WJLB - Live at the Warehouse with Spin Doctor Kim James - 1999

This is a gift from my friend Bohdan who is from Detroit and used to listen to this station, WJLB all the time on the weekend. He recorded this in 1999. It's full booty/ghetto/hip hop recorded live at the Warehouse in Detroit. The tracks are fantastic but even better is listening to the dj Spin Doctor Kim James work the crowd - calling out the playas and the hoes and pointing out girls he thinks are hot. All around it's an energy that I feel like I don't hear in clubs in London these days. I know that booty made a bit of a round on the dj circuit maybe 2-3 years ago, but this is like I've never heard it. Anyone who can name check some of the tracks, like the track where she says "if it's the last thing I do, I wanna go down on you", please post names in the comments. I gotta have it. I've posted one track from Dj Godfather which is in the mix with the great line "you got dem PHDs, dat's da 'playa hate disease'".

I'm off tomorrow to Miami for two weeks for the Winter Music Conference and to have fun. Going to go to Erol Alkan gig's, the Durrr gig and the disco pool party at the Gansevoort. If you're in Miami shoot me an e-mail. And if you want me to dj, I'll have my stuff with me. I got all kinds of freaky music, you know me. And I play for fun, not money :)

listen below.

side 1

side 2 

DJ Godfather and Coon Daddy - See U No More

EDIT: I managed to get my friend Pierre to identify the other track I like which you can download below.  I think you need to speed it up a bit to get the right effect.

Aaron Carl - Down (original mix)

Planet Rock 1 - various dance mixtape 1997

Finally emerging from an African cave where my musical ear has been for the last two months. I bought this fresh cassette a few months back at a car boot sale in Dalston from a guy called Paddy Austin.  He told me these were some of his favs for auto cruisin and I would need to return what I didn't use. Here's to you, Paddy, cause the first one reminded me of some of the great tracks that were out in 97, things like Aphrodite, Cornershop, Primal Scream, Fatboy Slim, and Propellerheads.  I so much love the Aphrodite - Bad Ass track that I dropped it at my dj set at Catch in Shoreditch last thursday - and the crowd asked for more!

Planet Rock 1 - side A (download/listen)

Planet Rock 1 - Side B (download/listen)

I also want to mention a lot of other things that I like right now, things I've seen recently, and things that are coming up.  

DJ GIGS

I'm djing at the Land of Kings festival on 17th of April.  Lots of good djs/bands at the festival so check the lineup - Kathy Diamond, Rory Phillips, Lou and Nova, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, Allez Allez and others.  Then the following Tuesday I'm also djing at the 6th birthday party of the Liar's Club in Nottingham with Health (live) and Banjo Freakout playing.  I hear they get their freak on in Nottingham, so I'm waiting to see.

NEW BANDS

I'm also creamed to the brim at randomly meeting two new musical projects in my neighborhood (that would be Hackney, creative center of the universe) that I really like.  One is ColouringIn (which sounds a lot like Empire of the Sun, which is totally the sound of now and my tip for the BBC Sound of 2009).  ColouringIn is "Love Minus Zero head honcho Tom Neville and opera singing former student of the Royal Academy turned electronic-upstart Henry Bennett" (plus a few others I think, such as my friend Marnie Hollande).  In other words, beautiful music with a fab operatic voice.  They've let me post a track below and I'm sure the record labels are panting.

Intergalactic Romantic (demo radio edit) - ColouringIn

The other band is a new project by uber mad synth fan neighbor Stan.  We hang out now and then and he just popped up the idea that he's working on some music last week and I was like "oh my god, here we go again, some lame ass project I'm going to have to be nice about but ignore".  But the music is beautiful and fantastic.  It's not a dance floor piece, more like a catwalk piece, or something to play in the background when you're working in your fashion studio not getting paid but filling your resume and lightly tapping your foot along.  Reminds me of that LCD Soundsystem track that was big - Someone Great.

Tumble Down Slow - Hounds of Hate

ART/OTHER THINGS

First of all, you have to check out this hilarious project Dollar Van Demos that someone sent me by e-mail (it's on youtube).  It's basically a taxi mixed with new artist shows.  The taxi is cheap and you get to check out some new artists.  Notice how different the vibe is in Brooklyn than in London.  Go Sally Connors.

