ODDS ‘N’ BODS
THIS WEEK’S inevitable remixes include a far superior subdued 0-112½bpm LW5, beefy beat started 113¼bpm Mark Fisher, more spacious muscular 116bpm T.C. Curtis, dense mournful 92¾bpm Take Three, dull vocal (0-)107bpm Sahara, instrumental flipped nasty Dead Or Alive rhythm emphasised 122½bpm 400 Blows, disjointed less hard 0-117bpm Harold Faltermeyer, plus — so far unreceived — Atlantic Starr, and Conway Brothers (although nothing could improve on their excellent 7in edit), the latter remixed by Froggy’s partner Simon Harris originally for his regular slot on Capital during John Sachs’ show . . . ‘The Artists Volume Two‘ (Streetsounds ARTIS 2) is a humdinger double album compilation, one side each of all the hits that fit by Luther Vandross, Teddy Pendergrass, Change, Atlantic Starr! . . . Capitol in the States signed the O’Jays and Patrice Rushen, while Brass Construction’s album next month has a killer called ‘Zig Zag‘ . . . Michael’s sister Janet Jackson is being produced by Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis at A&M, which is where Arnold’s son Lindsay Wesker currently hangs his hat . . . Phil Fearon & Galaxy, with the girls prominently featured, have covered 1978’s Special Delivery ‘This Kind Of Love‘ in a lovely long 111½bpm smooth shuffly treatment that hopefully won’t float over pop fans heads . . . Portuguese-sung and summery — though not soca! — that 104½-107½bpm Gilberto Gil ‘Toda Menina Baiana‘ (WEA U9451T) has been reissued for the good weather . . . Solar’s slimline CJ Carlos, one of several building a buzz on Aleem’s recent though now rare ‘Get Loose‘, says burning up the floor in East London is the old Jellybean ‘Was Dog A Doughnut‘ (EMI America LP), at 0-98bpm suddenly like a slower ‘Axel F’! . . . Colin Hudd’s previously secret oldie now spreading from Dartford Flicks is the Ken Gold produced timely very Chic-ish ‘Darlin‘ by Delegation . . . LWR were busted again as soon as my ink was dry last week, but thankfully all London’s soul pirates were back by the weekend, Solar with a new untraceable link (although what makes them think their DJs’ cars are untraceable I don’t know!) . . . JBC 96.95FM incidentally kept going mainly in the evenings, and some of their shows are very good indeed . . . Light Of The World’s anthemic ‘London Town ’85‘ has obviously been hurt by the lack of pirate plugs . . . Essex’s airwaves change yet again with ACR switching to pop while some of its soul presenters plan a “hard” station of their own . . . Robbie Vincent sits in for holidaying Jeff Young on BBC Radio London the next two Saturday lunchtimes, his own original slot! . . . Chris Ryder (3 Horsley Drive, New Addington, Croydon CR0 0QW) has the franchise from Croydon-Cable UK to run a “radio station” into the 40,000 subscriber homes from next month and urgently needs widely knowledgeable good presenters, not Radio One style — send demo/CV . . . John Dineley (0252-872817), mixing Hi-NRG Thur/Fri/Sat at Surrey’s only gay club Camberley Krugers, is after more mixing gigs the other nights in vari-speed equipped gay venues . . . Disco Mix Club International Mixing DJ champion Roger Johnson (St Albans 0727-39582) actually wants to sell the Trent II console he won so he can get a GLI 9000 mixer instead (tee hee!) . . . DMC’s July mixes are Alan Coulthard’s good Hall & Oates medley and Curtis Hairston minimix, Sanny X’s clever if incongruous restructuring of Rick Dees ‘Disco Duck’ and startling vintage rock ‘n’ roll mix (which would have been better using original versions, if not pressings), and Les Adams’ excellent jocks choice supposedly All-American mix for July the 4th — except of the acts used only Sharon Redd & Poussez for sure, Baby O & Candido possibly, hold American passports, others being French