BEATS & PIECES
Ben Liebrand’s beat augmenting ‘Love Is Contagious’ remix, created originally just for Disco Mix Club release, has proved so popular (as reflected in The Club Chart) that it will soon be added to Taja Sevelle’s current ‘Wouldn’t You Love To Love Me?’ B-side… James Brown’s UK release of ‘I’m Real’ next week will oddly feature just the import’s 105⅚-0bpm ‘Real (F.F. Hyped-Up Mix)’ B-side as the main A-side here, flipped however by the Maceo Parker-saxed strong 108-0bpm ‘Keep Keepin’’… Tony Blackburn, in impending drastic changes at BBC Radio London, is actually quitting to move to arch rival Capital Radio, presenting the new Saturday/Sunday 7-10am breakfast show on Medium Wave for the split frequency Capital Gold oldies service when it starts on July 2 – this may seem like a climb down from his five days a week mid-morning soul show but reputedly will earn him three times as much (it’ll be interesting if his programme is followed by Roger Scott, as they’ve always professed to be the best of enemies!)… ILR stations permitted to run concurrent split frequency programming on FM and AM do seem to be using medium wave for golden oldies… Peter Waterman, Peter Stringfellow and Music Week editor David Dalton are amongst the guest speakers at the Dance Aid Trust’s gala luncheon next Thursday (May 26) at London’s Metropole Hotel (£45 ticket details on 01-607 8311)… GEE st Records have promoed a few white labels of the James Brown/Bobby Byrd/Public Enemy-type samples crammed new unpretentiously chugging 111½-0bpm Richie Rich ‘Turn It Up’, a likely crossover hit which in fact will be out commercially in early June on Club… Brand New Heavies ‘Got To Give’ is a deliberately rare groove-styled girl sung meandering specialist 90½bpm wriggler building to a predictable buzz on Cooltempo white label, while the original cold-cutting Steinski & Mass Media returns soon on Fourth & Broadway with the rumbling jittery strange 0-110-0bpm ‘Let’s Play It Cool’… Pedro, who turns out to be the barman at Soho’s Gossips, was inspired by my review of the ultra rare Beat Freaks 12 inch to track down a copy and then he did indeed recreate its bootlegged James Brown B-side’s Sly & Robbie backing track, with the ska group Maroon Town, to make his own ‘Goodfootin’’ – which is now out commercially on Beware (UM 001)… I had no time to BPM the excellent import soul LP from By All Means, the oddly named group consisting of Jimmy Varner with Lynn Roderick and Billy Shephard, so check The Club Chart… George Pettus is currently supporting Whitney Houston’s concerts, so his old ‘My Night For Love’ has been re-issued here, as has Angela Winbush’s ‘Angel’… Charly have picked up from MCA Records the nine year old rare groove album by Jeffree (Charly R&B 1178), reviewed a year or two back when it came around again on revived import… Visions’ album is due here next week on Urban (URBLP12)… GRC’s first ‘House Music Vol 1’ double album compilation, out next week, will include one side of various house rhythms which buyers can use as the basis for their own house creations in a competition… Cooltempo’s latest predictable ‘Fierce II’ compilation (CTLP 5) includes the unreleased relentlessly jittering dull instrumental 115½bpm No Smoke featuring The Addis Possi ‘Abele’s Dance’, and Dancin’ Danny D’s gospel girl nagged house-ified 115½-0bpm remix of Fun Boy 3 ‘Faith, Hope And Charity’… Champion have picked up Royal House ‘Can You Party’ (123bpm here, with 121½bpm Original Mix) and Orange Lemon ‘The Texican’ (117bpm), although the latter’s A-side here will be ‘Dreams Of Santa Anna’ (115⅔-115⅓-0), both doubtless destined to be on white label promo for months in Champion’s usual style… Club’s white label pressing of Click ‘Freq Jam’ mistakenly features the secondary 122½-0bpm Varda The Drums Girl mix twice instead of the main Straight To The Phreek mix!… Sade’s album has had ‘Paradise’/’Turn My Back On You’/’Keep Looking’/’Give It Up’ coupled on a club promo-only 12 inch… Joyce Sims’ remake of Barbara Acklin’s classic ‘Love Makes A Woman’, her current US single, seems likely to be re-recorded before it’s released here – possibly by PWL… Kylie Minogue’s original Australian version of ‘The Locomotion’ is apparently not considered good enough for her upcoming UK LP, and will be remade by Stock Aitken Waterman… Timmy Regisford and Louil Silas Jr are in London this week, and could well be doing a special invitation-only night behind the turntables at a central club!… Glen Goldsmith joins Warren Aylward at Southsea’s 5th Avenue Wednesday (18), and Jammin’ Steve Jason at Cambridge’s Ronelles Friday (20)… Hazell Dean return to Luton Bolts on Sunday (22)… Tim Westwood and Jules start hip hopping South Harrow Bogarts weekly from this Sunday… Detroit’s own brand of “acid” house is more correctly called “techno”, and – just as with house itself in Chicago, go-go in Washington DC, and even reggae in Jamaica – it’s another world force in music that has a hard time getting radio recognition in its own home town!… ‘Hittrax II’ by House Gang, reviewed last month, is proving hard to find on import although the LL Cool J-cutting ‘Cool J Trax’ acid hip hop mix is huge for those few who have it… Fourplay’s label (on their import reviewed this issue) bears the warning “Unauthorized reproduction will result in injury by the Original Gangsters Of Freestyle”!… ITV’s Tuesday evening series ‘King & Castle’ is largely filmed (the debt collectors’ office location) just a couple of corners from where I live, not necessarily a recommendation for the backwaters between Harlesden and Willesden although the neighbourhood is getting yuppified!… GET OFF!
