Funky Friday - Britpopping

If you were between 18 to 30, and based in the UK during the Britpop years (bookended by Suede and the Spice Girls) it was possibly the closest anyone too young to remember the sixties got to tasting the uncorked excitement of an England Swings experience. The mid-nineties saw Britain's music scene blossom and bloom into hot spots of home grown, hybrid-mixing, hit makers - stretching from newly minted Anglocentric anthems, Indie rockers and Big Beaters to rediscovered retro funk, swishy soundtrack highlights and cheesy listening lounge tunes.

Add in Blur vs Oasis, Weller's return to form, former shy-eyed shoegazer guitarists giving it Guitar Hero riffery and the upsurge and momentum of the moment was enough to revive the surviving Beatles into action releasing new recordings and archived outtakes via Anthology.

If you fancied a night in there was the reinvented Radio One (which had finally shaved off it's beardy ol' DJs) or Vic and Bob's Shooting Stars. For a night out how about catching Trainspotting or any number or Brit-flicks hitting the cinemas or even shaking a leg at clubs like Blow Up.

So instead of waving the flag with the typical Britpop colours, how about a couple of remixed remodels and two often overlooked vids..

And you must check out Piley's review of Blur's recent Southend gig - their warm up for Glastonbury and Hyde Park.


The Pulp/Blur tracks are taken from the Steve Lamacq mixed Weekenders, so download them and they'll join neatly togther when played in sequence

Pulp - Common People(Motiv-8 Mix)



Blur - Girls and Boys (Pet Shop Boys remix)



Almost the forgotten men of Britpop, Black Grape's It's Great When You're Straight.... Yeah! is still the perfect summer soundtrack almost 15 years on from it's release - yes it really has been that long.

Black Grape - Tramazi Party

Beatlebum

Have you got a light Mac?

I've got a feeling, there could be something of Britpop micro-buzz on the blog this week. What with The Charlatans (possibly the most underrated of all B-pop bands) and Black Grape in the last post, and now Blur teaming up with The Beatles in this little gem of Beatleg remix from Mark 'Go Home Productions' Vidler.

Rich Girls And Boys - Go Home Productions



And as a booty bonus variations on the component parts of this mashup

Blur - Boys and Girls (demo)



The Beatles - Baby You're A Rich Man (German Stereo Mix)

"How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people"

Shake Your Booty Down To The Ground

I knew I had a few somewhere...

Jacko & The Charlatans
The Baddest One I Know - McSleazy



Jacko & The Beatles
Daytrip To Never Never Land - Go Home Productions



Jacko & Black Grape
Reverend Black Jackson - Go Home Productions

Funky Friday - Folking About On The River

So the Annual Leigh Folk Festival rolls round again this weekend, and really, who needs Glastonbury - when last year's LFF (my first visit) was such a joy and a gem. Please leave any ideas of fuzzy folkies a'wailing and a'wauling about shipwrecks, smugglers and sweethearts long gone, at the gatepost please - this free, two day event of live musical doings is coloured with all shades and styles from solo strummers to ska bands and young folkies to old rockers..

Saturday sees fun for all the family in the Library Gardens with live bands on rotation, perhaps circus skills for the kiddies and dusty ol' vinyl stalls for the dusty ol' dads. Why not bring some plonk and perhaps bagels (from the Leigh Bagel Bar). While Sunday is bands amongst the boats down Old Leigh way with it's wharfs, seafood stalls and those fishermen's pubs...

So, if you're at a loose end this weekend, why not take the C2C to Leigh On Sea, where you may hear funky folk along the lines of..

John & Beverley Martyn - Sorry to Be So Long



Kathy Smith - It's Taking So Long



Heather Jones - Penrhyn Gwyn
If any continental viewers are wondering what's the crazy talk on this track - It's Welsh! Claimed to be Britain's oldest language and still spoken by over half a million people in Wales..



I won't be posting anything on Michael Jackson or Farrah Fawcett, I'll leave it to others who'll do them more justice than I ever could - but will spin this up in memory ...

Song Of A Baker

You may remember last week, how we noted the signature Alessi sound has a chime of the Chet about it, so for anyone who hasn't heard the muted toot of his trumpet or the lullaby-lilt of his politely stoned vocal tone here's your chance to check in with Chet Baker. The James Dean of the jazz-scene.

Chet Baker - The More I See You

There's an almost heavy-overload of Chet albums too choose from - but this, this or It Could Happen To You ..are all good hopping on points for Baker-beginners

Let Your Fingers Do The Walking

Phil 'Wolfman' Harvey plays the ex-Island Records studio piano, now at Reazor in Putney - Photo by Bleech.

