Sunday Morning 1980s Music…

A nice chill out tune to start with…

But this was always my favourite of their’s

I’ve probably posted that before.. and now to another 80s icon..

A bit of 80s soul…

My next door neighbour booked this 80s artist for his bar the other week…

Here is another pre-uni tune.. a little appopriate, eh? This was around when I started in Liverpool…

And now for two songs that will always be the Carnatic Bar…

Sorry. Music was better then. More depth!

Anyone Who Knows Me..

Would know that my favourite band / group / duo are the Pet Shop Boys. I have every album, and for a long time every single they did too…

So this Friday night, here are five Pet Shop Boys songs that remind me of things…

First.. Left To My Own Devices. Often played – 12″ single, in my room on the top floor of 11 Sandown Lane in 1988/9. The 12″ single is absolutely superb.

The next is one of my favourite songs, and will remind me of my holiday to Rhodes in 1988. I bought both versions of the 12″ single. Brilliant.

The third is the most recent, and it is actually a bloody good pop song… I think the album was pretty decent too, to be fair. I am glad after over 20 years they still have it in them.

The more I listen to this song, I am probably convinced it was their best. Not my favourite, but just a classic. It reminds me of the summer of 87. My first office job, my run-up to university, awaiting the release of Actually. Rick Astley kept this off the number 1 position. Dusty Springfield’s voice is superb. 22 years on.. still not dated. Not in my view.

And finally the most sentimental one. Many people are ashamed if their mum likes the same music as their kids. I wasn’t ashamed at all. I loved it. My mum really liked the Pet Shop Boys and always went and got the CDs for me if I was at work and unable to get them on their first day out. My mum once woke me up in the morning and said “I heard a new Pet Shop Boys song this morning…” I had no idea they were releasing one, and mum said it came from a West End show, and that she thought it the best one she had heard from them for years. She went out and bought it “for me”. Both versions. So, as people know how special mum is / was to me, this one is for her. And yes, I actually think it is one of their best too… but I can’t play it often because it always makes me think of her.. and you know what that means…

The Friday Night Playlist

Musical self-indulgence time..

First – I think Dancin’ Danny D’s dad worked in my department…

I have this 12″ single somewhere…. why on earth, I have no idea…

Ah, yes… Rankin Hall 1988. If you heard this tune, it was me and Jon Harris…

Myself and the Gabriel rather liked this tune too.. Fallows in Aintree…

Never trust a big butt and a smile indeed…and on to one of my favourite New Edition songs..

And some Johnny Gill, who I saw live supporting Janet Jackson… I owe this phase of my music life to a Liverpool lawyer…

It was a little off the student track, I can tell you…. so let me wander off it even more! After 7 were another group that I have the CDs in my collection

This was my favourite song of After 7’s

The album cover does not match here, but this came on my Ipod today. Forgot how good it was…

Gabriel certainly got me into quite a few bands – and Troop were certainly one of them. I got this CD for my 21st birthday! Not sure I like this remix much..

And so… after all that soul / rnb / swing, my music taste veered off to dance music… And here is one of the tracks that took me there… from Sasha’s GU 13 album. The greatest mix CD I have bought. CD 2 is in my top CDs ever.

More to follow…

A Peculiarity….

Ian Brown….

Just felt like posting it….

Swing It Teddy…

Oh yes. Didn’t take long. Back to Uni days…and the early years at work when me and Dennis used to go down to Stratford market at lunchtime to buy 12″ singles… when Martin introduced to me to all this stuff and got me into the swingbeat era…

I always thought Tammy Lucas had the most gorgeous voice… here she is with Teddy Riley on Is It Good To You

My favourite off the first Guy album.. “I Like”

My favourite off “The Future” – Her

On to another of my favourites of the era… Today… Him or Me..

Keith Sweat live – Teddy on keyboards…

Here is a Teddy remix of a Bobby Brown track – the most famous one he did was My Prerogative, but in this instance I’ve picked one off the second album…

Not a Teddy production, but I absolutely adore this song by former Guy member, Damion Hall… Chante Moore’s vocals are just amazing..

That’s it for tonight (thank heavens I hear you say) but when the music mood takes me

I my only wish is to satisfy you – I want to make this the best I can do…

UPDATE – I never knew Michael Jackson recorded this song with the writer, Bryan Loren, before..

