Bloods vs. Crips vol. 1

1. Charlotte Hatherly - Behave

2. Lazlo Bane - Superman (Theme from Scrubs)

3. Rosie Thomas - Pretty Dress

4. Ike & Tina Turner - Nutbush City Limit

5. bis - Listen Up!

6. Puffy Ami Yumi - Asia No Junshin

7. King - Love & Pride

8. Charlotte Hatherly - Kim Wilde

9. Fall Out Boy - This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race

10. A.R.E. Weapons - Street Gang

11. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Whatever Happened To My Rock N' Roll

12. The Music - You Might As Well Try To Fuck Me

13. Regina Spektor & The Strokes - Modern Girls & Old Fashioned Men

14. David Bowie - Oh! You Pretty Thing

15. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Machine

16. Charlotte Hatherly - Bastardo

17. Sophie Ellis Bexter - Catch You

18. Massive Attack - The Hunter Gets Captured Buy The Game

Jolene Cherry made a mix in 1995 that put some truly diverse artists side by side. An Offspring song right before a Nick Cave one. Right after that there is a Method Man tune followed by everbody's favourite deceased auto-asphyxiato wanker; Michael Hutchence's weird interpretation of an Iggy Pop staple. The compilation opens with one of the few U2 songs that I like and closes with an alternate recording of a Flaming Lips number and in between we also take in Eddie Reader, Brandy, PJ Harvey, Mazzy Star and a multi-million selling Seal pop ballad. It is a profoundly bizarre grouping. Eclectic to say the least. Jolene Cherry in her role as Music Supervisor put all these artists together to create the soundtrack for the movie Batman Forever.

The film was not good. I'd been so excited for it all year too. I couldn't wait for its July 14th opening. And I'd managed to whip a lot of my friends into a fevered frenzy of excitement as well by hyping it up incessantly.  I remember a bunch of us booked tickets and were there opening day for one of the earliest screenings. It was a bright sunny day and we all got the bus out to the UCI cinema at New Craighall and I think at the time I really enjoyed it. I was a dumb kid who was a bit of a Jim Carrey superfan and didn't mind that Val Kilmer was horribly mis-cast as Bruce Wayne and somehow wasn't incredulously irritated by Tommy Lee Jones' frankly insane over the top performance as Two Face. After Tim Burton's two gothic but camp and highly enjoyable takes on the World's Greatest Detective I really thought Joel Schumacher was going to nail this installment. I was sure he was going to keep the established tone but go bigger and even more exciting. He missed the target. But not by quite as much as he would a few years later.

I haven't watched the film in a long while but I remember it quite well and am sure it does have its moments but mostly it is a garish, poorly written mess. It wandered even further from the source material than even Burton dared to. I guess Michael Keaton's refusal to return to the lead role should have been a sign that it wasn't going to work out. A large portion of it I'm sure I would find unbearable if I tried to watch it now. I believe there is a fan edit called The Red Book Edition that restores some deleted scenes that the studio had demanded be removed as they were too dark for young children, that improves the film but I haven't been able to track it down. Either way only three or four of the tracks selected by Jolene Cherry and presumably, Schumacher too (who specifically demanded Kiss From A Rose be included), actually appear in any form in the movie itself.

Around the midway point of OST for the summer blockbuster there is a collaborative cover version of a Smokey Robinson-penned The Marvelettes number by Massive Attack and Tracy Thorn from Everything But The Girl. It is lovely and years later I decided to close out one of my own mixes with it. I didn't know who Jolene was until I started researching who did the music for Batman Forever but I feel like she and I have a similar approach to creating mixes. Perhaps she was a subconscious, spiritual guide or influence on me as a compiler of music. Bloods Vs. Crips Vol. 1 (we will presumably get to Vol. 2 at some point) bears a very similar attitude to eclecticism in early '07 as Cherry did in '95.

The title of this mix probably comes from my brief obsession with L.A. gang culture probably piqued by my fandom of both Snoop Dogg and  Lil' Wayne, a Crip and a Blood respectively.  Neither of which appear on this assortment. For a mix made by myself in 2007, this one is surprisingly short on rap (somewhat ironically given that title) and RnB music, but a spectrum of genres are visited regardless. There is the poppy alt-country ditty Superman by Lazlo Bane that was used as the title music for medical sitcom Scrubs and pop-punk-emo gods Fall Out Boy appear later with J-Pop icons Puffy (renamed Puffy Ami Umi in the West so as not to be confused with Sean 'Puff Daddy' 'Puffy' 'P. Diddy' 'Diddy' 'Ciroc Obama' Combs) turning up in between. There is little thought to flow in the order of the tracks. I appear to be subscribing to the same 'every track should be completely different to the last track' approach that Cherry took with Batman.

There are three Charlotte Hatherley tracks interspersed throughout Bloods Vs. Crips. I had been a big fan of her first solo record Grey Will Fade back when she was still a member of Irish pop rock powerhouse band Ash and the release of the first single from her sophomore record The Deep Blue would have just been released. I chose to open this selection with the thumping drums of that single, Behave and then halfway through returned to Kim Wilde from the first LP. From that album too was the single Bastardo, the story of a one night stand resulting in the tradgedy of a stolen guitar. The video for which was directed by her then boyfriend Edgar Wright and starred David Walliams as the titular two-faced lothario and had a cameo by Simon Pegg.

Each of those tracks are delightful indie rock pop gems. The aforementioned Scrubs theme directly follows Behave at the top of the record and the excellent This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race by Fall Out Boy comes after Kim Wilde in the middle and up the back Bastardo is succeeded by Catch You by Sophie Ellis-Bexter. 

Catch You was written by Cathy Dennis who is basically the female Max Martin, a sculptor of exquisitely perfect pop numbers from Toxic by Britney Spears to I Kissed A Girl by Katy Perry to the excellent Sensitized  by Kylie Minogue. Catch You is hard to place in terms of genre, it incorporates elements of dance music and rock music, it is dynamic and serious but also loads of fun. Sophie is still making music but her visibility has declined. She's apparently making folky orchestral music these days.

Elsewhere you will find stone cold David Bowie classic Oh! You Pretty Things sandwiched between Regina Spektor and The Strokes collaboration Modern Girls & Old Fashioned Men and their contemporary rock revivalists Yeah Yeah Yeahs with Machine. The former is a great pairing; Julian and Regina's voices harmonize beautifully and she sounds great on a Strokes instrumental, I really like the song. Machine is good too, it was technically Karen O and co.'s first single after their incredible self titled debut E.P. It never wound up being on their first album and so is a bit of a forgotten rare gem. It bears all the hallmarks of a really great Yeah Yeah Yeahs song, lo-fi charms, catchy chorus, aggressive guitars and drums and Karen's voice playfully dancing back and forth between yelpy shrieks, lovely melodies and attitude filled snarls.

Using a similar algorithm, (Ike &) Tina Turner's astounding leviathan Nutbush City Limits is wedged between a Rosie Thomas tune and a bis stomper. Now Nutbush will forever be tied in my brain to two things; second of those is Glasgow comedian Limmy's sketch that featured it, which is unquestionably perfect. The first though, is my hetro-lifemate Nick Lewis. Nick and I have known each other since we were 12 and have lived together frequently in the years since we finished school. Our relationship is about as close to a marriage as I'm ever likely to get. And the reason that he and Tina and Nutbush are so interlocked in my mind is because years and years ago in the early days of The Snatch Club, one night we were, as always, partying on a Thursday night when DJ Harry Ainswoth threw the song on, the timing was perfect, the crowd was lit and we were at peak-drunkenness/silliness and the moment those first few chugs of the guitar riff hit our ears suddenly Nick was like a man possessed, his fists went out at arms length in front of him and began moving up and down in time to the rhythm of the song. Simultaneously he started wrenching his torso in a similar motion. A spectacle that made everybody around giggle in delight. It was really quite a vision and inspires pretty much the same reaction from him if you play it now. I also recall one time it incited a moshpit in a pitch dark room at a New Year house party in Gilmore Heights. It was a savage 3 minutes.

