Our endearing Welsh friend, Phat Phil Cooper rode the mid-nineties wave of rave with superclub residencies at Cream, Liverpool and Ministry of Sound, London. Over this time he was one of the few DJs to maintain worldwide guest spots – from Brazil to Brighton and Sydney to Singapore, bringing a unique blend of deep, jackin’ and intelligent house music to a global audience. All the time Phil was travelling, he was both collecting and exposing music at all corners of the international dance floor. By picking up Northern Soul collections in Ibiza and obscure afro-rock 7″s in South Africa allowed him to expand his already over flowing appetite for music. This freestyle genre-bending outlook needed a release. No DJ is content with playing weird and wonderful finds in their bedroom or laying down an occasional mixtape.
To this end, Phil came up with the NuNorthern Soul concept, a Sunday session of music presented in comfortable surroundings with – importantly – great food and wine. City Bar in Chester was the landing pad for the Sunday slouchdown and Jim Baron from Crazy P was one of the first of many NuNorthern Soul All-Stars. The pair would spin for eight-hour sessions, playing records from front to back, full length, blended and melded together to create an audio soundscape for lazy, hazy Sunday afternoons.
As Phil moved from the UK to Ibiza setting up a record promo pool, NuNorthern Soul went with him, transferring it from an English style bar to the legendary Base Bar on the old port of Ibiza town. It was an easier transition as Balearic ears are always after different beats and NuNorthern Soul provided them exactly that. Quickly the idea was moved to Base Bar’s partner the Es Vivé hotel in Playa Den Bossa where Phil would host the Sunday session as a pre-Space sizzle with a cool, music loving crowd rocking up for Sunday sustenance before heading down to We Love… Space. Quickly spotting the synergy that NuNorthern Soul had, in stepped promoter Darren Hughes and musical director Mark Broadbent, taking the NuNorthern Soul vibe to the Premier Etage roof terrace at Space every Sunday, kicking up a fuss with African and Latin beats, funk, disco, soul, hip hop and broken beats.
Listen Nu
NuNorthern Soul lives on now in the form of semi-regular podcasts and Sunday sessions in various back rooms, barns and boozers across the UK… Stream the podcast here. Or subscribe via iTunes here. Also check out Phil’s blog for his general musings on trainers and stuff.
A number lucky for some, harking back to youthful clubbing, rebel heritage, archetypal rock and some international pop. Also however, a number unlucky for some – especially if the preceding antics involved events which will become clear with Sarah’s forfeited choice this week.
If you are what you eat, then Andrew Livesey is a ‘roast-tapas-birthday-casserole’ where as Kim Booth has clearly been snacking on too many pissed off bananas.
Peer at the pier
Birthday bash at LaNu
Sausage Fest
Al Zaguan then, why not?
JD's, other than Space, the only place to be on a sunday
This Sunday sees the grand opening of Barcelona’s Athletic.Disco.Club. To help kick things of with a bang they’ve enlisted the help of Bicep and in hand have given them their first gig in Spain. Bicep first came to our attention in 2008 when one third of them, Andrew Ferguson, played as one half of Fucks & Kisses in the Red Box at We Love… Space. Having stepped away from the noisy sounds of F&K, Bicep walked straight into the disco kaleidoscope. With a strong fan-base in toe, built up from their Glasgow residency Sideshow, they went on to create one of our favourite blogs; a one-stop-shop for all things house, techno, disco and muscle. Their debut release Strawberry, put out on vinyl only by Ghost Town sold out pretty much instantly and their chicago house homage 313 looks set to do the same very shortly. With opening nights you can never be absolutely sure how things will turn out; but with the Bicep boys playing we’re pretty certain this one will be a beltter; so certain in fact we’re sending a We Love… contingent along to check it out.
