Remember The Future? mix

REMEMBER THE FUTURE3 years back I recorded a robot-themed mix for Solid Steel to coincide with the imminent release of the first Transformers film. I’d been meaning to do this for some time but this gave me the impetus and I crafted a little Transformers intro from various samples or tracks that sampled the robots in disguise. After that it’s mainly material from the 60’s and 70’s with that novelty look at robotics pre-Star Wars, what some would call ‘the golden age’.

I love this stuff, real oddity bin stuff, plenty of madcap psyche, dance craze records, vocoders and even a country ode to an electronic brain. A friend recently asked me to dig it out so here it is again.

Remember The Future by DJ Food

Posted in DJ Food, Music, Radio, Robots, Solid Steel. | 2 Comments |

Street Heroes Festival, Bucharest

Sorry to everyone who came down to the festival and wanted to see a proper DJ Food set today, the police made several visits and sadly it was third time unlucky during my set. I managed about 20 minutes before they pulled the plug, they literally turned the sound system off on me. I wanted to do a full set, well, there was only 1 hour left because things overran, but didn’t even get that far. I feel sorry for the organisers as this was their first attempt and hope the rest of the festival goes off over the next 2 days.

Bucharest Sunset 12.08.10

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Kraftwerk Tribute 12″ of a different kind

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Here’s something interesting I stumbled across whilst perusing the Kraftwerk Facebook page that’s been set up by fans. A limited edition of the band’s Tour De France 12″ that comes with a built in player like those cheesy birthday cards you can get that play a tune when you open them.

The designer’s name is Woes Van Haaften and there are 5 different sleeve colours to choose from but they don’t come cheap let me warn you! Full info and a little film here

Posted in Art, Design, Kraftwerk, Oddities, Records. | No Comments |

DJ Woody’s Turntables In Technicolour T-shirt

Woody T -shirtThe good man DJ Woody foisted one of these beauties on me at the weekend at the Big Chill, I never knew he was a graphic designer in a previous life. This is the logo for his AV performances ‘Turntables in Technicolour’, a homage to Santa Cruz artist Jim Phillips‘ iconic screaming hand logo and a beautiful job he’s done too, this shirt is quality.

Posted in Design. | 1 Comment |

Ninja Tune book in stores soon

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I finally got my hands on the thing that consumed most of my waking hours for the first 6 months of this year today… the Ninja Tune book I slaved over. I was up at Black Dog Publishing sorting out some things for the forthcoming exhibition and a shipment arrived from Italy, soaking wet, with the card board split down the sides in some cases! Hilariously the delivery man placed them beneath a poster proclaiming “Properly packed parcels please” :) They only had one copy of the hardback edition which comes with the XX box set because all other copies are being routed to the factory where it is being put together but it is a beautiful thing to behold. Also in the pictures you can see some of the exhibits stacked up ready for the opening on the 20th. The paperback version should be in stores by the end or the month, 192 pages, priced £19.95, if you see one, have a flick through and find out what the label has been up to for the last two decades.

Royal College 1962Print mag 1961Notations bookMorals 68Happenings
Posted in Books, Event, Music, Ninja Tune, Openmind designs, Records. | 1 Comment |

Belbury Poly – Farmer’s Angle (Revised)

GBX014 10in

Yes! At last I can complete (sort of) my Ghost Box collection with the forthcoming reissue of their first release, now revised and on 10″ vinyl. There will also be a new edition of the CD and a download, all coming on September 10th. No tracklist yet but it’s great to know that GB are going to slowly reissue all their back catalogue on gorgeous vinyl, yeah I’m a sucker like that.

Posted in Design, Music, Records. | 1 Comment |

Ninja Tune 20 year exhibition in London

Opening in 2 weeks time will be Ninja’s first bonafide exhibition in the UK to celebrate the publication of the book, ‘Ninja Tune: 20 Years of Beats & Pieces’. Black Dog Publishing have generously offered to host a little showcase of the design and imagery that went into it and, after designing the book, the box set and all the paraphernalia that goes with it, I’m curating the exhibition too. It will feature lots of original artwork, models, posters, sleeves, flyers and promo bits from across the years.

e-invite (no party)

It opens Friday, 20th of August at Black Dog’s gallery space, 10 Acton St. London, WC1X 9NG between 12-5pm weekdays and is only on for a month. There will be a special pop up shop on Saturday 11th September where there will be several special items for sale, hand picked from the Ninja archives as well as the new book.

