Music
DJ Food – The Crow Animated from Tom Webb on Vimeo.
Tom Webb contacted me with this film he made as part of his 3rd year Illustration Minor project. It’s the first half of the DJ Food track ‘The Crow‘, written by PC, from our ‘Kaleidoscope‘ LP. Here are his comments about the making of it;
“I set myself the task of trying to illustrate the DJ Food album Kaleidoscope. Initially, I was trying to produce stand alone images but eventually decided to dive into the world of animation for the first time. I created a sequence for the first half of The Crow. I was hoping to animate to the whole track, I storyboarded a lot of it but the deadline got the better of me.”
“The images were created as spontaneous responses to the sounds and atmospheres I was hearing inside some of the tracks. I started investigating ‘Full Bleed’, ‘Cookin’, ‘The Riff’, ‘The Crow’ and both the ‘Sleep Dyad‘s’ a lot because of their particular energies.
The idea was to finish making the image before the track finished, so I started painting with my hands to help speed things up and build a small library of personal reactions in texture. I then scanned the images at hi-res and chopped out suitable macro sections which were then imported into the animation. There was a lot of trial and error involved. It’s also the first time I’ve had a go at animating so I had to learn the program from scratch as well.”
I personally love the syncopation he’s got and the movements from dark to light corresponding to the moods of the track. You can see more of Tom’s work on his blog calamridropkick.com
Back at the end of 2006, when Trevor Jackson‘s Output Recordings folded, I put together a 3 hour tribute mix of my favourite tracks. This went out as 3 separate mixes on Solid Steel and I even made a very limited number of facsimile Output CDRs of the mixes. I’ve recently had requests to upload it again so, by the miracle that is Soundcloud, it’s available. I’ve also edited it into one piece finally and the track list is embedded in the Lyrics section of the mp3. Being an avid collector of the label I thought I’d show off the screen printed promo releases and a few other choice pieces.
Further reading from early 2007 can be had on Mark E’s ‘ireallylovemusic’ site.
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The Death of Output by DJ Food
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I’ve just uploaded this from my archives to my Soundcloud account
The Shamen doing a Synergy mix live on Colin Faver‘s show on Kiss FM from 1991. It’s essentially DJ Sticker and (I think) Mixmaster Morris /The Irresistible Force with Mr C. MC-ing. Only about 50 minutes long, the only tape I had was a free one from a magazine so the last 10 minutes is cut off. An excellent selection of tracks if you can put up with C’s terrible freestyling and patter/patois :).
A pretty influential set for me in my student days when I first moved to London (as were Colin Dale and Colin Favor’s shows). It indirectly hooked me up with Coldcut and Ninja Tune as I went to a Shamen gig because of this, met Mixmaster Morris there and he put me in touch with Matt Black.
Original turntablism / scratch / cut up cassettes from the mid to late 90’s. 
There are also a couple of Skam label and Aphex Twin promo cassettes, now all gone save for the Rob Swift, Cash Money and Vin Roc…
For no reason other than they did some great sleeves. (Click for bigger version)
Yes please! The vinyl reissues continue from Ghost Box, can’t wait for these beauties.
Back in December I posted about three forthcoming releases on ZTT: Claudia Bruken‘s ‘Combined’ compilation, Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s ‘Liverpool’ expanded edition and ‘The Art of the 12″‘ overview covering the label’s famed 12″ remixes from the 80’s and beyond. They are released today but only two will be available due to an 11th hour pulling of the ‘Liverpool’ release for reasons yet to be explained by either the record label or members of the band. Speculation is rife on the Alternate ZTT board as to the cause of this last minute recall as copies have been around for a few weeks now in industry circles with a few even turning up for sale on the continent before the release date. The main culprit seems to be (and this is pure speculation based on what has been said online) the appearance of several tracks as bonuses which had both hardened collectors and members of the band scratching their heads in puzzlement as to their origins.
In this internet age it’s rare that any scrap of information slips past uber-fans, some known for collecting every known foreign pressing of each release alongside demos, live recordings, session tapes and any scrap of print relating to their favourite bands. For instance it’s well known to the average Frankie fan that the band recorded a demo version of ‘Slave To The Rhythm’ before the song was immortalised by Grace Jones at Trevor Horn‘s hand, but few have ever been lucky enough to hear it. But when a track list for the expanded version of ‘Liverpool’ appeared last December, several tracks were complete unknowns to the legion of online fans, with one member of the band who frequents the boards even asking if anyone knew what they were or had mp3s of them.