From the beginning of film, music has been involved in its presentation. In the early 20th century, live music was used to indicate certain narrative and emotional cues for silent moving pictures. If the animated actor sensed danger, the music would speed up and if that same actor fell in love with the heroine, a ballad could be heard throughout the theater. A good soundtrack is inexorably attached to a movie and will, for good or bad, remind you of that film, just as the images are now married to your favourite songs. What is becoming a regular feature on the blog, we look at great films through their soundtracks – find the rest here.
Knockin' on Kristoffersons door
Billy: Ol’ Pat… Sheriff Pat Garrett. Sold out to the Santa Fe ring. How does it feel?
Garrett: It feels like… times have changed.
Billy: Times, maybe. Not me.
Bob Dylan survived a near-fatal motorcycle crash in 1965, but his artistic persona of the day did not. The drug-fueled wild-haired rock poet who could churn out a million songs a minute was gone forever. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, for if he had continued along that course, he probably wouldn’t have survived to the present. Instead, he calmed down a little, and for the next decade took a kind of whimsical, laid-back approach to his music. There’s some really interesting material from this period – anyone not familiarized with Self Portrait or New Morning should grab it yesterday – but the most unexpected project he undertook was a collaboration with famed director Sam Peckinpah on Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.
How's Jesus look to you now, Bob?
One of the finest westerns ever made (especially the director’s cut), it tells the story of Pat Garrett (Kris Kristofferson), erstwhile travelling companion of the outlaw Billy the Kid (James Coburn) who has become a sheriff, tasked by cattle interests with ridding the territory of Billy. After Billy escapes, Pat assembles a posse and chases him through the territory, culminating in a final confrontation at Fort Sumner, but is unaware of the full scope of the cattle interests’ plans for the New West. The powers that be want Billy out of New Mexico, not for ethical reasons, but rather so that things can be neatly protected for the approaching business exploitation. “Billy, they don’t like you to be so free!” proclaims Bob Dylan’s theme song, summing up why the power men find Billy so irritating – his refusal to compromise and his declaration of his own personal independence.
Director Peckinpah uses two regular themes in most of his work, the death of the West, and men living past their time and deciding whether or not to accept change. The cinematography is beautiful and haunting at the same time and matches the mood and characterization in the film. Pat Garret knew he had a job to do, but just could not handle the fact it was a friend he had to kill. The myth and actual facts of the last days of Billy the Kid play out the doomed friendship between the title characters – but the film is really about the death of an American way of life. The best and saddest moments in the film involve characters who know they are going to die and accept it. Using Bob Dylan’s score could have been intrusive to this subtle film, and made it feel tacky in a trying-to-be-hip kind of way. Instead the score works well and gives the film a soulful feel. It’s testament to the director’s skill that he chose to make a work about the end of the myth of “Billy the Kid” instead of glorifying it further. Neither Garrett nor the Kid are very admirable in this film, they feel distant because there is no moral centre to the film – as there was little or none to real 19th century West – an empty space, scenery and some misfits of various backgrounds trying to make a living in an inhospitable domain.
Hell, that was a year ago. I shot him straight up.
Dylan composed the score for the film, but it doesn’t sound quite like anything else in his catalogue. There is, of course, the signature acoustic guitar and harmonica, but the tracks (most of which are instrumental) have a windswept south-of-the-border feel. When you hear the Spanish guitar picking and the leisurely congo drums, you feel almost as if you’re wandering through prickly pear thickets in Sonora. The score is defined by the iconic “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, which is one of the songwriter’s finest works. His version (which remains the definitive interpretation) is bare and sorrowful; in the film, it accompanies a scene in which an old outlaw watches the sun set while dying from a gunshot wound. Dylan recorded the final version of Knockin’ On Heavens Door at a session on Warner Bros. Records soundstage in Burbank, California. “It was very early in the morning,” recalls drummer Jim Keltner. “I think the session was 10 a.m There weren’t any overdubs on that, the singers were singing live, little pump organ and guitars. This was for a particular scene in the movie when Slim Pickens is dying and that’s the first time I ever cried while I played. It was the combination of the words, Bob’s voice, the actual music itself, the changes, and seeing the screen. In those days you were on a big soundstage, and you had this massive screen that you can see on the wall, with the scene running when you’re playing. I cried through that whole take.”
