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Archive | The Seventies

Tony Williams

By on May 4, 2018 in Radio, RIP, The Eighties, The Seventies

Tony Williams Radio London

Tony Williams, the accidental UK catalyst for the fusion of Jamiacan Dub and New York dance music during the early-‘80s, sadly died on April 30th. Tony has received scant acknowledgement for this, and it wasn’t until I interviewed him in 2004 that he became aware of this legacy, resulting from the underground popularity of the self-released ‘(Money) No Love’ (artist credit Bo Kool, and arguably the first UK rap recording) and its instrumental flip side ‘Love Money’ (artist credit Funk Masters) pressed up in 1980 on a label named after his daughter, Tania – his production debut. When I commenced my Discotheque Archives series for DJ Magazine, the first edition featured ‘Love Money’ as the Classic Single:
https://djmag.com/features/greg-wilsons-discotheque-archives

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A Homage To A Vinyl Evangelist

By on October 23, 2017 in Art & Design, Merseyside, Photography, The Nineties, The Seventies

A Homage To A Vinyl Evangelist - photograph by Mark McNulty

This photo popped up on Facebook recently, taken by Mark McNulty, whose visual documentation of Liverpool’s club/music scene of the past 3 decades is now part of the city’s cultural legacy. It’s a photograph of a record cabinet Bill Drummond made following the death of Roger Eagle in 1999, which was displayed under the title ‘Dead White Man’ in the Jump Ship Rat, an alternative gallery space in Parr Street during Liverpool’s inaugural Biennial Festival that year, but not as part of the official programme, more an anarchic fringe event.

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Coming Of Age – Golden Guinea DJ 1977-1980

By on September 26, 2017 in DJ / Club Culture, Merseyside, The Seventies

Just come across a few paragraphs I wrote as part of my Time Capsule series, where month by month I compiled a selection of the tracks I was playing back in the ‘70s when I started out as a DJ, writing accompanying text about the music featured and my own progression within the local club scene on Merseyside, and more specifically my hometown of New Brighton. I managed to cover the period January 1976 (December 1975 if the prequel, ‘First Impressions’, is included) to September 1977 (each edition originally put together exactly 30 years on, between Jan ‘06 – Sept ‘07) but the process became too time-consuming to maintain, at a point when my DJ trajectory had really built momentum.

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Soussan Meets Wilson At The Uptown Festival

By on July 5, 2017 in Records, The Seventies

Uptown Festival

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.

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50 Years Of Colin Curtis – The UK’s Mancuso?

By on May 8, 2017 in Black Culture, DJ / Club Culture, The Eighties, The Seventies

Colin Curtis

This weekend Colin Curtis celebrates his 50th anniversary as a DJ with a special event at The Exchange in his home city of Stoke-On-Trent. Colin started out in his mid-teens at Newcastle-Under-Lyme’s Crystal Ballroom, before making his all-nighter debut at Stoke’s hallowed Golden Torch, one of Northern Soul’s foundation venues, eventually becoming one of the scene’s leading figures as a result of his legendary ‘70’s partnership with Ian Levine at the Blackpool Mecca. Info about the anniversary date here:
https://www.skiddle.com/whats-on/Stoke-On-Trent/The-Exchange/50-years-of-DJing-with-Legend-Colin-Curtis–Guest-Pete-Bromley/12932290/

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Banbarra Unmasked

By on December 22, 2016 in Articles, Black Culture, The Seventies

shack-up

Back in 1975 a single appeared on the United Artists label in the US by a new band called Banbarra, entitled ‘Shack Up’. It addressed one of the burning issues of the day, something that had been highlighted during the sexual revolution of the ’60s – co-habiting with a partner outside of wedlock, or what was more commonly referred to as ‘living in sin’.

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