2. Giant Drag - Wicked Game
3. Hadouken! - That Boy That Girl
4. JC Chasez - Until Yesterday
5. Klaxons - Atlantis To Interzone
6. Klaxons - Magick
7. Modest Mouse - Float On
8. Neon Plastix - Neon Invasion
9. Shiny Toy Guns - Le Disko
10. Blood Arm - Suspicious Character
11. The Streets - Pranging Out ft. Pete Doherty
12. The Horrors - Count In Fives
13. The Vivians - Dr. Doctor Dr. Doctor
14. The Yard - Hey Man
15. Xerox Teens - Darlin'
16. Hot Chip - Over and Over
17.Justin Timberlake - Sexy Back (Linus Loves Remix)
18. Dragonette - I Get Around (Midnight Juggernauts Remix)
Late 2006/early 2007; Anna's youngest sister Checkie was living in London. We'd met briefly in passing. She knew my sister and I think we might have been friends on Myspace. Anna was my boss and also the older sister of my good friend Georgia. At some point I'd made this compilation of random stuff I'd been listening to at the time to play in Anna's bar, The Southern on South Clerk Street in Edinburgh. The Southern had long been a biker bar most famous for the night Nirvana played an intimate gig there, but it's popularity had dwindled. Anna and her then partner Warren had taken it over and transformed it from a dingy, smelly, dark bar for hairy metalheads and Southside undesirables into a really rather nice and unconsciously hip hub for a young emerging new Edinburgh club scene. Anna had been kind enough to give me a job pouring the drinks in the place and occasionally DJing (I use this term in the loosest way possible). A random untitled compilation I made ended up in Anna's car somehow and when Checkie was back for a visit she decided to take it back with her down to London where it became something of a hit with her and her flatmates (or so I heard).
Months later (maybe a year) Checkie moved back to Auld Reekie and the CD ended up back in rotation at The Southern where she had started working with us. With the original having migrated south, I'd made an alternative but quite similar mix as a replacement for the bar. By this time Kieron, one of the bar managers had ironically titled the original mixtape 'Mike's Compilation 'Known Nation Wide''. World Famous I decided would be the official title of this replacement.
Cut to almost 10 years later and now I'm living in London. As are Kieron and Georgia , Checkie is now in Glasgow, Anna is still in Edinburgh but her life is a world away from what it was then, same goes for Warren and The Southern has changed hands and is almost unrecognizable again.
This weekend, on a visit back to the homeland I came across a CD wallet at my dad's flat filled with mix CD's that I used when DJing (still a very loose description of what I was doing) around that time. It was something of a time capsule seeing the tracks and CD titles within. Each one took me back to specific moments or places or reminded me of forgotten stories and as I waxed reminiscent it was suggested that I should maybe write these stories, memories and thoughts down somewhere. So here it is.
World Famous or Mike's Compilation 'Known Nation Wide' is the first CD in the wallet. The songs on this mix are as eclectic as on pretty much every CD in the wallet, but it is a bit heavier on the Indie-Electro than the later more Rap leaning mixes. It also features a couple of Edinburgh local band rarities from the era. Listening to this back now, some of it still holds up for me, others not so well. Some of it may have been better left forgotten. But the opener, I Get Around by Canadian electro-pop outfit Dragonette still charms me. Fun synth lines and a stompy beat soundtrack Martina Sorbara's story of an unwise hook-up and bad decisions made while partying, I could relate at the time. And still can a little now. I played it out quite a lot at The Scottish Hobo Society at The Bongo Club. From what I remember their LP's were pretty uninspiring but I liked this song enough to both open the mix and to close out with a remix of the same song.
The other electro and indie numbers on here fair less well by being not very memorable. Both the Neon Plastix and Shiny Toy Guns tracks are fine but sound a lot like a lot of other bands from the same era but not quite as good and while I remembered the name of the band Xerox Teens (later XX Teens) I'd forgotten the song even as it was still playing. Quite shite. Suspicious Character by The Blood Arm sounds like a haircut you thought made you look amazing when you had it but looking back you actually look like a bit of a tit, but Hot Chip's Over and Over would still get me dancing if I somehow accidentally wandered into an NME Indie Disco in Camden. It's a tune, I just wouldn't chose to listen to it anymore. Modest Mouse were for me always a deeply mediocre band and listening to Float On here just makes me wish I was listening to a different version of the song that I'm sure will pop up on a later mix.
