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February
2007 |
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It was always apparent that my 2007 was only going to start properly in February, once the preliminary distraction of January was out of the way. The month marked my new day job at Blues & Soul magazine HQ in London, which is going to involve a big cultural/ lifestyle shift for me after nine years of being freelance! There are many benefits to the new arrangement, but one of the few drawbacks is that I’m going to be less free to travel overseas during the week. I therefore took the opportunity to reschedule my visit to New York for the first weekend of the month –a decision made easier by the fact that Club Mirage had cancelled my planned booking in Kidderminster on Friday 2nd!
'New York street scene' Prior to this, however, there was the matter of my weekly spot at G’s on Thursday 1st. If for no other reason, this venue is notable for throwing up the dumbest comments that have ever been offered to a DJ. There’s now a new gem every week, and the latest one, from a girl punter, (what else?!) was, and I quote: ‘have you got that new one?’ That’s it. No other information. I know it sounds like I’m making these up, but I swear it’s true! After G’s closed at 2am, I bombed immediately to London, sneaking into the in-laws’place in Northolt for a few hours’snatched sleep, before catching the bus to Heathrow on Friday morning for my midday flight to New York JFK. The trip was to involve a hook-up with DJ Drastic and other members of the Coalition DJ Network, (of which I’m the sole European member,) along with a gig, and had to be rescheduled from the third week in January. Then, I’d managed to secure a Virgin Airlines flight for the incredible price of £168, (including tax.) Now that Uncle Gordon’s new fuel levy has kicked in, it’s doubtful you’ll ever be able to fly from London to New York for under £200 again, and sure enough, my re-booked flight with American Airlines set me back £278.
'MD on subway train' AA’s in-flight entertainment is appalling, (and don’t get me started on the hostesses!) While the likes of Virgin offer dozens of movies on demand, AA have two, only shown at certain times, and neither of which were of interest. So I hit the laptop instead. In spite of all the current talk of global warming, New York was in the grip of an icy Arctic spell, causing me to want to get off the freezing streets as quickly as possible. By the time I’d transferred to my hotel at Penn Station, it was 5.30pm, so I crashed out for a power nap, before my first link with DJ Drastic at 10pm. Brooklyn is Drastic’s ‘hood, and I was resolved to see a fair bit of it. We started by jumping on the subway to a ghetto spot called Bang, where local hip hop crew 67 Mob were throwing a launch party for their new video and CD. We then bounced back to Manhattan alongside Drastic’s cousin, DJ Sweaty Palms, with the intention of hitting some of the upmarket spots. Sadly, Pacha, Stereo and Myst all knocked us back, seemingly taking objection to our jeans and the fact that we weren’t wearing button-down shirts. We eventually resolved ourselves to the fact it just wasn’t happening, and went for a good feed in an all-American diner instead, eventually emerging at around 4am.
'DJ Drastic and heads at Bang' On Saturday lunchtime, I headed back to the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn to hang out at some more Drastic spots, and meet a few Coalition affiliates. These included producer Tommie Soxx at his home studio, where he works with assorted MCs, among them the rising artist Troy Ave. Later, at Drastic’s insistence, we went for a meal at Junior’s Diner in Downtown BK, famous all over New York for its strawberry cheesecake. Naturally, I had to sample a slice, and I can confirm that it is pretty good.
'Tommie Soxx & Drastic in studio' It turned out Da Firin’Squad were in Brooklyn that night, repping the UK at an international reggae dancehall jam at Albany Manor. I wasn’t able to pass through, as I had a club gig on the agenda back in Manhattan. This had been hooked up for me by producer/ DJ Kenny Summit, who’s become a permanent fixture on the trendy club/ industry party circuit in NYC. I knew the destination was Plumm on West 14th Street. What I didn’t realise until I got there was that it used to be Nell’s, a venue which I’d played two or three times before. It’s a classy joint with a lounge feel, and more emphasis placed on socialising than wild dancing, so I dropped an appropriate set of old and new tunes. At intervals of roughly ten minutes, a security guy kept rushing into the booth saying, ‘oh man,what’s this tune?’, and writing down the name on a paper napkin. It’s always flattering to know you’re influencing someone this way. I recorded it, and as you may have seen from the news page, it’s now available for download via this site. The plan had been for Drastic to arrive at Plumm during my set. I waited around for an hour, but he didn’t show. By this time I was pretty whacked, so I headed back to my hotel for sleep.
