far cue? well you can far cough too ...

It's one of those very odd days today. After a good night touting for work at Hartcliffe Community Centre today I'm sitting and anticipating. Wulf is down in Taunton hospital having an eye op and I won't be going down till 2.

In the meantime I'm at a serious loose end and at risk of hitting very high sugar levels. So think of this post as a sort of therapy.

When I moved down this way about 7 years ago I kept seeing Far-Cue mentioned. I liked the pun in the name and that it was lost on the stolid burghers of Frome who left their posters up all over town and I thought the Anarchy A in their name was hilariously provincial (being a veteran of two Poll Tax Riots where Class War stirred up trouble - and quite rightly!)

And then there was the van - a wreck to rival the worst I've ever owned - but a superb advert for their worldview. And an excellent bit of in your face marketing.

Chances are I'll never see Far-Cue live. They don't like DJs, but then neither do I (except for Trin of course!) They'll not play the Louisiana I suspect, but will keep hitting the smaller places round Frome.

And this is my little Far-Cue anecdote - I know where they live. And their little house in Frome looks lovely - all trinkets and big cushions and fishtanks. Good luck to them and their big slap in the face to all the boring little nobody middle-class types and rich-boy DJs who would look down their noses at them. I for one envy them! And I may just play one of their songs at a disco one day ...

le snippets from the mind of a DJ

"I could be brown
I could be blue
I could be violet sky
I could be hurtful
I could be purple
I could be anything you like
Gotta be green
Gotta be mean
Gotta be everything more
Why don't you like me?
Why don't you like me?
Why don't you walk out the door"

Mika 'Grace Kelly' 2007

Last night a DJ saved my life... if only. Things are quiet on the Disco front. We did have 2 gigs this month. Two birthday parties. One for the younger element and one for teens. Both were really successful and fun. Every time we go out we learn more stuff. That's what I like about DJing. That you do learn every time you gig.
The younger disco were full of praise for our party skills... come on you lot. You're talking to a party expert.I love parties!
We got tickets for the NME awards tour in Bristol. The Automatic, Mumm-ra, The Horrors and The View. The View are at number three in the charts with 'Same Jeans' which is pretty brilliant. The charts are so dominated with reality TV trash. It's heart warming to see something really new get in there at the top.
I am also loving Mika. He took a while to seep into my consciousness but he's now in there. I love his wacky style and voice. He's destined for good things as long as he doesn't sell out to commercialism.
And finally a big up to the wonderful CSS. They are rarely off our decks. 'Lets make love and listen to death up above" I wish!

celebrity suckles songstress

The music community is always awash with rumours, but the current one doing the rounds is that sultry Latino songstress Lovefoxxx of Brazilian superstar dancefloor fillers CSS is doing the horizontal samba with none other that cyclops-eyed chest-waist sumo astronomer Patrick Moore!

Rumours hardened when drinkers at Patrick's local, The Pulsar, in Selsey, West Sussex were treated to the astronomer's tuneless rendition of 'Fuck Off is not the Only Thing You Have to Show' on karaoke night last Thursday. He was then spotted slipping to the ladies toilet with a 'young lady' in tow, only to emerge minutes later with his trousers round his waist, the equivalent of round his ankles on a normal, non-astronomical, person.

CSS are a fast rising act, drawing on South America's growing confidence with dance music and Brazil's natural zest for life. No chance of seeing these fuckers at the Louisiana - they're playing major venues right from day one in the UK, suggesting that CSS are a marketing man's dream as well as a fave of all forward-thinking DJs - as well as Sir Patrick.

But if you can't afford tickets for the Glasgow Exhibition Centre then you can catch Lovefoxxx on the next Sky at Night, where she'll be presenting a five minute talk on 'The Search for Dark Matter' as well as performing an acapella version of 'Artbitch'.

charity shop warning!

Like most 50 year old middle class white males I consider Tupac Shakur to have a lot to say to me. So I was over the moon when I picked up a copy of his greatest hits double CD at a local charity shop.

I rushed home to listen to my latest find but was disappointed. Tupac seemed to have a rather listless, one might almost say female, voice. And rather than hard rapping tunes boasting about bitches and having a bundle with Notorious B.I.G it was all girlie songs. So I checked the CD and it was a Brandy CD. Took me three songs to realise!

Being a double album I grabbed the second CD and my heart sank. It was a CD-R with 'Daniel Bed' written on it. Oh bugger, some 19 year old spotty student called Daniel (not Dan or Danny - middle-class alert!) and his bedroom tracks. But I'm not narrow-minded so I had a listen. It took one bar for me to realise that 'Bed' was short for Bedingfield. HORROR TROSS ALERT!