I still have a soft spot for the Klaxons brand of so called Nu-Rave though. I recently revisited their first couple of records and still quite enjoyed them. Atlantis To Interzone doesn't instill quite the same excitement in me as it once did but that may have had something to do with the cheap Glasgow eccies I was gubbing at the time. Those were good nights. And Magick always makes me think of it's awesomely mental video.
Count In Fives is an interesting relic when you consider what The Horrors became (meaning; a much better band). The early stuff is still kinda fun to listen to. And the Chris Cunningham video for Sheena Is A Parasite remains incredible.
Annie from Giant Drag's vocals on their cover of Chris Isaak's Wicked Game are cute and it's a nice version of the song. I like how she always claimed she'd had an affair with the 'much older' Chris when she was 8 and he stole her song. I saw them live once supporting The Cribs at The Queens Hall in Edinburgh and they were great, I only got about 3 songs into The Cribs set though before leaving. Good grief they were (are?) a shitty band.
Speaking of shitty bands; Hadouken!. That Boy That Girl. What utter, utter pish. And I fucking LOVED this song when it came out. I really can't explain that. At all. Deary me. All of the day-glo rave mashed up with indie guitars and half shouted, half rapped lyrics that seemed so rad in 2006 sound unbearable now. Unbearable and embarrassing. Apparently they're still going. I dread to think.
So to the 2 Edinburgh based bands that made the mix. First of all The Vivians. Ah, The Vivians. I saw this band live about 20 times. Had a blast every time. They were mates, so it wasn't like I was paying to see them at every show. Just so we're clear. I don't want you to think I was some kinda Vivians superfan or anything. But yeah, some excellent nights out featured this band playing at one point or another. Like the time they inspired a stage invasion at one of the busiest night The Southern ever saw. Or the time they played a guerrilla gig in the Innocent Tunnel under Arthur's Seat and got shut down by the cops about 4 songs in. Dr. Doctor Dr. Doctor was their perfect pop moment. If they ever reformed I'd be up for seeing them live one more time.
Also based in Edinburgh was The Yard a grungy 3 piece with a girl on drums who also performed backing vocals. Me and my mate Blair saw them once when they played the same bill as his band Charly's Boat. We were both blown away and ended up seeing them a few more times around town. They were super tight with a bunch of real catchy songs, but Hey Man was the stand out. It has a hook that I still sing to myself on occasion now. They disappeared not long after and I can't seem to find any trace of them left online. Gotta love bands with unGoogleable names and song titles. Finding the recording on this CD really made my day.
Another track I'm thankful to have back in my life is the Pete Doherty remix of The Streets' Pranging Out. Pete delivering loosely rapped verses about being in the grips of drug addiction is breathtakingly stark and honest and Mike Skinners original beat is atmospheric and grim and beautiful.
Linus Loves managed a rather dull electronic remix of Justin Timberlake's SexyBack, the original of which I'm not that into itself anymore. Timberlake shows up elsewhere on the mix to better effect though; this time with his former *NSYNC bandmate J.C. Chasez. Timberlake's role here is as co-writer and producer on a melancholic pop ballad masterclass about lies and infidelity and pregnancy and the bitter end of a relationship. Until Yesterday was supposed to be the first single from Chasez's sophomore record but it never appeared. Shame really. It was a killer start. And I can vividly remember singing along to it, loudly, while cleaning up The Southern bar after hours, with friends.
It's amazing how a song can really transport you back in time. To a specific place, or feeling, or person. This mix takes me back to all of those things and although most of the songs on here I don't particularly care for anymore, those memories are precious as diamonds. Just a bunch of poor quality MP3's on a cheap CD-R really, but to me it's a time machine. It's messages from the past. It's kind of magical.
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