'Kenny Summit at Plumm, Manhattan' At 10am, I was awoken by the phone. Drastic had passed out, fully clothed, at 11pm the previous night and had just emerged. If I’d thought I was alone in having f*cked up sleeping patterns, I was clearly wrong. We hooked up for another meal, drink and good conversation, before I headed back to JFK for my evening flight home. There was a major Superbowl game on TV, and my flight was delayed from take-off by two hours. According to airline staff, these two factors were entirely connected; a large proportion of airport ground staff had phoned in ‘sick’that day, placing extra strain on all remaining resources. Despite many visits, I never tire of all New York has to offer, and this had been another worthwhile time spent in good company. My new B&S position is to generally occupy me on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the mag’s HQ in London, lodging for two nights at the in-laws’in Middlesex, and leaving the latter part of the week for my DJing activities. This first week, however, I took Monday to recover from NY and catch up with Wifey, instead heading into The Smoke at the crack of dawn on Tuesday. It was initially strange being back in an office after so long, but I quickly got back into the groove. The early mornings aren’t really a bind; the commuting via a bus and two tubes twice a day is. Surprisingly, although the rest of the UK’s transport infrastructure seemed to grind to a halt with the snow on Thursday 8th, I actually made it into B&S Towers earlier than on the other two mornings?? The same evening, I returned to Oxfordshire to handle my G’s Bicester set. Ready for this week’s Unfeasibly Dumb Request Of The Week? “Can you play Queen: ‘’Don’t Stop Me Now’”This is in an R&B night, remember? Doncha just love ‘em?!
'CC Club, London' During the week, the tabloid press had been reporting a so-called ‘bouncer war’between rival security firms, that, in the interests of safety, had seen the enforced closure of several of London’s swankier nightspots, (Chinawhite and Pangaea among them.) That, and entertaining reports of Prince Harry falling of Movida out drunk at 3am into a skirmish! Thankfully, CC Club was immune from such nonsense, and I headed there to play last set on Friday night for Sintillate, which involved another enjoyable and firing session. In front of me on the way back to the car were two girls with the shortest skirts ever known to man, who were drawing the most male attention I’ve ever witnessed. Literally every male-occupied car slowed down to have an ogle and a holler! As regular readers of this column will know, G’s in Bicester never fails to entertain with the dumbfounding comments offered up at the DJ booth. In fact, these are fast becoming the most popular feature of this entire blog. Ready for this week’s? A spotty chav approached the box to say, ‘alright mate? Yeah, I’m a DJ too. I’m on Radio One.’Course you are, mate, course you are. Now, run along or you’ll be late collecting your giro in the morning. Oh, and there was also ‘have you got Tony Matterson,(sic) ‘Dutty Wine’.”Thanks for that. Oh, and ‘the theme tune from ‘Platoon’. Brilliant, mate! That’d go down really well in an R&B session, wouldn’t it?!
'MD & Flipside T shirt' Any such frustrations were happily done away with on Friday 16th as I returned to one of my favourite urban club nights in the UK. Laces at Mu Mu’s in Bristol is one of the few spots where you can still play full-on tunes - including brand new heat - and hear roars of approval as the first bears kick in, just like it used to be back in the day. Resident DJ Squire was doing a sterling job of warming up as I arrived, and the crowd responded brilliantly to my set as I ripped into a lot of bashment and a lot of new tunes, aided by some electrifying mic work by MC Juice. Until now, I’d under-estimated the dancefloor potential of Pretty Ricky’s ‘On The Hotline’. The group are performing at the venue in March, and the hype when the tune kicked in was intense!
'MD with MC Juice at Laces, Bristol'
You never stop learning lessons in life, and one that I’ve picked up in the last year is that writing, and then marketing your first book is no easy job. On Saturday 17th, I found myself in the bizarre situation of staging a launch party for ‘Tales From The Flipside’ without actually having any copies of the book available. Production has been slightly delayed, but there really will be copies out now in a matter of days …and I’ll be telling the world about it when there are! In the meantime, I handled my session at DNA in Bournemouth, alongside DJs Blend and Adam Bomb, by handing out as many promo flyers as possible.