Rosie Thomas is an American singer-songwritter who I know very little about or by but her 2005 single Pretty Dress is a lovely thing. Plinking piano, luscious vocals, delicate strings and then the drums come in and the chorus climbs. It's weird but I can't imagine that I'd enjoy an album by her but this one song has an enduring pleasantness for me. 

Listen Up! by Scottish indie ska pop band bis is an entirely different beast. The band was introduced to me, like many of my favourite bands from the age of about 16 to 19, by one of my best mates Luke. The artwork for all their early releases; E.P.'s, singles and the debut album, were Manga styled cartoons of the band drawn by band member Amanda 'Manda Rin' MacKinnon, had always intrigued me but it wasn't until Luke played me their Secret Vampire Soundtrack and Sweet Shop Avengers releases that I was hooked. They were the first ever unsigned act to appear on Top Of The Pops and were a wildly divisive act. They were three kids doing poppy, punky, ska-y lo-fi indie rock tunes, all shrill and shouted vocals, synths, stabbing guitars and a drum machine with lyrics about superheroes, monsters and candy. Many (in fact most) hated them. I fell in love. Listen Up! is from their more consistent and mature sophomore album Social Dancing and is a great big ole shouty anthem. They were huge in Japan.

As were the re-monikered Puffy Ami Yumi whose Asia No Junshin is like a slicker, poppier Listen Up! It's really great, loads of changes, bits with mad robot voices, strings, the lot. In the days before the internet made music globally more available my pal David 'Sod' Sodergren spent a great deal of his hard earned money importing music and movies and books from all over the world. J-Pop was a particular obsession of his and a compilation tape he made me of some of the best stuff that Japan's pop scene had to offer would have been the first place I'd have come across Puffy.

King's Love and Pride is an excellent bit of cheesy new wave eighties pop which I have no idea how it ended up being included in the this selection. I know literally nothing else by the band and have zero desire to find anymore out but am eternally grateful for this beaut.

Now the last three tracks that I have to speak on are by bands that like The Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeah's can be loosely grouped together as part of the NME's so called New Rock Revolution. From Leeds were the baggy Stone Roses-pretenders The Music, who were awful but the song You Might As Well Try To Fuck Me (best song title of all time?) has some charm that still works for me. It's just a really nice riff. And similarly another good song by a terrible band is Whatever Happened To My Rock N' Roll (worst song title of all time?) by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. With a title like that the song really needed to be as rocking as it is. They had exactly one other good song. The Music had none. 

A.R.E. Weapons were from New York and were the kind of band that were homeless but played gigs in art galleries and had model girlfriends. Douchebags, basically. Street Gang, the version included here is from the single version, is pretty good. Full of attitude and menace and lyrics like the opening couplet 'Standing on the sidewalk/sucking on a soda-pop/Nothing but a tough luck/Doo Wop' and 'Here comes the street gang/The beautiful killers/Aren't they gorgeous?/In their black leather jackets'. They totally messed it up when they re-recorded it for their (terrible) debut album. A real shame.

If this mix was to be the Original Soundtrack album for the major 2007 motion picture Bloods vs. Crips part 1 starring Vin Diesel and Johnny Depp and directed by Gus Van Sant, Street Gang would feature in the scene where the titular gangs are approaching each other for the climactic battle to run the streets of L.A. Dramatic stuff. Luckily Seth Rogen is there for comic relief as a lovable weed botanist who is developing a strain of marijuana that might bring about peace if only Shia LeBeouf's plucky young hero can get it to the gang leaders in time. Jessica Alba hams it right up as a violent chola meanwhile Scarlett Johansson seems to think she's in an entirely different film from everyone else, delivering a nuanced and subtle performance as the girl caught between these two warring gang leaders. The cast is absurdly white for a film set mostly in Compton. And the soundtrack is audaciously left field. But the opening scene fist fight set to Nutbush is so perfect it's a shame it doesn't really exist. My screenplay for this would've killed.

Déjà Vu

1. Beyoncè - Déjà Vu
2. Clipse - Re-Up Anthem (Nick Catchdubs Remix)
3. T.I. - What You Know About That
4. Bell Biv Devoe - Poison
5. Kandice Love - Amazin'
6. Plan B - Sick 2 Def
7. Lupe Fiasco - Kick Push ft. Pharrell
8. KanYe West - Drive Slow (Remix) ft. Paul Wall, GLC & T.I.
9. Fam-Lay - Da Beeper Record
10. Alana Davis - New Glasses
11. Amerie - Touch (Remix) ft. T.I.
12. Ashanti - Still On It
13 - Christina Aguilera - Ain't No Other Man
14. Dialated Peoples - This Way ft. KanYe West
15. T.I. - Bring 'Em Out
16. Michael & Janet Jackson - Scream
17. Rosco P. Coldchain - Pussy ft. Pharrell
18. Sierra Swan - Sex Is Keeping Us Together
19. Skunk Anansie - Weak

Nothing of much note happened that afternoon. The sun was hotter than usual. That's not saying much for Scotland, but it was certainly a bit hotter than we're used to getting, even in summer. I was out in the back garden at my dad's flat in Wardieburn, shorts oan, taps aff. I'd been trying to read comic books like the massive nerd I am but my sweaty hands were messing up the pages, so I abandoned that idea to continue reading Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, a wonderful novel about a young hermaphrodites self discovery. The boombox was out and this mix was playing. I'd just made it and I remember thinking how good the Nick Catchdubs flip of Clipse's Got It 4 Cheap mixtape cut Re-Up Anthem sounded in the sunshine. Pairing those crack slinging bars with an excellent, if obvious, sample of Eric Clapton's Cocaine was perfect. It would've been the beginning of summer 2006.

Later that summer I would do my second stint as Technical Director on a dance show my sister and her best friend put on in consecutive Edinburgh Festivals and as summer faded I would end up working at The Southern. At this point however I was unemployed and back living with my pops. This would've been around the time of the van with Malcs and Blair, probably about a month or so before those two days. The winter had been a long and dark one for me. But now the sun was out. As far as afternoons go this one was super chill. Like I said, nothing eventful happened. I mean apart from the new Beyoncé single leaking obviously. That was big. The first taste of her upcoming sophomore record B'Day? C'mon! That's exciting. A Jay-Z feature was the cherry for this Jigga superfan. As soon as I heard it I had to immediately compose this mix so I could have it burnt to CD.

Aside from that it was just a nice calm, sunny day, with just me and my book. And yet as soon as I saw that Clipse remix on the tracklist I thought of that day and as soon as I heard it I was right back there. That summer ended up being a really good one. That might be why this day sticks out. If I remember right, I'd been unemployed for months at this point. It was pretty depressing. There were a few temporary jobs here and there but I'd been on the dole more than working for the better part of a year prior to this. How my dad tolerated my shiftless ass is beyond me. Having some lazy, free-loader kicking about in my flat for that long would have made me wanna... Scream by Michael and Janet is a throwback. When it came out in '95 the thirteen year-old me was a bit disappointed by it, if memory serves, but I don't know what that wee hyper-critical prick was all about; the tune is a straight killer. I think Janet's aggressive sexuality in the extraordinarily expensive video may have scared my pubescent self. There is a sensational mash-up (almost an oxymoron) of it with Beck's E-Pro that may be better than either song separately.