I also saw some art I really liked at the Perrotin gallery in Paris a few weeks ago and as I'm increasingly interested in how undeveloped my taste in art is, I thought I would post some of my favorites so people can tell me why I have bad taste.  I really like Tatiana Trouve, and particularly this piece.  I also really like Jose Levy's show that was at Perrotin's gallery, but I guess he comes from fashion and it's not called "art" but rather "design" on the web page.  humph!  The chessboard of little mice he made was really great.  Finally, my fiance and I have been fans for some time of Rosa Loy, so now you know what I want for my Easter present.  I think it's because I'm somewhat drawn to the slight fairytale imagery, particularly stuff like this.

That's all for now.

Old is Gold vol. 1 - more Soukous

Well this is one more soukous cassette I brought back from Tanzania.  After this I'm going to go back to posting some other types of music but I will post more Tanzanian cassettes in the future.

This one is full of huge names and all of them have that dancey soukous sound I love.  I played a bunch of these at our Manifesto party last thursday night which was a smash pot of fun.   Thanks to those who came. We had more than 400 people in the Double Club that night and Taxi Pata Pata (Zong Zing in disguise) rocked it out.  Pictures here.  Fiston who plays in Taxi Pata Pata and Zong Zing told me that he used to play with Samba Mapangala, so you can get an idea of what it was like by listening to the tracks below.

Side A

Kabibi - Sam Mangwana

Marina - Samba Mapangala

Muzina - Tabu Ley

Ngandempa - P Adams

Cheche Dezo - T. Muana

Side B

Mboungou - Mayaula

Tojours Ok - Franco & Sam

Double Double - Nyboma

Dandy - Victoria Eleyson

Soukous Soukous - compilation tape

This tape is a compilation of some more amazing Soukous. I assume most of this is from Congo because it's not in Swahili, and the tracks are more of the soukous sound I love. Unfortunately even though there are lots of great names on the cover such as Danny Engobo and Pepe Kalle, none of the songs are tagged by artists. So I encourage anyone who reads this to tag the songs in the comments if you know them. I only included the songs which I like better. I think any one of them would make the dancefloor sizzle but I'm especially drawn to Soukous Tonic because of the fantastic guitar work.

Side A

Egide
Young Africa
Amina
Aziza
Pousse Au Fond

Side B

Soukous Tonic


Susie
Adie Amie
Salomon
Vacances Au Pays

I am also including a Soukous tape because we are finally doing another of our Manifesto parties and it's all about the SOUKOUS!! It's been almost a year since our last one and in the meantime lots of other parties have sprung up doing african music. The Double Club also opened, which is a big chic venue sponsored by Prada themed on the Congolese culture. We have been invited this Thursday, 5 March, to do Manifesto at that venue. With the help of some amazing musicians, including Fiston who plays in Zong Zing (who have played twice at Manifesto) and used to play in Samba Mapangala, we have booked the legendary Taxi Pata Pata which has been called one of the best Soukous bands in the world. Read all about Taxi Pata Pata, who was a big hit in the 80s, and come down and see them live. Details in the flyer below.

Vijana Jazz Band - Zilizowika

Another Internet virgin. This album is not mentioned anywhere on the Internet. Vijana Jazz Band are one of the biggest Tanzanian groups in the Muziki wa Dansi category though generally were later than some of the other bands (according to Wikipedia).

One of the tracks was too badly recorded for me to include it here, and I think Kapu La Mjanja has the best combo of vocals and instrumental on this tape.

Mundinde

Aza

Kapu La Mjanja
(listen below)

V.I.P.

Bunjumbura

Pepe Kalle - Voisin/Stop Feu Rouge

Pepe Kalle was quite a character and very well known in the world of congolese and east african pop. According to this great summary of his discography from Frank Bessem, this cassette came out about 1990. I already have some Pepe Kalle stuff and know that he is quite well known, but now I'm going to have to check him out further. This kind of fairly fast Soukous with really bright metallic guitar just really grabs me. You can cop some really fresh Pepe vinyl from 1981 on the amazing Ylow blog here.

I didn't put the last track on here because it doesn't sound like it is Magali and I'm not sure what it is called.

Voisin

Keva

Stop Feu Rouge

(stream below)


I'm not sure what to think of the fact that he was famous for having dwarfs who performed with him. It gets more freaky when the dwarf starts to hump the other dancers halfway through the vid.

