food – The Sky At Night
DJ Food – Minitoka
Jelisha – Friendly Pressure (acappella)
Bent – Invisible Pedestrian
Eat Food outro

My section of a 2hr Solid Steel show from 1994 which clearly shows the transition from the ambient electronic scene into the early days of Mo Wax’s golden period. Global Communication, Future Sound of London, System 7 and Autechre holding the fort for the former and DJ Shadow, RSW, UNKLE and another unknown track at the end for the latter. Not much to say on this but it was a truly golden age, a combination of Matt, Jon, PC and I would troop up to KISS FM on a Friday evening and camp out in the smaller studio to pre-record the 2hr show live in one take, complete with ads. We rarely if ever that I can remember stopped or did a retake, there just wasn’t the option to edit back then, you got it warts and all, live radio. Matt refers to me as ‘Telepathic Kev’ at one point, a hang over from the Telepathic Fish nights we were doing together at the time.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this era this week with the news that my old friend Chantal Passamonte passed away. I was sharing a house with her at this time and things were starting to happen; radio, gigs, we were doing a fanzine about ambient music (Mind Food) and working in the Ambient Soho record shop. Ninja was yet to full take off but things were bubbling and she was doing what she did best, networking with people throughout the electronic scene and making things happen. RIP Chantal aka Mira Calix.

PS: This was from a file I was sent years ago, I forget from who now (sorry), it had been recorded from cassette but the tape was quite speeded up and everything was a bit fast and pitched up, especially noticeable on things like Matt’s voice. I’ve re-pitched the audio down to where I think it sounds normal again.

Track list:
Global Communication – 12:18
Future Sound of London – Lifeforms (excerpts)
System 7 – Gliding On Dutone Curves (Cascade Mix)
DJ Shadow – Lost & Found (S.F.L.)
Autechre – Teartear
Renegade Soundwave – Black Eye Boy
UNKLE – The Time Has Come
Unknown – Unknown

Did you spot the opening bars of the first track at the end of last week’s mix?
Neil Richardson’s ‘Approaching Menace’, better known to most as the theme to Mastermind, opens a dark and strange set that I made for the 4th of February Solid Steel show in 2002. I always thought the Mastermind theme would make a good mix with the theme to Jaws. Anyway, Tom Waits (for no man) and is up next with the only track I ever liked by him, the amazing ‘What’s He Building In There?’. I’ve no idea where or how I heard this but love it, genuinely weird. The Aranos & Nurse With Wound fits right in with the mood too, taken from a Brainwashed Recordings compilation free with The Wire magazine.

A very odd mix of Roots Manuva’s ‘Dreamy Days’ follows by Super Furry Animals, I think this was only on the CD single. More hip hop from DSP aka Dynamic Syncopation Productions, a re-christened for the second album, In The Red. ‘No Regrets’ closes out the album featuring Dell Donahue who doesn’t appear on any other release according to Discogs. Telectu – ‘Data No.2’ kicks off the Exploratory Music From Portugal compilation – again from The Wire, they always yielded something good. A rare track from Boards of Canada mixes out of it, ‘Red Moss’ from one of the Boc Maxima tape that had surfaced around this time – oh to have this in high quality.
The finale is quite something, I don’t want to spoil it but it veers so often into laugh out loud over-the-top earnest-ness that I had to check to see if it was a parody. Wink Martindale was an American disc jockey, presenter and game show host with one of those ultra wholesome voices like Ken Nordine or Rod McKuen. He made many spoken word records and this particular track was a B side in the early 80s, a poem written by Robert. N. Test, a pioneer in promoting organ and tissue donations. Someone has made a very tongue in cheek video for it here

Track list:
Neil Richardson – Approaching Menace
Tom Waits – What’s He Building In There?
Aranos & Nurse With Wound – Mary Jane (Marbles mix)
Roots Manuva – Dreamy Days (Super Furry Animals mix)
DSP – No Regrets
Telectu – Data No.2
Boards Of Canada – Red Moss
Wink Martindale – To Remember Me (The Bed Of Life)

