It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

By Christ, that was a quick week. I most certainly have over indulged in food, alcohol not so much, although I did manage to arse a bottle of Foxdenton 48% London Gin and very nice it was too.

This Friday sees us back to 1993 and a bit of Gospel tinged House courtesy of the 50 strong Sounds of Blackness with a little smattering of the genius that was Sasha before he disappeared up his own arse. I apologise for the crackles but this was played quite a bit and I think that 1993 was not a very good year for quality vinyl as a lot of the 12" singles I have from then sound worse than they should do.

Have a good weekend people.

The Sounds of Blackness - I'm Going All The Way (Sasha's Chuff Chuff mix)

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

It's been another one of those weeks that's found me traipsing up and down this not so green and not so pleasant land and it doesn't look as if they travel will abate for some time to come yet. Still on the plus side I had a week sans air travel and I have decided that the only way to travel to our overcrowded capital city is to take the sleeper and to come back up the road First Class, how long I will be able to get away with this I'm not sure but it is still somewhat cheaper that flying to Heathrow or London City. Another thing that it has in its favour is that there are no surly security staff or even surlier BA Stewardesses to try and deal with.

Just get on with the music I hear the few of you who haven't already lost interest and gone over to The Bagging Area for your weekly dose of Rockabilly or for cocktails and dreams with Mr H.

Today's track comes from Italy and the duo Sultana and was originally released over there in 1993 but which came to my attention in remix form the following year when it was released on the Union City Recordings  label which had already brought us the delights of Metropolis, TC1991 and Mombasa.

This remix was an early attempt by John Digweed,  who along with his partner in crime would turn into two behemoths lording it over the dance music of the mid to late nineties and who would dictate the way that dance music progressed and as a result inflict the shite that trance was on the world. This remix is good though it does hint at what the future held.

Have a good weekend people

Me, I'm off to the pictures with four seven year olds to watch the bloody Smurfs. Life on the edge, eh?

Sultana - Te Amo (Digweed dub)

Careful

Following on from yesterday's post. I will give Sasha some credit for bringing a wonderful song to the attention of a wider audience albeit in the form of a remix. The song was Careful by Horse and I think initially he used to mix the original in with some trance shit and eventually remixed the track into, you guessed it some trance shit.

I first heard of Horse when a friend off mine asked "Do you want to go to the Tube?" to which there could only be one answer, followed by how? It turned out that there was some family connection to this band Horse and H had been offered 4 places on the bus to go down and support the band on the Tube and knowing of my love for the show, as it was the first place I had seen and heard Billy Bragg I was offered a place.

My lasting memories of the day were:-

• That I didn't really like the people on the bus down, all pretentious Glasgow Uni students who wouldn't buy us under agers a carry out.
• Horse weren't really my bag
• It was probably the worst Tube line up in history, Vow Wow (Japanese Heavy Metal band), Chiefs Of Relief ( Paul Cook and some boy from Adam and the Ants/Bow Wow Wow's band), Horse of course and Janet Jackson.

• The Tube studio was a lot smaller than it looked

and

• Jools Holland was a cock

After the recording we ended up in a pub that I seem to recall was called Cleopatras with a band who were busking outside the studio and for the life of me can't remember the name of. The producers or someone gave them some money as they were featured before the opening credits when Holland and Yates were doing their speil outside and we helped them drink it. Then onto the coach with the po-faced students who couldn't believe how drunk we were.

Anyway, I was never a big fan of Horse, either the group or when she later went solo. I do, however love this track.

Horse - Careful

And while searching YouTube just on the off chance I found this

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

I was never a big fan of "The Man Like Sasha". He could generate a buzz in clubs for weeks before he was due to play there but I could never fathom out why. Mix Mag even went to the extent of questioning whether he was the son of God, a bit stupid, when we all knew that Weatherall didn't even have any kids. His mixing was impeccable but it was the stuff that he was mixing, it was the blandest of the bland, to me there was nothing strange or out of the ordinary nothing that stopped you in your tracks. I seemed to be in the minority, however, as everybody else seemed to love him.

Why then did I buy a record with a huge "Sasha Mixes" on the front cover? The only reason I can think of is that it was on the UCR record label and the previous couple of releases I had bought on that label I liked a lot. Mombassa's Cry Freedom and Metropolis by, eh, Metropolis (FSOL).

The record is credited to B.M.EX and is a double 12" pack consisting of various mixes of 2 tracks Appolonia and Feel The Drop. Appolonia in all it's various guises as a workmanlike progressive verging on trance track, nothing special. Feel The Drop on the other hand is a great dance track in the same vein as the early Cowboy stuff.

I later found out that B.M.EX was an acronym for The Barry Manilow Experience and was in reality Sasha's first foray as an artist.

I still hold him and John Digweed responsible for the popularity of bloody trance

Warning - This track contains saxaphone.

B.M.EX - Feel The Drop (Saxed Up)

Also, as I mentioned it above.

Mombassa _ Cry Freedom (Malawi mix)