Not long after the day in the van, rehearsals for The Rhythm Project got underway. A project to keep me busy! And lots of pretty dancers to distract me! Things were getting better. Annika and Jenny had asked me to take sole charge of the technical direction of the show this year so it was a lot of work but also a lot of fun. Friends I'd made on the show the previous year were suddenly back in my life alongside numerous new faces. Jenna, Ashley, Alloysious, Kayus , Bilal, Matt and Cleo, amongst others, were a fun cast of characters to work with and get to know. One time shortly before a performance I was playing records as people were coming in and I played the remix of KanYe's Drive Slow with the T.I. feature (probably from this very mix). Kayus hadn't heard this version before and asked me about it. We bonded. Sometimes being a geek can make you look cool. I still know Tip's verse on this inside out.

Over the cinematic strings, sub-bass and stuttering hi-hats of southern rap sub-genre trap music was where I first became aware of T.I. He did, after all, introduce 'the youth to what we now call "trappin"/Considered now a classic, who'd have imagined?' I remember late one night years previously, Luke and I were just hanging out in Gilmore Heights watching MTV Base when 24's came on. We both sat up like 'who's this kid?' To think that trap didn't become really popular over here until nearly a decade later is weird to me. And the genre has changed a lot in that time. Mostly for the worse. But I've been a fan of Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. since that first viewing. He makes a number of other appearances on this compilation; What You Know would have been the most current joint on there, from the 2006 classic LP King. My defining memory of this song however didn't happen until about 8 years later when at a southern rap club night in London called Player's Ball. Me, Nick, Lucy and Robyn were close to the only white people present. It was what I imagine clubbing in Atlanta, Georgia might be like. Awesome, basically. Me and Nick were high as kites. This came on and we were in the thick of it. Shit was wild. Such a good night.

The other T.I. single on the disc is from 2004's Urban Legend LP; Bring 'Em Out. With it's Swizz Beatz Jay-Z-sampling beat it is party ready with its horn's and whistles but it lacks the dark edge I like on T.I.'s more trap-y stuff. It's catchy enough though. Also it was weird to see him performing it on The OC that one time. Man I loved The OC. For the first few seasons at least. Comedic teen melo-drama at its finest. We had a first season finale party at the Gilmore Place flat one time where we all came dressed as characters. Poorly. Except Luke made a hilarious Sandy Cohen. It was a fun night and exactly the kind of lame but awesome shit we always got up to in that flat.

Coincidently, in my memories now Bell Biv Devoe's new jack swing classic Poison also is now intrinsically tied to a TV show; hospital sitcom Scrubs. The song was already legendary but once Turk did that lip-sync and dance the song would forever bring it to mind. I watched a lot of that show. That dance was my favourite moment from it.

Back to T.I. in the form of a feature on a remixed Amerie single. Both versions were from 2005 and bore that unmistakable Lil' Jon, Crunk&B sound. The single never quite scaled the euphoric heights of her global behemoth 1 Thing but is a lot of fun none the less. T.I. doesn't add a whole lot to the proceedings, this verse isn't a patch on the Drive Slow contribution.

Inevitably T.I.'s four appearances here are bested by the ever-present Pharrell and Chad of The Neptunes who manage six productions and features between them on this compact disc. That's not even counting the Clipse track on account of it being a remix. Sierra Swan's glam rock stomp Sex Is Keeping Us Together is a Chad Hugo solo production. It was recorded and leaked to the internet around 2005 but due to label issues the record wasn't officially released until 2008. It is a fascinating oddity as it sounds nothing like anything else in their discography. It's a scuzzy mess. The only clearly Chad Hugo-ish thing about the song really is the weird sci-fi synths that are all over it. But it works, it's a boisterous hoot that I still get a kick out of. I don't know too much of Sierra's other stuff but I really liked her official single from that year also; Copper Red.

Similarly rare but bearing a more classic Neptunes sound is New Glasses by Alana Davis. The drums are snappy, the chords are pretty and the bassline grooves. A decent enough jam it is but Davis' vocals are really quite unremarkable and the lyrics are a bit too hippy for my taste. I can't help but think that over this beat Kelis would have soared.

Pharrell is on his In My Mind flow on the official remix of Kick Push, the lead single from Lupe Fiasco's debut album Food & Liquor. And by 'In My Mind flow' I mean that he's rhyming competently with intermittent groaningly clunky bars; 'I know my dead homies wish they was much gooder then/I mean gooder then, not cuz I'm better than'? The song is an ode to skateboarding culture and growing up and is really quite lovely despite those cringers. That first Lupe album got a lot of spins at The Southern later in the year when it was released, but Kick Push worked for the good weather.

Nasty sex raps over a smoother than smooth beat is the order of the day for Rosco P. Coldchain and Pharrell on the sublimely ridiculous Pussy. Rosco was one of the artists Pharrell and Chad signed to their Star Trak imprint. The chorus on this song is so dumb and so catchy, I often catch myself singing it at inopportune moments. Only a couple of the Rosco P. songs that are in circulation online were ever officially released before he got himself locked up for murder. It's a real shame because a lot of them are great. Needless to say his album was never put out. He wasn't the most talented of rappers but he sounded good over a Neptunes beat.

Fam-Lay who was also signed to the Star Trak record label was just unlucky though. And he didn't even murder anyone. Da Beeper Record was released as the first single for his never to see the light of day debut album Traintago. The song is typically weird and brilliant for these guys.  One repetative synth stab, snappy clicks and drums and a shark-like bassline that swims below the waterline and occasionally pops its head up. Fam-Lay's flow is slick and varied and at one point he says 'Telling you not that my shit is/Bigger than knuckles on midgets' which is... bananas. But it went nowhere, largely ignored by the masses. A couple of years later it was sampled by The Count & Sinden on Beeper featuring Kid Sister which was a bit of a hit in the Indie-Electro scene. Still not enough to get Fam recognised though. He was shelved and then ultimately forgotten when the label folded. He still sometimes tours with Pharrell and N*E*R*D when the can be bothered to put out a record. If you're willing to root around online you can find a whole host of excellent songs meant for his lost classic.

The Star Trak forum, which later became the grindin.org forum, was where I found most of these songs. It was amazing to have a community of nerds as obssessed with The Neptunes sound (phooom phoooom) as I was. Rarities and unreleased stuff would always find its way onto the board. Stuff you could only get there or on the #theneptunes mIRC channel. And it was there that I first came across the version of Amazing with only Kandice Love on it. I was already aquainted with the beat as I owned LL Cool J's 10 album from 2002. The beat is improved upon massively when shorn of LL's corny seduction bars and replaced with additional Kandice vocals. It's super cheesy but it suits Kandice's voice much better. This beat should never have ended up with Mr. James Todd Smith.

I guess I made this mix not too long after The Jump Off one, I was quite excited to hear the new album from Christina Aguilera for a while. I'd heard she'd been working with Premier which was an exciting prospect and I had really liked Still Dirrty. Ain't No Other Man is really pretty good too. Not the best Premo production and not the best Aguilera song but I still think of it fondly. The album when it came out in August was a bit of a let down in the end and faded from memory quickly. Those early releases from it however were a good time while they lasted. 

The Swishahouse sound that came out of Houston in the late-90's owed a lot to the Chopped and Screwed stylings of DJ Screw, the trap music from Atlanta and the Memphis originated crunk. Paul Wall, who appeared on forgotten Ashanti single Still On It, was a Swishahouse stalwart who rarely rapped about anything other than the grillz that were both in his mouth and for sale on his website. He also appeared on Kanye's Drive Slow. He got about for a while there. Always amusing, never really very good. Adding some credibility to the proceedings is Method Man who phones in a perfectly fine if not very memorable guest verse. I quite like the song even though it's existence was lost to me between the time I last played this mix until hearing it now. I'm pretty surprised that it had a video and everything to be honest.

The last two tracks to talk about here seem entirely at odds and out of place on this particular collection. Thing is I can work out how they ended up on it. Plan B's harsh Sick 2 Def almost makes sense, it has rapping on it, albeit over atypical strummed guitar and nothing else. The content of his rhymes is a lot more explicit and controversial than everything else around it but I remember being impressed by his word play and storytelling. The third verse where he mimics the concept of the NaS track Rewind and tells a tale about a stabbing in reverse is noteworthy. It doesn't warrant too many repeat plays but is interesting at the very least.

