Alex Gloor mix

Any reader of this blog will know that I was a very early writer about Smylonylon tapes.  Way back in June 2006 I wrote about  an incredible tape I had bought at the Center for the Dull on Lafayette in the 90s.  You can read all about it on that post.  Over the years I got to know Alex Gloor who made the 30 tapes  in the 90s and who is also of band In Flagranti and Codek record label impresario who made the tapes,

You can now buy all the Smylonylon mixes on his Bandcamp.  And take a look at this amazing boxset of Smylonylon tapes that Alex made in 1998.

I was very excited then when he offered to post some tracks from a mix that is, in his own words, a continuation of the Smylonylon spirit made in 2024.   Alex describes the mix as a homage to "all these great cheesy disgooey-moog soundtracks i've heard in the mid-70's in Basel, Switzerland.  As a kid, i checked the local newspaper for new movies every week and went to see the lobby cards and posters in the cinema display windows, including a porn movies theatre called Maxim across the street from my house that had lobby cards with black tape covering any nipples and asses! Going to the movies was my favourite pastime as a kid, starting in 1972 with a Kurt Russel movie called "Now You See Him, Now You Don't" (a real stinker!) at cinema Royal, i was nine years old. I even played hooky from school to go see Soylent Green at cinema Odeon." Alex offered to tell me a bit more about some of his experiences after Smylonylon in the following interview.

First of all, how did you get involved with Center for the Dull because I actually bought my first Smylonylon tapes there?

 

In May of 1994 I was walking around Soho enjoying a lovely warm and sunny spring day in Manhattan when out of the corner of my eye I spotted what appeared to be a Pucci dress hanging in a dark alley called Crosby St. I went up the block to investigate and met Chris Brick, the owner of this boutique called Smylonylon. Chris and I instantly bonded and became friends. I suggested to him that Smylonylon would be the perfect location to sell my mixed tapes. The first batch of 10 tapes sold out within 3 days and Chris kept asking me for more and over the next 6 years we sold over 6000 tapes.

 

Why did you move to NY from Switzerland?

 

In 1984, when I was 20 years old, New York City was the epicentre of everything cool & hip and I wanted to be part of it! There is a great book about that period in NYC history called - Yo! The Early Days of Hip Hop 1982–84 with amazing photographs by Sophie Bramly. The book incapsulates the exact moment when I arrived in the Big Apple with all it's glory; it was a unique moment in history, things were not clearly defined yet; it was the post-disco, pre-hiphop era. Back then, you could still go see & hear all the great Oldschool DJs every week like David Mancuso, Larry Levan, Walter Gibbons or Afrika Baambaata: All of them had a big impact on me.

 

And what were you doing first when you came here?

 

I was lucky and my instinct drove me in the right direction to a local video rental store called Time Shift Video on Broadway & Bond St in Manhattan. Time Shift Video was my first connection into the booming downtown cultural arts scene in 1984. The shop was buzzing every night around 6pm, you just had to hang out there to meet and talk to people like Madonna's stylist Maripol (She gave me my first job), actor Vincent Gallo, photographer Mike Rock and even Randy from the Village People and countless others; they all went there to rent & return VHS video tapes every evening including Keith Haring who famously redesigned a new logo on a brochure I did for the store in 1987.  

 

I remember I was lucky to meet you and Sasa as In Flagranti for the first time when I was djing at Fabric in London in 2008 and you were playing live.  How did In Flagranti get started ?

 

In 1990, I was visiting Basel from New York and went looking for the Cosmic Music I had heard on mix tapes from Italy. The guy who owned a local record shop told me about Sasa and his collection of Cosmic Music and by chance Sasa walked into the shop and we met and became fast friends.

 

What was the inspiration behind Codek records and how did it start? 

 

In 1996, Sasa and I wanted to grasp without anybody's interference what we had in mind musically and visually so we founded Codek Records in the East Village 29 years ago while selling records at a fleamarket….amazing how time flies!

 

What has been your biggest hit and what do you think is the biggest overlooked release you did?

 

Our biggest hit was appropriately named "Business Acumen" (spotify) and I just talked to Sasa about this; our 30 year label anniversary is coming up and we intend to pick 30 favourite tracks from our back catalog for an anniversary release.

 

Oooo, I can't wait for that.  I love Business Acumen - very much my driving disco sound.  Were you at all involved with the Organic Grooves parties?  I remember they were held in the belly of the Frying Pan which was a boat anchored off of a pier in Chelsea.  The boat is still there, but no more club of course.

 

Organic Grooves was Sasa (my partner in In Flagranti) weekly party and music production: I just did the graphics for that project like CD covers, party flyers and some wonderful bold silkscreen posters.

