Delayed Pt. 2 to Mixcloud 72 because of the Now, Listen anniversary the past 2 weeks

Recorded over the Xmas break of ’98/99 (where PC and I went to LA to play at a disastrous New Year party which ended in multiple hospitalisations from a bad drugs batch and police shut down). This sounds like a live set recorded at home, possibly on three decks and is full of contemporary electronica, jazz, library and that end of the millennium weirdness where there wasn’t any dominant scene happening.

The King Biscuit Time track that kicks this off is a real anomaly for me, I never founds anything else by them that did it for me but this absolutely rocks. Absolutely joyous with that filthy break and weird bass line. Paddington Breaks were from the same stable as Animals On Wheels, lazily bundled in under the name ‘drill n bass’ on account of them sometimes aping Squarepusher‘s completely style of programming. As you can hear, that was far from the truth with this track, sounding more like vintage Black Dog that anything else.
Stereolab were generally turning anything they touched to gold around this time and their Pastels remix is no exception despite dodgy ‘scratched’ flute sound. John Callaghan has been making music for 30 years and released a couple of 7″s on Warp at the end of the decade. The spooky ‘I’m not comfortable in my own mind’ wasn’t something you’d associate with the label at the time but not a million miles away from Broadcast in tone. More Warp with another BoC Peel Session track before something from Bundy K Brown‘s short-lived Pullman project, an acoustic instrumental outfit with only two albums to their discography.

Bundy was always moving on to different projects from Tortoise, Grey Market Goods or Pullman, his Directions debut EP, Echoes, has just been reissued after 25 years with extra material on Temporary Residence. Air (the German alias of Pete Namlook version – their are over 30 bands called Air on Discogs) appear again with another track from their Fax debut. Major Force West had an album collected on Mo Wax of various tracks from ’97-99, some rumoured to originally be slated for the UNKLE LP before James Lavelle changed direction and producers. To me it’s a brilliant record, full of mind-expanding trip hop in the very best psychedelic sense. Snatches of the moon landing, shortwave recordings, parts of How To Speak Hip and all manner of analogue electronics over a steady breakbeat goes down very nicely.

We finish where we started in part one of this show with the Karminsky‘s and a track from their second single, ‘The Hip Sheik EP’, insultingly files under Electronic: Acid Jazz on Discogs, far from it. Peppered throughout this show and the previous one were snatches of The Tape Beatles from their ‘A Subtle Buoyancy Of Pulse’ debut (or possibly ‘Music With Sound’, I forget). Either releases are incredible cut up/collage albums in the style of Negativland, People Like Us or The Books and The Orb have pillaged the latter for years.

King Biscuit Time – Niggling Discrepancy
Paddington Breaks – Blimsearch
The Pastels – One Wild Moment (Stereolab mix)
John Callaghan – Smearhead
Boards of Canada – Olsen
Pullman – Tall Grass
Air – 1st Impression
Major Force West – Circling Round
The Karminsky Experience – Suspense
The Tape Beatles – Outro

Recorded over the Xmas break of ’98/99 (where PC and I went to LA to play at a disastrous New Year party which ended in multiple hospitalisations from a bad drugs batch and police shut down). This sounds like a live set recorded at home, possibly on three decks and is full of contemporary electronica, jazz, library and that end of the millennium weirdness where there wasn’t any dominant scene happening.
A blast of Tape Beatles opens before The Karminsky Experience Inc. and Dynamic Syncopation bring the fast breaks and soundtrack vibes in. People were increasingly becoming interested in OSTs and library tracks at the end of the 90s with lots of bootlegs and a few licensed comps floating around. Air‘s ambient classic on Fax continued this but in a more downtempo vein, not to be confused with the French band of the same name despite using a French title, this was a Pete Namlook alias.
Bruce Haack’s ‘Word Game’ beams in, completely from another galaxy with its chugging Moog groove, only to be superseded by Grooverider‘s excellent ‘Where’s Jack The Ripper’. I felt D’n’B was going through a dull patch at the time with all the dark No U-Turn type stuff not really floating my boat but this had that funk to it that had been lost over the last few years. The Boards of Canada Peel Sessions were out and they always got a lot of love from me on the show so I couldn’t resist halving the tempo and then mixing Grooverider in again over ‘Aquarius’. Followed is Slag Boom Van Loon‘s ‘Poppy Seed’, a track Boards would soon remix for the Planet Mu label.

