BEATS & PIECES
Urban have pressed on “promo” copies of a four-track 12 inch that contain two tracks each from their new ‘James Brown’s Funky People (Part 2)’ and ‘Urban Classics 2’ LPs, respectively 1972’s brassily burbling and tumbling (0-)96½-96-94½-97bpm Hank Ballard & The Midnight Lighters ‘From The Love Side’, 1970’s piano nagged rolling and preaching 0-99½-100-100½-0bpm Myra Barnes ‘The Message From The Soul Sisters (Parts 1 & 2)’, 1972’s squeaky early Jackson 5-style Foster Sylvers ‘Misdemeanour’, 1971’s glorious blue-eyed Philly soul swinging 117½-115½-115-116bpm The Mob ‘I Dig Everything About You’… WEA have now promoed Terrajacks ‘Houseplan’, a frenetic samples studded choppily jumping jangly 0-122¾-123-0bpm volume pumper that’s already been white labelled around Merseyside for months… Double Trouble (his mum knows him as Leigh Guest) has created a megamix for Syncopate, the 0-118-117½-117-117½-0bpm INSYNC 1, combining Brass Construction ‘Movin’’, Chris Paul ‘Turn The Music Up’ and Carol Cayne ‘What My Love Can Bring’… Warner Bros are preparing an album of remixed oldies by Chaka Khan, ‘I’m Every Woman’ being remixed by Dancin’ Danny D, ‘Ain’t Nobody’ by Frankie Knuckles, ‘Slow Dancin’’ by Hank Shocklee amongst others… Steve Walsh, always one to say things for effect, actually confirmed to me that he was born in Walsall, but quite rightly his mum should know and she tells me that he was London born and bred – however, his Irish born dad did live for years in Walsall… Les Adams at Norbury’s Sussex Tavern, only a music pub and not a vast great place, raised £1,310 in just two hours for Steve Walsh’s family trust – mind you, he sold even the shirt off his back to do so!… Les has also just created a full 24 track remix of the Funky Worm ‘Hustle! (To The Music)’ but for Disco Mix Club release only – a bit of a breakthrough, the very first mix they have featured done from master tape rather than disc… Marshall Jefferson is doing a house remix of ‘Somebody Save Me’ as the follow-up for By All Means… Jellybean’s still only promoed ‘Coming Back For More (Part 1)’ is now also in a more smoothly jiggling 114½-0bpm vocal version gruffly nagged by Richard Darbyshire from Living In A Box… 88 Light + Sound Show, the annual PLASA equipment exhibition this year is at Olympia 2 in West London’s Hammersmith Road from Sunday to Wednesday, September 11-14, discount £2 advance booking forms having to be returned by August 19 – to get yours, contact PLASA, 7 Highlight House, St Leonards Road, Eastbourne, Sussex BN21 3UH (otherwise it’s £5 on the door)… Edinburgh DJ Donald Hughes, the Steve Walsh lookalike ‘Shuggy Bear’ pictured by this column back in January, still presents the Radio Forth Dance Chart on Saturdays 8-9pm, and now hosts a Sunday 2-4pm ‘The Scottish Chart’, compiled from retail sales in – you guessed – just Scotland… Lindsay Wesker has moved with Kiss Records and Goodfoot Promotions to Unit 14, Backstock Mews, Backstock Road, London N4 (01-359 2969)… Marie Birch’s new Sound Promotions address is 31 Norfolk Place, London W2, and not as misprinted last week (when it should also have been Gipsy Kings, Yello, Dave Ball, Blue Moderne, S’Xpress, Fon Force, etcetera – well, it’s probably my fault for delivering the copy late!)… Monday (August 1 – what, August already?) finds Liverpool’s Mardi Gras having another No Sell Out night, number 8, the monthly pack jammed underground house/rap/funk/reggae/soul event, while up at Darlington’s Zhivagos a £3 North East Frontline jam has the Wee Papa Girl Rappers and a DJ cast list including Hutchy, Alex Lowes, Herbie Mack spinning jazz/soul/rare groove… Swansea’s soul boyo Jeff Thomas also now hikes on Tuesdays to 5th Avenue at Torquay… Dorothy turns out to be two white girls and their reggaefied single is of Prince ‘Still Waiting’ rather than Diana Ross’s ‘I’m Still Waiting’ – which latter is what the white label promo called it… NANU NANU!