As an extra incentive, Dylan also acted in the film, playing the role of a knife-throwing outlaw. His character plays an important part, representing the storyteller that passes down the legend of this story to all generations. If you’ve ever wanted to see Bob Dylan slay someone with a knife, now’s your chance. If you’re planning to watch it, go for the full 122 minute director’s cut, which is immeasurably superior. Download the soundtrack here.
PDF magazines are a promotional tool used by companies and collectives in a similar way that ‘zines led the way of underground media in the latter half of the 20th century. PDF mags are usually independent ventures showcasing international creativity and culture. Most downloadable magazines like this are art and design based in their content (such as the fantastic photography magazine Romka, which you can read all about and download their inaugural four issues here). For some online magazines there appears to be very little editorial control for the scope and quality of work displayed. There is often an interesting mix of splendid effort and mediocrity. This can not be said however of our featured magazine this week – Cuemix.
Cosmic Mole
Cuemix is a magazine both for and about DJs. There is a sublime mix of excellent writing, colorful layouts, and good content. What initially caught my eye was interviews in the current issue with one of electronic music’s more eccentric characters The Mole – a highlight of Burlington Project’s Red Box residency at We Love… Space 2009.
Baldelli
The above is a photo of Danielle Baldelli who along with Marco Dionogi has mixed and compiled the fantastic “Cosmic Disco? Nah… Cosmic Rock!” album for Eskimo Recordings. He is from before the age when genres were rigid and terms like house meant cool (in the ’80s) or a genre (in the ’90s), his DJ sets knew no boundaries. He pitched down disco records as far as they would go and gave birth to the slow chugging Balearic sound.
All in all it’s a great read and one we can’t recommend enough, download that latest issue here. Incidentally, The Mole provided one of the best interviews this summer (also interviews with Busy P, Riton and PBR Streetgang and performances from Busy P, Ben Korbel, Hot Chip, Paul Woolford and Felix Da Housecat) check it out below…
Torture – any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him information, exacting revenge, deterring others from doing certain things and in some cases just for the hell of it. Throughout history civilisations have come up with more and more elaborate and grotesque ways of torturing people, often implemented by the people in power as a form of policing. Old classics come to mind like the thumb screw and the rack, but some techniques long since disregarded offer a glimpse at how abhorrent law enforcement would have been. Even in today’s societies certain inhumane techniques, such as sleep deprivation and solitary confinement, are used on people who are, by law, innocent until proven guilty. Although of course the law stipulates that when techniques like this are used to ensure justice they are not forms of torture.
Some of our favourites ‘golden oldies’ are:
Death of a thousand cuts
Slow slicing – Slow slicing also translated as the slow process, the lingering death, or death by a thousand cuts, was a form of execution used in China from roughly AD 900 until its abolition in 1905. In this form of execution, the condemned person was killed by using a knife to methodically remove portions of the body over an extended period of time. A particularly painful method of torture the victims would be kept alive for as long as possible whilst still having body parts removed.
Peine forte et dure – Death by crushing or pressing is a method of execution that has a history during which the techniques used varied greatly from place to place. This form of execution is no longer sanctioned by any governing body. A common method of death throughout South and South-East Asia for over 4,000 years was crushing by elephants. European countries will often swap the use of a pachyderm for a large rock or tree.
Dumbo's Revenge
Rat Torture – Rats may be used to torture a victim by encouraging them to attack and eat him alive. This is supposed to be a traditional form of Chinese punishment. The “Rats’ Dungeon” was a feature of the Tower of London alleged by Roman Catholic writers from the Elizabethan era. A cell below high-water mark and totally dark would draw in rats from the River Thames as the tide flowed in. The prisoner would in some instances have flesh torn from the arms and legs to encourage the rats to eat. Another method uses a pottery bowl filled with rats placed open side down on the naked body of a prisoner. When hot charcoal is piled on the bowl, the rats attempt to escape by gnawing into the very bowels of the victim.
