Valium Robot

Balancing the rough with the smooth and smooth with the rough, here's a particularly unseasonal selection from the village:

Wink

Andy's Disco Village Round Up
 
Blackwax
 
Good friend of the 'village Steve Blackwax has got a new blog up and running
and lovely it is to. When Steve was running Blackwax records here in the
village he schooled Matt and I on so many things record related, he really is a
fountain of knowledge. He kindly shares some of that knowledge here:
 
http://www.blackwax.net/
  

Rhymepad Radio
 
Rhymepad Radio began life as a show on Cambridge local radio station Cambridge
105FM, and has recently moved to the internet. Rhymepad radio is "A Hip Hop
Radio show Hosted By: Stakka & Truck, Seedyman DJ Sammy B-Side. Playing the
realest Hip Hop from UK to US, and highlighting artists from Cambridge and
other local towns."
For all your hip hop needs check:
 
http://www.rhymepad-radio.co.uk/about-rhymepad-radio/ 

Skuff 

 
Whilst I'm talking of hip hop, Village resident "Skuff" has a new lp available to download titled
"Smash Anything". If hip hop is your thing then I heartily recommend you treat
your ears. Check it out here:
 
http://skuff.bandcamp.com/album/smash-anything
 
Andy
x

Mindblowing Mixes 5

Well here it is, as promised. The second mix by Tenyu Hamaki in the mindblowing mixes series. This is the one, the face-melting psychedelic gospel selection. How the god-botherers could get quite so tripped out sounding is beyond me, but I guess that's religion for you, they say it takes you places. The plates in this mix are all originals cos' that's how Tenyu does. There's even a few 4-figure records in there. It's not strictly gospel as you'll find some deep soul mixed in there too, but this is serious music compiled with love by one of the heaviest selectors around that rarely gets namechecked unless the serious collectors whisper it amongst themselves. Often here the music is utterly raw, eliciting a home recorded atmosphere that only adds to the wonkiness and seam of psychedelia than runs deep within the grooves. Man, this truly is a mindblowing mix. The only contact I've got for Tenyu is his old website where you can purchase some astonishing records on his label and watch some entrancing video footage of gospel singers in churches and listen to some very, very rare albums: www.hollygroverecords.com Tenyu, wherever you are, I doff my cap to you - truly "blessed" to have had my mind opened and educated...

 

The Disco Village

Why is Cambridge (and subsequently this weblog) referred to as the Disco Village?

1). a quote in ID magazine from recent years:

2). the proof being in the pudding, reported in the Cambridge Evening News circa 1992:

PS I adore the pic of Harv and Tom, the stuffed rabbit just kills it!
PPS dear santa, please can I have a authentic hawaiian shirt x

take a chance

Seeing as how it's a rather groovy poster and we like CWW, here's one for the NY villagers:

RAAAAAAAAAA

Sun Ra
 
Here's a few you tube links for Sun Ra

 
Sun Ra -"Brother From Another Planet" 
BBC Documentary by Don Letts from 2005
 

 
Sun Ra -"Detroit Black Journal"
 

 
Sun Ra -"A Joyful Noise" Directed by Robert Mugge 1980
 

 
Sun Ra -"Space Is The Place" 1974
 

 

Happy viewing people of planet earth!

Andy x

Throwdown

There was a Disco Village party this weekend just gone -  DJ was Fred Naked, here we go, blow by blow:

Richard Wahnfried - Pressure

Pat Metheny - Are You Going With Me?

Ottoman Empire - Private Land

Andreas Vollenwieder - Pace Verde

Bob Marley - Exodus (Laswell Dub Translation)

Dadawah - 72 Nations

Marijata - I Walk Alone

Milton Nascimento -Ofertorio

Alfredo De La Fe - My Favourite Things

Michael Shrieve - Transfer Station Blue

Dark Day - Window

Map Of Africa - Freaky Ways (Instrumental)

Jah Wobble & Bill Laswell - Radioaxiom

Burial & Four Tet - Nova

Talking Heads - This Must Be The Place

Model 500 - Play It Cool

Metro Area - Art Of Hot

Throbbing Gristle - Hot On The Heels Of Love

Peter Dundov - Oasis

Gala Drop & Ben Chesny - Positano

Clive Stevens - Mystery Man

Charimen Of The Board - Life & Death (Danny Krivit Edit)

Map Of Africa - Dirty Loving

Black Rascals - Keeping My Mind

The Nathaniel X Project - Move Ya Body

Aztec Mystic - Revenge Of The Jaguar (Jeff Mills Mix)

Charanjit Singh - Raga: Bhairavi

Villalobos & Max Loder - Meet Tshetsha Boys

Peverelist - Dance Till The Police Come

Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo

Four Tet - Pinnacles

Melba Moore - Promised Land

Theo Parrish - Lights Down Low

Joy Orbison & Boddika - Swims

Joy Orbison - Wet Look

Lone - Pineapple Crush

Emeralds - Does It Look Like I'm Here? (Daphni Mix 1)

Bullion - What Does She Know?