Tabora Jazz Band - old school favorite

The Tabora Jazz Band was one of Tanzanian pop's seminal bands. According to Wikipedia, they were one of the key bands that developed the Tanzanian pop sound I really love called "Muziki was dansi", which came from Congolese/Rumba and Sokous sounds. Unfortunately the quality of this cassette, which is probably from before the 70s, is not super good. Still, the standout track here is Mariam Mpenzi. Particularly the latter part of the track in the breakdown is fantastic. I'd so love to find a better recorded version of this.

Asha No. 1

Alhamdulilah

Zabibu No. 2

Mariam Mpenzi
(stream below)


Tatu Wajidanganya

You can find another Tabora Jazz track over at this Mwana Simba page.

Tandale Modern Theatre - Mbereko - tanzanian pop

As I continue through the cassettes I bought in Tanzania, this one is one of the more obscure ones. I can't find virtually any reference at all to the group on the nets. Kind of half way between the traditional dancey band stuff and the gospel choir stuff, this one seems to be more of maybe a traditional local group. But some of the tunes are still really catchy with complex instrumentation. Probably my favorite is Shoga Kidokozi which you can both download and stream below. The funny thing is that even though I didn't know the term, it says online that Shoga is slang for gay man. So literally this song could mean "a little bit gay".

Mbereko (22 minutes long!)

Mashine

Nipisheni Msinibane

Shoga Kidokozi
(stream below)

Omary Kopa - Zanzibar Taarab

This is proper Zanzibar Taarab which I purchased in the gift shop of the House of Wonders in Stone town. I am finding that lots of the Taarab is heavy on the kind of arabic style singing and doesn't have much of a traditional song structure (or at least a song structure I'm used to). The singer seems to wander all over the place without much of a melody. So I'm not posting all of the songs, just the ones which I think are a bit more catchy.

I can't find much info about Omary Kopa but I think the 3 tunes are quite catchy, particularly track 3. I can't tell what the tracks are called but I've guessed on 2. The cd had 6 songs on it and for sure they're not in the order on the cover.

Namtunza Mwanangu

Track 3
(listen below)


Tufurahie Kitchen Party

mystery cassette - Tanzania gospel music

Well I was really looking forward to this cassette but when I played the songs I realized that it must have been accidentally switched by the cassette stand seller cause the Swahili lyrics don't match the song titles. THE SONGS BELOW ARE NOT THE CASSETTE COVER ABOVE. It sounds like some kind of Tanzania christian music and the cassette has no indication of its title. Still, the music is great and kind of dancey, so if anyone can identify it for me that would be great.

It looks like the Mandela Theatre Troupe were some kind of educational group in Tanzania trying to use music to educate. There is only one reference I could find to this cassette and it is in the Doran Ross collection of Taarab cassettes from Zanzibar. Doran Ross appears to be some luminary from UCLA and the list of cassettes looks like a very comprehensive resource of what might exist in the genre. I will be posting a few of these in the days to come.

Most of Side A was corrupted sound, but I managed to rescue this track for its great male vocal stylings. And Side B is fresh - particularly B3.

Track A4

Track B1

Track B2

Track B3
(listen below - this track is so great)


Track B4

Track B5

Track B6

Download all tracks in rar file. (Sharebee)

Mbaraka Mwinshehe - Tanzanian classic

I just returned to London from a month travelling with my girlfriend in Tanzania. I grew up in Arusha, so it was a chance to go back home and check things out. One of the great pleasures was listening to the great east african sounds blaring out of sound systems in roadside shops and little tinny sounding radios everwhere I went. I managed to pick up about 40 cassettes and a few cds, many from artists whose music doesn't seem to appear anywhere on the web. So I am going to try to do a blitz of the better stuff I got for the next few weeks and then return to my regular programming.

First of all I want to add that there are others much more knowledgeable than me about this kind of music, and others who write about it all the time. Awesome Tapes from Africa covers nothing but african tapes, but it does seem to be mostly west african. He has nothing on Tanzania from what I can tell, though there are some gems from Kenya here. I find that I do usually prefer the instrumental sound from east africa (kenya, Tanzania, and sometimes Zaire (now known as Congo)). This may however be partly because I understand Swahili and the lyrics. Steve Ntwiga's blog is the only one I have found that consistently covers east african music also, but I think he has more of a Kenyan bent. Benn Loxo du Taccu's blog is fantastic for covering lots of african music, but his east african coverage has been thinner. He has covered some Tanzanian stuff before though all links are now dead.

