DJ Food

splashOff to the US Wednesday for a 4 day jaunt that will take in NYC, SF and LA and hopefully a lot of friends along the way… First major stop should be Noah Uman’s  Coffee Break For Heroes & Villains show on famed radio station WFMU. His show is on at midnight until 3am 27th/28th of October so lord knows what physical state I’ll be in at that hour.

It’s mainly Hip Hop with a bias towards old school and golden periods seemingly although he does play more contemporary stuff too. I’ve dug out some oldies and oddities to play and it’s pretty relaxed on air so I expect we’ll be talking Hip Hop shop too at some points. Oh yeah and it’s not a mix show so don’t expect any great blends.

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More info: wfmu.org/playlists/NU •   WFMU 91.1 fm & 90.1 fm •   www.coffeebreakradio.com

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6 Mix Ninja special this Sunday

6 musicColdcut host a 2 hour show celebrating the 20th anniversary of the label this Sunday on 6 Music’s 6 Mix show . Special mixes have been compiled by myself, Mr Scruff, Daedelus and Toddla T (doing a Roots Manuva special) showcasing tracks from the new XX compilations and Ninja classics. It starts at 8pm and will be available on the BBC’s Listen Again feature for a week afterwards.

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XX 12″s 3-6

Some more (not very good) pictures of the XX 12″s – out Monday. 1 & 2 only available with a purchase code from the XX box set, 3-6 available for general sale. A mystery seventh 12″ with two remixes of a Ninja classic unavailable anywhere else, will creep into circulation shortly.
XX 1 coverXX 1 backXX 2 backXX 3 coverXX 4 coverXX 5 coverXX 5 backXX 6 cover

and a sneaky reason to own all six 12″s, when put together, the spines spell Ninja Tune XX
XX spines

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Paris XX

The Paris show on Friday was great fun, packed out, great to see Vadim and Yarah on a Ninja bill again too. During mine and DK’s set someone pulled the fire alarm and all the power went off on stage for more than 5 minutes. Unfortunately we were in the middle of a drum n bass section so that went down like a damp squib. Before the gig I went up to the Galerie Chappe to see the exhibition of Ninja art and sleeve design that had been put on, apparently 1,500 people turned out for the opening! Ping Pong, who have done promotion for Ninja for over a decade now under the leadership of Fred ‘DJ Oof’ Elalouf, did a great job of putting together a show which included original art, paste up sheets, sleeves, huge posters and specially made prints of selected covers. They also made exclusive T-shirts, seats and a huge banner for the gigs which greeted me when I walked into the venue.  See photos from the exhibition here (warning, this is a Facebook photo album), and it’s on until October 2nd. There are 4 more gigs coming up in Paris over the next few weeks including a huge, long sold out line up at La Machine and two gigs at the Pompidou Centre.

XX banner, ParisGalerie Chappe Ninja L'expo

Posted in Art, Books, Design, DJ Food, Event, Gigs, Music, Ninja Tune, Openmind designs, Records. | No Comments |

Ninja Tune XX boxset is here finally

vhs-tape-no-code-on-the-side-v0-dbx5fjnw86ug1BoC poster 1BoC poster 2BoC poster 3BoC poster 4

I was having a shitty day with nothing going right when this was hand-delivered from the Think Tank offices out of the blue this afternoon. Eight months of hard slog, revisions, deadlines, corrections, proofs, more revisions, changed constructions and over 50 GB of information went into this.

A slipcase containing 3 hardback books – ’20 Years of Beats & Pieces’ was actually started back in July 2009 and completed just under a year later with a solid six months spent on it and little else. The other two, containing 6 CDs, 6 45’s, 2 posters, a booklet and a sticker sheet (which should have been straight forward but I had no end of hassle with) took another 2 months at least with meetings and discussions as to how the packaging would work going on since March. I even managed to find time to write a new track to go on the damned thing which is on one of the exclusive CDs.

When I look back at 2010 and think what I did that year, this is what will sum most of it up. If you have one on the way then you’re in for a treat believe me, want one, didn’t get round to buying one yet or were maybe sitting on the fence then there are still some available to buy before the big release day on September 20th.