But I may just play a Brandy track one night ...

brassey and the swiftmobile

One of our secret weapons in the battle for disco supremacy is the Swiftmobile (the 1925 supercharged model above) which will cut through any weather and conditions to get us to the show on time. We've also got two back-up vehicles, including a posy Escort Cabriolet, but the Swiftmobile is our number one disco carrier. So if you are wary about whether the DJ(s) will turn up on time book us! Most of your poncey London or Bristol DJs wouldn't even be able to change the gears or release the handbrake in the Swifty!

selsey tramway

The Selsey Tramway was possibly the most ramshackle of all the Colonel Stephens lines, though in theory with a cathedral city at one end and a seaside resort at the other it should have been successful. But rather than becoming another south coast branch line it stayed independent right up to closure in 1935.

I remember cycling there when I was about 15, a 40 mile round trip. I found the remains of an embankment near Pagham, and that was it.

Years later I got involved with the Selsey Tramway Society which had excellent plans to restore the line using Parry Railcars as well as taking freight. It was buzzing for a year or so, but I moved away and the Society seemed to vanish from the face of the earth.

So Selsey still struggles with the ancient road, waiting for the tram to return. Perhaps a few brave souls out there will revive this line that promised so much but only really appealed to a few nostalgists first time round. The biggest stumbling block to successful restoration however is probably the rising sea level, an irony not lost on this writer!

N.YE. F.U.N

New Years Eve was brilliant fun.... yep the word was fun. That's what I love about DJing. That the whole event is unpredictable and bloody enjoyable. OK the setting up is hard work, but Brassey has it done to a fine 15 minute art. Then I get to play all the tracks I love for the evening.
NYE was a bit different. The clientele were merry, actually rather classy. One had a real kilt on. Then there was the mix of locals who turned up dressed as superheroes. Super girl and wonder woman with thigh high boots. Batman who really wasn't the shape for the Lycra. Least he was game.
Then some villagers out for the night, not knowing what to expect.
The classy contingent went upstairs for a gala dinner. They left their kids who'd had dinner earlier. I was gravely told by one 8 year old that they'd only had 8 chips on each plate. They weren't impressed.
So we entertained for an hour.... did they want The Pussycat Dolls and Cha Cha Slide? Feck off. They wanted The Frattelis and The Kaiser Chiefs. The 6 year old in white cotton was terribly frustrated I wasn't playing cutting edge NME new bands.
Midnight came but without a TV the countdown was hazy... oh well the talking clock at least told us when 2006 ended and we launched into Andy Stewart's Auld Lang Syne. The room burst into song and dance and drunken kisses and celebration. Then we did something that we'd never one before. A whole hour of total party. 70's 80's 90's Le Chic, Abba, Bobby Brown, Celebrate good times COME ON!
They lapped it up and the room was packed. So, rethink guys... was this tross? No way. This was fun, this was giving them a damn good night, reading the crowd, playing them what they needed. Then we slipped in what we like to play and the night ended on a high.
So our New Years resolution? To do more of what WE want to do. More DJing. To explore more new music. To be the best.
Not much to ask.
Loves you Brassey.

into 2007

So who do Brassey and Trin think are going to break into the big time in 2007?

Forecasting's always a dodgy strategy, especially on a blog, but we reckon The Gossip, The Twang, Hot Chip, CSS and Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. are headed for the top, with outsiders Mumm-Ra perhaps surprising us all (except me and Trin!)

And if The Horrors add content to style they may join the elite few.

On the dance front I'm hoping for a harder more danceable year with less whooshes and wimpy vocals and a dance music that actually says something. Wishful thinking no doubt!

a big number two

Sometimes it's fun to wonder how the world would have been if things had just been slightly different. If Midge Ure's Ultravox had trounced Joe Dolce to the number one spot back in 1981 how would our lives be different?

Rather than walking around in pork pie hats demanding 'what's the matter you, gotta no respect?' would we be dressed in casual suits with Star Trek sideburns muttering 'it means nothing to me' whilst looking wistfully into the mists around the Schonbrunn Palace on a wintry afternoon?

Midge, the only singer named (appropriately) after a perennial and diminutive Scottish pest, would today be famous throughout the world, flying his own jet accompanied by literally thousands of scantily-dressed models, rather than chundering around Wiltshire in a twenty-year old Austin Allegro bothering anyone who looks in his direction with a rheumy-eyed exposition on how he knew Bob Geldof and hated Joe Dolce.

Joe Dolce meanwhile would be sleeping with the fishes in Sydney harbour rather than flying his own jet accompanied by literally thousands of scantily-dressed models.

My point? There are two - firstly that the actual content of the universe depends on tiny random events with an infinite number of possible outcomes (allowed in the multiverse or many universe models of quantum physics), secondly that there are two types of tross - type 1, which includes Vienna, the Macarena, Cha-Cha Slide etc, playable at a disco IF the crowd needs to be dragged on to the dancefloor and where there are no real music fans present, and type 2, which includes Agadoo, Pink Floyd, the Birdie Song, Bon Jovi and Cum-By-Ya, which should carry the death penalty if played under ANY circumstances.