I love a good lecture me, but I'd really like to know how Dr David Starkey can stand with the backs of his hands facing the viewer . . . all the time! Don't take my word for it, watch his excellent and informative series "Monarchy," C4 every Monday at 21:00.

18 people turned up for Product at The Junction last Saturday, 18!!!!!!!!!!! (See comment for previous post).
You can't take anything for granted in Cambridge. Starved as we are of good house and techno, you still have to promote your arse off. The Junction would have had a much more respectable turnout with the right amount of advertising. I didn't even see a flyer.

Thanks to Alland Byallo who got on touch with me regarding an older playlist. It's no problem supporting your music Alland when it's so good. Just a reminder. I can't respond privately to comments unless contact details are included therein.

Did anyone see that war party of chimps cannibalizing a rival mob in the Ugandan jungle on "Life on Earth" last Sunday night? And to think they're our closest genetic relatives. Jeez!

I went to The Priory at The Fez a few nights ago. After the success of last months installment with James Lavelle I was expecting the place to be doing brisk business. It was doing business but not too briskly. The boys stumped up a lot of money for this one but the discerning Cambridge clubber decided not to show equal dedication to the cause and stayed away. XPress 2 played some of the best music I've heard in Cambridge all year. Maybe this was because we are starved of this kind of house fare that most other towns above and beyond a reasonable size take for granted, maybe it was becuase I have a lot of the records and it was an exercise in mutual good taste. In any case, it's difficult to find fault with the content when it gets off to such a good start. Ricardo Villalobo's mix of DM's "The Sinner in Me" being the case in point. A groove was laid down full of peaks and troughs and while, for yours truly, this is the only way to get the party started, it's not that common in Cambridge. I know I don't get out enough, but I do like to maximise my chances of enjoying good music when I do. Tunes like "Mouth to Mouth," "Give Me a K" and "Doppelwhipper" aren't heard often enough in clubs like the Fez, and that doesn't just go for Cambridge, but up and down the country.

A new night started at The Junction last night. "Product" is apparently promoted by some guys off an american air base. They've already put on parties in Nottingham at Stealth and last night brought Mr C and Audiofly to town. I didn't go but I hope it went well for them. Audiofly were promoting their new "Undulations 2" cd, which is very good. Colin Dale is in town for "Bottom Heavy" Jim Masters' and Largo's night which is now happening at the ARU Academy, having previously been at the Soul Tree. Hopefully Jim will remember our conversation Thursday night and sort out a mix from Colin for my next show, which will go out just before the gig. Other forthcoming highlights include a guest appearance and interview with Mark Henning, hopefully before Christmas, if not, shortly after. He's in Berlin next weekend, playing at the Panorama Bar at a Foundsound party, so I'll be hitting him up for a match report on that a few days later.

On a more academic note, I was recommended
"The Pursuit of the Millennium (Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages" by Norman Cohn recently. I'm just about to embark on it. Worth reading just for the story of the "pseudo Baldwin" alone I'm told.

This week's show includes an interview with George and Sam of The Priory, roughly somewhere around the Jeff Samuel track.

Take a Chance - Mr Flagio (Squish/ZYX)
Martyr (Alex Smoke Gravel mix) - Depeche Mode (Capitol)
Something Else - Pig and Dan (Pickadoll)
Mutation - John Tejada (Pallette)
Fizheure Zieheure - Villalobos (Playhouse)
Lukon (Michael Mayer remix) - Mikkel Metal (Echochord)
Shared - SWAT Squad (Galaktika)
The Cave - Jeff Samuel (Trapez)
Red Light (Guy Gerber mix) - Dominik Eulberg (Cocoon)
Structured Music - Stephen Brown (Subject Detroit)

Sam from The Priory in the Mix:

Warning Siren - Tiefschwarz feat. Matty Safer (Fine)
Washing Up (Tiga remix) - Thomas Andersson (BPitch)
Tech Weeks (MJ's TNT mix) - Milton Jackson (Tsuba)
Erotic Discourse - Bobby Peru (20/20 Vision)
The Dogs - Bassbin Twins (Marine Parade)
Mouseville Theme - Cirez D (Mouseville)
Doppelwhipper - Gabriel Anandaq (Platzhirsch)
Charivari - Thomas Barfod (Turbo)
Movin' Thru Your System (Dave Clarke remix) - Jark Prongo (Hooj Tunes)
Emerge (Dave Clarke remix) - Fischerspooner (Gigolo)

Quality over quantity always, but from this week posts will become more frequent as I attempt to tenuously link developments in modern electronic music to just about everything of any importance ever .

The first of November falls like an iron curtain across Europe. OK, that's enough of the cold war similes, but it's true. It's bloody freezing getting up for work at the moment. Anyway, I should have enough to keep me company during the long British winter. I've just invested in a pair of CDJ200s. I can't afford the more expensive CDJ1000s or even the 800s. The others may look better on paper, but I'm confident mine will look great once they're up and running. What do I want to be able to do with them? Mix and play back mp3s. The auxiliary bollocks is all embellishment as far as I'm concerned. They should be arriving tomorrow. Christmas has come early.

I had to get them now because I'm going to become a father again in February and the egg chamber will have to be constantly replenished with fresh nutrients.