Part 2 next week!

The Tape Beatles – Intro
The Karminsky Experience Inc. – The Hip Sheik
Dynamic Syncopation – Closer To The Line
Air – Je Suis Triste Et Seul Ici
Bruce Haack – Word Game
Grooverider – Where’s Jack the Ripper
Boards of Canada – Aquarius
Slag Boom Van Loon – Poppy Seed
The Tape Beatles – Outro

Here’s a silly little set from the last show we broadcast on Radio LDN, part of the BBC network, on a Monday nights in the early 00’s.
BBC London could never make up it’s mind around the turn of the millennium; after 18 years of being BBC Radio London and another 12 of Greater London Radio (GLR) they decided to switch to BBC London Live just as we joined the station in 2000. A year later and they changed it again to BBC LDN and then further to BBC London around the time they got rid of most of their specialist programmes in favour of talk radio.

We were part of this cull along with other DJs like Ross Allen and Dr Bob Jones and it came out of the blue, one week we were on, the next we had one show left. I found out from another presenter who casually mentioned “sorry to hear about your show”, whilst I was covering for the others solo one time. Seeing the puzzled look on my face, she realised her faux pas and explained that the station had axed all but two of their late night specialist music shows in favour of a more talk based radio station. We had one week’s grace and that was it but we really made use of that week…

But let’s start with how we came to be on the BBC in the first place: after leaving KISS in Feb ’99 (before we were pushed – big changes were ahead) Solid Steel set up home online, streamed via the Ninja Tune homepage every week, still maintaining it’s 2 hour format, uncertain as to how many people were listening. With DK now firmly in the producers chair, syndications to overseas stations had been instigated and we were looking around for a ‘home’ on a London station. There was a pilot show for GLR on 27/06/99 but the first regular slot was 27/03/2000, the week the station relaunched as BBC London Live. We had a midnight until 2am slot on a Monday night which suited us fine, no playlist, minimal fuss or bother from the powers that be and a proper studio to broadcast from.

The big drawback was that the studio was more geared to CDJing than turntable mixing and the decks there were more of an afterthought than an integral part of the set up. Out went the live mixing and in came the pre-prepared, home studio mixed sets, something that did no end of good for the quality control threshold but which sounds odd at times when listening back as we had to leave instrumental gaps for talking and tracklists in the selection. Another revelation was no adverts other than the occasional station sting for an upcoming event or show – yes! More uninterrupted mixes and less stop / start nonsense.

Initially we took over after Ross Allen‘s Destination Out show which was perfect as we caught a lot of his audience but he moved on to two separate nights of the week as his star rose. Generally two of us would present the show live whilst playing that week’s selection of mixes and we also had the means to take calls for competitions where we gave away tickets to shows or CDs in return for answers to ridiculously easy multiple choice questions. The BBC had a full online streaming web presence too so we were beamed live worldwide and, on occasion, we got calls from overseas for the competitions, including one from New Zealand! Being ‘on the BBC’ also afforded us instant credibility when asking for high profile interviews and both David Axelrod and Herbie Hancock were recorded using their facilities.

But all good things must come to a (tr)end and 21/10/2002 was the last show we did at the station, but we weren’t going out without making a statement and Matt, Jon, DK and I were all determined to make it one to remember. I kicked things off with plenty of loaded spoken word and songs aimed at the Beeb – Has It Come To This?,  It’s All Over Now,  The Show Must Go On, Fool If You Think It’s Over, It’s Just Begun – you get the idea. I must apologise firstly for the cheesiness of some of the tracks (a worrying amount of Queen) but mostly for the tuning on some of the mixes – oh my ears! This recording is the original studio mix without talking, not the live broadcast with the ridiculous competitions, shout outs and studio banter. I’ve actually edited this down as some of the tracks really laboured the point and some were in there for us to talk over so sound odd without it. Plus there’s a Stones track in there and Charlie Watts died this week (RIP).

