Wanting to belong

Have you ever noticed, the indie kids always want to belong? I'm not saying it's a bad thing - we all need warm relationships and some acknowledgment for our being, but it's certainly well mapped territory of human condition in that particular music genre. Here's a prime example, as is a big part of Smiths' catalogue. (BTW, Diskjokke remix of the track is a starter)

But for me, now that I've joined the dark side of music called disco, where post-irony rules over all, I proudly proclaim my needs to belong to a certain Gary's Gang.



I don't know who Gary is, but if he pumped out disco hits like this, and had a dance-ready gang as his wingmen, he's a winner in my books. Call me Gary, let's wear matching jackets and do stuff at the disco.

A little sample connection; GC's Do it at the disco's sax break was transformed by mr. Oizo to this. Ah, how the French love to recycle disco...

- P-Funk

Dance Energy show

Just bumped into this today. Apparently it's a "live" dance show called "Dance Energy". From the looks of it, it means dance music producers and musicians acting silly on stage with some synthesizers, but hey, check out the moves people and the bands are making. It's seems such a winning idea: let's put up some good modern dance music and show a bunch of people getting down to it. I'd say it's time to bring these shows back.



Black guys and girls spotted doing the "conga line". Two thumbs up. More videos can be found on Youtube by searching Dance Energy. I don't wanna link too many of those in fear of them getting pulled out.

- P-Funk

A couple good Madchester documentaries

Manchester was the British mecca for good dance music in the late 80's with bands like New Order, Guy Called Gerard and Happy Mondays. Here's double pack of documentaries that talk about that scene. The first one is from the late 80's, the second one was made a few years back.

Madchester - The Sound of the North

Joy Division BBC Factory Records

If you really want to dig deep on the Hacienda scene, here's a good hour or two of actual live mix that was played there. Amazing stuff, would have danced my ass off:

Mike Pickering & Graeme Park – Nude @ The Haçienda - 26.02.1989 by djmixes

I'm hoping to do something about the visual side of this blog. Let's see what I can come up with.

- P-Funk

Disko WTF?!-Night next Saturday

This one is mostly for our Turku-heads. We are happy to announce we are rocking the decks next Saturday @ Dynamo upstairs. Here is the flyer. If someone wants to get the contact for our AD-department, hit me at comments ;)



Here's the FB-event for you who want to network with other people who are a part of DWTF-fam.

See you there. I'll post a top 5/top 10 of my fave songs to get the appetites wet. All the best.

- P-Funk

Mix Week: Friday

You get the mix of yesterday today, but that's part of the WTF-experience. I'm sorry if someone was really looking forward to this yesterday, but I had do relax after an exam and have quality time for myself.

Now, to the mix in question. The first thing I wanted to hear this morning was L.S.B's Locomotion (it's the first song on their myspace page), which is a weird coincidence since I wanted to post a Pete Herbert mix in our Mix Week. Maybe it was my subconscious side telling me it's about time, LOL.

If you don't know who Pete Herbert is, lemme break it down for you in a few sentences. He's one of the biggest and most trustworthy names in the nu-disco scene, both as a dj and as a producer/remixer, besides the likes of Greg Wilson or Ray Mang. He works under such projects as Reverso 68, L.S.B, Frontera... Check his myspace list to get the full coverage. As the edit market is swarming nowadays with all kinds of stuff, you really need guys like him to dig out the best of the crop and show how it works in the mix. As a remixer/producer he's always had a real good ear for light, but danceable beat patterns and groovy synth melodies. As far as I know this is the only video interview there is with him, check it out if you have time, from 4:30 and in English.














PETE HERBERT - COOL IN THE POOL PROMO MIX
Download
Tracklist unavailable, but hit me with a request - I know pretty much all those tracks!

Why this mix? I'll admit from the start that it's not filled with rare classics and it doesn't really build up an atmosphere, which I definately like to hear in a mix. Quite simply put, I love this because it sums up pretty much what's coming from the nu-disco scene, and it keeps things interesting beatwise through it's course. It gets me still: I lose myself to listening how the certain elements play around the basic beat pattern and how songs smoothly transcend to another.

There's always been this accusation of dull repetition against electronic/dance music in Finland. They say it - actually my mum said this particular mix was 'a bit dull' - is just the same beat all over again for minutes and minutes. But when you compare the things happening in a verse-chorus-verse song with a decent disco song which has a rich beat and bassline with elements constantly adding and substracting for minutes, I'd definately say it's nowhere near dull. I can't really imagine a disco song whose rhytmic structure couldn't keep on interest for at least the duration of a pop song.

That's actually the thing why I listen to disco-related music: listening to a pop song means following a formulated narrative, from start to finish, listening to a disco song that's in the mix, feels more like tuning into a receptable space and condition where interesting things are happening. This all sounds pretty over-the-top, but ask a dancer if she loses herself to the music and just feels present.

Apparently, I do also lectures on metaphilosophy of disco, too LOL

This one's one of my favorite PH production. He's got plenty of good ones to go around.



Have a good weekend,
- P-Funk