Seeing as it was 20 years since Boards of Canada’s Geogaddi was released last week I thought I’d pull out a show from back in early Feb 2002 where I mixed up a pre-release copy of the album that Warp had given me a few days before release. As far as I know there weren’t any CD promos sent out to journalists, there was a listening party at the Union Chapel which I went to, and there was the blue vinyl ‘Alpha & Omega’ 12” but the first most of us heard of the album was when we bought it. Having connections with Warp I persuaded them to give me a copy a couple of days early so I could absorb it and get a mix down in time for the show and the results you hear are from just a few complete listens.

But first! Osymyso’s genre-defining ‘Intro-Inspection’ kicks off the show and I believe that this is an early version of Part One that he played on Eddy Temple-Morris and James Hyman’s show, The Remix on XFM. The only place to get this at this point was via a rip of the show on the web, probably from the Boom Selection website that served as a place to find all the latest mash ups. By this point Osy (aka Mark Nicholson), The Freelance Hellraiser and Jonny and Mike from Cartel Communique had started a monthly night in the basement of a newsagent just off Tottenham Court Road in London’s west end. Originally known as King of the Boots it soon morphed into Bastard (named after Bastard Pop, the name given to mash ups by the press) and I can honestly say that it was some of the most fun I ever had clubbing. Osy’s mix does exactly what it says on the tin, a selection of over 100 intros to famous songs mashed up into one long mega mix, inspired by watching the reactions to clubbers on hearing the first bars of each new song at a party. Reasoning that one track consisting of multiple intros would elicit prolonged ecstatic reactions in the crowd he set about compiling his magnum opus (that is, until we hear his fabled second album).

Coldcut and Steinski’s remix of Boom Boom Satellites’ Chuck D-featuring ‘Your Reality’s A Fantasy’ is full of hard-panning excitement, a total banger with multiple breaks and breakdowns at a breakneck speed. It’s a full on start to the show and rarely lets up for the first 13 minutes, making the Quantic Soul Orchestra seem quaint in comparison. Ramping things down another notch, Koushik’s fuzzed out ’Only Dreaming’ wanders into view before drifting into the aforementioned Boards of Canada mini mix for the next 19 minutes. I’ve not listed all the tracks in this as it will give Mixcloud’s tracklister a hernia and mean some people might not be able to hear it due to multiple artists in one set. Suffice to say I got at least ten in there as well as snippets of others and a little reminder of the debut album for the intro. This was all done from vinyl with an FX pedal and then edited and overlaid in Cubase, probably took the best part of a day to do just this section alone.

BoC tracks are notorious for using weird tunings and nearly everything they do is out of tune with everything else so very hard to mix without it sounding a bit discordant. I picked up on several backwards passages on the record and reversed them again to add into the mix – the devil is in the details as they say. There’s some very weird off beat panning going on in ‘Alpha & Omega’ where I had two copies playing a beat apart with the delay feeding one side and returning on the other so you get odd ping-ponging in the left and right channels – complete accident but sounds great. I love this album so much, it’s one of the greats and, although the debut is a classic, I can never decide between this and Tomorrow’s Harvest – both dark, dystopian records. Finding ways to condense the tracks without seeming to edit too heavily and then transitioning to new tempos was a challenge but because I wasn’t so au fait with it maybe that helped.