Foot Roasting – Pretty self explanatory really, the prisoner is immobilised on his back and his bare feet are imprisoned in a stocks of wood or iron. The soles of his feet are smeared with lard — occasionally butter, and more recently even margarine and olive oil spread — and slowly barbecued over red-hot coals. A bellows is used to control the intensity of the heat, while a screen is interposed between the feet and the coals as questions are put; if the questions are not answered satisfactorily, the screen is withdrawn and the naked soles were exposed to the flames for an ever increasing period of time.
Rack 'em up
Water Torture – What is called the “Chinese water torture” was a torture described by Hippolytus de Marsiliis in the 16th century that was supposed to drive its victim insane with the stress of water dripping on a part of the forehead for a very long time. It may also be characterized by the inconsistent pattern of water drips. Supposedly, the desire for the human brain to make a pattern of the timing between the drops will also eventually cause insanity to set in.
Pharmalogical torture – Pharmalogical torture uses psychotropic and/or other chemicals to induce pain and cause compliance with a torturer’s goals. Another form is when the victim is forcibly injected with addictive drugs to have them become dependent, and then they’re denied the drug and forced to go through withdrawal unless they provide what the torturer wants.
Evelyn Evelyn are the Neville sisters from a small town outside Seattle, Washington. Conjoined at the side they share 3 legs, 2 arms, 3 lungs, 2 hearts and 1 liver. Master musicians, together they play guitar, piano, accordion, ukulele and drums. Christened Eva and Lynn in later life they decided they preferred to be addressed as one person. Their first foray into show-business came in 1996 when they appeared as part of Dillard and Fullerton’s Traveling Circus. This taste for performance, circus and the slightly macabre remains a feature of their solo work.
Having left the circus at the age of 19 they were discovered by Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley. Immediately transfixed by the raw and completely genuine sound of the sisters Palmer and Webley tracked them down and persuaded them to work with them and went on to record a 3 track in 2007 and more recently an album. Their sound is Americana meets the the big top via freak-show carnival. The self titled ep is scheduled for double release next month on 11records and 8ft records to coincide with an American and European tour. The album has been engineered and orchestrated by Webley who has given the whole thing a much larger and more fleshed out sound than that of the sisters’ earlier work. Guests on the record include Weird Al Yankovic, Frances Bean Cobain,Neil Gaiman, showing just how much support the sisters are receiving. Their 2007 release Elephant Elephant, which features a fantastic cover of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Appart, sold out it’s 1111 copies in no time; the album looks set to do just as well with the 3 London dates of the tour already sold out.
Along side the album and touring, Evelyn Evelyn are also set to feature in the literary world; Cynthia von Buhler is creating a graphic novel based on the life of the twins for Dark Horse Books. With such a strong marketing campaign behind them it wont be long before the sisters will be joined by more fans.
The crew are reunited after a jungle trekking, island hopping, volcano hunting adventure. This weeks audible indulgence is the best yet, from proto-punk and pyche-rock to mariachi beats and Anatolian freak-folk. Good stuff, enjoy.
Chat Roulette is a click and go web-chatting/social networking site. Think Facebook meets skype without the restriction of having to actually know the people you interact with. Visit the website, click go and your web cam is automatically activated and you’re presented with your first chatter. No screening or selection process is involved, the idea being you are presented with other random users and have a chat. If things aren’t going well simply click next and another brand new chatter will appear. Sounds like an interesting way of meeting people..? The reality is 1 in 10 of the people you are connected with will be a naked man sitting on a toilet. But don’t be put off; get through the initial barrier of onanism and countless rejections from other users deciding they don’t like the look of you and you can have some great fun and meet some real characters. Some bizarre goings on that we have encountered include a man seemingly giving cooking lessons to anyone who would watch, a romantic meal for 2 with us being the date, someone fishing in a gold fish bowl and perhaps strangest of all, what appeared to be some kind of sacrificing ritual. What better way to wile away those long afternoons in the office?