And this was my favourite Teddy / Michael Jackson collaboration

Teddy and another of my all time heroes – Michael Jordan – with Michael Jackson in this..

More Music..

Still one of the great videos…

You are still a whisper on my lips
A feeling at my fingertips
That’s pulling at my skin

You leave me when I’m at my worst
Feeling as if I’ve been cursed
Bitter cold within

Days go by and still I think of you
Days when I couldn’t live my life without you
Days go by and still I think of you
Days when I couldn’t live my life without you

And on to another truly awesome track (live version). Peter Gabriel

Another live version, this time of Red Rain

Now onto UNKLE – and I love this track “Hold My Hand”

Back to the 80s, and Arthur Baker’s project Wally Jump Jr and the Criminal Element. I loved “Turn Me Loose” – pretty sure one of the lead vocals is Will Downing.

More randomness when I feel like it…

So Let Me Present…

Some more music…

First up – Linkin Park, or as they are alternatively known “the only band my brother got me into”

And my favourite song of their’s….

And not keeping in touch, I never knew they had a new song out!

New material out from one of my dance music favourites, Brian Transeau. Known as BT…

This is a “choon” from the olden days you may (or may not) know…

Talking of favourite artists with new(ish) material out. Here is a remix of Dirty Vegas’s “Pressure”…

And more brilliance with their remixed version of “Tonight”

And a classic old track by the boys… even if it has been cut for this clip

I’m in a music mood tonight….more set to follow

The Eraser

I had this Sasha remix of Thom Yorke’s single “The Eraser” on the CD on the way to work.

I absolutely love it – the original is a bit too Radiohead dull for me.

However, in light of some of the stuff in the office today, this lyric seems appropriate…

“are you only being nice because you want something?”

Here’s a snippet of the original…

However, here is a Radiohead song I don’t mind….

After an Interlude…Music Maestro

Ah yes…. A musical interlude….random, all over the shop… first up… A Dmitri one-time Karaoke Classic

More from the 70s, and this time it is Supertramp. I remember when I was a kid, I was always amused that this mob never appeared on the stage on Top of the Pops; this in the age before music videos…

Not a jazz fan, but the drummer in this played at the Cape May Jazz Festival, and we have an autographed CD by him too. Chembo…

From Jazz to, well, what is this really. But Adam Ant was dude, no doubt…

And a top tune from the newly reformed Dirty Vegas…

Next, an Ulrich Schnauss remix…

A track by Aussie dance maestro, Jaytech – this one remixed. I can really, highly recommend this album. Top tunes, top dance anthems.

Some Sasha with a surfing clip to accompany the tune, Coma..

The classic UNKLE track, In A State, to follow. Not sure it was Graham Gouldman singing this…was it?

Finally, a youtube clip of FEAR, by Ian Brown…. without the bicycle…

Belting Tune Of The Night….

As sung by Dmitri Old at Weddings, ill-attended pub gigs, but not by the Thames on Saturday…

Appropriate Tune Of The Night….

This will be necessarily cryptic, but…

If you leave a messageboard, don’t post, and people still pop off about you, is that normal behaviour. And then, when you’ve gone and don’t respond, you get the hots for someone else…

Although I hope they never read this site, here’s a tune to sum up the absolute charmers I left behind…

As Funky As The Sinking Of The Titanic…

No Lino, aka the tribute band to Jerry St Clair and Los Alanos (with a one-fingered bass player) live at Henley on 25 July 2009..

Risible stuff…

I’m Back. And I Want To Rant…

The holiday is over. The weather may be glorious and sunny, but not glorious and sunny enough that it can withstand me laying out on a sun lounger on Saturday - within 20 minutes we had thunder and lightning. Bob and Bonio shouldn’t bother with concerts. Send me out to Ethiopia or Sudan and I’ll turn the Sahara into a very wet sandpit.

Turned on BBC Breakfast news, where we had some odious fascist bint preening herself about how wonderful she and her fellow councillors were to enforce a ban on alcohol being drunk outdoors in Brighton. Coming from a town that employed the gestapo to enforce the most un-driver friendly parking restrictions known to man, I’m sure the Hitler wannabes are well and truly proud. The gurning idiot Richard Westcott suggested that the police had been enforcing the rules over-zealously, you know, by probably stopping a law-abiding citizen coming out of Tescos with a four pack of Stella in a carrier bag, but the preening Eva Braun was having none of it, saying she knew nothing of these “isolated incidents”. Missing the point entirely, she said that the council and the police had a great relationship. Which is nice. Maybe if the police had rounded up the drunken idiots in the first place as the law allows, then maybe, just maybe, someone who’d like a cold beer while lounging on the beach – and who is totally law abiding – could do so without the Waffen Brighton Council SS descending on them. As many have said, they’ve pretty much done all they can with smoking, so now it is the alcohol consumers they are coming after.