We’re bought back into the real world by Edan with ‘Just Listen’ from the ‘Lexoleum-tile 2’ EP on Lex Records, a fun cut up instrumental as only he can do. A brief telephone message from Ollie Teeba about what I cannot fathom introduces one of my favourite mash ups of the era – Jonny Kawasaki’s ‘My Child Is Bootylicious’. This terrifying vision of Destiny’s Child as if rendered by Aphex Twin post-‘Windowlicker’ and then pitched down to a slow grind was just one of the kinds of avenues the mash up could have gone down if there had been a few more tech-savvy producers putting two and two together. This is more in the Kid 606, Flashbulb vein of cut up; noisy, full of machine gun edits and stretching the subject matter to its very limits – all the more exciting for it too. I thought it appropriate to follow with Squarepusher’s latest promo, untitled at the time it emerged on the subsequent album as ‘Do You Know Squarepusher?’. Switching from 45rpm to 33 near the end takes the tempo down to a less manic level whereby 4 Hero gingerly entires the fray with beats in time but not exactly in the same pocket as Tom Jenkinson’s frantic cut ups. There’s a little of Jammin’s ‘Hold On’ to pad out the ending (Hold It Down into Hold On-geddit?) and then a snatch of next week’s mix at the very end…

Part 2 next week!

Track list:
Osymyso – Intro-Inspection (early version)
Boom Boom Satellites – Your Reality’s A Fantasy (Coldcut vs Steinski Going Under mix)
Quantic Soul Orchestra – Assassin (Part one)
Koushik – Only Dreaming
Boards Of Canada – Sometime In The Future – Geogaddi minimix
Edan – Just Listen
Johnny Kawasaki – My Child Is Bootylicious
Squarepusher – Do You Know Squarepusher?
4 Hero – Hold It Down (Bugz in the Attic remix)
Jammin – Hold On

Side B of an old tape from 1996, the A side of which was uploaded last week. Wishmountain aka Matthew Herbert‘s short ’Welcome’ crashes into the Coldcut jingle to start, opening his debut 12” on the Evolution label, ‘Radio’. The next track is from my old mate Mark Nicholson, Osymyso to some, from his second release, ‘Peter And The Wolf’. This is ‘Wolf’ and it was after I played this that we met at The Blue Note one night and a mutual appreciation society was formed. The stuttering track that follows it I have no idea of and Shazam doesn’t know either, anyone? I’d really like to know what this one is actually, the track back at the end identifies it as ‘The Outcast’ but I can’t find anything that fits that name. The Brotherhood’s ‘Mad Heads’ floats in with its refrain of The World’s Famous Supreme Team phone call – super tough UK hip hop with production by The Underdog.

Another mystery is the next track sampling Soul II Soul’s ‘Back To Life’ – the sounds American to me, going by the track run down near the end of the set it’s DJ Double S’s ‘Feel The Melody’ from the Hip Hop Madness EP, a cut and paste 12” of the time I vaguely remember having an oversized label. So many people think of the UK when they think of trip hop but it was happening over in the US too with labels like New Breed putting out all manner of blunted beats. Octagon Man ‘The Rimm’ is next, this is a bit of an aggro session, lots of distortion and heavy beats, I did like it hard and heavy back then, I think I scared Coldcut and PC a bit sometimes with my preference for the hard stuff.

I’m really not doing well on this track list, Mixcloud is going to be penalising me for having too many tracks by ‘unknown’ in this set. The slow burn acid track I’ve no idea, help me out people, Shazam has given me five different results for this generic roller. The fast breakbeat cut up that slides out of it is by Funky Monkey, ‘LA Riot’ and by a process of elimination I think this is the Channel Zero mix by Andy Bell of Ride / Oasis / GLOK fame no less, according to Discogs. Great stuff, so much has slid under the radar over the years.

There’s a very abrupt change of tempo as I slam into another track I actually know! Aubrey Pasternak’s only release for Clean Up Records, the Star Wars sampling ‘New Hope’ – a great cut up that can still be had for pennies. Primal Scream’s excellent, Weatherall-produced ‘Trainspotting’ from the film of the same name follows, what a delight to hear this again. Matt Black can’t believe it’s them but comes to the rescue with a vague run down of the tracks at the end which saved me from presenting you with a virtually blank sheet for a track list.