HOT VINYL
STEVE WALSH ‘Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now (Party For The World)’ (A1 Records 12A1 304, via PRT)
Quite a revelation, the late and sadly missed giant amongst DJs sounds far more polished than before on a tasteful and really excellent long smoothly flowing (0-)111bpm revival of McFadden & Whitehead’s singalong soul anthem, starting off with doodling piano before being presented as a live performance with the crowd support increasing as Steve breaks halfway into some rap and a “party for the world” call and answer session (including an inevitable though brief “you wot, you wot?” exchange), so good that it would have been a smash regardless of the circumstances – the flip’s jiggly lurching 97bpm ‘I’ll Keep On’ is less remarkable but especially ironic.
JO ANN JONES ‘Share My Joy’ (Champion CHAMP 12-81)
Sybil’s producer James Bratton has followed the example of Jellybean and Hurby ‘Luv Bug’ Azor by assembling an upcoming ‘The James Bratton Project’ on which his creations are performed by individually credited different artistes, first UK release from it being this excellent striding 116½bpm bubbly kicker (dub/edit too) with rippling vibes and cooing girls behind the superbly soulful unhurriedly wailing Jo Ann, a voice that’ll drive those with a taste for the old style wild!
LONGSY D. + CUT MASTER M.C. ‘To The Rhythm’ (Big One VV BIG 10)
Creating the maximum rhythm from the minimum ingredients of a resonant bass thrummed madly jaunty 93⅓-93½-93¾bpm syncopation, cutting in the Upsetters’ ‘Return Of Django’ and James Brown’s ‘Funky President’ amongst others (Dub Rap Mix/Bonus Beats flip), these beat bouncing reggae hip hoppers claim to be “like Zanussi, the appliance of science” – I’ll drink to that! Stay still if you can! Continue reading “July 30, 1988: Steve Walsh, Jo Ann Jones, Longsy D + Cut Master M.C., Rick Clarke, James Brown”
PAUL OAKENFOLD is the Balearic Beat pioneering DJ behind ELECTRA ‘Jibaro’ (ffrr FFRX 9), a Phil Harding & Ian Curnow-produced extremely catchy and commercial remake of 
Last summer London DJs Nicky Holloway, Paul Oakenfold, Johnny Walker and Danny Rampling holidayed in Ibiza in the Balearic Islands (pronounced “Ballay-aric”), and, getting away from the rowdy tourists on the coast, discovered inland a club scene that bowled them over. At such expensive nightclubs as Amnesia, Ku Club, Pacha, Glorys, Es Paradis and Manhattans, the local DJs mixed together a diverse cross-section of dance music, from acid house to the Thrashing Doves, to Spanish rock, Prince, and Cyndi Lauper (in other words, these previously black music specialising London jocks were experiencing the standard upmarket DJ-ing style!). This so inspired them that once back in London they started no longer to conform to other people’s preconceptions of what they ought to be playing, and formulated instead the concept of “Balearic Beat”, defined by Nicky as “anything you heard on holiday but would be too frightened to play back at home because people would think it was too commercial”. This doesn’t mean straight Eurodisco, it’s less tacky than that — more like New Order ‘Blue Monday’, Nitzer Ebb, Split Enz, Code 61 ‘
Danny’s short lived Shoom club set the ball rolling, Paul (with Nancy Noise) now Balearics The Sanctuary on Thursdays and, with Johnny Walker, Spectrum on Mondays (both at Charing Cross’s Heaven), while Nicky is currently running Trip at the Astoria on Saturdays. Packed with trendies, many more white than black, Spectrum and Trip both mix acid house, indie dance rock, Martin Luther King speeches, psychedelia, tribal chants and off-the-wall oldies amidst Sixties-style light shows and lasers, many of the frantically arm waving dancers wearing hippy dress (and taking drugs to keep up the pace, it not being called “acid” for nothing). Balearic Beat records are already beginning to appear, Nicky Holloway being behind Beats Workin’ ‘
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