Thanks Alex for the awesome interview.  And below is a link to buy the mix, listen to a snippet from the mix and a few tracks.  My fav track has to be the sped up Cumbia track - Cumbia De Sal from 1979.  But Alex in good ole Smylonylon style doesn't play it at original speed :)

El Toston de Chucha - DJ Gloor mix 8/2024 (bandcamp)

Clip from Mix

CUMBIA EN MOOG - Cumbia De Sal (special Alex Gloor version)   (discogs)

JAGUAR - Disco Libero 1978

I'm back!! It's been a good 10 years since I've not posted anything new on this blog.  During that time I travelled a lot around the world and bought lots of unusual tapes.   But I'm back living in New York and I have a lot of music and tapes to share.  

When I first started this blog in 2005 you could buy amazing tapes everywhere.   And they often had fantastic tracks that were only on tape.  Now its seems that any tape worth posting costs a fortune and they're hard to find.  And every track ever released is already on youtube.  Even tracks I posted that were only available here are now resposted by someone else on youtube.  But I still have a number of old rare tapes and some mixtapes where the beauty is the choice of music, not the individual tracks.  AND, I'm going to start remixing tracks myself and posting them on here.  So the blog will take a slightly new and hopefully more exciting direction which also features my own work.

I purchased this tape from @maitreselecto.  I first heard about him from old friend @daviddarg.  I got in touch and this was the only tape he had at the time.  He does very limited runs.  When I listened to it, I realized that all of the tracks were amazing, some soukous, some soca, some french arabic stuff - and none of it could be identified on Shazam.  I've posted 2 of my favorites and remixed one of them.  Please tag the names in the comments or message me if you know.  @Maitreselecto got in touch afterwards and told me that the Arab French track is a Magreb pop track by Mohamed Mazouni.

The remix process was a big learning process.  So I won't say this is the most amazing remix ever.  But I've learned so much in a short period of time.

You can also check out our new instagram page @dostapes.

Greek Folk track 1

Mohamed Mazouni - Cherie Madame

DOStapes - unknown Folk tune - (dos mix 1)

Russian Pop and Trance tapes from Kiev Ukraine

This is my monster Kiev, Ukraine post. I went with Dima, Roman and their friends to dj at club Xlib a few weekends ago and it was really a fantastic time. They did a hilarious write up on me in Timeout comparing me to Benny Hill (not because I was the main dj, but because I was the only one not from eastern Europe). Masha who is the promoter at Club Xlib (probably the only good independent club in Kiev) and a dj in her own right took great care of us. You can see my pics here.

Anyway - after going to Moscow and Bulgaria in the last year, I can declare Kiev as the winner. It's got lots of old beautiful buildings, it's laid out really nicely with little hills and broad avenues and even some river space. And the people are really friendly. Most of all, the have a huge excellent flea market with lots of 80s clothing, old records and most of all . . . tapes.

I picked up a few and this trance one is quite enjoyable. I also got a compilation of Russian pop which will put up soon. Can't say I ever could quite swallow the full trance sound when it came out first time, but this collection of rather synthy trance has something I really like. In particular, the track Cyclone Tracy - Guide to Eternity is amazing.

Side A to come later in weekend

Side B

1 - Vertigo - Oxygene

2 - Cyclone Tracy - Guide to Eternity

3 - Energy 32 - Cafe Del Mar

4 - Central Seven - The Operea

5 - Technology Entertained - Electronically

6 - Mach1 - Roadrunner

7 - Robert Miles - In My Dreams

Jewel Ackah - high life from Ghana 1986

Here we have some very good hi-life from Ghana from the mid 80s.  Jewel Ackah is well known enough to have stuff you can by on Itunes but not this album.  I found this vinyl album in the Princess May car boot in Dalston, which is almost the equivalent of the Dalston Oxfam Shop (for me) these days because they don't really care any good tapes anymore.

It looks Jewel Ackah had albums dating back to '81 as you can see from his discogs site.  You can see some more recent albums of his (less to my taste) on itunes here.

According to his biography here, this is maybe his best album, recorded with Pat Thomas and A.B. Crentsil.

Onipa Dasa Ni

Smylonylon 9

I am excited to present another Smylonylon tape on this blog.  This is one of the ones that I did not have.  A lovely man named Alan Miller contacted me on the e-mail on this blog and sent it to me out of the blue.

This tape is earlier in the series of Smylonylon tapes when the music was more moog and 60s dance.  Starting with the tapes in the teens up to number 30 (the last one) the music was a lot more disco influenced.  

