ODDS ‘N’ BODS
Steve Walsh’s old mate CJ Carlos looks like being the next London DJ to make his vinyl debut as a vocalist – Steve, incidentally, has now beaten Chris Hill’s chart peak of number 10 (reached twice by Chris, with ‘Renta Santa’), the previous biggest vocal hits by a UK disco DJ … Master Mix label owner Lewis Hayes points out it was the agreement between ‘Top Of The Pops’ and Equity (rather than the Musicians Union) which enabled Equity member Steve Walsh to leapfrog ahead of the higher placed Fatback in appearing on the programme, but now, despite the change in their line-up, Fatback too have appeared on the show … M|A|R|R|S’s so effective exotically Eastern-sounding female singing halfway through the remix turns out apparently to be Turkish … London Weekend Television’s Thru To 6 service a couple of Sundays ago, presumably by mistake, played the whole of the original mix of ‘Pump Up The Volume’ at 33⅓rpm instead of 45rpm, and it sounded good! … Criminal Element Orchestra’s drum thrashed ‘Put The Needle To The Record’ is now also in a 116bpm New Vocal Remix (Cooltempo COOLR 150), with a falsetto fellah ramblingly wailing through it, some Michael Jackson muttering, and an “I am the god of hellfire” drop-in from The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, plus a New Dub Version … 1980’s punchily loping Mystic Merlin ‘Mr Magician’, newly added to the B-side of its singer Freddie Jackson’s current 12 inch, is 113⅓-112⅓-111¾–113¼-113(break)-114¼bpm … Sherrick’s pleasantly swaying wriggly (0-)111bpm Extended Dance Remix of ‘Let’s Be Lovers Tonight’ has finally been elevated to A-side status, but oddly on promo only so far, in a denser and brighter 99¼bpm Extra Beat Boys Remix (RCA PT 41498R) … Champion have promoed, months ahead of eventual release, the previously Eurobeat-associated Paul Rein’s slow but bouncily lurching jittery 89⅓-0bpm ‘Stop’, with a trendy A-side mix by Phil Harding … Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam’s US chart-topping delightful evocation of the early Sixties vocal group sound, ‘Lost In Emotion’ is on 12-inch in a richly harmonised 119⅓-0bpm Full Force Remix, with vintage sax by Sidney Philips … Paul Barry’s ‘Complicated’ has been improved by a new livelier, rhythmically ‘Pump Up The Volume’-ish, 109⅓-0bpm Reconstruction Mix (MCA Records COMX 1) … Glen Goldsmith will be in an even harder second remix, too … DJs buying Blue Mercedes should note that the actual hot mixes are still, at the time of writing, only on promo, the Get Busy Yo! Mix and Street Latin Woolf Mix – this latter not to be confused (check the spelling very carefully) with the commercially released Street Latin Wolff Mix, of which the B-side Daktari Mix is indeed OK, and the vocal basis of the edited instrumental Get Busy Yo! Mix (it’s all a dastardly marketing ploy) … UK pressings on Sure Delight of the already reviewed Spoonie Gee ‘The Godfather’ turn out to be somewhat faster, at 106¼-106½bpm … Zuzan ‘Girls Can Jak Too’ has in fact been picked up for release next week by Serious Records, with the same ZANT 1 catalogue number … BBC Radio 1 starts its stereo 104.8FM transmission in the Greater London area on October 31, at 6am … I must say the Sunday broadcast of the brand new Gallup chart, before anyone anywhere knows what’s in it, has made it really exciting … Dave Pearce was doing the afternoon soul show again on Radio London, unfortunately just for the one week, good listening while it lasted … John Sachs is sounding tougher in the mid-morning slot on Capital Radio now, although it’s Kid Jensen in the evening who’s being given good toons to play … London jazz jocks Baz Fe Jazz (currently doing gigs in Korea and Japan for four weeks!) and Gilles Peterson are spearheading the upcoming release through Ace Records of the entire jazz catalogue of such US labels as Fantasy, Prestige, Riverside, Milestone … Charly Records have just issued all 15 of the New Orleans-recorded 1961-2 tracks by General Johnson’s original group, The Showmen, including of course the