Blair had put me on to Plan B when he gave me a copy of the Radiohead-Sampling Missing Links, I really liked that one. So I came across Sick 2 Def while finding out more about him. There was an interview where he said that his favourite song was Weak by Skunk Anansie. Ali Blaikie, my oldest childhood friend, we've known each other since we were 3 years old, was a big fan of that band. I knew the song but hadn't thought about it in a long time. So I downloaded it and bashed it on the end of this mix. The whole thing was put together quickly because I wanted to go outside and listen to Déjà Vu in the afternoon heat. Nice days are few and far between in Edinburgh so you have to act quickly.

Lying out on the grass, drinking apple juice, reading my book, sweating. It was all about to change for me. I don't think I was fully aware. There was gonna be fun and parties and new jobs and girls and new friends. That day in the sun was a start and a end. A long winter, cold, dark, depressing, working temporary jobs I didn't like. Every day had been like bad Déjà Vu. And it was all lifted. Sometimes it all starts with a song. Or a few songs in the sunshine.


Photo credits: George Michael Taylor

The Jump Off

1. Ducktails Theme
2. Christina Aguilera - Still Dirrty
3. Snoop Dogg- Vato ft. B-Real
4. Brooke Hogan - About Us ft. Paul Wall
5. R.A.M.P. - Daylight
6. The Killers - All These Things That I've Done
7. Phil Collins - Easy Lover
8. Missy Elliott - On & On
9. Tiffany - I Think We're Alone Now
10. Ace Of Base - All That She Wants
11. Lil' Kim - The Jump Off
12. Razorlight - Somewhere Else
13. Animaniacs Theme
14. Beck - E-Pro
15. J-Lo - Get Right (Remix) ft. Fabolous
16. ELO - Mr. Blue Sky
17. David Bowie - Magic Dance
18. Missy Elliott - The Rain
19. Talespin Theme
20. The Killers - Somebody Told Me

Among the branches and in the living room, in worlds unreal and composed on paper, spanning the hours betwixt lessons and meal time and cared for by grandparents, nurturing and supportive but also tired and at their wit's end. An exodus for this child. Colour and madness provide the ideal escape from a world where love never seems to last except between parents and their children. A grim world in the aftermath of the reign of a grotesque witch who'd drained all the joy from the people to then be replaced by a gray, charisma vacuum. Things are slow in getting better. And so off into animated lands of ducks and bears and insane siblings I go. Themes that will earworm for decades soundtrack the transition, from reality into a glorious universe of living paint and paper.

And then there are the moving pictures, another exodus from the real world. One where a legendary popstar pretends to be a king of goblins meanwhile a young, future Oscar winner seeks her abducted brother with the help of many lively puppets, is a place this now young teen frequently visits. Push existence to the side and indulge in fantasy. Ah, those songs! Such a joy.

Older now but still young and dumb, in discotheques seeking fun and drugs and sex.  Different scenes, different music, the goals remain steady. An alternative to the mundane. Snatch Club for variety, songs new and old, Establishment for bars and soul and songs about carnality and the rapture of the party. Indigo and EVOL for introspection and sensitivity masquerading as hedonism. The Mission and Genetic for the fun of costume and fake aggression and heavy music. All the while making bonds with others pursuing the same highs with analogous tastes. Vibrant interactions, drama and dancing. A magnificent time in the darkness and smoke. Nights and songs that I wont remember with people; unforgettable.

Waxing nostalgic here, thinking about the old days. An adult looking back. Now isn't bad but is it as good as then? Remember that song?! Remember that night?! What a blast. Who was that guy?! Where did she go? Why did we do that?! *groan* What fun we had. Bathe in the score of those memories for a short time, put off dealing with the now. It's okay to do sometimes. Necessary in fact.

Perhaps as middle age sets in I'll disappear into some soulful jazz, on a trip. To take a short break from living my middle aged life.

This was some of the incidental music. The three cartoon themes on this mix are grand; Ducktails had the better theme (with its wah-wah guitar solo that sounds like a quacking duck), Animaniacs was the better show. On Still Dirrty Christina Aguilera sounds good over an awesome DJ Premier beat, but her claims are unconvincing. The beat simply isn't grimy enough to sell her claims of nastiness. She doesn't sound like she really means it. Vato by Snoop is fine but if we're being honest it wasn't the most inspired of his Neptunes collaborations. God only knows where that Brooke Hogan song came from. It isn't great which I'm sure is surprising to no-one. Roy Ayers' Daylight is classic and I will still be listening to it into my old age. Two Killers tracks on this mix?! I never liked them as a band nor rated their albums but in the right setting (The Liquid Room on a Wednesday night, high on E in 2007) their singles were undeniable. Easy Lover; perfect. On & On is the ideal marriage of an utterly loony Neptunes beat and Missy Elliot who sounds more at home the more mental the instrumental is. I Think We're Alone Now is I Think We're Alone Now, which is to say; terrific. Same goes for All That She Wants. Notorious K.I.M. lucked out when Timbaland decided to give her The Jump Off. The beat knocks SO hard. She does well enough on it. Somewhere Else is one of those ones that I like but can't really explain why. It's awful. I love it. E-Pro bangs, in a peculiar way for a Beck tune. The Get Right remix is dope. Mr Blue Sky will forever, for some reason, make me think of my dear friend Mr. David Sodergren. And Magic Dance will forever, for better or worse, make me think of Mr. David Bowie's penis.

This is how we soundtrack our lives. When life is too real there is always music. A way to cope. A dalliance with another life. There will be sunny days and magic and there will be The Rain (another Missy masterpiece) and heartache. It will be hard. And it will be wonderful. And it will sound... well... varying in quality.

Gotta Work



1. Fat Joe - Make It Rain (Remix) ft. Lil' Wayne, R. Kelly, Baby, T.I., Ace Mac & Rick Ross

2. Asian Dub Foundation - Free Satpal Ram

3, Killdahype - G-Boys

4. Amerie - Gotta Work

5. Lil' Mama - Lipgloss

6. Yelle - Je Veux Te Voir

7. Dizzee Rascal - Pussyole

8. Mark Ronson - Toxic ft. Ol' Dirty Bastard

9. Fabolous - Right Now + Later On

10. Girls Aloud - No Good Advice (Parental Advisory)

11. *NSYNC - Bye Bye Bye

12. Busta Rhymes - As I Come Back

13. Unklejam - Love Ya

14. The Black Ghosts - Any Way You Choose To Give It (Fake Blood Mix)

15. M.I.A. - XR2 (Tigerstyle Remix)

16. SebAstian - Head Off (Faex Remix)

17. Cee-Lo Green - Passion Fruit ft. Pharrell

18. Killdahype - Revolution (Original Mix)

19. Backstreet Boys - The Call (The Neptunes Remix) ft. Clipse

One of the first gigs I remember going to was the previously mentioned Asian Dub Foundation show I went to with George at The Garage in Glasgow in 2000. It was on their Community Music tour. It was a hell of a show, promoting a hell of an album. The band came out on stage and got themselves set up and as they launched into the first song of the night, Real Great Britain, every member of the band and every person in the audience jumped into the air in unison. This made it look like the floor had briefly dropped out from underneath us before rushing back up to meet us and then fell away again as we all leapt a second time together. It was startling and completely exhilarating.

The track here is from the earlier, sophomore album Rafi's Revenge which is also great. I haven't thought about the band much in recent years but hearing Free Satpal Ram is like catching up with an old friend. One that is overtly political, outspoken and angry. This old pal hasn't lost its edge. Its a political protest song demanding the release of a man imprisoned after being convicted of murder. Satpal Ram allegedly killed a man in self-defence during a fight in a restaurant in Birmingham in 1986. His mistreatment in every step of the judicial process was a matter of some controversy. This song is a furious call for justice and it bangs. Hard.