Most of the music I'm going to cover will be of the Taarab flavor or old dance band sound. Tanzania has been crazy about bongo flava for the last few years and some of it is quite nice. But in my view it's just an interesting variation of hip hop and rnb with Swahili lyrics and I'm not really into that sound right now. So I didn't really collect any. Taarab often sounds like a mix beween middle eastern/arab and tanzanian pop. But it varies and sometimes sound a lot more like traditional pop, like the sound on this cassette.

This first cassette I'm featuring is of Mbaraka Mwinshehe who is one of the classics of east african music. His track Shida can still be heards playing out of bars/sound systems all over the country. I had not had a chance to play the cassettes much when I was in Tanzania. But one day we were travelling from Tanga in the north down a really bad dirt road to Pangani (which I highly recommend as an unspoilt beach spot). The driver was playing his Bongo Flava so I asked him if he would mind trying one of my cassettes. We popped this in and when Shida came on he suddenly laughed and started to sing along. I also love the authentication stamp, with signature, on the back of the cover (click on it for a better image).

[I've tried to provide swahili translations of song titles to the best of my capacity.]

Side A

Shida Part 1 & Part 2 (Problems - part 1 and 2) "Problems"
(listen below)


Nisalimie Wanazaire "Greetings to the Zaire people"

Mapenzi Yanitesa "My Lovers are Bothering Me"

Side B

Choyo Uache "Don't be Petty" (cassette cover says this is the song, but not sure)

Tutakuja Gombana "We will Start to Argue"

Dr. Kleruu "Dr. Kleruu"

Esta Wangu "My Esther" (cassette cover says this is the song, but not sure)

Download the complete album here (Sharebee).

A.E. Bizottság - Kalandra Fel!! Hungarian post-punk

Sorry there has been a bit of a delay in the blogging. I am travelling for a month in Tanzania and Zanzibar, in east africa, so the Internet has not been foremost on my thoughts. Hopefully, I will find some excellent Taraab and Swahili music while here however and post one or two things up before February.

I don't know much about this cassette other than that I think it was part of a rock/post-punk movement in Hungary in the early 80s. I bought a whole bunch of Hungarian cassettes, including some from Beatrice (sp?) from someone at a small car boot sale behind the Dalston train station. Excellent! Some of this is really quite good stuff - I was surprised. Hopefully I will find a chance soon to upload the second half. Check out in particular the track Linaj, Linaj, Van-Van-Van.

Tracklisting:

A1		Köszöntő [Address/Invitation]
A2		Putty-Putty
A3		Brutális [Brutal]
A4		Konyhagyeplő [Kitchen Rein]
		Guitar [Solo] - Y. Sándor Bernáth*
A5		Linaj, Linaj, Van-Van-Van [Linay, Linay, Van-Van-Van]
A6		Ne Nagyon Gesztikulálj [Don't Gesticulate So Much]
A7		Vaniliaálomkex [Vanilia-Dream-Biscuit]
A8		Bestia [Beast]
A9		Versike [Rhyme]
A10		Na Ne Hülyéskedj [Stop Kidding]
B1		Egy Lány Kéne Nekem [I'd Need A Girl]
B2		Már Megint Ez A Depresszió [Depression Back Again]
B3		Nem Bírom A Gyűrődést [Pooped Out]
B4		Mindez Én Vagyok [All That Is Me]
B5		Kamikáze
B6		Szerelem, Szerelem [Love, Love]

SUPER SUPER magazine mix

I wrote an essay for this months issue of Super Super fashion magazine (available in select stores, of course). My concept was a discussion of art/music completed by an essay using a sequence of sentences each of which were lifted from a blog. Then I did a mix which was a tune taken from the same blogs in the same order as each sentence in the essay. So essentially it was an experiment in a mix being selected by the meaning of words. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But what "works" is subjective and the point of the essay.