'DNA girls' The venue got steadily busier through my two-hour set, and was jumping by 1am. New B&S mag publisher James Clift passed through, as he lives in nearby Poole. You’d have to ask him, but he showed all the signs of having enjoyed himself! Prior to my set, I also met up briefly with Niall Moloney from Bournemouth station Fire FM. I’ve been supplying mixes to Niall for the past couple of years, and this was the first time we’d ever actually met. Part of the big changes on B&S this year include the appearance of an on-line radio station running off the magazine’s main website, (www.bluesandsoul.com,) which will be up and running by mid-March. It’s to consist of podcasts covering all the music genres the magazine represents, along with many more innovative types of programme that have never been tried before. As part of this, I was invited to put one together based around the subjects raised in my book, and this will shortly be on-line and available to listen to via this site. Rather than simply narrate stories, (which would have been a bit Jackanory-like,) I recruited B&S writer Elle J Small to interview me on the book generally, linked with Kid Fury for breakfast (12pm) in Oxford to talk about groupies, stalkers and dumb DJ requests, and visited Marc Sharma of the Eclectic Breaks outfit in London to talk about the world of differences between reputable promoters and flaky ones! I’m pretty happy with the results. Besides the B&S website, we’ll also be making it available to listen to on the News page of this site. Check back again very soon.
I was quite surprised to get a break from the regular routine of dumb requests at G’s on Thursday 22nd …and apologies for breaking the chain for those who were starting to get entertained by the comments. This week, however, a girl came up and asked for ‘the new tune by Omarion, ‘Ice Box’.’ Now, that’s the kind of request I don’t mind getting! I woke up on Friday 23rd to find my complimentary copy of ‘Tales From The Flipside’ in the mail. This signals that the book is now entirely live and ready to go! Having put over two years of work into this, it was quite a momentous occasion, and, I’m inclined to think, cause for celebration! There’ll be more about the book elsewhere on this site over the coming weeks. In the meantime, you can now order your copy on-line, at £9.99 a shot, from www.authorhouse.co.uk. (Just go to the Book Shop section and enter my name, or the title of the book.) And there’s further info. at www.myspace.com/talesfromflipside. Hit me up with those friend requests!
' MD with JD and Blighty at Tantra, Cardiff' The journey to Cardiff on Friday 23rd was a tedious slog owing to the non-top barrage of M4 roadworks, made worse by the posting of ‘average speed cameras, the bain of any long-distance motorist’s life! Once there, though, Tantra was as firing as ever for my latest visit to Sugar & Spice. Regular hosts Shaz and Bibs were still away in Bangladesh, so I was left in the hands of residents JD and Blighty. There was drama at the start when it emerged that there was only one CD player in DJ booth, non-one having apparently realised that I now deliver my sets off CD. A second one was found by 1am, thankfully. I could happily have hung around for a while after my set, but the two-hour return journey beckoned. The Bridge in Oxford offered the usual testing ground for new tunes and a few imaginative revivals the following night. The DJ booth has recently been overhauled and much improved. My only gripe remains that it’s directly in front of an air con vent, which has the effect of blowing all the accumulated fag smoke from the throngs of nicotine fiends right into my face the whole night. After June, of course, this won’t be a problem. Can’t wait! I rarely work Sunday nights, but on 25th, Handel, one of the bouncers at G’s, wanted to try and old school revival night with me. It was always going to be a gamble, and it didn’t pay off. An otherwise dull night was brightened up by Handel trying to convince a girl that I was Tim Westwood, just for a laugh. Amazingly, she swallowed it, despite the fact I’m about 13 years too young, a foot too short and several thousand pounds too poor! I was due at B&S HQ in London on Monday morning, so as soon as G’s finished at 1, I hot-tailed it up the M40 to the in-laws’ place to avoid the morning rush hour bullsh*t.
'MD with Ciara' One of the most welcome parts of being back on the radio with ‘Just Buggin’ is the opportunities it now brings to meet more artists for interviews. My first high-profile one of the year was Ciara at Wise Buddah Studios, who was in friendly and conversational mode about her upcoming album ‘The Evolution.’ I’ll be airing the interview soon.
'Devon and Play' I had a rare Tuesday outing on 27th February …and it was a fairly lengthy one, too, involving a long road haul and overnight stay in Sunderland. It was well worth the mileage, though. The night was the new Throwback presentation frrom North East key players Devon and his partner Cornwall. Sorry –bad joke. That’s Devon and Play. The night had also been billed as a Tales From The Flipside launch party. The venue’s upper floor was rammed and bouncing, which was highly impressive for a Tuesday night, and testament to the hard work that’s gone into promoting it. I ended the night being interviewed by a couple of students for a uni dissertation, being asked to comment on two subjects; the links between gun crime and hip hop lyrics, and the differences between clubbing in London and up north. I found the second subject considerably easier than the first. …and that was February! Diary Archive 2007 2006 2005
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