beats and pieces

Right so. I've picked up a few bits and pieces so its actually worth writing something. So let's get busy with this weeks round-up of vinyl gems.

First up is a seven inch from the Jack to Phono label. It's by Tombee, a DJ, producer and film-maker from Newcastle in the UK and its entitled 'Sticky Rhythm'. The b-side has a Phase 5 Stereo remix thats also the business. The samples used and the way that its stuck together make the a-side somewhat reminiscent of the early sampling techniques used by the likes of The Prodigy. There's an almost childlike feel to the creation of the tune. I think that's what I like about it.

The next tune I picked up was for €1 in Oxfam. It's by Dream Warriors and it's called 'Wash your face in my sink'. These guys hailed from Toronto in Canada. The group comprised of King Lou, Capital Q, Spek and a DJ, L.A. Luv. This tune was the follow up to their more famous "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style" which featured the widely known sample from "Soul Bossa Nova" by Quincy Jones.


Another old piece of vinyl that I got is the Fall EP by Ride. It was released in 1990 on Creation records and comes with a nice piece of artwork on the cover. It was swiftly followed by their debut album 'Nowhere' which managed to achieve some acclaim. I saw them a couple of times back then and I always liked them. This EP features 'Dreams burn down' which was always a favorite of mine. Get busy gazing at your shoes for this.


Next up is Rockers Hi-Fi with their 1996 album 'Mish Mash'. It comes on triple vinyl to fit all the goodness in. These guys came from Birmingham and by the mid 90's were becoming widely recognised for fusing dub, hip-hop, a bit of jungle and whatever you're having yourself. They released a clatter of albums and also mixed and compiled an album for the now infamous K7 DJ-Kicks series. One of the members, Glyn "Bigga" Bush, continues to produce music as BiggaBush and Lightning Head and he released a great album a few years back called Studio Don.

happy birthay to Matt

Believe it or not (and I include myself in this) this blog is one year old around now. I was reminded of the fact when I saw a documentary on the Irish cricket teams exploits at last years Cricket World Cup in the Carribean. The documentary was produced by Shimmy Marcus who has had a hand in several good projects over the course of his career thus far. Included in his catalogue are a load of videos for Irish bands, the movie on Aidan Walsh, the brilliant 'A Dublin Story' and a movie featuring me auld pal Wuzza Conlon. Shimmy is also a legend for the great videos that he's uploaded to YouTube. The film-making pedigree of Shimmy might have been helped by the good genes he got from his Da, the acclaimed documentary maker and ex-Chairman of the Irish Film Board, Louis Marcus. Well done to the Marcus family, a family with an abundance of artistic integrity.

I'm not sure what all that had to do with this blog being one year old but I do like an aside every now and then as any regular readers may attest to. This is my 196th post and to be honest I never thought that I'd keep it up this long. I only started the blog to exercise my penchant for inflicting music upon whatever audience might be out there. With increased family responsibilities over the last few years I've had less time to indulge my pastimes of playing out or doing internet radio so I sought to fill the gap elsewhere. I was also spurred on by now defunct blogs that had been started by friends. Whereas their initial enthusiasm died out I've somehow managed to write something on average every two days for the past year. Anyhow, here I am a year on and its as good a time as any for reflection. And that was it.

I picked up an old Trojan box-set release called 'Good Times Skank' that was compiled by Joey Jay (brother of Norman) of the Good Times Sound System. It has five seven inches of some excellent reggae and includes King Tubby's "Serious Version", the Abyssinians "Yim Mas Gan", the Aggrovators "A Ruffer Version" and Delroy Wilson with "Better Must Come". It's skanktastic.

bashment juggling

I stumbled across this blog whilst traversing the blogosphere the other day. I was on the web looking for information about RDK HI-FI, a Brixton based soundsystem that I'd seen about 10 years ago in the Da Club just off Clarendon Street. It was a spliffing evening and the bass was rumbling in a jocular fashion. It was one of the best reggae experiences I've had in my life. A mate of mine bought their seven inch offering at the gig, a tune called 'Such is Life'. It was a reworking of an old reggae riddim by Lord Creator and Lee Perry from back in the seventies.I've somehow managed to come into its possession and I'm not complaining that i did. I was listening to it the other day and it was so good that I had to find out if they were still going. They never went away you know and they're busy creating dub vibrations in their home town of Brixton and all across Europe. Anyhow, The Clash Blogger, blogs all about reggae and has great mixes uploaded. It hasn't been updated since June but check it out for the older mixes.