After this (but not included here) Matt turned in a storming old school ultimate breaks and beats cut up using the Street Beat compilations in Ableton Live. Jon waded in with possibly the first BBC jingle and presented a set of mashed up hip hop acappellas, ending with Monty Python‘s phone in sketch. DK ran through some of the show favourites from the last few years, the tracks getting the most plays from the variety of DJs over the course of our tenure, flagged up some of the high profile jingles we’d recorded and ended appropriately with The Specials’ ‘Ghost Town’ as the final word. It was sad to go but we had no choice and it wasn’t as painful as the KISS departure because we had the internet support fully set up by this time, still it was great to be part of the BBC for a while.

Track list:
The Streets – Has It Come To This? (Hi Contrast Remix)
The Who – My Generation
The Rollings Stones – It’s All Over Now
RJD2 – The Final Frontier
Queen – The Show Must Go On
Mr Guder – Super Guder Breaks 3
Chris Rea – Fool If You Think It’s Over
Jimmy Castor Bunch – It’s Just Begun
Studio Housten – It’s Not Right But It’s OK
Blackalicious – Chemical Calathenics
DJ Food – Turtle Soup (Wagon Christ Remix)
Geoff Muldaur – Brazil
The Carpenters – It’s Only Just Begun
Joni Mitchell – Parking Lot
Jackson 5 – Never Can Say Goodbye

This is an odd one because the first 10 minutes or so is an involved multi-layered affair with 2 or 3 tracks overlaid simultaneously in a way that would be virtually impossible with turntables. I can only assume that this section was an early idea for the first Solid Steel mix CD, Now, Listen.
The Aphex Twin/ DJ Food combo is frustratingly slightly out of time at the start and the tuning is a bit off too. Neotropic’s ‘Beached’ is in there and the only track to make it to the aforementioned mix CD and works well with Aphex and the Orb remix of Material ‘Mantra’ although it’s a long, laboured mix and wouldn’t have stood up on the CD. Cornershop’s ‘Easy Winners’ part 1 is such a killer beat, I remember Kid Koala in particular used to cut two copies of this up. It doesn’t quite work with the sombre tone of Neotropic in the background but Mantra rumbles along nicely in there.
After this section we get into some contemporary releases of the day with Andy Votel’s ‘November’ from his and Cherrystones’ excellent 10” EP ‘The Amazing Transplant’. A tempo switch mid-track see the unlikely addition of Hijack’s ‘The Badman Is Robbin’ but one I’m sure Andy would appreciate as it bridges the Cherrystones track from the same EP and they compliment each other for a while. A track from the lone Papa Blue EP on PUU features, still a lost classic and so beautiful and this is another 3 tracks at once mix which makes me think there may have been some computer overdubs going on. Back into another Votel/Cherrystones track and then the mallet instruments continue with Syd Dale’s excellent theme to Screen Test, ‘Marching There & Back’ on Trunk. Incidentally there’s a fabulous compilation album just out celebrating 25 years of the label which is pretty essential if you’re a fan of all things Trunk-related.
Continuing the wacky theme tunes that no doubt gave this mix its name we have an odd 7” on Acupuncture from around this time by Black Lodge that chopped up the ‘Pink Elephants On Parade’ song from Pinocchio to good effect. I think this was the first release on the label and was associated with a shop of the same name, Black Lodge went on to release material in the dying days on Mo Wax. The final track is 9 Lazy 9’s ‘Brothers of the Red’ overlaid with a fictitious listings read by an unknown narrator from Chris Morris’ Blue Jam album and still stands up although who could have predicted that Cerys from Catatonia would end up as a DJ?

Track list:
Aphex Twin – Untitled
DJ Food – The Sky At Night
Material – Mantra (Preying Mantra Orb remix)
Neotropic – Beached
Cornershop – Easy Winners part1
Andy Votel – November
Hijack – The Badman is Robbin’
Cherrystones – A Pattern Emerges
Papa Blue – Luna En La Pampa
Andy Votel + Cherrystones – A Pattern Emerges
Syd Dale – Marching There & Back (Screen Test Theme)
Black Lodge – Pink Elephants On Parade
Chris Morris – Club News (9 Lazy 9 – Brothers of the Red)