Post-percussion.

Yo!

Been suffering from a touch of blogger's block lately, so excuse the sporadic nature of the posts around these parts this past fortnight or so. It's been a case of starting a post, saving the draft and never getting around to finishing it a lot of the time (both here and over at No Flipping!), so at least the intent has been there.

Anyway, enough of the excuses...

SINGLE OF THE WEEK

Liars - Plaster Casts Of Everything (Mute)

The best Liars songs sound like the world ending in some way or another. This is very much in the literal camp. Whereas in the past they've often made the apocalypse sound like the eerie death rattle of all things, this one's a fire-and-brimstone blitzkrieg that lays waste to the Earth in spectacular fashion. All the while, Angus Andrew's creepy falsetto near-screams of the "sweet massacre of death" and other things. Drums pound, guitars rage and it all adds up to one of Liars' best singles yet. Superb.


So, this year's Dpercussion - the last of its kind - was pretty much just like all the others. A mixed bag of bad judgement, piss-poor decisions and shite timing on both a personal and organisational level, we didn't get to see half of what we wanted to see and ended up seeing stuff that we never wanted to in the first place. Here are a few scattered thoughts on the day...

• Norman Jay - quite clearly one of the day's biggest draws - was pretty fucking bad. Only saw a little of him but it was more than enough to draw the conclusion that he has clearly lost it. Playing in a city with a deep-rooted love of soul, funk and disco, he opted for snoozy funky house and - shock horror! - early rave. We'll be taking that MBE back, thangyewverymuch.
• Elektrons, on the other hand, were pretty darned great. Bouncy, summery and steadfast in refusal to let the dodgy sound mix get in the way of starting the party, their set was just the tonic as the day looked like it was heading for a slide.
• 'Trash' by The Whip seems to have been crowned the new Manchester anthem, judging by how rapturously it was received. I'm not sure how I feel about this. It's a cracking song, even better played live and you got the feeling they could have drawn it out for an hour before the crowd got bored of it. However, there's still too much of a whiff of old Manchester about it for me to get behind. It's time we forged a new identity for ourselves, not forgetting the past, just not trying in vain to relive it. Speaking of which...
• I apologise to his friends, family and fans, but Clint Boon is a cunt. His boorish MCing of the main stage late in the day was one of the most cringeworthy things I've ever seen. You're not on the radio now so quit fucking jawing. Introducing each tune by getting the crowd to chant "Boon Army!" or saying "Does anyone want to hear The Smiths?" before dropping 'How Soon Is Now?' should be the reserve of wedding DJs. I used to enjoy going to Disco Rescue on a Saturday night because it used to be quite unpredictable and off-the-wall. His sets, along with his radio show, have become increasingly stale over the past few years and we need to consign him to the bin sooner rather than later. Maybe he can have a big "Who really is Mr Manchester?" dick-measuring competition with Dave Haslam in South one night, with the winner becoming a kind of silent Manc figurehead - a bit like the Queen - while the loser is exiled to Liverpool for all eternity? How does that sound?
• I won't miss the scallies one bit.
• I'm gutted that I missed Dabrye on the Sketch City stage, but my, FC Kahuna's DJ set (actually it was just Dan on his own) was a whole lot of fun. An honest-to-goodness, unpretentious electro-tech set that capped the evening off perfectly (we opted to skip the last hour in favour of necking a few ales in Briton's Protection). Sometimes that's all you need.

Elektrons - Hurry On Down (mp3)

Above photo is from here.

In other news: I'm on this week's Blog Fresh, yakking about, of all things, Elektrons. Serendipitous, don'tcha think?

JMx

"My heart beats for the one I love"

Just a coupla things today, kids. I'll have to start pulling my finger out a bit when it comes to posting, both here and over at No Flipping! It's not like I've gone off music and TV or owt, I'm just too darned bone idle to write about them. Anyways, enough apologising...


The venerable Bill Brewster (DJ History) has recently put together the marvellous Capitol Disco CD that compiles 31 tracks from the Capitol archive that all have a disco vibe. Stretching the point a little to call them all pure disco (some are more obviously soul and funk), but that doesn't stop it from being top-notch. There are uncovered gems from Margo Thunder ('Expressway To Your Heart'), Mystic Merlin ('Sixty Thrills A Minute') as well as some more well-known tracks like Rance Allen Group's 'Peace Of Mind', Diana Ross' 'Work That Body' and Minnie Riperton's 'Adventures In Paradise'.

The one track that really made my jaw drop to the floor though was the second disc opener, 'Twilight' by Maze & Frankie Beverly. One of those "Wow, where have you been all my life" moments. Totally cosmic and out-there, it's most definitely a pre-cursor to all the space disco stuff that's floating about at the moment. Nice and trippy with some seriously warm synths and percussion, it's absolute dynamite.

Maze feat. Frankie Beverly - Twilight (mp3)

Gloria Jones - Windstorm (mp3)

The line-up for this year's Dpercussion has been announced and it's a bit... boring, shall we say? See for yourselves. I'm not surprised that it's going to be the last one and while there's a part of me that will miss it, I'm also hoping that some other promoter takes it on under a different name and manages to nail it next year. I'll be there though and it looks like I'll be dividing my time between the Arches, Barca and Sketch City stages.

My tips for people worth seeing; Elektrons on the main stage should be fun. Haven't seen them live yet but I love the album and am interested to see how well they reproduce it in a live setting. Also, the Best Foot Forward boys are on at Sketch City and they're always pretty decent. I'll probably be checking out FC Kahuna at the Arches too, purely for curiosity reasons and the same goes for the proposed Broadcast DJ set at Barca. As the night draws in and if I haven't got bored of dodging scallies and pissed off to a bar nearby, it's a toss-up between Norman Jay and James T. Cotton (aka Dabrye of Spectral Records). I think Norman might just win that one though, especially seeing as it's at the Arches, the scene of one of my favourite all-time Dpercussion moments when Mr Scruff rocked it about five years ago.

I'll see you down there then. No stalking me though, you hear?

I'm posting this because I heard it out last night and I'd forgotten how good it was. Jon The Beef should appreciate this one too.

Taana Gardner - Heartbeat (mp3)

"Here come the hot-steppah!"

In other news: I'm on the latest Blog Fresh Radio show, repping for the spectacular Sorcerer album. Also, in case you missed my guest spot on the Makin' Music Show on Monday, there's a convenient mp3 of it for you to download over at Niles and Baggy's Cosmic Disco blog. It was a fun experience, one that the guys are being kind enough to let me repeat at some point in the future. Watch out for that.

Oh, and I've continued re-posting the mixtape week, with Friday's edition. Live for another month for your listening pleasure.

Over and out,

JMx