Download or listen


here is the tracklist and the blog they are taken from in sequence.

http://darksynthesia.blogspot.com/        The 4-08 To Paris - Berlin Express
http://robartopoland.blogspot.com/        Nothing to Lose - Rendezvous
http://babakazoo.blogspot.com/        Arcadia - Goodbye is Forever
http://dollarbinjamsonline.blogspot.com/        Peter Dragontail – Perfect Machine
http://discoidterrorist.blogspot.com/        Karen Young - Deetour
http://titisse.blogspot.com/        Regrets - Je Ne Veux Pas Rentrer Chez Moi Seule
http://blog.datasapiens.net/        Snap! - Rhythm Is A Dancer (Tom Novy Remix)
http://supertroels.dk/wp/        Boom Clap Bachelors - Fylde Dig Med Regn
http://www.ohhcrapp.net/        Klaxons - Gravitys Rainbow (Todd Edwards Remix)
http://www.roboboogie.blogspot.com/        PNAU - Embrace (Miami Horror and Fred Falke rmx)
http://www.discobelle.net/        Diplo - Blow Your Head (DJ Eli remix)
http://twankleandglisten.blogspot.com        MC J' Ro 'J - Let's Jump
http://www.unkut.com/        Eric B. & Rakim - Follow The Leader
http://awesometapesfromafrica.blogspot.com/        Maurice Maiga and Amore Cultural Group - Mugun Fata
http://funky16corners.wordpress.com        The Pioneers - Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone
http://nurse-marbles.livejournal.com/        Francoise Hardy - La Maison Ou J'ai Grandi
http://blog.wfmu.org        Rainbow Arabia - Let Them Dance
http://www.unicornmeat.com/        Great Motion Picture Themes From Jean Harlow Films
http://brotbeutel.blogspot.com/        D.U.R. - Bericht aus der Beamtenkultur
http://thethingonthedoorstep.blogspot.com/        Tequila Mariachi - Confidencia
http://keytarsandviolins.blogspot.com/        Maxence Cyrin - D.A.N.C.E.

80's groove!

Key kids. I don't normally talk about every dj gig I do on the blog here, but tomorrow night (that's Wednesday 19 November) I'm doing a special set of 80's groove music at ISA GT's party Musicalia. It's free and in the middle of Shoreditch at a venue with a great sound system - and you need a great sound system for 80's groove. In case you don't know, 80s groove is pretty much the only sound that is just not getting played out much these days. People will play all kinds of indie rock, electro/techno/house, even disco and sometimes hip hop or old school stuff. But I almost never hear the stuff like below. But I love this stuff and you need to check it out. I have a huge collection of it.

Mangray compilation tapes

Mangrey is one of those kind of guys that, if you see him at a cocktail party, you will just feel you need to find out who he is. But I don't want to give you a visual image of what he is like, striking as that is, because I want you to imagine him. Someone I met at an east london fashion studio, not too young, not too old, but who you can know only through these tapes.

I first met him at a party at the Boudicca fashion label's studio and was told that he did magical mixtapes. And when I first started doing this blog I thought I would be posting lots of nuggets of personal confession, mixtapes done with a lover in mind or a theme, a slice in time perhaps. Unfortunately the Oxfam shops have a policy not to sell privately made mixtapes, so I've been mostly posting commercial releases.

Mangray had made a bunch of themed mixtapes for Zowie and Brian of Boudicca and they lent a few to me. Then I got to know Mangray's lovely personality myself and he offered to lend me copies of the original artwork for the tapes.

Maybe some day you will met Mangray. If you do, ask him what the mixtape theme of the day is. In the meantime, listen and enjoy.



We Are Normal

tracklisting - Side 1:

Orson Welles - intro
The Steve Miller Band - Space Intro/Fly Like and Eagle
The Stills Young Band - Fountainebleau
The Allman Brothers - Please Call Home
Joss Stone - Right to be Wrong
Roger Daltrey - Giving it all away
Neil Young - Old Man
Free - Travellin in Style
Doobie Brothers - Long Train Runnin'
The Stills Young Band - Make Love to You
Barclay James Harvest - Mocking Bird
Crosby and Nash - Samurai

tracklisting - Side 2:
Van der Graaf Generator - A Plague of Lighthousekeepers
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band - We Are Normal
The Beautiful People - The Sea
Brain Auger and Julie Driscoll - Take Me Down to the River
Peter Gabriel - Here Comes the Hood
Nick Drake - Riverman
Alison Krauss - Down to the River to Pray (edit)


side 1
http://sharebee.com/450c2f39

side 2
http://sharebee.com/ea31cd0d

Mangray also gave me a Beautiful People cassette, but I prefer not to post complete cassettes that have been posted elsewhere. Still the artwork he did is amazing (above) and the music is really great (I didn't know them) - early 90s sort of loopy/synthy kind of dancey trippy stuff, with Hendrix samples. Check it out here. I also have one more with amazing music on it but I'm waiting for artwork from Mangray.