We've said before, how satisfying it must be for highly polished pianists to breeze away at the keyboard. Galloping or gliding through cascades and clusters of fluid-fingered key strokes and free flowing notes. Today's FF features several shades of glowing genius : heavy handed hammond, Jack-be-nimble piano and a continental combo of both..

Enri - The perfomer
Hammond anthems just don't come no funkier - and wait for those punchy trumpets at the one minute mark. Stomping.



The Keith Mansfield Orchestra - Soul Thing
More hooky horns (with a touch of The Kinks Lola about them) and the slick-fingered style of Keith Mansfield - King of the London Swingers..



Bernard Estardy - Vertigo Leitmotiv
Bernard grunts, groans and generally yelps his way through this high speed shuffle, that keeps tapping up the tempo, but, feels about two minutes too short to me

You Are The Season

It may have only reached number eight in the UK charts, but, over thirty years on the polite-pop, soft-jazz-shuffle and Chet Baker vocal tone of Alessi's Oh Lori still sounds daisy fresh today. Mellow as a summer meadow, light as a seaside breeze and easy like Sunday morning, it's a swisheroony tune that bounces like a beachball on a bed of brushed acoustics, vibe solos and flutey toots

The cap sleeve revival starts here


Alessi - Oh Lori

The Alessi Brothers are still in service and big in The Netherlands apparently. Why not stop by their online shop where you can buy all-year accoutrements like T-shirts and scarves!?!

Here you go strummers and crooners, get your noggins round these mellow minor sevenths and suspended whatnots

Fire In The Disco

Stardate:Somewhere in the late seventies

A rock apocalypse called punk has cracked Planet Pop like a peppercorn. While one half of the world's musical youth turns dayglo, the other burns in a disco inferno.

Leathery ol' rockers who've plodded through the seventies lolloping like walruses, or crashed like wasted scarecrows are running scared from bristly gangs of punky young things out for scraps, scalps and single sales. Where can these heavy-hitting has-beens find shelter in this teenage wasteland. Rejected by the new wave, how can the old wave reposition their pop appeal and cut it wiv ver kids?

How - by seeking asylum amongst the Saturday night fevered. Dolling up in disco drag and dipping into a dressing up box of highhats, handclaps and fidget-fingered bubbly basslines

R*lling St*nes - Miss You (12")

The definitive disco 'oompah oompah' octave bassline that first appears at 00:59 and reriffs throughout the track is allegedly a Billy Preston keyboard trick adapted for bass by Bill Wyman



R*d Stewart - Do Ya Think I'm Sexy

Written as a direct response to Miss You - I have absolutely no shame in loving Rod's guiltiest of pleasures as much now, as I did when asking for it as a 13th birthday prezzie.



IT'S A POP QUIZ - Paul Stanley plays his signature 'shattered mirror' guitar in this vid, a design inspired by someone fronting a group of Brit-stompers - BUT WHO???



Ki$$ - I Was Made For Loving You

David Bowie - John I'm Only Dancing (Again) 12"

In all fairness Bowie had beaten every other bugger to the dancefloor by a distance of four years, and was wrapping up his Eno-electro trilogy with Lodger while his peers were busy booking seats on the boogie nights bandwagon.



* The asterisks and $$ are a deliberate attempt to avoid being blog-whacked

Sparky Twinkles and Glitter Blitz

It's not just dusty nuggets and vintage retromania round here you know. No, no sometimes hot, hip and happening new tunes make their way onto the Mondo Music Centre too.

Tunes like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs who've sidestepped their usual raw-amped rocking for some delish electro disco on their new album It's Blitz



Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Hysteric


And Royksopp's Junior bubbling with the richest of synthesized riffs and twinkly Scanda-pop melodies from start to fin.



Royksopp - Vision One


If electro bleeps and beats are on your wavelength - turn on, tune in and squeak out.

Mirror Mirror On The Ball

Who's the funkiest of them all?

Four on the floor - wherein we are invited, requested and reminded - that....

It's - " time to get down"
T.S.O.P - The Sound Of Philadelphia



To - "shake your booty, shake it all around"
Jimmy Bo Horne - Dance Across The Floor



Or -"take your record and get up"
Gary Toms Empire - 7654321 Blow Your Whistle



And -"get down and down" (again)
The Kay-Gees - Hustle Wit Every Muscle

The Smash Hits Disco Top 40 from this week 30 years ago (issue dated May 31- June 13 1979)
Click on the pic for the full run down