Solid Steel – Yppah 1981 & DJ Food KKK7 preview

Mine and Yppah‘s mix from last night’s Solid Steel – without chat, you can listen to me and Jon fluff our lines over on StrongroomAlive if you want. Yppah’s mix contains tracks all released in 1981, and, coincidentally, ends with Kraftwerk’s ‘Computer World’ before we get a taste of half of the Kraftwerk Kover Kollection vol.7 which debuts here tomorrow in full.

Record Store Dude #5 & 8

[youtube width=”640″ height=”450″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFEm4R8Ac4g&feature=BFa&list=PL3F8822D16A24AAE2&lf=plcp[/youtube]

[youtube width=”640″ height=”450″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWazkdpt8j4&feature=share[/youtube]

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Kraftwerk month #29 Tommy Vance interview & more…

The month is nearly up and there’s still so much that could be posted.

In 1981, BBC Radio 1 DJ Tommy Vance saw Kraftwerk play the opening night of their ‘Computer World’ tour in Manchester, England. Afterwards he interviewed Ralf Hutter for his Friday Rock Show and managed to get quite a revealing response, including some uncharacteristic humour. I’ve edited out the music as tastefully as I can and cleaned up the audio but the quality isn’t great to begin with.

Rare European 7″ sleeves for the singles ‘Kometemelodie 1’ and ‘Kometemelodie 2’.

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Kraftwerk month #27 Neon Lights 12″

The legendary 12″ of ‘Neon Lights’ issued in the UK on luminous vinyl in 1978, backed with ‘Trans Europe Express’ and ‘The Model’. This copy was given to me recently by Steve Cook who’d had it tucked away in his collection for decades, hardly played. You can see what great condition it’s in and he’s even kept the price sticker on – £1.49 from Allders of Croydon – that wouldn’t even get you two downloads these days let alone a beautiful item like this. I tried to test how luminous it was and photograph it in the dark but had no joy, I like how you can see little bits of grit in the vinyl too where it wasn’t entirely pure. Thanks Steve!

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Record Store Day at Rat Records, Camberwell, SE5

I’ll be spinning for a couple of hours down at Rat Records in Camberwell, SE5 on April 21st for Record Store Day to celebrate the release of my remix 12″ with The Amorphous Androgynous. I should be bringing a box of 12″s for the occasion and I’ll try and rustle up the last copies of the limited CD/comic/flexi disc version of ‘The Search Engine’ album too. There will also be in store sets and appearances from DJ Andy Smith, Julia Finnimore and Serafina Steer – god knows where everyone is going to go as the shop isn’t huge.

Rat Records is a small but perfectly formed used record store nestled in the heart of Camberwell, close to where I live and a place I’ve lived around most of the two decades plus that I’ve been in London. They are also one of the only used record stores South of the river, along with the Record & Tape Exchange in Greenwich and Soul Brother in Putney, so they don’t benefit from the passing trade of the Soho stores.Because they are a used store they don’t have the ordering power to get new RSD product like the shops that sell new releases but I want to support them as they always make an effort for RSD. My good friend David Vallade has, once again, produced a poster for the occasion – nice touch with my character there :). Not sure exactly what time I’m be playing but it will be a 2 hour selection around midday.

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Kraftwerk month #23 ‘The Model’ oddities


Rare sleeves for ‘The Model’ 7″: top – Japan, middle – Germany, bottom – France.

The lyrics for the song on the back of the Japanese sleeve contain some interesting turns of phrase:

“She plays hot to get smart, from time to time”,

“and she has been checking nearly all the land”

and the classic,

“She’s posing for consumer bought a town and then”.

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