It's good to be reminded of forgotten gems like this and reminded of old favourites that you haven't heard for a while. Gotta Work is packed with these kinds of reminders for me. Unlike the other mixes I've talked about so far, this one doesn't really recall any specific times or people or places from my life. This one is really just about the music... man.

The only clues as to the timeframe that I'd have made it in are a handful of tracks that were very much of their moment. They shone brightly (for me at least) for a short spell before slinking off into the mists of passing time. I'm guessing early to mid 2007. I'd say that the title track, Amerie's quite sublimely funky RnB anthem about striving to achieve your goals and getting through the hard days, Gotta Work, would have just leaked when I burnt it to this CD-R. It still sounds amazing and I can't quite believe how underrated it is. Produced by One Up doing a mighty fine Rich Harrison impression it's all big blaring horns (sampled from Erma Franklin's cover of Hold On, I'm Comin'), clattering but snappy funk drums, break downs and a massive chorus. Its almost Crazy In Love/1 Thing good. Why did it not get appreciated? I honestly don't understand why it isn't still getting regular spins at RnB clubs everywhere. Maybe it is, just not at the ones I've been to. Maybe I'm just old and out of touch.

Anyway I hadn't forgotten that one but it was great to hear it again. Same goes for the opener, Fat Joe's ridiculous posse cut remix of Make It Rain. The dramatic Scott Storch beat is blessed by almost everyone involved bringing their A game. 

Kels hits a near all time high with the first verse. It's hilarious and brilliant and wrong on a multi- levelled basis. Everything you hope for and expect from an R. Kelly guestspot. The perfect logic of his 'I order one bottle, then I fuck with one model/Then I order more bottles, now I got more models' makes me chuckle every single time. Wayne was on a tear at this point and his contribution here was sub-par for him but at that time Mixtape Weezy at his worst was still way better than most at their best. Then a big shock with a Baby verse that isn't total shit which makes me think Wayne probably wrote it too. 

T.I. slays with his rapid fire young hustler tales and then the wild card of the bunch Ace Mac shows up, an unknown young latino rapper who more than holds his own in a room full of established heavyweights. Tip and Ace Mizzy both have similar kinds of flows on their respective 8 bars and it really suits the beat. Complicated, tricky and fast. They don't have much to say besides how much money and how many women they have but they do it a way that sounds glorious.

To close out the remix are two literal heavyweights; Rick Ross does his thing and that is rarely a bad thing. He keeps the momentum going and delivers some nice memorable rhymes. Solid. Fat Joe on the other hand is a real weak link on his own song. His verse lacks any real flow or cadence and is lazily tacked on the end. The momentum created by the quality prior to this verse means that it doesn't completely derail the proceedings. The fact that I still know the lyrics inside out tells you how often I listened to this tune back then. Epic stuff.

Long unplayed but ultimately unforgettable is Bye Bye Bye. Written and produced by the Swedish pop geniuses at Cheiron Studios it remains one of the best boyband songs of all time. British group 5ive must be gutted they passed on it. The production couldn't be more late 90's, I'm not mad at that. I'm also not mad at JC and Justin doing the majority of the heavy lifting on vocals (as they often did). The rest chip in though to make the harmonies soar.

It couldn't really be a compilation made by me since 1999 if it didn't feature at least one Neptunes production. This one has three. Their third appearance on this one comes right at the end with the appearance of another late 90's/early 2000's boyband. The original version of The Call is excellent, penned by the Swedish pop god Max Martin it was always going to be, but Pharrell and Chad took it and made it super weird and minimal and it is phenomenal. The Backstreet Boys sing verses about an ill-fated cellphone call, a dying battery and infidelity over a repeating vocal approximation of a ringtone, a deep baseline, typically snappy drums, a electronic synth bubbling that peeks in and out and a barely there guitar strum on the chorus. Added to this are a couple of guest verses by Pusha T and Malice of Clipse, the latter of which brilliantly/hilariously namechecks every member of the band.

The first Neptunes production on the tape is another one I remember well. It appears on Busta Rhymes' 2001 record Genesis and it uses a couplet from Busta's verse on A Tribe Called Quest's Scenario as a hook. As I Come Back is the kind of beat that makes your face screw up.and typifies what The Neptunes did so well and so prolifically between 1999 and 2004. Again, minimal and spacey, using weird sounds, in this case the bizarre pitched up, chipmunk-y sounding synth part, and always tailored to perfectly fit the artist. Busta goes wild and aggressive, roaring and growling his way across the lively instrumental, easily matching its energy.

When looking at the track listing I didn't at first recognise the second of the Virginia duo's beats; Cee-Lo Green's Passion Fruit with its Pharrell feature. As soon as it started though I realised that it is an early demo version of the track The Art Of Noise which appeared on Cee-Lo's Cee-Lo Green... Is The Soul Machine album. The final version is one of my absolute favourite Neptunes tracks, a funky, upbeat soul number and the demo doesn't vary much except for a little sample at the intro and the vocals for the chorus are missing. Pharrell's live drums on the beat are sweet and Cee-Lo does his thing; 'And god can truly work a miracle/Look at me isn't it obvious that I'm one'.

Elsewhere on the disc is Lil' Mama's Lipgloss which is not a Neptunes beat but does a quite convincing imitation of one. It is basically a High School Musical version of Grindin' by Clipse; over a sparse drums and claps only backing track Mama rhymes about her popularity at school and of course how poppin' her lipgloss is. She never lived up to the early promise of this ambitious and fun debut single unfortunately.

Also slightly indebted to The Neps but more to Prince and Funkadelic are Unklejam; a soul-funk trio who came and went in a brief timespan. Love Ya was catchy enough that the tune was easily recalled when I thought about it. Lyrically the thing is weak but the production and melodies and hooks still sound strong. Their album was really forgettable and it's not surprising that they didn't have longevity.

Built around the much used Yeah! Woo! Break, Dizzee Rascal's threatening Wiley diss track Pussyole (Old Skool) I had totally forgotten about until I saw its name on the disc. This is one of the last times Dizzee sounded this dangerous. I miss that Dizzee. This song is great, menacing but you want to dance.

Only two other of the tracks here were songs that I either just hadn't heard for a while or had forgotten they existed but upon seeing their titles they came instantly back to me. First Girls Aloud and their classic single No Good Advice. They really did have some belters these girls, Xenomania made sure of that. The version on this disc is the slightly sweary Parental Advisory one. The song isn't particularly enhance by the bad language to be honest.

The other one that had slipped my mind and which I couldn't even summon what it sounded like until the first few notes played was Mark Ronson's Ol' Dirty Bastard assisted cover of Britney's Toxic. I mean, I could have guessed what it was gonna sound like even if I hadn't heard it before in all honestly. 'It's probably gonna have horns on it. Lots of horns.' Big Baby Jesus references his classic Grammy moment in his verse, a verse that wasn't recorded for this song but ended up fitting it quite well. This all could have gone much worse than it ended up being.

All that remains from this disc are a handful of tracks that I had no idea what they were or what they would sound like even when the names of the acts were familiar. Killdahype for example; I would have bet that they would be some kinda Ed Banger-ish electro act, which they were, but I even as I listened to them I couldn't be sure I'd ever heard them before. I must have dug them at the time though as they have two tracks here. The second track Revolution is a slightly above average example of post-Daft Punk electro-house circa 2007. It has some personality and changes often enough to stay interesting. The earlier appearance by them however is more fun; G-Boys is a propulsive, driving tune that sounds like it should be from a 16-bit blast em up, side-scrolling, space adventure video game like Super R-Type or Metro if or something. The beat goes through a number of changes and there is a real progression and development in the tune. I'm really happy to have it back in my life.