Posted in Art, Books, Design, Event, Music, Ninja Tune, Openmind designs, Records. | 4 Comments |

Big Chill igloo tent Solid Steel set times for Saturday:

festivalWe’re playing in a dome with 360 degree video, come and check us out, a few Ninja XX compilation exclusives in the set so far…

21.00- 21.15     Warm Up
21.15-22.45      JFB
22.45-23.45      DJ Woody Turntables In Technicolor
23.45-1 .15 am   DJ Food & DK
1.15 – 2.45 am   Hexstatic present Trailer Trax
2.45 – 4.00 am   Sampology’s Super Visual Smackdown

Posted in DJ Food, Event, Gigs, Music, Solid Steel. | No Comments |

MEGADETH!

One my oldest friends, Steven Baker, found this in a box of stuff this week. I painted it for another friend, Cliff Purtell, back in 1988 I think, maybe later, I don’t really remember. He was going to Donnington (the rock festival) and wanted to show his appreciation of the band. I can’t quite remember how long it took but it was somewhere in the region of 2 weeks I think due to the fact that a lot of it was painted with modeling paints watered down, you know, the tiny pots you can buy to paint up Airfix kits and the like. We didn’t have money for proper paints and figured that these wouldn’t run if the weather was wet. We also only had an old tablecloth or bed sheet to paint it on as you can see from the not-quite-finished-yet bottom corner.

Megadeth banner

Anyway, I would troop round to Cliff’s place each morning (it was the summer holidays) and he would furnish me with tea and biscuits all day and blast out heavy metal. This was my introduction to thrash metal primarily although I think I bought a fair bit of LL Cool J, Beastie Boys and Public Enemy with me to even things out. Anthrax, Metallica, Megadeth (obviously), Slayer, G.W.A.R. probably a lot more that didn’t stick too, all were played on repeat throughout the making of this banner, a tiny picture of which ended up in Kerrang the week after the festival. Cliff swore that, during their set, Dave Mustaine of Megadeth quipped, “You’ve got some fucking nice banners out there”.

Posted in Art, Oddities. | 2 Comments |

Art Of Noise and Propaganda reissues

AON Influence coverPropaganda outside +

These were out last week, Propaganda’s classic ‘A Secret Wish’ is now remastered and expanded to 2 CDs with plenty of rare and unheard gems. The Art of Noise get a double CD set too with a great compilation of both ZTT and China-era tracks on disc 1 and remixes, rareties and unreleased cuts on disc 2.

One of these is the ‘Anne to Tears’ version of Moments in Love that I photographed when I visited the ZTT vault last year and props to Ian Peel for doing a sterling job on curating both releases. Also a tip of the hat to Philip Marshall for his excellent design skills, keenly referencing the artwork by XL and the London Design Partnership from the originals – reissues don’t get much better than this.  Even more of a joy for me is a mention of my ‘Raiding The 20th Century’ mix with Paul Morley in the sleeve notes of the Influence booklet :) Well I did steal it from Paul after he stole it from the Situationists. Buy them both from here

AON Raiding sleevenote

Posted in Design, Music. | 2 Comments |

Pepe Deluxe – Queen of the Wave

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This record is (will be) incredible. Pepe Deluxe‘s next album is called ‘Queen of the Wave’ and it expands on territory they explored on ‘Spare Time Machine’ and goes even deeper. If you like concept albums with a Rock/Prog/Baroque/Surf/Pop/Soundtrack/Psyche/Folk bent then this is for you and I’ll bet it’ll be one of the only records to cram all this and so much more in. Pepe (Jari and Paul) have assembled a huge list of both musicians and instruments on this (all too short at under an hour) pop opera including The Great Stalacpipe Organ (apparently).

I’ve been very lucky to have been able to hear the album in various stages as it has unfolded over the past two years and last week received a near complete version along with graphics and sleeve notes which doesn’t disappoint. It’s a complete trip from beginning to end, bursting with detail and unashamed pop songs that will have you humming them absent-mindedly whilst wondering where you heard them. I’m really looking forward to this release, hopefully this year, definitely one for the end of year polls.

While we all wait I’ve dug out an old Solid Steel mix from August 2007 with my Pepe Deluxe ‘Go For Blue Suite’ in it. The mix starts off with some Dragons-related surf psyche, skips into a trio of Pinball Number Count cover versions and then onto a montage of various remixes of Pepe’s ‘Go For Blue’ and various colour-themed classics. Remixes by Viva Voce, Optimo and Lost Idol collide with Blue Monday, Mellow Yellow, Purple Haze and more with plenty of Ken Nordine’s ‘Colours’ thrown in for good measure.
Solid Steel inc. Pepe Deluxe vs DJ Food ‘Go For Blue Suite’ 21.09.07 by DJ Food

Posted in Music, Records. | 2 Comments |