Musically things have never looked better. I'm definitely one for living in the present while cocking a reverential snoop to the past. But the music keeps on surprising me and filling me with childlike wonder and excitement. That Detroit's influence is as strong as ever has been recently noted in these columns, labels like Delsin, Rush Hour and Styrax Leaves keeping the (european) home fires burning. What's also not gone unnoticed is the morphology inherent in a lot of current techno to stretch to infonity and beyond. Check Philip Sherburne's "The Month in Techno" (October installment) for more on this. He puts it more eloquently than I can. I just think that it's more evidence of the survival of "real" electronic trance and its teutonic heritage. Trance as an adjective, not as a disturbing plastic genre nurtured by the likes of Perfecto, etc . . . Anyway, as he says in his article "it's easier to understand . . . . if you can listen along. . . ."

Radioslave aks Matt Edwards is a more than ubiquitous presence these days, which could be tiresome where it not for the fact that practically everything he turns his hand to is excellent. Along with Ewan Pearson Edwards seems to be becoming the remixer's remixer, showing a depth of understanding across genres that you don't encounter every year, no matter every day. I bought his new mix on Eskimo "Creature of the Night" yesterday which, along with the forthcoming "Fabriclive 31 The Glimmers" nicely provides the mashup heads amongst us with some organised chaos for mid-autumn. Personally I like to make my own sushi while listening to this stuff as the collision of genres is nicely reflected by what's on my plate, an absolute fucking mess. My mum bought me a sushi making kit for my birthday last year (no, she's not upper-middle class and lives in Knutsford) and I ended up using it for the first time over a year later, last Saturday. You need a sharp knife to cut that stuff to stop rice ejaculation from nori. I don't keep Japanese style cutlery in the home though. I', a father with a strong sense of fear and foreboding and I don't want to be pinioned to my bed by Lilliputians demanding "hotwheels or death" on pocket money days. The sins of the father shall not be revisited on the father by the sons ta very much.

XPress 2 are playing the Fez for The Priory on the 16/11, which should be a good night out for all. Apparently they've insisted on two 1210s each and two CDJ100s each, which will make a grand total of six turntables and the same of CDJs. They'd better be good because they don't come cheap either. Sam from the Priory will be guesting on my next show, so his mental state will be interesting to assess. Will he have sweaty palms and be prone to speaking like Gareth Davies on crack? Only time will tell.

Also, with absolutely no promotion whatsoever and, therefore guaranteed to be poorly supported by native residents, The Junction are putting on a new night two days after The Priory, featuring Mr C and Audiofly. I sincerely hope it's packed to the rafters but looking at the amount of promotion the Priory have to do to get their crowd in gives me serious cause for concern. If any of the parties concerned are reading this blog, bring a few coach loads up with you, you're going to need them.

I'm still not online at home, which is limiting my output. I hope to have this sorted
very soon.



Playlist for "Machines Are Funky" 4/11/06:

People are People (Underground Resistance mix) - Depeche Mode (Capitol)
Ghouls (Claude Von Stroke's Beats from the Grave mix) - Luke Solomon (Rekids)
5am Little Surprise - Pheek (Archipel)
Web of Deceit - Primary Colours (Fair Park)
Ode to DS - Mark Henning (Multivitamins)
Refine the Warrior - The Model (Underline)
White Noise - Audiojack (20/20 Vision)
24-24 - Cabaret Voltaire (Some Bizarre/Virgin)
Flip Flop - Repeat, Repeat (Soma)
What's Wrong My Friends? - Ricardo Villalobos (Perlon)
School - Robert Hood (Music Man)
Da Funk (10 Minutes of Funk mix) - Daft Punk (Virgin)
Smoke on a Plane - Copacabbanark (Persona)

Marco Carola Fabric Radio Mix:

Red 20 - JPLS (Minus)
Offprint 1.2 - Gaiser (Minus)
Minidiscoslicker - Jay la Forge (Deepinrhythm)
Mitica - Pedron (Unknown)
The Tracks - Luciano (Cadenza)
Traitors of Africa - Femi Kuti (Restricted Access)
Entr'acte Music - Andromat 3000 & Jan (Cadenza)
Simply Driving Gold - Daze Maxim (Hello)
No Fit State - Audion (Spectral)

(Check the link above from 7/11/06)

Chart: 11/06

The chart is only ever an indication of what I am playing at the time of writing, not necessarily of new releases:


Prelude to Foundation EP - The Model (Underline)
Squints LP - Repeat, Repeat (Soma)
My Friend is a Sea Horse (Radioslave remix) - Kissogram (DefDrive)
The Tussincussion (original mix) - Justin Maxwell (Pallette)
Bird Flu - Jens Bond (Highgrade)
Sleepy Hollow - Ame & Stefan Goldmann (Innervisions)
What's Wrong My Friends? (Perlon) & Fizheuer Zieheuer (Playhouse) - Ricardo Villalobos (for not giving a shit)
The Line In Between - Jussi Pekka (Frozen North)
Ghouls (Claude von Stroke's Beats from the Grave mix) - Luke Solomon (Rekids)

Mix cd of the month:

Immer 2 - Michael Mayer (Kompakt)

Others worthy of a mention:

Sci-Fi Hi-Fi Vol. 3 - Alex Smoke (Soma)
FabricLive 31 - The Glimmers (Fabric)
Creature of the Night - Radioslave (Eskimo)