Frantique, Spanish Antonia Rodriguez, Brazilian Sergio Mendes, Birmingham-born Canadian Carol Jiani! (Les actually at short notice had to put this selection together, brilliantly, for a slot that was intended for my own All-American choices, except he shied away from mixing Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and the Pointer Sisters, who are the type of Americans most readily identified by my punters in 1985!) . . . Paul Anthony (Shrewsbury Park Lane) reports that jocks in Northern Italy are into “slow spins” keeping everything between 100-105bpm, like if you can believe it ZZ Top ‘Legs’ mixed into Divine ‘So You Think You’re A Man’ at 33 1/3bpm (don’t go giving Sanny X ideas!) . . . Steve Sale (Wigan Pier) even without vari-speed evidently synchs the entire length of Harold Faftermeyer ‘Axel F’ through Dead Or Alive ‘In Too Deep’ . . . London Records’ regional reception for new signings Total Contrast at Manchester’s Sandpiper Inn in Fallowfield on Monday (15) may well he graced by myself, so Mike Shaft look out! (invites from Mike Sefton or Kev Edwards) . . . Paul Hardcastle ’19’ took over atop US Club Play . . . Friday’s ‘6.20 Soul Train’ has Steve Arrington, Conway Brothers, Denise LaSalle, Archie Bell & The Drells, Esther Phillips . . . Gary Byrd could be spreading his wings on Friday evenings soon! . . . Sister Sledge’s two appearances on ‘Soul Train’ seem, as far as our chart returns are concerned, to have made ‘Frankie’ into a soul record — I don’t think (mind you, to put it in perspective, back in the ’60s I bought all the girlie group records on which it’s modelled just as avidly as the deep soul stuff) . . . Alex Gerry, my old ’60s soul co-jock at Le Beat Route, where are you currently? . . . Soul On Sound’s latest monthly Hippodrome night amidst a staggering round dozen PAs included dance trio Torso reviving the classic ’30s acrobatic splits ‘n flips style of such as the Step Brothers, complete with tailcoats (very ‘Cotton Club’ and a joy to see) . . . Danny Stewart (47 Apsley Road, Gt Yarmouth NR30 2HG) is after Linda Jones ‘My Heart Needs A Break‘ (US Loma 7in), while Kevin Hawkins (0375-678558) is after Johnny Guitar Watson ‘A Real Mother For Ya‘, and coincidentally has Claudia PAing this Thursday (11) at Basildon Fat Sam’s . . . PAs also include Precinct Thursday and Cool Notes Saturday (13) at Harlow Whispers, then Precinct Saturday and Cool Notes Thursday (18) at Maidstone Sunset, and 400 Blows Friday (12) at Beckenham Lautrec’s . . . Bolton Dance Factory has Island/Fourth & Broadway promotion nights this Fri/ Sat, WEA ditto next . . . Saturday (13) sees Pete Tong at Leysdown Stage 3, and Phil England driving Matt bats at Cullompton Blazers . . . Solar’s CJ Carlos & Paul Buick are downstairs, Graham Gold in residence upstairs, at Mayfair Gullivers every Wednesday now . . . Pete Sedgebeer, if last week’s went well, should be funking Thursdays at Golden Green’s free Bell pub (in Three Elm Lane off the Tonbridge/East Peckham A26) . . . Paul Oakenfold & Trevor Fung funk Streatham Chaplins Fridays, Tony de Vit does Kidderminster’s Weavers wine bar Tues/Thur with outdoor barbeque when fine, Andy Heryet confesses Worthing Carioca Saturday party nights are his busiest there . . . Wednesday (17) sees the long awaited start of an upfront, no dress restriction, solid soul ‘n’ funk night at Swansea’s Harry’s Dance Bar with James Lewis, The Bean & Jeff Thomas, a brave oasis amidst a pop desert so do support it — I missed Jeff, but met The Bean (and Plastic Sam supping ice cream by the marina) under the kind guidance of James during my latest visit to The Mumbles last week . . . 400 Blows gave me one of their T-shirts, size XXXL — however did they know that’s the only kind your double whopper can wear? . . . STAY COOL!
