early Smylonylon - No. 4!!

Some of you will recall the amazing Smylonylon cassettes put together by Alex Gloor of the current band In Flagranti back in the 90's that I have previously featured on this blog here. A man with very amazing (and broad) taste in music. Well someone in New York finally sent me some more of his cassettes and the earliest one I received is No. 4. It's more of a 60's compilation than the other ones I've heard and Alex was kind enough to e-mail me the tracklisting. It's still amazing.

In Flagranti is playing their first live show this Friday, 28 September at Our Disco at The Hub in east london with Rory and Nadia. Details here.

Smylonylon 4 - side A

Smylonylon 4 - side B

You can check out an amazing tune I ripped from side B which is Stu Phillips - Mahabalipuram

Ripped tune - Smylonylon 4 side b

Mike Melvoin - The Plastic Cow Goes Moooooog - Medicine Man

Cal Tjader - Soul Sauce


side a
1. george harrison - fantasy sequins
2. lord sitar - i can see for miles
3. ray davis - green grow the rushes
4. francis lai - party music
5. stu phillips - mahabalipuram
6. pink floyd - see emily play
7. jean jacques perrey - porcupine rock
8. black soul - moog melody
9. shirley bassey - spinning wheel
10. d. frontiere - popi
11. the amazing adventure of the
liverpool scene - batpoem
13. moog indigo - e.v.a.
14. dave daffodil - pepperbox
15. harry beits - theme from the
fantastic plastic machine
17. jack hanson - the name game
18. dick hyman - chain of fools
19. noel harrison - a young girl

side b
20. vangelis - hypothesis
21. stan butcher - dow de dow dow dow dow
22. ananda shankar - jumpin' jack flash
23. gabor szabo - white rabbit
24. ramsey lewis - lady madonna
25. the dynatones - the fife piper
26. keith mansfield - soul thing
27. cal tjader - soul sauce
28. the plastic cow goes
moooooooog - medicine man
30. frankie vallie - the night
31. herb larson - dizzy
32. fausto papetti - groovin' with mr. bloe
33. connie francis - rock dem bells
34. roy harper - in the time of water
35. leroy holmes - what do you say
36. ferrante & teicher - lay lady lay

Also, this is one of the catchiest tunes I have heard lately. We keept playing it over and over from some crazy young kids in France. Kid Bombardos.

Kid Bombardos - Lovesong for High Kids




I am also djing at midnight at a new party this Friday night, 28 September, at the Dogstar in Brixton with the guys from 20jazzfunkgreats, Slutty Fringe and Nicole from Popscene. You can see a hilarious picture of me on the timeout article for the party.

Manifesto - African Party Tuesday 25 September

This Tuesday we are doing our monthly african party - back again after taking August off. And we have Harare, a live dance band from Zimbabwe. For those that have not checked out the party yet, I think there is a very interesting trend of fantastic sort of indie-ish bands that are incorporating african type guitar sounds and rhythms to take a genre that is maybe a bit bored and make it even more poppy and dance-able. Add to that the recent kuduro trend mixing in african type house-ish beats and you have a bunch of great new african influence music coming out right now that is not very high profile but which can make for a great party. This is behind what we are doing with Manifesto and why it has been packed very time.

One of the bands that I've been most excited about in the last week is Extra Golden, which I discovered on the amazing Benn Loxo du Taccu blog. You can download some of their songs and read an article about the mix of American rock and Kenyan "benga" pop that is taking place there. Their new album is coming out on ThrillJockey called Hera Ma Nono. I played their track Ok-Oyot System at Durrr last Monday and I kid you not, if there had not been a bit of the heavy african vocal, it would have sounded right at home as a fantastic guitar led indie track. The kids loved it.

Some other bands that are making up this trend that I am loving include Vampire Weekend who are going to be coming to the UK in the fall and have been playing to rave reviews in the US. Dirty Projectors on Rough Trade records (check out track No More and listen for the african style guitar) who will be playing at Durrr in the fall. There is another band based in London called Pirate Disko Club with track Prince of Cum. I don't know anything about them but I like the sound.

