"no way to control it..."

so all the old prog tracks have been sorted. now i'm going through the rest of my stuff. there's all manner of shit to be slung out. madonna 12"s (not the good ones), "best of..." compilations and shite house records i should never have bought. it's all starting to pile up now and is sitting in the garage ready to be shifted. it was all going to the 2nd hand shop but some of the stuff is worth a little bit of money so i may have a dabble on discogs/e-bay. i wasn't arsed at first but what the hell? if it doesn't shift after a few weeks it'll be back to the original idea. but enough of my hair brained get rich quick schemes (as if) and on with the show.

i was in reading today. she got a sat nav the other week and i told her it was bluetooth compatible. it wasn't, cue a bollocking for me. funniest thing was that she didn't realise her cigarette lighter didn't work and the thing ran out of power on her first journey (to somewhere she'd never been before. so confident was she of it's skills that she left her road atlas at home). heh, heh. so today we went back and swapped it for a hands free bluetooth version. sorted. say what you like about john lewis (a chain of huge department stores in the u.k., for the benefit of my foreign fans) but they are the shit. they've got everything and customer service is second to none. recently voted the nation's favourite retailer. FACT. but... reading has got fuck all else to shout about. it's the same old shopping experience as most other large towns (or is it a city?). if anyone knows of a decent 2nd hand record shop (or new for that matter) in reading please tell me.

"dee, dah, dah, dah, dee, dah, dah, dah, dar...etc"

3 weeks! so where have i been? in the spare room sorting through loads of boring 90's prog records (well someone had to do it). they weren't going to sort themselves, and my dad wasn't going to do it. if i had the money again i could have had a nice car by now. 500 x £5-7 could have got me something better than the n-reg golf i'm currently driving. mind you i nearly didn't have it or my life this afternoon. if you were driving towards hindhead on the A30 about 3.45 this afternoon and saw a red car coming in the opposite direction (going too fast) going around THAT bend and losing it...it was me. luckily there was no-one behind or to the side of me so i was lucky not to injure anyone else. it sure beats any fairground ride i've been on! the side of the car is fucked (thank god for the central reservation barrier) and only my pride is hurt. surely the signs saying "SLOW DOWN" and "35 MPH" and the big black & white arrows should have given it away. stupid thing is, i drove up the road in the morning and said to myself "ivan, you need to remember that on the way back". prick.

so where were we? ah, yes. clearing stuff out has been quite therapeutic for my soul. getting rid of the shite music demons that once clouded my judgement. i went through all my old vhs cassettes too (remember them kids ?), loads of absolute bollocks in there too (breakdance, predator 2, mall rats, to name but three...). so i've got loads of space now to buy them again on dvd! (probably)
i was in a charity shop t'other day and i swear someone had broken into my house and ran up the street and dumped the records i was getting rid of in the shop. there were 3 boxes on the floor and assorted plebs going through the tunes. one guy was after "prog breaks" and some woman (who stank of ale) was after "funky house". i told both of them that i had a shit load of the stuff to collect at my house and they weren't interested! probably thought i was some sort of weirdo who hung around charity shops winding people up.

"deep, deep inside, deep, deep down inside..."

the last couple of days have seen me going through piles of records i no longer want. stuff i bought between the late 90's and early 00's. i used to buy a lot of progressive house and (ssssh, don't tell anyone...trance). i'd always bought (what i considered) great house/techno/hip-hop but with the drugs available at the time prog/trance just seemed to sound great. totally buzzing my nut off to these tracks just seemed to make sense. we'd go out to a club, come back and carry on taking pills whilst playing these tracks in the background. one of the lad's used to throw great parties and him, me and another lad would play the tunes. fucking great times ! it's all in the past now and i know it'll never be like that again. we're either married, got kids, moved away or just don't fancy drugs anymore...

so now i'm left with all these records i don't like. i must have liked them at the time but listening to some of them now, 12, 10, 8, 6 years later some of them are complete and utter garbage. ah well, i suppose it'll leave me more room for some great new records ! by the time i've finished the clearout i reckon i'll be taking about five hundred shit records to the second hand shop. i've talked to the bloke at the shop and explained i don't want any money, i just want rid. he's happy to oblige. best of all my dad's happy after i cleared a load from his house, "that ceiling's going to come through one day" he used to say. mrs smackhead is also happy, the guest room has been my record room for too long (apparently). problem is, as soon as i'm clearing stuff out i'm getting new stuff in. i was down the second hand shop the other day and some fella dumped an ace disco collection, whilst another brought in his old house stuff. what is a record junkie to do ? you guessed it...

will smith can fuck off !

2008 ! let's go...every blogger and his dog has done a chart so here's mine (all be it a little late, but who cares ?). okay, track wise my faves were:

1. still going - theme

2. unique 3 - theme (autechre remix)

3. whitest boy alive - 24k

4. holy ghost - hold on

5. gino soccio - love is (prince language re-edit)

most stuff at the cinema was shit, so let's not go there (ditto TV).

blog wise, american athlete was a worthy runner-up. the winner by a mile was the red room. i'm telling you, the guy knows his shit. links to both on the right. there are more good people who i must bring to your attention, so i'll be adding them to the joe bloggers list over the next week or so. i'm just gonna keep on doing what i'm doing - a picture, a track and some bollocks. you love it though don't you ? why else are you here ? certainly not for the latest tracks at 320kps that's for sure. if i was one of those blogs i'd be giving you hot chip's latest single ready for the floor. i've had it for a few months now but the guy who looks like brains from thunderbirds needs to eat. it's catchy as fuck by the way and is out in the u.k. on 28th january.

i had two weeks off over christmas and really chilled out. got pissed a few times but luckily stayed off the chocs and cake and lost half a stone (seven pounds to my american chums). i went home to see my parents and catch up with some old pals. it's weird, i spend all my time wanting to go back to my roots...but when i get there i realise i want to get away. it's not that i don't like my family and friends, more that it's never going to be how i remember it as a kid. ah well, i suppose my life isn't all bad. especially when you see the dreadful scenes occuring in kenya at the moment.

"christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat..."

just a quick one tonight because "tis the season to be jolly", apparently. i don't know about you but i tend to be a bit "bah humbug" and then it hits me, and i enjoy it. don't know why, just been that way for a long time. i suppose i'm just a grumpy bastard at heart.

so what's been happening ? had my works do which was a great laugh, loads of booze ! i had to organise it too, so the fact it went well was a relief. got all the presents for christmas, got a decent tree (for once), the lights all worked and i'm off oop north to see my folks and mrs smackhead's folks too.

"faceless techno bollocks"

i read the above quote in DJ mag years ago (when it was good). some plonker was deriding (sic) the coverage of some techno track that was big at the time. all hell broke loose in a tit-for-tat on the letters page. i was on the fence because i loved house and techno. i couldn't choose either way and i'm glad i didn't. but i do fight techno's corner when i can (strange, i remember my english teachers always saying you can't start a sentence with "but". they never explained why...). not to sure where i'm going with this so bare with me.

i've read my last post a few times and have to say i was a bit premature in saying there have been bugger all house tracks to excite me in the last few years. backfired by masters at work, champagne by motorfunk (which criminally gets 3/5 on discogs and goes for £1.99 !) and eurodans by todd terje are but three of many (now that i think about it). so there you go, i was wrong and you were probably right. house is a feeling (apparently), but so is techno in my book (more of that later). my last post was also a bit of a shambles in terms of presentation too. apologies for that. i'd only just realised how to highlight text. i tried it in the last post and it all went tits up. so i left it all in white. i think i've got the hang of it now...

if you're getting bored of me why not pop over to innersounds (link on the right) ? the guy who runs it sent out a set of questions to some of his favourite bloggers and the results can be seen in his brothers on the side posts. it's great to see (and read) the people behind these blogs because a lot of them inspired me. i'm sure if you're on the same wavelength as me you'll have been going to their blogs anyway, but it's nice to know a little bit more about them. you'll be able to read my answers in a few weeks because i'm a bit shy at the moment.

christ sakes, there's so much i want to talk about with regards to music and putting the world to rights but it'll have to wait. so for now...i believe techno does have soul (there, i said it). not necessarily the club bangers but the stuff you can listen to at home. the person who originally made the "faceless techno bollocks" insult can only have been listening to something loud and harsh in a club. there's so much more to it.

"do you remember house ?"

i'll admit it's not the best picture of them. but then again it's all about the music, isn't it ? the title is from a blaze record from a few years back. y'know, one of them "it's not as good as it used to be" sort of records with a bloke going on about shelter this and sound factory that. i dig it out now and again when i get misty eyed about the old days...

it's one of the oldest arguements that rages on messageboards. is it as good as it used to be ? well frankly i don't care because if it was chances are i'd be totally skint and completely bollocksed (sic) all the time. my body wouldn't be able to take it and worse still i believe all the great records would have been made and there'd be nothing to look forward too. so now and again i listen to some old house stuff to see if it still stands up today. there's plenty that does and an awful lot that doesn't. thankfully i've got rid of most of my shit house records over the years and kept a few that still wiggle my toes.

those guys at the top wrote/produced some absolute killers that still sound good. here's one i found on youtube tonight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMn7ToUPizQ&feature=related

absolute belter ! i remember c j mackintosh playing it at cream one night (it was a ministry of sound tour). i'd only just bought it and to hear that voice and that bassline on a massive system was just brilliant. of course the pills helped, don't be so naive ! c j was one of my fave dj's at the time (suppose he still is) and to find out he was a nice person too made him double good in my book. (so where am i going with this ? not to sure really but that's half the fun.)

i always thought that i'd put up loads of house tracks when i got this whole blog thing going, but now i'm not so sure. a lot of my techno collection still sounds like it was made tomorrow, so there will be more of that to come. it takes a truly great house track to stand out these days because i've heard most if it before. the only house track that has had me spellbound this year is still going theme on dfa. i truly believe i'll still want to listen to it in 5 or 10 years time. i haven't been able to say that about a house record in years. strange thing is though, what i consider to be house and what others consider to be house are two entirely different things. but that's another post isn't it ?

so to tonight's track. of course it's not a masters at work record. keep up at the back ! tom middleton and mark pritchard have been churning out musical goodness for some years now. be it as global communication (deep house business) or chameleon (drum'n'bass) or one or two other aliases. tom produced the awesome summer in space and the "whistle on your way to work" plinky plonky hit take me with you as cosmos (the latter apparently written because his girlfriend had gone away for a few months working and he missed her, altogeth now...arrrrr). any way it started out as a b-side but sasha played it so much it became a hit. why they stuck a vocal on it i'll never know. they also did some electrofunk stuff too. even releasing an album of the stuff in 1996. there's a masters at work tribute track on it (got there in the end didn't i ?) that still makes me boogie around smackhead towers to this day, and here it is

jedi knights - one for m.a.w.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/552384815ce7d8/