I was lucky enough to receive a copy over a week ago from an industry source and the tracks in question sound like demo ideas, jams or basic track building, including a vocal-less cover of the Rolling Stones‘ ‘Satisfaction’. Frankie did many cover versions, both released and unreleased, over the course of their short career. Some were for B-sides, some were simply a way to let off steam and take a break during recording sessions that stretched for months during the making of ‘Liverpool’. Holly Johnson tweeted last week that he had no problem with the release and a statement is promised soon, interesting…
Fortunately we are in the middle of the biggest archive reissue / remaster / repackage period of ZTT’s history at the moment – courtesy of Ian Peel – and the other two releases can tide us over until any problems get ironed out with Frankie’s second coming (sorry, couldn’t resist). 
I’ve not received a copy of ‘Combined’ yet but ‘The Art of the 12″‘ 2xCD compilation is one of the best from the label, including several completely new and unreleased gems from the archives that add a few more pieces to the puzzle that fans of the label strive to unravel to this day. Newly unearthed versions of classic’s like Frankie‘s ‘Two Tribes’ and ‘Relax’, Propaganda’s ‘Dr. Mabuse’ or Nasty Rox Inc‘s ’10th Wonder’ sit alongside extended workouts of ‘Moments In Love’ and ‘Close (To the Edit)’ by Art of Noise, ‘Pacific’ and ‘Cubik’ by 808 State and Act‘s vastly underrated ‘Snobbery & Decay’.
A couple of infamous ‘lost’ ZTT groups have tracks presented for the first time too – Instinct, who only had one track appear on the label previously before disappearing into the vaults, have what was to be their first single debuting 25 years later. Also another piece of the Art of Noise puzzle is here for the first time to tantalise us – a glimpse of what Paul Morley and Trevor Horn did next after the rest of the band jumped ship and played the Pop game. The group Art & Act were bandied about in various press releases at the time but nothing was released until an AON box set a few years back yielded a few snippets. Here we get 8 minutes of a group that could have been but wasn’t destined to be until over a decade later with the reformation of three of the Art of Noise proper. Both absolutely essential for any ZTT fan.
That old devil Steve Stein aka Steinski – who should need no introduction to readers of this blog – has been hard at work on the musical and spoken word front recently. Firstly, go to his site – Steinski.com – and download the monster of a spoken word podcast he’s made for New York’s WFMU station entitled ‘Walkin’ & Talkin’. It’s a wild and varied ride through all manner of spoken word material whether from the Beats’ hip poetry to Hip Hop or a surprising amount of British Pop from the 80’s. Steinski guides you through the whole thing and, if you’re so inclined, you can follow it up and watch a lot of it via the mammoth post he’s made on his site illustrating most of the content with YouTube clips. It’s a very rewarding 2 hours plus and I suspect the site content will take just as long to hoover up.
On the music-making front Stein has just given some new Dennis Coffey material the remix treatment, one track of which will be released as a 7″ on Record Store day. A full album of new material and covers by Coffey is coming on Strut on April 25th featuring contributions from Mayer Hawthorne, Paolo Nutini, Kings Go Forth, Mick Collins of the Dirtbombs and more. Check the cover referencing artwork too.
I got sent the new Reso ‘Valken’ EP yesterday and was so taken with the lead track – ‘War Machine’ – I decided to make a video for it using animation from Vexille, Appleseed and the end titles of the first Iron Man film. If you like your music heavy, intricate and indestructible and your robots the same then this is for you.
The EP is out on Civil Music on February the 21st and contains four tracks.
I seem to be on a late 80’s kick at the moment and one of my favourite bands as the the 80’s turned into the 90’s was Fishbone. I saw them at least twice but missed their legendary Astoria gig where Angelo jumped off the balcony because my girlfriend at the time decided to dump me that day. One of life’s big regrets. Seems they’ve been around for 25 years now and, even though their recorded output fell off by the mid 90’s, they still hold a place in my heart.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChXk4R0mGNw[/youtube]
A new documentary is doing the rounds called ‘Everyday Sunshine’ – named after possibly their biggest hit – and you can see how influential they were at the time by the names cropping up to pay homage. Chuck D, Flea, Ice T, Perry Farrell, George Clinton, Les Claypool and, er… Tim Robbins and Gwen Stefani (!). Fair enough on Gwen, No Doubt were a ska band before they hit the big time. Anyway, the trailer looks very promising, Larry Fishburne narrates (nice touch) and let’s hope they get the dues they deserve after all these years. There’s a full website devoted to the doc and the DVD should be out late summer.