COMMUNITY RADIO
HOME SECRETARY Leon Brittan last Wednesday announced that so far in 1985 there have been 110 raids on 44 different pirate radio stations, and that he is determined to “stamp out the anarchy of the airwaves”. However, he has yet to reveal any decision about the type of community radio that many anticipate will be a legal replacement for the pirates. This will be more likely if the Government opts for “special interest” radio, broadcasting over a wider area than strictly local “community radio” would cover. By coincidence the day before Brittan spoke, Angela Rumbold MP chaired a press conference at the House Of Commons on behalf of such licence-seeking sometime pirates as Radio Jackie, Solar-FM. two specialist rock stations and various ethnic Asian, Arabic and Greek stations, attended by several Conservative MPs (but significantly no Socialists) who each talked encouragingly although with warnings. Tim Brinton, Conservative Backbench Media Committee chairman, foresaw “some move in experimental community radio within the next few months”, but thought that the generally desirable deregulation of radio would pose too many problems to allow widespread changes for a long time. John Gorst counselled patience, saying “this is an area that Parliament for many years has taken a great interest in”, but a national pride in the standard of our broadcasting would dictate that even the smallest stations at the base of the broadcasting pyramid would have to meet scrupulous standards under centralised control. Ivor Stanbrook, declaring “deregulation is in the air”, although “the road is going to be pretty long and pretty hard”, added that licence applicants should be “self disciplined — take what’s offered and don’t complain about regulations imposed upon you”. At some stage someone made the vary pertinent remark that nobody at the meeting had a God given right to broadcast: quite possibly this was the last speaker, who shook all present with the revelation of his identity, Roger Gale, MP for Thanet and the only Member to have been a pirate DJ himself, on board the old Radios Caroline North and South! As well as raising the question of theft by the pirates of copyright in their non-payment of royalties (unfortunately no mention was made of previous pirate offers to pay being turned down because they were unlicensed to broadcast in the first place), and the future imposition of needletime which would prevent any legal station existing on records alone. Gale summed up the current uncertainty of the situation which still limits one to speculation, “Don’t confuse community radio with specialist interest radio, the Government could opt for one or the other first. What will you do if you don’t get a licence? If you’re not successful, don’t then go away and set up another pirate station as nobody will respect you for it.”
HOT VINYL
FIVE STAR: ‘Luxury Of Life’ LP (US RCA NFL1-8052)
Oddly out on import first, the Essex Family Pearson’s debut set of youthful “New London” black pop as well as their most recent three A-sides (but not flips) has the Nick Martinelli-prod/Loose Ends-arr 119¼bpm ‘RSVP’ and 142bpm ‘Now I’m In Control‘, Steve Harvey-produced 117¾bpm ‘Winning‘, 118bpm ‘Hide And Seek’, sub-Evita-ish 0-34½bpm ‘Say Goodbye’, The Limit-produced 119½bpm ‘Love Take Over’, and Billy Livsey-produced 126bpm ‘System Addict’. Nothing startling for sophisticated ears, although on its UK release I can foresee a spate of Five Star Mania. Believe me, these kids is hot!
AURRA: ‘Happy Feeling’ (10 Records TEN 54-12)
Starleana & Curt are exploding right out of the box with this bass whomped Slave-ish purposeful chunky 108¾bpm strider which has melody as well as beat, and a bumpily jerking 118½bpm ‘Hooked On You‘ flip (despite the sleeve listing the A-side’s inst). Hot to trot!
MAZE featuring FRANKIE BEVERLY: ‘Twilight’ (Capitol 12CL 363)
This mind messingly catchy simple percolating little 0-107½bpm instrumental still dominates its 3-track 12in coupled pleasant if unexceptional 110½bpm slightly remixed ‘Too Many Games‘ and the more relevant totally remixed lean spacious 113¼bpm ‘Back In Stride‘, and could be a monstrous national hit (which let’s face it Maze need) if only Capitol would plug it properly. Continue reading “July 13, 1985: Five Star, Aurra, Maze, “D” Train, Precinct”
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