Similarly, the heavy and abrasive Faex remix of of SebastiAn's Heads Off is dope. From that era of Ed Banger Records I find the more jagged without being too extreme stuff has held up the best and this one rides that line perfectly. And French electro-rapper Yelle is fun too, from the slightly brighter and more colourful side of that kind of electronic music from France at the time. Her verses sound good, I don't really know what she's saying but it sounds good. Maybe she has other good tunes. I should investigate.

The other two remixes left here fare less well. Tigerstyle don't do anything particularly interesting with an M.I.A. track that wasn't of particular note in the first place. It's fine, just nothing special. Same goes for a Fake Blood mix of Any Way You Choose To Give It by whoever The Black Ghosts were. There are much better examples of these kinds of remixes from that time but also much worse ones. Much much worse.

Much much much worse.

Finally we get to Fabolous and his Timbaland produced cut Right Now + Later On which is decent. I like it but am not in the least bit surprised that it faded from my memory, neither Tim nor Fab are nearly as inspired as they can be.

Like fleeting affairs or one night stands most of these songs were short moments in my life, some lasted longer than others, some had more resonance than others and some had slipped my mind entirely. I don't regret any of them and some of them it was really good to catch up with again. A few of them even good enough to start our thing up again.

Mole's Mega Mix '04

1. The Advantage - Megaman 3 - Dr. Wiley Stage
2. Annie - Me +1
3. Art Brut - Formed A Band
4. Cyndi Lauper - She Bop
5. Destiny's Child - Lose My Breath
6. Demon Vs. Lady Fury - Gash (remix)
7. Fabolous - Breath
8. Terror Squad - Lean Back (remix) ft. Ma$e, Eminem and Lil' Jon
9. Gravy Train!!!! - Burger Baby
10. Gravy Train!!!! - Mouthfulla Caps
11. Joanna Newsome - The Sprout And The Bean
12. Lady Sovereign - Sad Arse Stripah
13. Lady Sovereign - Ch-Ching (Cheque 1, 2)
14. LCD Soundsystem - Yeah (Clap-a-pella mix)
15. LCD Soundsystem  - Yeah (Stupid Mix)
16. Munk - Kick Out The Chairs ft. James Murphy
17. Snoop Dogg - Drop It Like It's Hot ft. Pharrell Williams
18. TV On The Radio - Mr. Grieves
19. Tom Tom Club - Genius Of Love
20. Joanna Newsome - Cassiopeia

Do you remember where you were when you first heard Drop It Like It's Hot? I do. It really was a moment when I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing. It shouldn't have made sense as a song but it did. So much. Its composition sounded like a work of complete madness but its catchiness was undeniable.

I was in George's new small basement flat on West Nicolson Street September 2004, where we made this mix together. If I had to guess the exact date I'd probably say it was Sunday the 12th. He'd lived with me and Luke on Gilmore Place for a few years prior but he had moved out not long before that evening. I guess the relentless mess of that party flat had gotten to him. I was round visiting, seeing the place and having a little drink and catch up. The conversation turned quickly to music. It always did. It was either gonna be that or films or books.

There are about 3 people that I can think of who have had a profound influence in how I consume and experience music. George is on that list. He constantly exposed me to records (and films and books for that matter) that I might never have otherwise come to and would get as enthused as I was when I brought stuff I knew he'd like to his attention too. It was a support system for music nerds. He, however was always a much bigger nerd than I. Encyclopedic knowledge of culture and art. 

One evening after being at the cinema or seeing a band or something, this would've been around March/April 1999, we were walking home from town excitedly discussing what music we had been enjoying. George suggested we go back to his to drink some whiskey and listen to some tunes, his mum was away so we could turn the music up loud. Sounded good. So we went back. I was saying that I'd become a bit obsessed with Mogwai's recently released Come On Die Young album and G asked if I'd heard their first album; Young Team. I hadn't and he had a copy. So he put on Like Herod and we sat on the bottom bunk of the bunk bed that was in his little room and sipped our whiskey. We had to hunch a little as there wasn't a huge amount of space between bunks. I was telling him some story, he looked like he was way more interested in the story than it was interesting and I barely registered the mischievous grin on his face as he slowly turned the volume up on the stereo as I spoke. In my head I thought he was really enjoying my tale so I kept going and going and then 02.57 happened and I jumped out of my skin. So hard that I smashed my head on the underside of the top bunk. That lurch from quiet to loud still gets me, how George didn't even flinch I will never understand and I will never forget how hard he laughed. The bastard. Once I got over the initial shock and pain I saw the funny side too. It was a mean prank but a really good one.

That same night I believe he introduced me to My Bloody Valentine's Loveless and to Will Oldham and his many guises. He was always giving me so much. It always felt like a personal triumph whenever I was the one doing the enlightening. It wasn't often but it did happen.

Anyway, back to September '04, we were doing the usual talking about what we'd been listening to recently and were downloading stuff to play to each other. This compilation is what came together from the evening. Looking at the list now I can still tell what tracks were the ones he showed me, which ones I downloaded and which were the ones we found together. 

The Advantage was definitely an act that he showed me. He knew that the very idea of this band was right up my street. A band who's modus operandi was to cover every song from every Nintendo Entertainment System game ever released. Sold! They're still together but their last few records have been live recordings and b-side reissues. Their first record preceded the whole Chiptune revival movement by about 8 years, they basically invented the genre but favoured old fashioned guitars and drums over electronic sounds. They were the proto-Anamanaguchi.

Gimmicky bands and ideas like this were the kind of thing that George would find amusing initially but would become tired of real fast. But he knew well enough that this existing at all would delight me and it did. Hearing this again reminded me of how good their version of Cyndi Lauper's Goonies R Good Enough from The Goonies II game was.

Swedish pop music has a strong lineage from ABBA to Roxette to Ace Of Base to Max Martin, and Annie is definitely an under-celebrated part of that. Of course that's probably because she's from Norway, but whatever, Scandi-pop is Scandi-pop. She's had a few minor hits but so much of her output deserved to be massive. Her brand of pop was intensely colourful, ultra bright, super catchy and pneumatically bouncy. And so much fun. We would have downloaded this after having read about her, the music press and blogs at the time got briefly very excited about her. Me + 1 is a hell of a tune and a bit of a shocker that it wasn't a single. G and me were both fans of her first album Anniemal which also would've probably been the first time I'd become aware of producer Richard X for his work on the first half of the record. I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me was a slight return for Annie in 2008 but it never really happened for her, which was a shame as her second album Don't Stop was excellent too.

Formed A Band is 100% an NME recommendation. This was exactly the kind of record that the writers of the New Musical Express in 2004 would pissed their pants over. I feel like this era was very much the start of the very steep decline of that magazine that has continued to today. Sad to think how good it once was. Remember they put Godspeed You Black Emperor! on the cover? Kelis too. And At The Drive - In. And The Strokes. Aphex Twin. So Solid Crew! And they used to write in-depth pieces on these bands and artists. Fuck, I used to love that paper.

That's not to say that Art Brut are in any way to blame for this decline. Formed A Band is really actually quite a fun tune. Written literally moments after the band was formed (allegedly), it's scuzzy and funny and kind of charming. The lyrics are hilarious with their bold ambitions; to make "Israel and Palestine get along" and that they're gonna play Top Of The Pops for "8 weeks in a row" and that they're gonna make sure "everyone knows everything is gonna be okay". These goals are yet to be achieved but that band is still together so there is still time.

I mentioned Cyndi Lauper's Goonies R Good Enough earlier and I guess seeing her on the TV in The Goonies when I was a kid would've probably been when I became a fan of hers. Years later I was given a copy of her best of compilation Twelve Deadly Cyns...And Then Some on cassette for a birthday or Christmas and I nearly wore that tape out. On this evening George had just downloaded her debut solo LP She's So Unusual and was really enjoying it, I hadn't heard it for years but immediately demanded he put She Bop on. We danced like fools. It is a perfect pop gem about female masturbation. There are some really good songs about female masturbation.