Also, does anyone remember an early 90’s TV show with David Rappaport called ‘Beyond the Groove’? I think it only ran for one series and it was a music show fashioned as a road movie of sorts. David would drive around and meet people or find himself in different situations and bands or artists would appear and do their thing. Fishbone once featured at the end of one episode when David drove into a deserted outdoor film lot, the screen flickers into life and you see the band doing a live version of ‘Behaviour Control Technician’ from their (at that time unreleased) ‘Reality of My Surroundings’ LP. I had it on videotape for years and tried to find it recently but it had been taped over! Nothing on YouTube, in fact very little about the show at all, if someone has a copy of it, I’d love to see it, likewise their performance of ‘Fishbone Is Red Hot’ on the Big World Café programme.
And here’s the ‘Beyond the Groove‘ clip courtesy of Matt Davies (see comments below), thanks so much – the power of the internet!.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qeYUOf4s8g[/youtube]
I was recently asked to play at a night called Classic Material, run by Chris Read and Nick Armitage. The idea for this is to give each month over to a year from Hip Hop’s past and only play tracks released during it. DJ Format did ’87 (entirely on 45’s!), Andy Smith – ’88 and I was given 1989. ’89 was a special year for me as it was the year I moved away from my home and parents and started studying in London, a city I’ve remained in for more than half my life now.
It was also a year rich in musical delights with the beginnings of gangster rap taking over Hip Hop and the emergence of De La Soul‘s Daisy Age with their incredible ‘3 Feet High & Rising’ album. Actually possibly my top three all-time favourite Hip Hop albums were released in ’89, the aforementioned ‘3 Feet High…’, the Beastie Boys‘ ‘Paul’s Boutique’ and the Jungle Brothers‘ ‘Done By The Forces of Nature’.
The Beasties’ album was critically mauled at the time but has undergone a reappraisal since and is now hailed as the classic it is but the Jungle Brothers’ record is still only really feted by Hip Hop heads in the know. It’s their strongest record with as much inventiveness as the De La album if not quite the wackiness of Prince Paul‘s production. In it you can hear the whole blueprint for the Native Tongues movement that was beginning to emerge but also a precursor to Deee-Lite‘s ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ – which would be the anthem of 1990 – Towa Tei was even involved in aspects of the record. On the west coast the Dust Brothers were in their most high profile period with Tone Loc, Young MC and the production of the Beastie’ record. The whole NWA/Ruthless Records camp was basking in the glory of ’88’s ‘Straight Outta Compton’ and surrounding releases like the D.O.C‘s ‘No One Can Do It Better’ album.
Hip House and the general speeding up of Hip Hop was the order of the day with a lot of UK only remixes of licensed US tracks having this edge to them. Alongside this you had the Stone Roses’ debut album and the whole Maddchester scene as well as the fallout from the acid house excess of the previous year making it’s mark on both the charts and surrounding music genres. S’Express made their best records and Tim Burton‘s first Batman was the film of the summer, complete with soundtrack by Prince.
Whilst all this was going on I was doing my Foundation course in Art and Design in Reigate and used the screen printing facilities to make some custom T-shirts for myself and others featuring De La Soul surrounded by psychedelic lettering I drew. It’s with this design that I want to illustrate the mix I put together for Classic Material, done completely on vinyl – what a pain that was after using Serato for 5 years!
’88 was great but ’89 is mine by DJ Food
Elsewhere J Saul Kane was starting his own journey with the first Depth Charge releases on DC Recordings but that comes to fruition about five years down the line.
New 1 hour video mix by my DJ sparring partner DK. Catch us tomorrow at Videocrash alongside Hexstatic, DJ Cheeba and Digitonal at the Electrowerkz in London for some of this and more.
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.vimeo.com/19005861[/vimeo]
Ordered. For those that missed the three 12″s, they’re all here plus another 40 minutes in lavish Andy Votel designed sleeves.
Stumbled across this on Amazon today, love the cover.
This is new to me but about 6 months old, love Cut Chemist’s stuff, one of my favourite DJs.
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”480″]http://vimeo.com/13404672[/vimeo]
Very sad news of Trish Keenan from Broadcast’s death this morning. My thoughts go out to her family and friends. Official statement here
[youtube width=”636″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqINetENovg[/youtube]
Wagon Christ has a new album called ‘Toomorrow’ set for release in March. The excellent Celyn Brazier is on artwork duties again and you can hear a track from it here.
[flickrvideo width=”636″ height=”480″]http://www.flickr.com/photos/strictly-kev/5334664470/[/flickrvideo]
and you can hear the performance in full here…
Sculpture Live at the London Short Film Festival 2011 by tapebox