Back from London.

Alexees Hobson (alexees@ath.forthnet.gr)
Wed, 13 Nov 1996 14:16:39 -0500


Hello people.
Just got back from London, thought I'd share some thoughts with you.

I finally saw Paul "Trouble" Anderson spin. The man is tremendous!
Even if you don't like garage, you'll dance at the Loft all night long.
The man is garage music personified, he literally breathes "his music"
as he calls it. We went up and talked to him afterwards - he's the
nicest person you'll get to know. He gave us his number, told us where
he gets his records and put us on the guest list for Garage City at the
Bar Rumba, but we didn't make it there unfortunately. :( He was amazed
to hear that people would travel from Greece to hear him play. :) We also
caught his show on Kiss FM, Saturday night... excellent! Also, Michael
Proctor performed two songs live that night at the Loft - what a voice!
A truly memorable night indeed.

Thursday night was Stealth night at the Blue Note. Yes! Ninja Tune in
full effect mode. Coldcut played an excellent set until 1am, some
jungle guy followed them and then DJ Food got on the dex doing the
dynamic dj duo thing as well. Delicious sub servings for the whole
galaxy. :) This was my second Stealth. This time they had a spooky
looking net hanging in front of the stage, so as to keep pesky wankers
off the equipment I guess. The visuals were better: there were two
screens, one behind the djs and one hanging above the crowd somewhere
in the middle of the basement, and they ran loops from Star Wars, the Big
Boss, Roller Ball (or something like that, the James Caan film, you know?),
some weird kung fu shit and this futuristic femme fatale and a cool looking
space gun. And the new Ninja Tune japanese-looking font style super-
imposed above all that. Probably confused you, but trust me, it was good.
Upstairs, Mr. Scruff (I presume) played some rocking party tunes ranging
from hip hop to reggae to all out jazz. No real djing though, but still very
good music selection. DJ Food downstairs were very very good, with one
of them doing most of the beatmatching and the other doing most of the
scratching. The communication between them was crystal clear, they
were prepared and thus gave us a flawless performance that focused on
hip hop (instrumental or not) but strayed from time to time into other genres.
And of course, Coldcut were perfect as always, putting everything into the
mix, from hip hop to jungle to David Holmes to easy listening versions of
Beatles songs to robotic samples from their computer to funky stuff to ... :)
But they should've played more. Aaaah, what the heck.

Friday I saw Ashley Beedle spin at the End. The man is not a dj and it
shows. But his music selection was very good. He opened his set with
a vocal sample talking about the Paradise Garage and got us dancing
to some funky house music that put smiles on our faces and sweat all
over foreheads. :) But the more he played, the more mistakes he made.
Nonetheless, he played great songs.

Skip Saturday and Sunday, let's go to Monday and That's How It Is.
Now, remember, the first time I was there I wasn't impressed. This
time was worse. Ben Wilcox truly sucks and I don't know why they
got him up there playing music for most of the night. No mixing
whatsoever. He looks like some pretentious son of a bitch diva
asshole too, but I won't get into that. Gilles Peterson didn't show
again (at least until 2:30am when we were there) and James Lavelle took
over late playing some hip house at first, then some Leftfield style music,
some jungle, hip hop, ATCQ, Mantronix in the mix, some Ballistics vs. Eccentrics, some disco flavour and, as always, Unfinished Sympathy
(thanks man!). His mixing wasn't that good either but at least the
beginning of his set was good. I don't get it, do they show up unprepared
like this always? Do I sound bitter? Well disappointed is more like it.

Also, spent too much money on new records, but like Josh Wink said,
if I could melt my records and shoot them up my veins I'd probably do it. :)
Visited Mr. Bongo, Soul Jazz, Black Market, Release The Groove,
Atlas and Unity and spent good money in all those places. :) Beware,
the same might happen to you once you step foot inside these shops!

Jazz On,
Alexees.