Chris Carter - Moonlight

Wally Badarou - Endless Race

Vakula - Dub As Always

Basic Channel - Q1.1

Theo Parrish - Dance Of The Drunken Drums

Band Of Gypsies - Machine Gun (Live) 

Ya Dig?!

Small Town Digging

This weekend I had a day digging in the City of Ely (population 15,102). Ely is
about the least disco place you could imagine so my hopes were not very high 
to say the least - but i had seen a new charity shop there and started
speculating in my head the treasures it held.
First up was the newly opened Scope: 

As soon as i opened door I spied the wall at the back, records on the bottom,
cds/dvds/video cassettes above. I crouched down on the floor and dug in, almost
straight away a very heavy man looking at the cds stood on me, not a great
start but whats thats i see...

Nothing really to write home about (and scraping the barrel for a blog post
really) but not bad, and better than nothing.
Next stop, the shop next door: 

Thankfully the records here didnt require me to be in a position that may end
up with me being stood on, and in the 7"s I found a few bits: 

And i found this in the lp's, I think I heard a Rita Coolidge track on a
Balearic Mike mix so i took a gamble and added it to the pile. 2 shops in and
things are going OK, whats next in store I wondered: 

I found another Rita Coolidge lp in here and again it's only a quid (thats one
pound sterling for overseas readers) and it may have been on a Balearic Mike
mix so I have it. Once again the records are on the floor and whilst digging I
get stood on several times, I begin to wonder if I have mastered the powers of
invisibililty- sadly i see my reflection on the way out and this bubble is
burst. Next up Oxfam:

Over the years I have had the odd bit of luck in here so I was hoping for some
treasure...
"oh do you like records?" asks the lady behind the counter as i flick through
the classical box sets and intersting looking lp of bavarian drinking songs.
"yeah" says I, "I have just priced a few up, here they are" she says handing me a 

little pile of lps with this on the top:

This is in mint condition, looks like its never been played so i have it
(despite it being £10- oh yeah Matt about that £10 I owe you, can I give it to
you next week?)
sadly nothing else in the pile was anywhere near as good, and i returned to the
racks and pulled these 2 out: 

Next up was a charity shop with no records so I didnt even get a picture.
Moving swiftly on to this place:

I found a Bohannon 12" in here a few weeks ago so my hopes were high...
this optimism was short lived, I found a grateful dead "Live in Europe" double
lp, but the sleeve was mould-ridden and had been eaten by rodents by the looks
of it, still I was going to have it. Then i noticed it only had one of the two
lps inside, so I left it behind.

By now my hangover was starting to really hurt, so it was off to this place... 

and a little sample of some Irish Whiskey what with it being St Patricks day
and all, having said that I left with a bottle of Scotch Whisky: 

On the way back to the car I decided to go into this place

 It doesnt like a record shop but this little sign indicates that they are there 

 This was the first time I have ever been in this shop and found another human
being in there, usually the antique shop owner upstairs just tells you turn on
the light when you get down there. The other human being was a super
enthusiastic school kid sorting the 7"s into alphabetical order. I had a chat
to him, persuaded him not to spend £7 on a sound effects lp, because it was
over priced. In fact to be brutally honest this shop would be best summed up in
the words of a fellow customer who turned up whilst i was there. After spending
maybe 90 minutes looking through every box. On his way back up the stairs and
out he turned and said to me "I'm just off to mortgage my house". However he
only spent 90 minutes and I spent 95, in that last 5 minutes I found these 

The B-side of "Alphabet St" is the "this is not music,this is a trip" version
and its rather lovely, also I've wanted the accapella of "Real Love" for a
while.

So that's my morning digging in pictures for you, over to you now dear reader.
Hit up those charity shops/thrift stores, car boot sales, jumble sales, church
fetes. Especially the church fetes, usually very few or no records, but tons of
cakes...

Happy digging
Andy
x

Mindlowing Mixes 4

Okay, so it's time for another one. This one was such a game changer for me as not only did it introduce me to disco, but it helped me dive in to the deep end of "deep disco". I wanted to know what pretty much every track on this mix was, and the tracklisting eluded me for the longest time. It was around the time I'd first been introduced to the website/forum www.deephousepage.com and around the time I went to my first Loft party in London with David Mancuso. The guys at Blackwax Records (as usual) had hipped me to the website and back in those days it was great - there were loads of discussions by cats with serious knowledge and every day was teaching me something new. I started checking the mixes and as I'd heard of DJ Spinna though the house music scene I thought I'd check one of his mixes first (deephousepage or "DHP" carries thousands of downloadable mixes from the greats such as Ron Hardy, Larry Levan, Walter Gibbons to lesser known but equally amazing DJ's like Rahaan, Sadar and Jamie 3:26).