In addition, uber-cool swedish/french duo Radioclit have been doing kuduro style mixes for some time now and recently did a remix of The Little Ones - Pot A Brewin which you can find on itunes and purchase at the push of a button. They are also producing genuine artist Esau Mwamwaya from Malawi and I can't wait to hear more of that stuff. You can read an interview with them about their interest in all good things in this weeks (September 19) issue of Timeout, page 126.

Come down on Tuesday and check it all out!

Digitalism at Durrr

I am lucky to dj next Monday with one of my favorite groups ever - Digitalism!!! I used to cane their remix of Technologic last year because it's so good- in the middle of the song it has a bit that sounds like the guitars on New Order which is soooooooo good. I will, however, be playing much more random stuff than they play. Will probably play things like this great track from Party Shank called Penis vs. Vagina (slightly hetero focused). I might point out that it's full of this 8 bit sound which is what I played a whole set of last time I dj'd at Durrr.

Party Shank - Penis vs. Vagina

I shamelessly admit that I had not heard of Party Shank until I discovered them in the hilarious Peggy Crouches article in The P.I.X which is really quite good. Get on it kids.

I also just got sent some tracks from Super Volcano today by e-mail and they're pretty good. Check out in particular track Firestorm.

Super Volcano - Firestorm

Also playing at Durrr on Monday are Free Blood. You can read an interview with them (they sound funny in an american brooklyn kind of way) and listen to a Hot Chip remix of their track here. There is some mention on the Internet of them having the rhythm section from !!!. But I'm not sure about that.

Klaus Nomi Live

Klaus Nomi is one of the original freaks of the 80's. There was that fantastic time at the beginning of the 80's when it seemed like everyone was busting out of the old 70's way of doing things into the "modern era" (at least to me for some reason the 80's seem almost like part of our time, as compared to the 70's which seem like a former time). Hip Hop was being born, original electro, house coming in a few years. And the place to be was New York. But Nomi was actually already in his mid 30's when he moved to NY and was almost more in the "art" scene than the music scene it looks like. I note that this kind of operatic theatrical style of singing is like Nina Hagen did and also lots of his outfits have elements which you can see in some of the best designers today. Sadly, he was one of the first to die of AIDS. Some pretty amazing photos of him here. And here is a writeup from a very interesting lady who contacted me who was actually at the gig featured here - Madeline Bocaro, (or Bocchiaro) who by her own admission was a writer for CMJ in the late 70's/80s. If you go to the Blitz Kids site above you can even find info about another icon of our time who works on the P.I.X mag mentioned below as well as even photos of Kashpoint. 

This cassette is not quite a good quality for his songs as his other albums because it's live. But it's got a special quality to hear one of the freakiest ever in his live element - at Hurrah's club in New York in 1979.

   

 Side 1 

1 - Keys of Life 

2 - Falling in Love Again 

3 - Lightning Strikes 

4 - Nomi Song 

5 - The Twist 

 Side 2 

1 - Total Eclipse 

2 - I Feel Love 

3 - Samson and Delilah: Area 

Nina Hagen is another artist I associate from the same time (both of them Germans). Here she throws down a similar DIY rap style to Nomi.

New York New York - Nina Hagen 

Finally, you should come down and check the blog's party. Every thursday but one of the month downstairs at Catch - 22 Kingsland Road, London (we are not on next thursday). Last night Hannah Hanra totally rocked it out. It was great fun. Check out her great P.I.X mag that covers bands so hot new they don't even know they're a band yet.

Durrr tonight - djing

I am djing at Durrr tonight in the side room. You may ask yourself why I am not appearing on the flyer. That's because they love me so much, and you always hurt the ones you love - just in case you didn't learn that yet. That's really the sign that someone loves you a lot - if you know you can rely on them even you forget to put them in the flyer.

Anyway - I feel this urge to play computer game sounds type music tonight, sort of the kind of thing that slips into Crystal Castle songs and other new pop. I mentioned the idea to some Swedish friends and they told me that the kind of chiptune or "blip blop" sounds which I am referring to was a bit of a scene in Sweden some years back but it never took off too much. Anyway, here is a sample of the kind of thing I will be playing. Hope to see you there. Come by and say hi.

Cyriak - No More Memory
(if the link expires, you can download this and more music at http://www.myspace.com/cyriaksmusic )

And the kind of thing you can download at the 8bitpeoples site.

Random is one of the best of this genre.

Random - Sitges Savepoint

You can download more here.