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April
2007
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The onset of April coincided with the rundown to the Easter break. Although for most people this equates to a few days off work, a bit of a rest and maybe a bit of partying, for travelling DJs, it’s one long grind. Not that I’m complaining, as I love the opportunity to spin in a variety of different spots, and I’m always at my happiest when behind a pair of decks, (or CDs these days!) But several late nights on the trot can really wear you down, and if you don’t pace yourself properly, they can destroy you - particularly when you’re prone to always waking early in the morning, like me. Catch-up naps, vitamin pills and loads of vegetable juice to the system is the only way to make it through!
'The latest B&S mag front cover' The week kicked off with two days working out of B&S Towers in Paddington. The magazine has fortnightly press deadlines, and the latest fell into this week, so things were pretty manic. I headed back home to Oxfordshire on Tuesday evening for a cherished night in with the missus, stopping off for some food on the way following the realisation that the fridge was entirely empty. The following day was swallowed up entirely by preparation for my Just Buggin’ radio show. I had a live show to present that night, as well as the following week’s to pre-record, as I’d be away again. As any radio jock will tell you, the approach towards a radio show is entirely different to that of a club set. With radio, spontaneity just doesn’t work, and usually results in a chaotic shambles … at least the way I do my shows. Impeccable preparation is the key to a slick sound. Besides auditioning the week’s huge glut of new tunes to see which ones suit the sound of the show, and how they sequence together, the bulk of my prep time is spent cleaning up the curse words in hip hop records to make them suitable for radio play. This week’s main culprit was Beanie Sigel’s ‘Return Of The Bad Guy’ which samples Giorgio Moroder’s theme tune from ‘Scarface’. It was worth the effort to get it to air!
Parveen was off work from Thursday, and on the agenda that night was a trek to Cumbria for DJ Bligeness’s Block Party at The Wheelhouse on Lake Windermere. The day’s news had been full of reports of the usual traffic misery caused by the millions hitting the roads and airports to escape for Easter. We were keen to avoid this at all costs, but had to leave by 6pm to stand any chance of making the gig on time. Sure enough, the M40 towards Birmingham was clogged, so I had to divert via the M1 and A50 to rejoin the M6. We had just enough time to check into our hotel at Kendal before setting off for Bowness. The Wheelhouse is one of the unlikeliest settings for an urban music jam, but as I’ve mentioned before, Bligeness and the venue have built up a loyal local following for their monthly jams. I arrived at the booth to find a woman who looked like she’d have been more at home in a univeristy’s theology department than a nightclub, making notes on a clipboard. She turned out to have been from the Performing Rights Society, who were doing spot-checks on certain venues, the first time I’ve ever witnessed such a thing. Time prevented me from being able to tell her exactly which tracks I’d been playing, but surprisingly, she seemed to recognise and write down the more obvious ones like Beyonce. I also caught her shaking on down a couple of times, too! The only thing that blighted an otherwise good night was the state of the sound system. I think there’s more power in my TV remote control. The cable to the monitor speaker worked itself loose every 30 seconds, usually cutting off while I was in the middle of a mix. On top of that, the output levels had to be kept absurdly low to avoid disturbing all the rich playboys who were sleeping aboard their yachts moored on the lake outside. Rich bastards!
'MD with DJ Bligeness at The Wheelhouse, Windermere' On Friday lunchtime, we did a spot of local sightseeing and had lunch at a country pub. The M6 heading north had a tailback of what must have been 30 miles or more, with countless kids clambering all over the back seats in boredom with endless cries of ‘are we nearly there yet?’ Nightmare! Thankfully it was fairly clear in our direction. By the time I’d taken a catch-up nap, the day was over and it was time to head back to London. Dropping Parveen off at her Mum’s, I went off to my gig for the London Parties organisation at The Play Rooms. West End gigs aren’t always my favourites in terms of music quality, but this one ended up being really good, the crowd responding well to some old-school hip hop before DJ Wylie took over from me at 1.30. By 3, I was back at home downing a vodka nightcap.
'Punters at Play Rooms, London' I headed straight back in the same direction on Easter Saturday, picking up Parveen on the way, then heading to Kensington High Street to play downstairs at the bar/ restaurant/ club joint Arch Angel. The night, Angel Delight, had previously featured Femi Fem and Aitch B as ‘legends of the British black music scene’. While I certainly don’t put myself in the ‘legendary’ category, Blues & Soul is, so I was flying the flag for the mag that night. Sadly it wasn’t busy, but the small crowd were well appreciative of my far-reaching set, which consisted of old-school hip hop, soulful revivals, and a touch of funky house and garage. It was a real boundary-breaker, and I recorded it for interest. The result’s now available to listen to on the news page of this site. Give it a listen for a few surprises and deviations from my usual styles!