Exactly how we came across it I'm not sure but the new Destiny's Child single Lose My Breath had just premiered, on AOL I think, and George and I got super hyped at the news. It'd been a few years since the Survivor LP had been released so we were excited as hell to hear new material from them.

Years previously, I remember one peculiarly hot day in Edinburgh in the summer of 2000, we were walking into town to buy some CD'S and George announced he was planning on picking up a copy of The Writing's On The Wall. This was a record I knew quite well but refused to admit enjoying. I knew it because my sister, Annika was a fan. I, on the other hand, was into 'real' music, y'know,  with guitars and stuff? Like Oasis. What a little twit. I used to give Annika a hard time for liking all that 'crap RnB nonsense. They can't even play any instruments'. Tell you what instrument I was; a trumpet.

So I was somewhat confused with this guy whose taste in music up to this point I had considered to be very cool; lots of metal and rock and gangsta rap. I could get on board with that stuff. Why then, would he want to buy an RnB record? Even a cheesy pop record like a Britney album or something, I could vaguely understand. What didn't I get? He explained to me how he thought the album had 4 of his favourite singles of the last year on it. His enthusiastic explanations of what he liked about each one completely changed the way I thought about them. My perspective was shifted. Permenantly. To the extent that now RnB records take up a large amount of my listening time and is a genre that houses some of my favourite ever albums.

When we hit play on Lose My Breath I remember us saying how much we couldn't wait to hear it in a club. I think we even burnt a copy to CD and took it to the Thursday night regular spot; The Snatch Club at The Liquid Rooms and got a friend who was DJing to play it. It is still is a banger even if it hasn't aged as well as some of their earlier singles. Fun fact about it; Jay-Z wrote the hook for it before he'd even been played the beat.

Grime is something I can legitimately claim to have turned George on to. He would have got to it by himself eventually but I was there first. Not that it was a competition or anything. But I was there first. Definitely. *strong arm emoji *. I'd bought a copy of Dizzee Rascal's I Luv U on the day it was released and after having played it on repeat all that day I was out for a drink with G in the evening and was telling him how amazing it was. We were living together at the time and when we got home drunk and high from the club we banged it on in my tiny box room. Really loud. Many times in a row. We were so gassed. It sounded so exciting and new. And after that we tracked down as much other Grime stuff as we could. He always had better sources than I had so more often than not he'd bring me the most amazing new songs and artists from the genre.

The Demon Vs. Lady Fury track on this comp is one that he was excited to share with me. An aggressive and angry sounding instrumental is matched by the equally aggressive and angry MC's spitting their bars of misogyny and misandry in a grueling gender battle. The content of these kinds of lyrics is always problematic but when the delivery is as impassioned and skilled as this it is incredibly thrilling. I don't actually remember hearing anything else by either artist but I'm intrigued enough to seek some other tracks out now.

MTV Base kept me in the loop with regards to what was going on in mainstream rap at that time. Many hours were spent slouched on the sofa in Gilmore Place watching videos by Usher and Cam'Ron and Busta and 50 Cent and the like. I don't remember it specifically but I'm fairly sure I caught the video for the Just Blaze produced facemelter Breathe by Fabolous one afternoon while lazing around. I would've definitely sat up to attention upon hearing that beat. It still packs a hell of a punch and Fab rhymes and flows on it better than he ever had or has since. I can probably still rap it top to bottom. Has to be one of my top 5 Just Blaze beats. It's so hard and so dramatic and so catchy and so danceable.

So yeah, it would have been one of my suggestions.  As would Lean Back by Fat Joe's Terror Squad which I'm sure would've been discovered the same way as Breathe. I can't be sure how we came across the remix included here but at that time Lil' Jon was omnipresent. It is a weird line up to appear on a track together and it kinda works but the original version of this song is infinitely better, with Remy Ma's verse being particularly hard. This mix is just a nice curio. 

Gravy Train!!! are a George inclusion. I remember he'd been listening to a lot of their stuff around that time and was psyched to play me some of their songs. I really liked the 2 included here. When I read the tracklist I remembered the band and had an idea what they sounded like but couldn't remember the songs, as soon as I hit play I was like 'oh yeah, I remember this song'.

Burger Baby has the weird House of Horrors-type of kitch-y scream on the chorus that is pretty fun over the lo-fi Casio keyboard beat and with the stupid lyrics about being in love with a hamburger. It also had a really fun animated video. And even more mental is Mouthfulla Caps which is just a big, ol' mess. But a really fun mess. It's basically a bunch of badly sung interpolations and re-appropriated lyrics from CeCe Peniston and Foreigner and is about asking how exactly one raps with a mouthful of caps.

This evening was also the first time I heard Joanna Newsome. I was completely oblivious to her existence but George was already obsessed. I remember him describing her as 'a harp player with a voice like Lisa Simpson but who looks like, basically, my dream girl' or something like that. I was intrigued. He played me a few tracks from her first album The Milk-Eyed Mender and after initially being unsure about her voice I too fell in love with her. The Sprout And The Bean is lush and pretty. Just her, her harp and some backing vocals. She can really play that thing. As always with her, the lyrics have depth and room for many interpretations. If it is about abortion then it must surely be the most beautiful song ever on the subject.

A thing that happened around this part of '04 that is wholly inexplicable is this; Jentina. What was that all about? If she had just been a singularity that would've been weird enough but the subsequent beef between her and rising Grime MC Lady Sovereign made things even more outlandish. Full disclosure; when Bad Ass Strippa first dropped I was on board. I thought 'pretty white gypsy girl who raps? This should be interesting' and convinced myself not only that the single wasn't that bad but that it was actually good. My delusion is embarrassing. At any rate, quite why Lady Sovereign decided to take it upon herself to take shots at this aspiring pop sensation is unclear. What is clear is how savage a takedown she delivered.

Sov we had already heard earlier in the year on the awesome remix of Fit But You Know It by The Streets where she appeared with and upstaged other rising grime MC's Kano, Donae'o and Tinchy Stryder. She absolutely bodied that track. We were impressed, so I guess G had been keeping an ear out for her and it was with glee that he played me Sad Arse Stripah. She spat her 'nightmare', career-ending verses with ferocious vitriol. This is what Sov sounded like in her early years. It was astonishing and exciting. Chi-Ching (Cheque 1, 2) had the same energy and vibrance. G and I went to see her live a year or so later in Edinburgh on the same night that we'd seen Dizzee Rascal in Glasgow a few hours earlier and I remember she really sounded like the future and made Dizzee sound past it. And then she went on Celebrity Big Brother and collaborated with The Ordinary Boys and it all went to shit. Real pity.

Speaking of losing your edge, George and I were already fans of James Murphy's LCD Soundsystem limited output up to this point. Give It Up was still on heavy rotation for me and I was glad to hear new stuff by them. George played me a few versions of their latest tune Yeah. The Clap-a-pella mix seems to have disappeared from the internet but is exactly what it sounds like; a short 2 minute version of the song with just their voices, hand claps and little else to it. I love this version. He also played me the Pretentious mix which doesn't appear on the mix. It's 11 minutes long so I guess I opted to include the then monikered Stupid mix which later was dubbed the Crass mix which was only 9 minutes long to save space. It is the superior version to be fair. It's more immediate and varied as it builds steadily to it's house-y/techno-y conclusion. The MC5 referencing track by a band called Munk and featuring LCD's main man was also another sweet find by George. I never heard anything else by these guys but this song was great.

A lovely acapella cover of the Pixies song Mr. Grieves by TV On The Radio was a rarity George had discovered. Again, we were both already fans but as always George was diving deeper into their releases and finding hidden gems that he was more than happy to share with me. And I think the inclusion here of Tom Tom Club's much covered and sampled classic Genius Of Love would have come at the tail end of the night, when nice and drunk on red wine, we were just putting 'on our classics and we'll 'av a little dance, shall we?'. Presumably Annie's Chewing Gum which samples from it would've reminded us of how much of a tune it was. The compilation closes out with a further moment of gorgeous Joanna Newsome dreaminess with the wondrous Cassiopeia.