I encourage you to check out Boudicca if you are not familiar with them. As Showstudio says, Boudicca is the thinking woman's favorite label. Yeah, and their clothes fit. Seriously, they have brilliant ideas and are really nice people, but more than anything, their clothes fit really well and are really well made. I love clothes and I've discovered that the magic to an amazing designer whose reputation lasts is that their stuff fits really well. I've seen their stuff transform more than one woman trying things on in their studio. Amazing. Also, check out their Wode perfume they've just made. It's not that expensive and does this amazing thing that when you spray it on, it's blue, like paint, and then within about 20 seconds it fades completely. So you can spray it on a really expensive piece of clothing and freak the person out that you've just ruined their outfit, only to discover while they're getting mad at you that it's all gone and they're left smelling all spicy and wonderful. Class gift for christmas. I already bought some. Check out one of their catwalk shows I like here.

djing at Timeout gig with Drums of Death

I have been invited by Timeout to join them in this new series of On The Up parties they are doing. This one features a number of up and coming artists which are really good and in particular Drums of Death is getting a lot of great hype. He played last nigh at Durrr and word is that the live gig is amazing and it's hard to capture the show in the tracks of his you can download. Anyway, his tracks are stand out. Check out his latest release Dodf**ksupanescorttune on the Keytars and Violins blog here and his remix of Late of the Pier's Bathroom Gurgle (one of last year's biggest tracks) on Discobelle. He is up for awards as breakthrough producer of the year at Dj Mag and you can tell by the diversity of these two tracks (the first is like an 80s groove remix and the second is bassline) that he is a new one to watch.

I am also a big fan of Ipso Facto and they are sure to draw a great crowd and looking forward to hearing their dj choices. I am playing the late set so you can be sure it will be just like all my freaky sets at Catch and elswhere - lots of tunes meant to first make you go "What the F*"£*K?" and then go "Uh Oh, my knees feel weak".

More details on the party and tickets here.

Manifesto - Cape Verde mini Film Festival

As you may have noticed I have been involved with an african music party called Manifesto for the last few years. The party is currently on hold while we look for a good venue but in the meantime Alberto (who I do the party with) has organized a mini film festival this coming weekend. Details are in the flower above (click on the photo for a larger image). Hope to see you there!

various 1990 dance RnB/freestyle from Honolulu

This summer my girlfriend and I had a day layover in Honolulu coming back from vacation. So, as usual, instead of visiting all the local tourist spots, we immediately headed over to the thrift store (charity shop, as they say here in the UK) on the wrong side of town. I managed to pick up a vintage Matsuda men's jackets (sweet) and then we decided to walk back through the local cars-parked-on-cement-blocks hood to reach our hotel on the beach. On the way we lucked out with a random yard sale run by two sisters (who had a LOT of loving to give) selling their old school late 80s RnB dance tapes.

Late Nite Magic had only one track out according to discogs and I can't find any more info. The cover says it was produced in LA. But I can't really find much info about the artists or the remixers Rock Vee or Teddy and John Bolden.

Late Nite Magic - Huneez (Magic Radio Mix)
Late Nite Magic - Huneez (Magic Radio Mix - TV Track)




Again I can't really find much info about Sunni and she had only a few more tracks out that Late Nite Magic. She had a bit of a Paula Abdul moment on the fresh youtube dance moves. You can find some early 90s house remixes of this track here. But this track was produced by Chris Barbosa and Mark Liggett who were key producers in the Freestyle genre (wikipedia). Their track Fire and Ice was the original which Shannon covered to become the huge hit Let The Music Play.

Sunni - Why Did My Baby Get Over Me (12" mix)
Sunni - Why Did My Baby Get Over Me (single mix)


As for Seduction. I don't have to say much about them because they were produced by Robert Clivilles And David Cole of C+C Music Factory fame. This has some nice dance touches to it though the group never got very big.

Seduction - (You're My One And Only) True Love (Club Mix)



Finally we have this "funk rock" tape which is actually mostly what I would call "electro" - the real original electro, not the Benny Bennasi circa 2005 type. It's got a bunch of great tracks on it such as (Notin' serious) Just buggin', Boogie Down Bronx, Egyption Lover, Rockberry Jam, We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off and more. I think it's a recording of a radio show and lots of the tracks sound really good, maybe special radio mixes.