There are a lot of amazing tunes on here.  I have given you the option of buying many of the tunes on Itunes.  I particularly like the tracks Hey Hey by Gershon Kingsley and the track Silver Fingertips by Paul Mauriat, which I have included as a download.  I particularly am struck by how musical the tracks are in the sense that the musicians are clearly very good at playing instruments. It seems that music these days is all computer automated.

If want to particularly thank Alan for his generosity in sending the tape through.  And also happy to know that he's inolved with Optimo, where he is PR manager.  Check out his djing as DJ Hushpuppy here:

http://www.sohotheatre.com/whats-on/beats/

Or his personal links here.

www.mixcloud.com/hushpuppy/
www.subcity.org/shows/musicplease/

Side 1 (click to listen - direct download)

1 - John Keating - I Feel the Earth Move (itunes)

2 - Ray Davis - Fist of Fury

3 - Paddy Kingsland - The Earthmen (itunes)

4 - Mike Curb - Gas Hassle (itunes)

5 - Alen Tew - The Detectives (itunes)

6 - Paul Mauriat - Silver Fingertips (download direct)

7 - George Martin - Winchester Cathedral

8 - Lord Sitar - If I Were a Rich Man (itunes)

9 - George Martin - Hole in My Shoe

10 - Pierre Henry - Offering (itunes)

11 - Les Baxter - Shelly In Camp

12 - Candido - Jump Back (itunes)

13 - Dr. Bohme - Sudamerikanisches Medley

14 - Eduardo Zurita - Rico Mambo

15 - Don Tracy - African Waltz


side 2 (click to listen - direct download)

16 - Peter Thomas - Popular Myth (itunes)

17 - Theo Schuman Combo - Korallenriff (itunes)

18 - Peter Thomas - Stars & Rockets (itunes)

19 - Horst Kruger Sextet - Leopard

20 - Brigitte Bardot - Saint Tropez

21 - Ray Davis - Kojak

22 - Galactic Light Orchestra - Galactic Swan (itunes)

23 - Alan Hawkshaw - Fuel Injection

24 - Gershon Kingsley - Hey, Hey (itunes)

25 - Andre Brasseur - Saturnus

26 - Popcorn - Tap Moi-La

27 - Peter Moesser - Happy Time

28 - Perrey & Kingsley - The Savers (itunes)

29 - Fred Berlipp - Beating Street

30 - Dan Hill - Medley

31 - The Mohawks - Beat Me Till I'm Blue

32 - The Young Ones - The Black Queen's Beads

Ismael Isaac et les Freres Keita - La Paix

Ismael Isaac et les Freres Keita are a Reggae group from Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Ismael Isaac recorded this album in 1986 with the singing twins (seen on either side of him in the cover) Keita and Hassan Ousseini.

I got all the information above from Wikipedia and it doesn't have much else to say about him.  The sound on this track is incredible however. It's reggae but there's something else which is distinctly african about it.

I found this album in the flea market in Marseille and I hope you enjoy it.  You can buy the recording on Itunes here but I think my recording off vinyl is better.

(warning - I've posted an aif cd quality file so it's 50 mb)
Ismael Isaac et les Freres Keita - La Paix

Select - the Factory Tape

This is a rare compilation put out by Select magazine (other tapes of which I've featured on the blog) which features various singles from the Factory Records collection.  Factory Records were famous for people like New Order and Happy Mondays and have had a movie made about them.

The track on here which appears to not feature anywhere else is the Stephen Hague remix of New Order.  Stephen Hague was an american producer who gave a more 80s disco/synthop tinge to a lot of big tracks from people like the Pet Shop Boys.  Later he went on to work with Ace of Base.

When I first was researching this tape I was a bit surprised that there was an actual group called "Electronic" and I wondered how they could get away with that.  Then I realized it was probably some late 80s concept by these really heavy hitters,  Bernard Sumner of New Order and Johnny Marr of the Smiths.  If some random guy like me had put together a group called "Electronic" people would have scoffed.  But in the 80s big guys like these could pull it off.

This tape is on Discogs here.

A1	Northside –	Moody Places Instrumental
A2	New Order –	Bizarre Love Triangle (Stephen Hague Mix)
A3	Cath Carroll –	Moves Like You
A4	Happy Mondays –	Kinky Afro (Euromix 12-Inch Version)
B1	The Wendys –	Suckling
B2	Revenge –	The Trouble With Girls
B3	Electronic –	Lucky Bag (Miami Edit)
B4	Cath Carroll –	Next Time (Edit)
B5	Vini Reilly & Durutti Column –	Megamix