The limited-edition A&R Edits label returns to vinyl after a 4 year gap, the last and 9th release in the series appearing back in 2015 – previous edits courtesy of Henry Greenwood, Derek Kaye, Sophie Lloyd, F.A.M.E, Fingerman, Peza and Twisted Soul Collective. The new release, a collaboration between Henry and myself, couples ‘Disco Mondo’ with ‘In The City’, and is available to purchase here via Juno:
//www.juno.co.uk/products/gw-henry-disco-mondo/739367-01/
Halloween is upon us, so there’s no better time for a ghost story.
Running Back, the German dance label headed up by DJ Gerd Janson, re-issue one of the first tracks I ever worked on today, 34 years on from its original release in 1984.
After having to put the Super Weird Substance label on the backburner for a while (although we were still very much active with last year’s ’14 Hour Super Weird Happening’ and the ‘Alan Moore’s Mandrill Meets Super Weird Substance At The Arts Lab Apocalypse in Liverpool’, we are now in the process of recalibration – the first step being this limited-run 12”, featuring 2 tracks previously released on the label that sold out of existing vinyl supplies, with a demand building since, plus 2 more never previously available on vinyl. The record can be ordered here:
//superweirdsubstance.bandcamp.com/merch/substance-select-vol-1-vinyl-only Continue Reading →
I’d meant to put this up back in May, 40 years after the record in question was released, but didn’t manage to get around to it. I wanted to highlight my Time Capsule series, which I put together for a series of 21 monthly episodes spanning January 1976 to September 1977. Each month consists of a podcast, nowadays available to stream via Mixcloud, featuring the dance music played by myself and other UK DJs back then. This was accompanied by text, where I talked about the tracks and the artists featured, whilst outlining my early days as a DJ.
Rewinding 40 years, a new double-album had just been issued that would provide the black music event of the year. 1976 marked the emergence of Punk, but my attention, as a 16 year old DJ working at local venues, the Chelsea Reach and the Penny Farthing in my hometown of New Brighton, was very much geared towards the Soul, Funk and Disco flavours of the time, and the release of a new Stevie Wonder album, let alone a double album (which also included a bonus 4 track EP), was greatly anticipated. It was the first UK release on the newly designed blue Motown label, which had replaced the classic Tamla Motown label that had issued all Motown output here since the mid-’60s, bringing the company’s various imprints (including Motown, Tamla, Gordy, Soul and V.I.P) under one inimitable umbrella.
The complete Random Influences is now available to stream via Mixcloud. This is a series of 2 x 12 hour long podcasts I put together in 2010 to mark my 50th birthday, comprising of a full 24 hours worth of music, all 7” singles from my formative years, with only records released before I started out as a DJ in December 1975 featured. As the title suggests this is a random, rather than definitive selection.
It’s 10 months since I blogged about the first 2 A&R Edits releases, issued simultaneously on DJ only limited 12” vinyl. Since then there have been 3 further additions, with another to follow next month, making 6 releases in all, each containing 2 tracks.
As outlined in the previous blog posts, the end of 2013 was all about 2 significant anniversaries for me – the 10th anniversary of my DJ return, swiftly followed by the 30th anniversary of my first time around ‘retirement’. Given that I stopped at the end of ’83, this brought my ‘Early ’80s Floorfillers’ series to a conclusion after 24 monthly episodes that spanned January ‘82 to December ’83, each edition appearing 30 years on from when I originally played these records.
The Northern Soul movement has marked 2 significant anniversaries this year – the launch of the weekly All-Nighters at the scene’s most famous venue, Wigan Casino, in 1973, as well as the opening of its foundation club, Manchester’s Twisted Wheel, 10 years earlier. A new book, ‘Northern Soul – An Illustrated History’ was recently published by Virgin Books, its co-author, Bury-born Elaine Constantine, also the director of the upcoming film ‘Northern Soul’. The book has been well received by Northern aficionados, Constantine (and Gareth Sweeney) congratulated for their insightful overview of the movement, which is enhanced by the anecdotal offerings of some of the DJs, dancers and collectors who epitomized Northern Soul. Alongside the music and the clubs in which it featured, the book also highlights the drug culture that played such a major role, amphetamines fuelling its development.
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