Honolulu yard sale "funk rock" electro tape.

more vintage The Face magazine fashion April 1986

I bought a bunch of The Face and I-D mags recently from the mid 80s and early 90s hoping to find yet more interesting fashion ideas (and music) in the never ending hunt for something inspiring which I haven't seen in the over infused mining of the past we got going on now. Surprisingly there have not been many fashion shoots that I have been gaga about. But this one from 1986 features more of the Ray Petri Buffalo style, more of which you can find here. Designers featured here include Gaultier, Michiko Koshino, Judy Blame, Byblos, Takeo Kikuchi and others. I will post a new cassette by the weekend.

Pagan Babies

I really have to warn you - the music on this tape is not even up to the low standards we maintain on this blog :) But I had to post this cassette cause it's sort of African music by a Hawaiian band recorded in Papua New Guinea which I bought in the Oxfam shop in Swansea, Wales. It was too much of a mix of weirdness and the cover makes me laugh. Most of the tracks sound like they were knocked out on a cheap kid's synth at a wedding reception. But the tracks Wasara and African Typic are not too bad for fun african party numbers.

The Pagan Babies of Hawaii, U.S.A.

a1 - Hat, Hat, Hat
a2 - Jungle Beat
a3 - Sebe Allah-ye
a4 - Fire in Belize
a5 - That's My Blood
a6 - Natives are Restless
b1 - Bidimbo
b2 - Could You Be Loved
b3 - Wasara
b4 - African Typic
b5 - Forget About You
b6 - Hot, Hot, Hot


I also want to talk about some new bands. We here at the Dalston Oxfam Shop blog are not content with rave rare cassette postings and hot dj gigs - we also WANT TO BOOK LIVE BANDS. Yeah. I was asked to book the dungeon room at the last People on Horses party and instead of just getting more djs, I thought it would be fun to turn it into some weird freaky band-fest. I had just seen Maria & the Mirrors play at Offset festival where I had been djing and my friend Hannah from The P.I.X. tipped me off to the hot new show put on by the FANTASTICALLY named An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (named after a classic painting). Both of them had an great sort of raw rock/punk/tribal drumming thing going on with a theme of girl-bands-who-drum-standing-up.



Here's a track by An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump - Lights Out. They're 3 english girls, one of Nepalese descent and two filipino sisters. And they make really good RAW sounds. They've recently played with S.C.U.M., Pre and Selfish Cunt and are solidly booked for gigs as you can see on their myspace and are currently playing in Berlin. The youtube vid doesn't really capture the experience.




Maria & the Mirrors is probably a bit lesser known, but their live show has something which is like an avant-garde art/music wet dream. Two girls standing playing drums in sync like some east london aboriginal tribe reborn followed by seagull calls and screams interspersed with the electric bass/loop stylings of their male force with occasional rants from him as well. I couldn't find a good quality track as of this posting, but check out the hebrew symbolistic referential (to equinox) Tekufah on their myspace. Honestly, I have been telling people left and right to book them. The artist Martin Creed obviously agrees with me as they are playing with his band on the 14th Oct. at The Hub on Goulston Street (east london). Pic below is from Offset festival. Somehow at the gig they managed to pull a whole bunch of the Friday night 333 crowd downstairs because it was such a strange yet wonderful sight.

Finally I would like to draw attention to another musical project which is similar to the above in its sense of rejecting the whole "my this is a good vintage, a '98 Chateau Margaux red" with nose in the air approach to musical craftsmanship, favoring instead a sort of Lambrini and poppers freestylin in ye olde squat down the lane. Squallyoaks is the womb of much creativity in London, as it is the fairly inexpensive residence of Karley Sciortino and her mates. I don't know her mates very well, but Karley has been behind the fantastically written Slutever blog, the international slam dance girlcore, which along with other parties she has booked, has made Catch the hot spot again in Shoreditch. She also dates a mysterious, sweet and very talented indie chart star, has her own band Indie Boys Don't Boners, is a hottie, has been in French playboy (as an article, with her clothes on, duh) and was key to the success of my blog as she put me up in lists of good sh*t in like Dazed and such. And she probably still thinks she's not up to anything.

Well she and her fellow Squallyoak-ians decided to put together an album and actually there are some really good ideas on it. It's sort of keeping with the ideas over polish theme in this blog post. Not sure where you can get the cd, but message Karley. Do not assume that the other tracks are like this one.

Squallyoaks - Ridiculous