Anyone not in East London know where the “Eastway” is. Well, I know now. But I didn’t on Friday night at the end of a 12 hour drive down from Newtonmore in Scotland. According to the board on the North Circular, the Eastway was closed. I found out that it was the underpass between Old Ford and Leytonstone that takes M11/A12 drivers down to the Blackwall Tunnel. At 10:30 on Friday night it was shut. Now I know what Homerton and Hackney look like. I also know that the authorities who decided to close the thing at this time are fucking inconsiderate morons who assume that everyone who uses the major north-south London cross route will know what the fucking Eastway is, and for shutting the thing at a pretty busy time judging by the considerable queue. If I had five minutes with these pricks.

When we got home, our beloved gestapo Met Police were on helicopter duty, buzzing over area nice and low, nice and noisily, and nice and considerately at 12:30 in the early hours of Saturday morning. After a week of relative peace and quiet, this intrusion was most certainly not appreciated, given my eyes were popping out of my head, and the dog didn’t know whether it was coming and going. I’m sure Chopper Squad were doing invaluable work. Probably trying to find someone who drunk a shandy on Brighton Beach in contravention of the law!

Why are weather people warning us about the effects of heat by referring us to NHS Direct? In extreme cold, like we had in February, they weren’t referring us to the local council for help with our fuel bills, or snow ploughs are us to get us out, so why now? I mean, heat kills a lot more than cold, doesn’t it? Pricks.

Don’t even start me on Michael Jackson. Oh well, you did. I happened to admire a lot of his music, and some of the stuff not from the Thriller / Bad era. I liked the Dangerous album, which had some cracking tracks on by Teddy Riley, and also some of the later stuff too. I maybe glossed over all the lurid personal life stuff, which is a bit hypocritical, but as a musician, I had the utmost respect. He was a freak, no doubt, in all senses of the world. But really, the media went all Diana on us and the zombie populace followed with bells and whistles on. An amusing interlude came as I careered down the A12 on the way to the Eastway blockage. It was on a Radio 5 show hosted by Stephen Nolan. A level-headed gentleman did the decent thing in ringing in by saying the media were stoking up hysteria and that people who came on crying in grief at the loss of a remote, isolated, lunatic were not exactly reacting in proportion.

If you blame the media on these phone ins, watch out. Nolan got all prissy. The chap ringing in said the reaction had amused him. Nolan said what was amusing about the gut-wrenching reactions of people who had never met the bloody recluse (I’m paraphrasing). He then teed up someone from his Ulster show who was blubbing away. Proving the point to me, that these people are a trifle unhinged. As I said to the beloved “these people have evidently not lost someone really close to them…” We then had a breathless need for the mostly garbage line-up at Glastonbury to name check Michael Jackson, as if it actually meant something if they did. Why? Why does it matter if there is any reaction? Some no mark band made a stupid joke, which is a bit like Jimmy Krankie having a pop at Mike Tyson. Huw Cornwell said he wasn’t going to dedicate a song to Michael Jackson, showing how edgy he is at 94 years old. Someone who I never heard of laced a line of a Jackson song in, as if it was some momentous reaction rather than saying about the artist who did it “who?”.

No. Diana syndrome. A freak dies in mysterious circumstances. The freak’s family are going to play this for all its worth. And the actual importance of the bloke, as genius of his age, will be consumed in more freakery than could ever be imagined. I’m not so much amused, as bemused.

Later, for more of the same.

A Little Monday Music

Here’s one from the obscure pile. Dark Globe’s “Break My World”

Some Kanye West – with Daft Punk. You can’t knock Mr Bangalter….

And on the subject of Mr Bangalter…

ARMAND!