classic ‘It Will Stand’, on the LP ‘Some Folks Don’t Understand It’ (Charly/R&B CRB 1165) – now those are rare grooves! … Guy Carlton is expanding the mailing list at Secret Promotions, 83 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1 … Simon Dunmore, weekly on Wednesdays at Uxbridge’s The Villa, joins Clinton Cambridge and Les Fisher in taking the Rhythm Zone to Ealing’s Luckys wine bar this Tuesday (October 20), and then the third Tuesday of every month … The Whispers, amazingly in their first ever UK concert visit, are at Manchester’s Apollo Theatre this Wednesday (21), followed by the next three nights (23-25) at London’s Hammersmith Odeon … Danny Smith heads a ‘Home Boy Caister Warm-Up’ this Thursday (22) at Great Yarmouth’s The Brunswick in King Street … Chris Bangs guests next Tuesday (27) with Steve Aspey at Oxford’s Parkers, St Clements … Gullivers needs extra soundproofing at its new Soho site, where it should now be opening on November 14 … Graham Gold points out that the Barbara Mason tracks reviewed last week were on a 1980 album (something else that’s hard to tell from a white label!) … Bob Swift of Wickford’s Phaze 4 Disco Roadshow has practical experience of the recently mentioned Harris SP12 mixer, saying that the built-in BPM counter is “very suspect”, and that further modification was needed to the inputs so that he could use jingles at the same time as crossfading between turntables … US soul group Mission have had to be called Mission USA here, presumably so as not to clash with The Mission … Eon Irving, a mine of info following his New York visit, reveals that the source of certain current hip hop terminology may be traceable to legendary radio DJ Mr Magic, who, on his twice weekly WBLS rap show, greets listeners as “all you fly girls and fly guys” and “troopers and troopettes”, while various areas get called “the Boogie Down Bronx”, “Moneymakin’ Manhattan’, “Moneyearnin’ Mount Vernon” – that last upstate location’s tag being the title of a current Heavy D and the Boyz track … Wax Master Torey ‘Pop Sax’ is at least playlisted on New York radio WNYU, about the only action it’s had anywhere – which is a pity, as it struck me as being rather good … DON’T STOP JAMMIN’!
ANIELA has finally met up with ALAN COULTHARD, and compared notes. As previously mentioned, Alan came from Cardiff to study law at the University Of London while mixing in the evenings at Le Beat Route (subsequently he helped found the Disco Mix Club, and is now a barrister), whereas Aniela used to mix at Le Beat Route and has just gone to University College, Cardiff, to study law — and she will also be mixing at the local Ritzy, in one hour guest spots most Fridays, Saturdays and (the upfront night) Mondays! What’s more, her Students Union has such a flourishing soul club that it’s even getting Alexander O’Neal for a gig, so whether Aniela will ever actually do any studying seems doubtful!
HOT VINYL
ERIC B & RAKIM ‘Paid In Full (Seven Minutes Of Madness – The Coldcut Remix)’ (Fourth & Broadway 12BRC 78)
Already massive on white label, Matt Black + the Coldcut Crew’s brilliant (0-)98bpm remix of the burbling rap uses all sorts of terrific overlays before finally getting to Eric B, whose originally hot enough, Dennis Edwards borrowing, conversational 98⅔bpm Album Mix is now the flip, along with the juddery scratching 0-99⅔-0bpm ‘Eric B Is On The Cut’.
AUDREY WHEELER ‘Irresistible’ (Capitol 12CL 471)
Starting with a sneaky reference to Whitney Houston before hitting its own groove, this sinuously wailed soulfully weaving 109bpm jogger has a beefy bassline and backbeat (inst/edit flip), which should now help it build on its initial import success.
MISSION USA ‘Show A Little Love’ (CBS 651222 6)
Nick Martinell-produced extremely strong ‘Casanova’-ish bouncily breezy 95⅙bpm soulful jiggly jogger (edit too, and similarly syncopated 104⅙bpm ‘Sensuous Mood’), hot already on import. Continue reading “October 24, 1987: Eric B & Rakim (Coldcut remix), Audrey Wheeler, Mission USA, Society, Total Contrast”