At the end of this tape was a section of an ambient mix that I’d taped over, I’d estimate it was probably done three years before as it contains a couple of tracks I recognise from the time that we played a lot at the Telepathic Fish ambient parties that came before I joined the Ninja crew.
The first track I don’t recall but the Twin Peaks-sampling tune was always a favourite of my DJ partner at the time, Mario Aguera. It was the final version of ‘Days In The Trees’ by No-Man from their third single – proper chills down the spine stuff and will set you back £20 at least these days owing to Steve Wilson’s popularity. The brief snatch of track after it is by Hypnotone, an act who have seemingly been forgotten but had a couple of albums at the cross section of bleep, techno and ambient which are well worth tracking down. ‘God C.P.U (Ambient)’ is from their second, ‘Ai’ which, along with The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, The Shamen’s En-tact and 808 State’s 90, we played to death at the start of the 90s. I’ve left this in as it’s a nice reminder of those times but wasn’t part of the Solid Steel show .

Track list:
Wishmountain – Welcome
Osymyso – Wolf
The Outcast – Unknown
The Brotherhood – Mad Heads
DJ Double S – Unknown
Octagon Man – The Rimm
Unknown – Unknown
Funky Monkey – LA Riot (The Channel Zero edit)
Aubrey Pasternak – New Hope
Primal Scream’s – Trainspotting
– bonus ambient mix section
Unknown – unknown
No-Man – Days In The Trees (Reich)
Hypnotone – God C.P.U (Ambient)

Here’s the mix that was on the same CDr as last week’s upload, something that had appeared two weeks earlier at the tail end of 2002. Around the beginning of the 00’s I was pretty heavily into the bootleg/mash up scene and for several years my Solid Steel mixes were full of them. I do cringe at some of them sometimes when listening back, not all have aged well but I like to think I would at least choose the more interesting ones that took the songs to different places. The opening of this set features two downtempo Beatles numbers (hence the title on the disc), Bad Production of which was actually pressed up on a 7” although I can’t find that on Discogs. You wouldn’t get away with that these days! Or you’d have to wait 8 months to do it.

The excellent Beatle-esque Future Sound of London remix of Robert Miles’ ‘Paths’ sounds like a precursor to their Amorphous Androgynous workouts a few years later. I’ve got a feeling this is the single edit version, must get hold of the 7 min version which can be had on Discogs for around £1. More Sixtoo from the as then unreleased CDr he gave me, this turned up the next year on the Outremont Mainline Runs Across Sunset 12” on Vertical Form. There’s also a bit of Alvin Lucier’s ‘I Am Sitting In A Room’ mixed in there, not sure why or where from. The gorgeous Sutekh track, ‘Privacy’ comes from the album Fell which I don’t remember owning but glad I do/did.

JG Thirlwell makes two appearances in his Manorexia guise although I can only identify one, plus a snatch of Beatles near the end. The Japan-only bonus track from Boards of Canada’s Geogaddi LP mixes in using samples from Tony Schwartz Records The Sound of Children LP (Children And God). Food is/was a band front by Iain Ballamy who I found via their first couple of albums on Feral Records, the covers of which were designed by Dave McKean and came in beautifully illustrated card boxes. The skipping CD start is what gave this set its name, ‘Freebonky‘ is from their second album, Organic & GM Food. I think the Steinski track is the Burroughs vocal sampling although it’s hard to tell. 80’s Baby’s version of Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’ is where I start to cringe, these were gentle versions of known pop songs made for babies and there were a whole string of them. I added a subtle bit of the original now and again and a monologue about driving from George Carlin but the joke wears thin very fast after that.

Tracklist:
Bad Production – Bad Production
Avril Plays the Beatles – Becoz
Robert Miles – Paths (FSOL Cosmic Jukebox mix)
Sixtoo – Transfer Please, Perfect Wednesday
Suktekh – Privacy
Manorexia – Canaries in the Mineshaft
Manorexia – Edison Medicine
Boards of Canada – From One Source All things
Food – Freebonky
Steinski – Audio Collage 6
80’s Baby – Cars
Gary Numan – Cars