MORE ARMAND! SPIN SPIN SUGAR>>>>

And laugh if you want, but we all have a guilty pleasure, and I genuinely quite like this guy’s stuff. Manufactured maybe, but he’s not bad…

BT with another member of the bloke above’s group…

That’ll do for one night……

A Dmitri Music Recommendation

Dmitri Less Old and his wife, Sis-In-Law Dmitri purchased for me, for Yuletide a couple of CDs. More on Steve Smith’s opus in due course, but I am currently being royally entertained by the brilliant Jaytech tome, Everything Is Ok. Top quality dance/electronica from a fair dinkum Aussie.

Here is one of the better tracks from the CD called Pyramid.

And my favourite so far – Grey Horizon

The last is so dreamy and melodic, and is my regular play in the car to work.

Jaytech’s best tune is with Matt Rowan, though, and is called Tomorrow. No youtube link but do your best to find it on Itunes for a top quality dance track.

Some Observations From The Past Few Days

First Up – Thieving Bastards.

I had my wallet pinched in my local post office on Saturday. The little bastards, or maybe not so little, who used their grubby light fingers to either pickpocket me or take what did not belong to them if I left it on the counter for a split second are now up the princely sum of £20. I hope they use it to buy very poor quality drugs laced with a lethal substance which leads to them being in right trouble. I know that’s not very christian, but f*ck them, quite frankly. I am a clumsy clot, who has lost his stuff before, most notably in Australia two years ago, but this one was pretty damn sneaky. A kind woman found the wallet later, having been chucked in the road, and returned it to me, sans £20. There are some good people around. They hadn’t nicked my WindyBricks season pass, which was a relief of sorts. Nor did the thick f*ckers see a perfectly good gift card in there they could have helped themselves to. Most of the rest of the belongings, including all bank cards and credit cards had to be cancelled, so I am illiquid Dmitri with a begging bowl at the moment.

WindyBricks unexpected resurgence continued on Saturday with a last minute winner in Warsaw for the hard of hearing. The mighty bricks took a first half lead from the Chopping Explosionist, who chose Dresden over Warsaw, who equalled the record of a Norfolk Town with cuddly toys for the Windyones. They equalised. The winner was scored in the dying embers of the game when “Comes Alive” notched a vital couple of extra points in front of the Brick faithful. 2-1 and second behind the Tax Avoiding Jockeys, and back to a point above the concrete cow economists. The mighty dog chains are falling away on the back of another defeat, and when The Palace Team from the Railway Yard come to the Slightly Less Old Than Old Watts Stadium on Saturday, we may get the chance to vault the Tax Avoiding Jockeys, although I doubt it. Make sense of that, did we?

Meanwhile the Miami Dolphins continued their faintly ridiculous run to the play-offs with a third win on the bounce and our sixth in seven. This was completed by for the third game in a row preventing the opposition, this time the 49ers, from breaching our goal-line for a Touchdown. Good on ‘em, because the offense is spluttering like me in a dustcloud. Meanwhile the beloved’s Giants are suffering through injuries, most laughably including their wide receiver shooting himself in the leg. He goes by the name “Brains of the Outfit”. Pittsburgh, my tip at the start of the season, Houdinied their way out of another hole this weekend and look the worst team with a good record ever. Their defense is keeping them alive. The Colts are also on a roll, and could be a dangerous foe come play-off time, as Tennessee, the pace-setters, find it tough going at the moment.

Some quick reviews of things I’ve seen or read in the past week or so….

Film -

Bourne Ultimatum – yeah, yeah, it ain’t new, but I liked it. Well worthy of my attention while ironing the XXL Dmitri work attire.

Book -

Jeremy Bowen – War Stories (Book) – pretty good read, and quite honest about his times in war zones. How he got addicted to being in these godforsaken holes when shot and shell were all around, and how his outlook changed once a colleague got wiped out in the same car as him by the Israelis. I actually like the guy on the news, so he was going to get a pass in my eyes if it was slightly below par, but it was a jolly good read. Top show Jeremy!

CD -

Rogue Audio – Haphazard – Hmmmm. Not sure why I’m writing this because I haven’t really given this my full attention yet, but heard the last few tracks on the CD driving into the office today and was pretty impressed. They actually did a pretty good pared down version of Phil Collins’ “Take Me Home”, but their own compositions including the seemingly merged “Someone” and “Game Face” were very much worth a listen. I shall report back further should I have any comments. Global Underground, the dance label from which this came, have a pretty decent tradition of good CDs, and this isn’t bad at all.