'MD with CJ at Baby Blue, Liverpool' At 8.30pm on Easter Sunday I set off with Parveen back up north, this time to Liverpool. One of my favourite UK gigs of last year was the Vibin’ night at Baby Blue, on the city’s newly-trendy Albert Dock. That was on a regular Sunday and the place was on fire, so things looked promising for this time round, considering nobody had work the next day. Promoters/ residents CJ and Andy Mac have truly created a night to be proud of - a great venue with quality crowds that know their stuff and party hard. I played from 1 to 3am prior to local hero Spykatcha, delivering what I consider to be my best set of this year so far, and if interference from punters is anything to go by, I took the fact that I received virtually no annoying requests as an indicator that I must be going about things right! This was easily the best UK gig I’ve played in the last year. I only wish there could be more like it. We headed back to our hotel at 4am still buzzing from it all, although we were slightly less lively on the drive back home in the morning.
'MD with Robin Thicke' My first task back at B&S Towers on Tuesday was to head to a swanky Kensington hotel to interview Robin Thicke. This dude’s name is on everyone’s lips right now. Seemingly emerging from nowhere, (although in reality he’s been grinding in the music game for 14 years!), his single and album have gone to the top of the Billboard charts in the US, propelling him to real superstar status. The album hits the UK in July, when the same thing may well happen. He’s a cool, soulful songwriter/ musician kinda in the Jon B mould. If you’re not familiar with him already, it’s likely you will be very soon. We’ll be posting the interview as a podcast in the Downloads section of www.bluesandsoul.com shortly. (We had a good chat while he munched on a plate of pasta, which called for some fairly sharp editing skills on my part!) Back to business at G’s on Thursday 12th, which was quieter than usual – doubtless not the only venue to suffer from a post-Easter lull. No such problems for Get Down at Bar Rumba in London the following night, though, which is always a safe bet for a rammed and off-the-chain session, and in my opinion, has long been the hottest Friday night out in the capital if urban music clubbing is your thing. I played alongside the usual crew of Sharma, (Eclectic Breaks,) Maurice (Soul II Streets,) and a particularly lean MC Scandal, who was in raucous mode and requesting rewinds of killer tunes every five minutes. But then it was his birthday – as the crowd was reminded when he was presented with a cake at 2am to the sound of the whole booth singing him ‘Happy Birthday.’ Bar Rumba was a total sweatbox, and most punters probably lost the equivalent amount of sweat to an hour’s workout in the gym. I dread to think what it’ll be like in the heat of the scorching Summer we’re predicted to have again this year!
'MC Scandal’s birthday cake at Bar Rumba' The weekend rounded off with yet another trip back into the Big Smoke. This one was for the latest incarnation of promoter Rachael B’s night Play. After occupying various West End spots, the event is now housed just round the corner from the Smithfields meat market in Farringdon, at a Spanish-flavoured club/ bar/ restaurant called Ortega. It’s an unusual area, quite reminiscent of the West 14th Street meatpacking district in Manhattan where all the trendy clubs are situated, and doesn’t really feel like London at all. Rachael excused herself at midnight – she was leaving for Gatwick at 5am to spend a week in Antigua at the Soul II Soul/ Trevor Nelson/ Norman Jay event that takes place every year. That certainly sounds worth missing a night’s sleep for.
'MD with Eric Roberson ' More artist hook-ups the following week. First off, I headed to Colin‘ C Swing’ Emmanuel’s studios in London to hook up with the neo-soul dude Eric Roberson, (who’s been alternatively known as Erro on previous output.) I’ve interviewed many artists, and you can instinctively tell the difference between those going through the mechanics out of a sense of duty, and those who really want to be there and appreciate the opportunity. Erro was one of the latter, and we vibed naturally as C Swing recorded our chat. This will appear as another podcast in the Downloads section of www.bluesandsoul.com shortly, so keep ‘em peeled. Great album, too – ‘Left’ on Dome Records. The following night, I had my first live studio guest on ‘Just Buggin’ in Oxford. This was Lethal, a UK rapper whose stuff I’ve been supporting for years. He first came on my radio show on Galaxy 101 in Bristol as long as ten years ago, and we’ve kept the occasional links going ever since. He’d spent the day out in the wilds of Wiltshire filming his cameo for the next Daddy Skitz video before dropping in. After a catch-up chat and some spins of tracks from the new ‘Journey’ album, Lethal spat another exclusive freestyle, which has now joined all the others from over the years in my archive racks at home.