12 years later and I still love this collection. It really takes me back to that night. And the most enduring memory I have from that night is the epiphanic moment George and I shared when we first heard that new Snoop Dogg and The Neptunes collaboration. A further reminder of how amazing music can be. I'd heard there was a new Snoop track featuring Pharrell floating around from my friend Georgia. I think she asked me in a club if I'd heard it and I was like 'you mean Beautiful?' and she was like 'no, stupid! Its called Drop It Like It's Hot'. So a few nights later I told George we had to find it and he tracked it down fairly quickly. When it started we just stared at each other. Was this really a track built around someone clicking their tongue, a base drum, the sound of a spray can and someone saying 'Snoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooop'? And then that synth stab. Oh my god. It was unusual too that Pharrell took the first verse as the featured artist. Probably still his best verse ever. The whole thing was so eccentric and funky. Snoop slays on it too.

When it finished George and I burst out laughing. We were blown away. We started it again. I can't be sure how many times we played it that night, but it was a lot. I can't quite believe it was 12 years ago either. It still sounds like it was sent from the future. And the video, when it came out weeks later, wow. I was already a Neptunes fanboy but this cemented it.

I love how excited we both got. We had many moments like that. Too many to count but not enough that I don't miss having them now. George lost his battle with complications related to non-Hodgkins lymphoma on the 29th of March 2014. It had been a long struggle and he had fought so hard but he needed to rest. He needed peace. And so he left us. But for those he left behind, he left us with so much. He gave me more than he will ever know or understand. He was a friend like none I'd ever had before and one the likes of I'll never have again. But I still have these memories. These moments. And when a simple song or film or photo or CD can bring them alive in my mind so easily I know just how important they were.

The last message he sent me was about the first gig we went to together which was Asian Dub Foundation at The Garage in Glasgow and also him asking me to bring him a copy of Super Furry Animal's MWNG (I did). Right up to the end we communicated and related to each other through art and specifically music. And so it is still with regularity that after hearing a new record or seeing a new film or going to a gallery that I wonder what he would have made of it. And I wish I could ask him because I could never guess. He surprised me constantly and challenged me in all the best ways. He was a very beautiful and special man who enriched my life immeasurably.

To George; I will never stop missing having you around. I still think about you every day. I love you, pal. Rest easy.

That's What They Always Say

1. Fake Shark - Real Zombie - Designer Drugs
2. Hadouken! - Dance Lesson
3. Xerox Teens - My Favorite Hat
4. Bolt Action Five - Girl Howl
5. Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow
6. Stop Die Resuscitate - Hello
7. Pull Tiger Tail - Animator
8. New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream
9. Fake Shark - Real Zombie - Shame On You Scabs
10. Hadouken! - Superstar
11. Punk Bunny - 076 Slut (Remix)
12. Danananaykroyd - Totally Bone!
13. Dresden Dolls - Backstabber
14. The Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control
15. Matters Of State - Fraud In The 80's
16. The Deftones - Pink Cellephone ft. Annie Hardy
17. Pull Tiger Tail - Mr. 100 Percent
18. Hadouken! - Tune In
19. Untitled
20. Bolt Action Fiver - Spring Heel Jack
21. Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow (Nightmoves Remix)

Myspace dayz.

As far as I can recall Myspace would have been my first real experience of social media. As I'm sure it will have been for many. I never had Bebo and sometimes lurked various forums but wasn't a big contributor. But Myspace was something different. For me it was where I learned the rules and etiquette of digital interaction and where I first saw its value. 

In the beginning it was like the Wild West on there. Anything goes. That freedom was really exciting to this noob.  You could change the design of your page, the colours and add pictures. You could post blogs. Post photos. Post links. Start discussions. You could create an online persona that could be used as an avatar. You could talk to people you wouldn't normally be able to. People anywhere in the world. You could be provocative with out having to answer for it. Anonymity. And importantly you could choose how to soundtrack the whole thing.

Any artist could have their own page and upload tracks and then you could add one to your profile. You could change it as many times as you liked. Suddenly there was a platform where new artists could connect with a wide audience immediately. They could share songs with the world before they'd even played a single show. The whole process was flipped upside down and back to front. And it was horrible. And amazing. And great. And the worst. It was exciting and it was excruciating. Music executives must have been pretty startled to have so much of their power fall from their grasps in an instant. Again.

These were also the Mediafire dayz. The zShare dayz. The second evolution in the filesharing era. Napter and then Audiogalaxy and Soulseek and Limewire and the rest opened the floodgates. As soon as a song or album was available somewhere it was available everywhere. And for free. Completely illegally of course. Myspace was the Wild West, this was the high seas and piracy was rife. These new filesharing sites simplified things further. Name the music you wanted and you could more or less type it into Google followed by the words zShare or Mediafire and you'd find the mp3 of the song or a zip file of the album. Too easy.

Between all these sites it was all way too easy. For a music fan it was like being given the keys to the biggest record store on the planet and being told 'go ahead, take whatever you want, I'll grab a van and give you a hand'. From classic records to new demos by young artists, it was all in there. So much stuff and so much of it not good. In fact so much of it was terrible. With the capability to share without the filters of live audiences and record labels and producers everyone from the supremely talented to the tragically deluded were free to unleash their 'art' on the general populace. 

But that was part of the fun. You'd spend hours wading through garbage and then you'd hit upon something really special. When that happened if felt earned and personal. Your own little discovery. The digital version of digging in the crates.

The other week a friend asked me if the fact that I couldn't remember most of the tracks on a compilation I made less than 10 years ago says more about the disposable nature of music at that time or about how bad my taste was at that time. I told him I thought it was a bit of both. The massive explosion in availability and exposure to new music as it was happening made me get perhaps a little too excited too soon. Premature you could say. I was young, give me a break. Every new band or artist could potentially be the next greatest thing. But very few of these acts ended up holding my attention very long. I could easily be seduced by the idea of a band and convince myself that they were good for a short time before sobering up and realising that they were not.

Of all the acts on this mix I think only a few are still going with any kind of audience. Obviously The Deftones were big long before I made this mix in 2006 and continue to be, this song though is not their finest hour, just a curiosity being that it features Giant Drag's Annie Hardy on vocals. Gossip, a band that I for some reason always thought were called The Gossip, had released a couple of records prior but this was their big moment (however their Aaliyah cover is the best thing they ever recorded), they're still going but not as visibly as they once were. Klaxons have quietly worked away under the radar, largely forgotten. Same goes inexplicably for Hadouken! who as I've stated before are as terrible now as the ever were. I think New Young Pony Club are still about. As for the rest I have no idea and frankly have no inclination to find out. Most of the songs on here are fine at best or utterly forgettable or unlistenable at worst. Some of the tracks are untraceable online and that is a blessing to be quite honest. I may have the only copies in existence. I will guard them with my life. Don't want them falling into the wrong hands.

But ah, the Myspazz dayz eh?

Clay Shirky says that "Communication tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring". I think that was what was happening here. We got shown the vast possibilities and it was too much. We didn't know what to do with it so we did EVERYTHING. Oversharing and overindulging.  Dr. Ian Malcolm said it best when he said, and I'm paraphrasing, "you were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn't stop to think if you should". I think we've moved past this stage in the social media landscape and have gotten to a better place. Some of us have anyway. Some platforms are still used idiotically by morons but that's always gonna happen. Okay, scratch that maybe it hasn't gotten better but at least we've all calmed down a bit in the way we share and experience music, its a little more measured and level-headed now. Right?

Until Beyoncè releases a new song that is. Then everyone loses their shit. Me especially.