Mr. Magic, the pioneering New York hip hop jock whose ‘Rap Attack’ radio show on WBLS was immortalised six years ago by Whodini in ‘Magic’s Wand’, is the presenter of a special promo-only cassette package that’s currently number one in every b boy’s wants list, ‘The Cold Chillin’ Power Hour‘. Housed with biographies and photos in a customised little folder, this features the Cold Chillin’ label’s artistes Biz Markie, Roxanne Shanté, Kool G Rapp, Big Daddy Kane, MC Shan and Marley Marl in a radio style presentation on one side, and neatly segued on the other. Strictly promotional, from the States!
PERRY DANIELS, the South London DJ responsible for Natalie Cole’s Motorway Mixes, has now similarly remixed Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King using records rather than master tapes (see REMIXES). He and producer partner King Enri do have full studio facilities, but — plug plug! — are available for further budget jobs on 01-690 6875. Perry can be caught mixing live at Westerham’s Grasshopper on Fridays and Sidcup’s Danielles on Saturdays … and if he still has the same female helper from his Technics UK Mixing appearance, it should be quite a show!
HOT VINYL
BRASS CONSTRUCTION ‘Movin’ 1988 (Extended Mix)’ (Syncopate 12SY 11)
Brilliantly remixed by Phil Harding, Randy Muller’s 12-year-oid classic demo disco groove is still jaggedly pushing but beefier and now as near as possible to steadily tempoed, at a fractionally fluctuating 0-121½-0bpm, flipped by a “whoa-oh whoa-oh” overdubbed 121⅔bpm Let’s All Chant Mix (nothing to do with Mick & Pat!). Sizzlin’.
THE TODD TERRY PROJECT ‘Bango (To The Batmobile)’ (Sleeping Bag Records HAKT 16, via Westside Records Ltd)
Huge on import, the Dinosaur L ‘Go Bang’-based girls chanted and giggled nervily skittering here 122⅔-0bpm house-ish racer (122⅓-0bpm Bonus Bang) is flipped by the controversial similar but easier ‘Back To The Beat‘, which samples and scratches all sorts of stuff through the washing machine beat of Reese & Santonio’s ‘The Sound’.
REESE & SANTONIO ‘Back To The Beat (with ‘The Sound’)’ (ffrr FFRX 7)
Setting the scene for another confusing sales split, in 2 Puerto Ricans ‘Do It Properly’ style, this Detroit techno team reply to the Todd Terry Project’s use of their ‘The Sound’ through ‘Back To The Beat’ by now recreating ‘Back To The Beat’ through Kevin (Reese) Saunderson’s ‘The Sound (Power Remix)’, a nervily bubbling 122¼-125-122¾bpm acid jitterer full of the same samples (flipped by Derrick May’s recent 123¼bpm ‘The Sound (Acid Remix)‘, from their ‘Bounce Your Body To The Box’ import B-side, and the brand new 0-122bpm ‘Rock To The Beat‘, like an effete Kraftwerk). Confused? Continue reading “May 21, 1988: “Detroit’s own brand of acid house is more correctly called techno””
Amongst the many star PAs, I really felt for Nitro Deluxe, who only has 10 per cent sight and was led on stage for what should have been a three minute slot, which he kept lengthening because — who can blame him — he probably had the greatest audience response he’ll ever have in his life. Terry Billy so enjoyed herself that she spent the entire weekend, up all night with the best of ’em! Wee Papa Girl Rappers were hanging out, too, but Simon Harris was crestfallen at being booed on stage, mainly, he thinks, because his record kept jumping. At least he was working live, whereas everyone else used a cassette — and, anyway, surely his friendship with Public Enemy gives him credibility even if he is in the top 20?
Chubby young Al B. Sure! put on a squirming performance before the main Easter Sunday event, Joyce Sims’ first ever live gig anywhere with a backing band, which proved to be interesting as, when you consider she pits her distinctively plaintive vocal pitch against Mantronik’s electronic rhythms when recording, the live percussion turned ‘All And All’ into a Latin tune!
Her new US single, the revival of Barbara Acklin’s swinging ‘Love Makes A Woman’, as it does on record, featured the surprise guest appearance of Jimmy Castor (‘The Everything Man’) on sax, a highlight for those who knew what was happening. Pres Jam 4 is over the Guy Fawkes weekend of November 4/5/6 (booking details on 01-364 1212), so fireworks are a foregone conclusion, while heavily hinted as the star live attraction is — wait for it — Frankie Beverly and Maze! Whoosh!
Derek B is the latest remixer of Eric B & Rakim ‘I Know You Got Soul’, his “
Luckily, most of the night had been geared very much to their taste, although Tony Prince, with utopian vision, had promoted the evening as a star-studded music biz awards night for the industry in general. Next year he may well have to separate the pop acts from the rap acts, or restrict admission in order to take full advantage of the Albert Hall as a prestige venue, as this year somehow the balance there was definitely wrong. None of this is to suggest that anything ugly happened (indeed, certain behaviour last year when Chad Jackson won was far more disgraceful).
Matt Aitken was booed when he took his place on stage as a judge, and then at the start of the Stanton/DMC World DJ Awards ceremony halfway through the evening, 
James Hamilton's Disco Page 