'MD with Lethal ' Being away from home base three days a week has called for some pretty efficient time-management and forward-planning techniques as the only way to get everything done. I now run virtually all aspects of my life off my laptop, and pretty much the only time left for the essential listening of the week’s new music comes from time spent in the car. I had a fair bit of that for the weekend of Friday 20th/ Saturday 21st with a long road trip to Scotland, so I lined up a box of CDs on the passenger seat, including no fewer than 140 MP3 exclusives e-mailed that week from DJ Drastic in New York! It would certainly have been less gruelling to fly to Scotland, but taking logistical and financial implications into account, the road option finally won – 15 hours at the wheel and another 1,000 miles on the clock. To ease the travel burden on the Friday, I opted to head north immediately after finishing G’s in Bicester at 2am on Thursday night, eventually checking into a Travelodge in Derbyshire at 4am for a few hours sleep, then putting in the rest of the slog after waking on Friday.
'Dudes at Massa, Edinburgh' The trip was a DJing double bill, involving two Scottish launch dates for my Flipside book. Friday night’s location was Massa in Edinburgh. I’ve played the Tipsy night on a Sunday on a few occasions, but this was my first visit on a Friday. Massa’s pretty much the only venue in town that plays urban music, so the crowd tends to be a good-quality one that’s strictly there for the music. It was a lively night and I enjoyed myself. I quickly remembered that Scotland’s now had the public smoking ban for over a year. While it’s refreshing not to have to breathe in fag smoke, the absence of it unfortunately brings other unwelcome smells to the fore, and there were many cases of particularly bad BO in Massa. There’s really no excuse for this! You can buy a Tesco Value Roll-On deodorant for as little as 39p and a bar of soap for half that! At midday on Saturday, I headed across the M8 from my hotel in Edinburgh to my next one at Glasgow Airport, locking myself away for an afternoon of laptop work – planning my next radio playlist, filling in tune reactions, writing this diary, and other routine stuff. There was only one obvious venue for that night. The Crib is the one club in town that’s dedicated itself to playing solely urban music each night it’s open, and Saturday is its flagship event, headlined by Glasgow DJing legend Ray Woods. After a slow start, the venue suddenly packed out just prior to 1am, and the atmosphere through to 3 was storming, and highly rewarding.
'Punters at The Crib, Glasgow' City centres at 3 in the morning can be more entertaining than a freak show, and Sauchiehall Street was teeming with taxis, cars blasting out music while travelling at 2mph, girls walking home carrying their shoes and pissed-up clubbers hollering at each other. Plus it was raining, and the wet had turned all the discarded flyers in the street into mushy pulp. They should make TV reality shows out of this stuff! After six hours’ sleep, I put in the seven-hour drive home on Sunday, finally getting in for a well-deserved evening with Parveen.
'The Clipse' Conducting interviews where the artist is clearly up for it and gives you their all is a great experience. The flipside is when you get subjects who seem to be trying their best not to give you anything at all, and clearly don’t understand the value of playing the media game. As a writer, however, your job is to try and make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. I had a phone chat scheduled with Pusha T, frontman for The Clipse the following week, and it looked like it was heading this way. Then, the conversation shifted to the recent appalling Virginia Tech massacres, and Pusha starting going off on one about how hip hop lyrics were getting the blame, and the inherent racism in American society, and I knew we were getting somewhere. He went on to savage veteran US TV show host Don Imus, who had recently scandalously described an all-female basketball team as ‘nappy-headed hos’. It ended up being quite a heavy piece, and it’s due as the cover story for B&S mag in a couple of issues’ time. The last weekend of the month was a local one – G’s in Bicester on the Thursday and The Bridge in Oxford on the Saturday, with, just for a change, a bit of leisure time with the wife in between. The last weekend of the month was a local one – G’s in Bicester on the Thursday and The Bridge in Oxford on the Saturday, with, just for a change, a bit of leisure time with the wife in between. The only other thing to mention is that during the weekend, we took a trip to Cheltenham to visit my Nan, (who was born at the start of the Second World War and is still here 93 years later.) On the way back, my radar picked up on a second-hand record shop, where the trader was flogging a whole load of classic 1980s pop albums for 10p each. I quickly snapped up 48 – still only £4.80. His thinking was that, with so few people now having any means of playing vinyl at home, he might as well shift them any way he can. I spent a happy couple of hours digging through the crates uncovering some real gems. It’s still the only type of shopping I can stand. … and that was April! Diary Archive 2007 2006 2005
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