[singlepic id=2332 w=640 h=480 float=left]

Posted in Books, Design, DJ Food, Event, Music, Ninja Tune, Openmind designs, Records. | 22 Comments |

US gigs line up and new early Japan show flyer

Here are the line ups and details for the US gigs, also DK should be joining me on the Japan leg too which should also be taking in Osaka and possibly Kyoto as well as Tokyo (which has two shows). Got a nice hook up with Converse for the US gigs including a free party in San Francisco that they’re sponsoring. For free entry please send an RSVP  here, also XLR8R are doing a big Ninja piece too.
xxflyerNEWYORKfinal_v7xxflyerSANFRANCISCO_v10xxflyerNEWYORKfinal_v7NINJAXX_Toyko early

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Remember The Future? mix

REMEMBER THE FUTURE3 years back I recorded a robot-themed mix for Solid Steel to coincide with the imminent release of the first Transformers film. I’d been meaning to do this for some time but this gave me the impetus and I crafted a little Transformers intro from various samples or tracks that sampled the robots in disguise. After that it’s mainly material from the 60’s and 70’s with that novelty look at robotics pre-Star Wars, what some would call ‘the golden age’.

I love this stuff, real oddity bin stuff, plenty of madcap psyche, dance craze records, vocoders and even a country ode to an electronic brain. A friend recently asked me to dig it out so here it is again.

Remember The Future by DJ Food

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Big Chill igloo tent Solid Steel set times for Saturday:

festivalWe’re playing in a dome with 360 degree video, come and check us out, a few Ninja XX compilation exclusives in the set so far…

21.00- 21.15     Warm Up
21.15-22.45      JFB
22.45-23.45      DJ Woody Turntables In Technicolor
23.45-1 .15 am   DJ Food & DK
1.15 – 2.45 am   Hexstatic present Trailer Trax
2.45 – 4.00 am   Sampology’s Super Visual Smackdown

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I Love Acid Blech set

I played a special Blech set at I Love Acid on Saturday at Ginglik, under Shepherd’s Bush Green. It was an amalgam of the two mixes I did for Warp records’ 20th anniversary that you can hear on my Soundcloud page.

Photographer Martin LeSanto-Smith took some excellent photos with a promo Aphex mask I took down, one of my favourite nights out in London, even though the tube had shut down that weekend.

AFX collage

AFX Kev 650warp backAll photographs are property of and copyright to Martin LeSanto-Smith and not to be reproduced without permission.All Rights Reserved. Contact:- Tel: 07779 234104 or email:- toastyoneuk[at]o2.co.uk

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Ah yeah…

I was in the Ninja office today, sifting through boxes of press archive, found some amazing things, hilarious photos of old and some situations I don’t even remember. Lots of weird and wonderful people have passed through Ninja over the years and there are a lot of memories attached to it for me. I’m currently deep into the design and ongoing picture research for the Ninja Tune book which will be published this summer by Black Dog Publishing.

It’s a gargantuan project and one that we are not taking lightly – don’t expect the usual spread of press shots you’ve all seen before, we’re digging deep for lots of unseen material and it turns up in the most unlikely places. There’s no way it will all make it into the book but I promise to share some of the bits and pieces that don’t make it at a later date via this blog.

Also, these turned up today… :) Better res than Vimeo, I promise.
L&L DVD 650

Posted in Books, Design, DJ Food, Film, Ninja Tune, Solid Steel. | 6 Comments |

Solid Steel, Soundcloud and the Funky Eno

Solid Soundcloud
More Volts: The Funky Eno by DJ Food

Eno-Roxy

We’ve finally knocked the streaming problems that have plagued the Solid Steel site on the head and embedded file playable from Soundcloud directly into the page.

I’ve also got a mix up in the second hour this week called ‘More Volts: The Funky Eno’ – an hour long trip through the funked-up side of Brian’s output since the 70’s. Expect David Bryne, nonsense verse, Talking Heads, The Grid and a whole lot of slap bass.

Posted in DJ Food, Music, Radio, Solid Steel. | 3 Comments |