Closer to home, tonight sees the Inishbofin Conemara Roots Festival take place. It has a smashing reggae line-up alongside the more usual suspects you get at any festival with the word roots in it's title. Some of the featured artists and soundsystems are Natty Wailer, Revelation Soundsystem and Rootical Soundsystem. Big up all Inishbofin Massive.

Finally, a new fanzine/magazine dedicated to the wobbly world of dubstep and all things reggae related has hit Dublin town. It caught a ride on a cheap Ryanair flight from London Town and landed in All City Records the other day. Resident shopkeeper Cool C handed me a copy and its only in hindsight that I'm wondering if I was meant to pay for it. The publication is titled 'Woofah' and one of its contributors is Dublin based DJ and longtime reggae/ragga anorak, The Droid. The Droid brings a wonderful diligence to his musical work that is rarely seen in DJ's. He makes any other DJ look like a lazy bastard. Droid, alongside two other stalwarts of Dublins music scene, Slug and Naphta, also run the weareie.com website. Woofah is available from All City, Spindizzy, City Discs and Reggae Family here in Dublin. If you're in the UK there's loads of stockists there.

I'm not satisfied

This Friday sees Crawdaddy host the acclaimed rapper and lyricist supreme, J-Live. I'm the one who is acclaiming him just in case there's any confusion. I only stumbled upon this guy after he had released the tune 'Satisfied' from his 2002 album 'All of the Above'. The tune takes Augustus Pablo's reggae classic 'East of the river Nile' and adds a beat and lyrics and turns this strange mix into a hip-hop gem. I was blown away the first time I heard it and I still like nothing more than to give it a spin on the turntable every now and then. The gig is being hosted by the ChoiceCuts crew and promises to be good. You can also catch my old mate and legendary Kilkenny B-Boy, Cool C in the POD and the Rootical Sound System will be entertaining in the bar.



I also picked up the latest 7" that was released by Arcade Fire today entitled 'Intervention'. You can watch them perform it live below.

tell me why, i quite like mondays?

Nice to be back to normal again today. In and around town during lunchtime today and met up with Richie Egan aka Jape. I've bumped into Richie a dozen or so times over the last few years and i've always got a good buzz out of him. What I've never told him was that I'd never heard any of his music. That's a bit of a fib because i have seen him play live with David Kitt and The Redneck Manifesto and I'm sure i've seen him play a support slot as Jape. What i really mean is that i've never heard any of his recorded music. Being a proactive individual (and a logical conceptualist as I found out on a recent self-development course in work. Team building, problem solving and all that stuff involved. Freaky shit) I decided that I'd visit Richie's MySpace site and listen to his tracks on there. I'd heard an awful lot about that 'Floating' tune he did and luckily it's there on his site. He appears to have an awful lot of 'friends' on myspace. He only had two with him at lunch today.

I was deleting a load of e-mails tonight and i came across one from an old pal who moved to Germany a while back. His name is Sie Milligan aka Troubled Soul and you can listen to his latest beats and pieces on his MySpace site. I'm fortunate enough to have a few old mix-tapes (yes, I said tapes) of Troubled Soul and they really are the dog's nuts. All manner of funky material sliced and diced by the Belfast B-Boy himself. Props to the now Teutonic Troubled Soul.

I managed to pop into Oxfam on Parliament St for a couple of minutes and I was able to pick up the 12" of Beats International 'Dub be good to me'. I only heard the dub version of the tune a good many years after the release of the tune. It featured on the album 'Dub Infusions' which I think was released on the Best Seven/Sonar Kollektiv label which, like my old pal T-Soul, is based in Berlin. Here's the normal version to check out but I think its a bit stuttery in places.



I also picked up a white label 12" of the dub version of UB40's 'Return of Doctor X' which featured on their 'Present Arms in Dub'. There was an original 12" of Doctor X that came with the 'Present Arms' album but it's always handy to have the dub version also, you know yourself. Only €2, which may be good or bad depending on how much you like the tune. For those of you who are only familiar with the post-1982 UB40, you may be surprised to learn that they were once quite brilliant. The albums 'Signing Off' and 'Present Arms' are their finest works. The UB44 album was pretty good and then they entered a dramatic downward slide and you know the rest of the story. 'Red, Red Wine'. Need I say more.