The mix was jawdropping. Flawlessly mixed, perfectly paced, emotional and just built momentum from start to euphoric finish. Maaan, that was the DJ I wanted to be. I couldn't believe how good he was. To this day I'm not sure if he was playing vinyl with FX or was early on the CDJ's, but my god DJ Spinna was out of this world. DJ Spinna is an across the board DJ rooted in hip-hop & disco so it's no suprise he can mix (I remember a session at the southport weekender where Spinna was cutting up mad disco breaks whilst a drummer was playing live over the top - just electric!), but he's also one hell of a collector and this mix for the Rare Radio Show gave a seemingly deep insight into deep disco music but in reality was only scratching the surface of his collection.

After desperately fiending for the all the records off this mix I'd managed to amass them all and it pretty much laid the foundations for my own disco collection. Track I searched the hardest for was Bingo by The Whispers, an album only cut, of course. I was most excited to meet Spinna at another weekender and told him the story of my fandom and how I'd just picked up a copy of Six Million Steps by Rahni Harris & Flo on the back of his mix and continued to gush untill the poor chap had to drag me off him but not before he'd autographed my record...

obligatory geeky, ridgid fanboy pose next to tired, please let me go, artist

It's not Chances With Wolves

The Restless Funk Radio Show 05/03/2012
Playlist:

Uku Kutt - Dream Lover
James Mason - Nightgruv
Owiny Sigoma Band - Wires (Theo Parrish Remix)
Sun Ra - UFO (Mike Huckaby Reel-to-reel Edit)
Moondog & Friends - Suite No 1 Movement 1
Rail Band - Dugah
Gabor Szabo - Caravan
Lou Rawls - For What It's Worth
Joe Bataan - Rap-O-Clap-O
Fern Kinney - Together We Are Beautiful
Jeffrecloose - Feelings Will Endure
Mary Wells - If You Love Me, Really Love Me
Paqua - Dinosaur Zappa
Bullion - Say Ar Es
Bullion - What Does She Know
Holger Czukay - Das Massendium
Pat Metheny - It's For You
Faruq Z Bey 4et - Live @ Detroit Art Space
Hieroglyphic Being - Shakaawa
3iO - Born Slippy (NUXX)
Williamsburg Salsa Orchestra - Young Folks
Foster Manganyi -  Ndzi Teke Rendzo
Peverelist - Dance Till The Police Come
Ray Charles - Let's Go Get Stoned
Archive Streaming Links:
Restless Funk 05/03/12
Restless Funk 05/03/12 part two


Restless Funk is a radio show that is broadcast live at www.camfm.co.uk and 97.2FM every Monday night from 8-10pm GMT

F@*k you February!

Our friends had a party to see out February (and why not!) and asked us to play some records. Lots of love to Becca, Andrew, Sarah, Mark, Susan, Clare Harriette, Emily and Layla x

Stuff I played in no particular order:

Bullion - What Does She Know

Peverelist - Dance Till The Police Come

Torn Sail - Birds (Tiago Mix)

Chairmen of the Board - Life & Death (DK Edit)

Shari Muir - Bad For Me (Shelter Dub)

Basic Channel - Q1.1

Rick James - Fool On The Street

Fingers Inc - A Path Unreleased (Virgo Tracks Version)

Justin Vandervolgen - I'm Dancer

Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo

Francois K - Rootsman

Funkadelic - Gan You Get To That?

Octo Octa - I'm Tryin

Daphni - Mapfumo

Four Tet - Pinnacles

Idjut Boys - Implant

Young Gentlemen's Adventure Society - Adventure Party

The Doors - Dead Cats, Dead Rats (Live)

Protect-U - Double Rainbow

Todd Terje - Inspector Norse

Mark Ernestus - Meets BBC

Sarah Vaughan - The Smiling Hour

Jamie Principal - Waiting On My Angel

Falty DL - Mean Streets Pt 1

Rhythm Based Lovers - Contact

Joy O & Boddika - Swims

Rick 'Poppa' Howard - About Fourteen (Remix)

Hungry Ghost - Don't Eat The Apricots

Locussolus - I Want It (Lindstrom & Prins Thomas Mix)

Four Tet - Locked

Wareika Hill Sounds - Coconut Head Version