Next on this many varied travel through Dmitri’s addled brain is – feeling sad. Next Thursday will be the 4th Christmas without my mum, and the 3rd without my dad. Every year it is supposed to get less painful, when in truth, it is probably hurting more now than it ever did. I am blessed to be married to a lovely American lady who is currently stuck over there due to the f*cking senseless stupidity of the UK visa system – come in Abu Hamza, you lovely person you – and I’m praying she’ll be here for Christmas, because without her, it’s going to be a shocker. I haven’t really felt like celebrating the last couple of years, and my government’s obstreperousness and tardiness means I’ll probably be “Ever So Lonely” this Christmas again. I pay my taxes to these people, and they control me. No mum, no dad, no beloved… it really is no time to be a depressed Dmitri!

I shall return with some comments on how the Yankees decided that sticking with youth and developing your young pitchers is only allowed to happen for one year before your knee jerks back up and frees the wallet from the trouser pocket. Come in CC. Come in AJ. Who wants to take the evil shilling of the mob from the Bronx next…..

Night night.

The Much Promised Random 80s Music Post

Okey dokey…

We’ll kick off with a 1984 hit for Killing Joke. This track is on Dark Side of the 80s but came back into prominence for me when Desyn Masiello weaved it into his Balance DJ Set…

Next I am going back to a chart this week in 1982… Random as it is. Number 1 on this day was this…

I was never that much of a fan of the Jam. This came straight in at number 1 in the days when this was hardly heard of. Now it happens virtually every week. If anyone cares about charts any more. But there were some more interesting tracks.. Take the number 7 track…

I’m up the bloody tree…. terrific stuff. More from the 4 December chart in 1982…. At number 27, pulled out totally at random, is that British band who made it big in the States, and you hear them at every 20/20 or limited over game in England. Supertramp.

Enough from a random chart. Back to a song I liked now, and it is a band who released one album as far as I know…

These random posts are going to be like this – one I like at the start, one I like third from the end, a soul “classic” (in my eyes) penultimately, and one by the duo I still respect as the electronic pioneers they are still today in the pop world.

The Soul favourite comes from Will Downing. A Love Supreme.

And the Pet Shop Boys track is their first big time hit…

And you can’t get much more random than this….

Muppets!

I don’t know why, but this made me chuckle. To laugh on a Monday morning is a miracle!

Sunday Afternoon Music Session..

Lots of work to do around the house, so music goes on as the sport does not appeal this afternoon.

First album on is… Jacques Lu Cont – Fabriclive 09.

Any album that mixes Royskopp’ s Remind Me, Into Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra” and then into the Eurythmics “Sweet Dreams” is pushing it…

You ALL know the Strauss piece of music if you are of a certain age… think Space Rockets..

Oh, this is the Royskopp track if you are bothered…

You can’t have Royskopp without Epie. No way…

Back to Jacques Lu Cont and track 14 is Gusgus “David” – another belter…. the mix on the fabriclive album isn’t on youtube, but here is a version

Sorry for this self-indulgent claptrap… more to follow!

Wednesday Night Music Time

More random music. First up a great track which I will now always associate with a boat roaring back from San Pedro (Belize) to the Norwegian Pearl. I was singing along to this as we zoomed over the Caribbean Sea at the front of the boat. It is also the only band my brother has ever got me into..

And this track will always remind me of the drive on route 1 south in Florida as we drove towards Key West on one of the most spectacular stretches of road in the world (up there with the Cook Highway in North Queensland and the Great Ocean Road in Victoria). A beautiful track by the brilliant Hybrid. Sometimes dance guys really want to be classical composers!

Next up a great video to a top track, which I was introduced to by a great cricketer who came to our work, called Dan Colquhoun. We lost touch, but cheers for lending me the DJ Shadow CDs, sir….

DJ Shadow used to be part of the dance collective UNKLE. This is one of my favourite tracks from their last album, War Stories. One of the few artists I will purchase any album by as soon as possible….

And for the last two tracks by Linkin Park.

I am….

A little Unconfident…

So to one of my favourite songs of my life…

I don’t know what’s worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream
I don’t know why I instigate
And say what I don’t mean
I don’t know how I got this way
I know it’s not alright
So I’m breaking the habit
I’m breaking the habit
Tonight

I don’t want to be the one, the battles always choose….