Very excited to have ‘A Matter Of Time’ featuring Izo FitzRoy - taken from my recent 'My Life At 45’ LP - appear on this stunning 'Back To Mine’ compilation from Fatboy Slim. An eclectic selection, as you’d expect from Norm, it’s super to be on a record alongside such legendary music from the likes of Betty Chung, Johnny Dynell, Biddu Orchestra and Alan Tew. I’ve been a fan of Norman’s since the 80s, so this was a big deal for me. They went to town on the vinyl too - 3 different colour ways, alongside good old black. Grab a copy now on Bandcamp!

Check out this rinky dink video of Norman delivering copies to buyers in Brighton too :)

Kicking off 2020 with a 45 minute all-vinyl guest mix for Oonops Drops on Brooklyn Radio.

My selection features a couple of brand new tracks from me, available on the ‘My Life At 45 - Part 4’ 7” out on Jalapeno Records at the end of January, and then a freestyle dig through my vinyl shelves to include a bunch of things I haven’t listened to or played out for a while, including three tunes from legends we sadly lost in 2019 - Dr John, Ginger Baker and Philippe Zdar. More info and tracklist below …

https://www.mixcloud.com/brooklynradio/oonops-drops-superfly/

https://www.mixcloud.com/brooklynradio/oonops-drops-superfly/

All my Ginger Baker albums live on a ‘Drums Of Joy’ shelf next to Louie Bellson, which prompted me to pick a track from the break-fest that is ‘Louie in London’, which in turn reminded me about the London Big Sound library LP that I found in a charity shop last summer for 30p. Don’t @ me about my record filing system…
More heavy drum action from MRR-ADM - taken from a 10” EP from 2008 featuring Malcolm Catto - another drumming legend. Had to work some Gang Starr in, a big influence when I first started DJing and again when I started producing - having a new album from Guru and Premier in 2019 was a wonderful surprise.

Here’s the tracklist for my set - which starts at around 47:30 - but you should definitely check the whole show!

Dr Rubberfunk - ‘Steppin’ In’ (Jalapeno Records - out 24th Jan 2020 on 45!)
Grover Washington - ‘Black Frost’ (Kudu)
Dr John - ‘Eleggua’ (Nonesuch)
Ginger Baker’s Airforce - ‘Let Me Ride’ (ATCO)
Louie Bellson - ‘King’s Road Boogaloo’ (Pye)
London Big Sound - 'Slow Moody Blues’ (De Wolfe)
MRR-ADM - B1 Untitled (White Label)
La Funk Mob - ‘Motor Bass Get Phunked Up (Electrofunk Remix) (Mo Wax)
U.F.O - ‘Cosmic Gypsy’ (Talkin’ Loud)
Stu Gardner - ‘Plutonium Heist’ (Super Disco Edits)
Gang Starr - ‘From A Distance’ (Gang Starr Enterprises)
Dr Rubberfunk - ‘Boom!’ feat. John Turrell (Jalapeno Records - out 24/01/2020)

Well, I haven’t done many of these album write-ups recently - maybe I should do some 45s instead, as they’re smaller … for those of you who are wondering what this is all about, here’s Part 1, with a handy preface explaining my vinyl blogging motives.

Anyway, here’s an album I picked up a few years ago and listened to a lot at the time, which is something I do with most new finds, but I’ve been re-visiting ‘Lady, Tell Me Straight’ recently and it’s still a great album to these ears. It’s a little different to the blues / jazz / funk albums I’ve posted so far, but feels like a soulful record to me.

I first came across Mike posting on the TapeOp magazine forums, which led me to his Bandcamp site. Back before the pound tanked and the USPS put their prices up, buying vinyl from the States was all the rage you know …

There’s a lot to love about this record, from the intimate small band recording - featuring pedal steel, trumpet and upright bass, among other things - to the carefully crafted and arranged songs. Great storytelling in the classic Americana tradition, timeless like the Band, Bruce Springsteen or Neil Young with amusing lyrics. Recorded on an 8track tape recorder with 2 microphones, there’s a wonderful ‘reach out and touch the band’ vibe, and it’s a great lesson in how a ‘lo-fi’ recording doesn’t have to mean 'badly recorded’. 

The artwork has the look and feel of a classic 60s jazz or folk record too, with the simple typography nicely complimenting the grainy monochrome cover image.

If you like the sound of this under appreciated gem I’d urge you to pick up the vinyl, still some available in Mike’s Bandcamp store.

Happy March folks! Izo’s album is out now and available from all good record shops, streaming services and digital stores! Exciting times.

Izo’s heading to Europe with her band this month, catch her on tour in France & Germany then back to the UK for shows in Brighton & London at the end of March. See http://www.izofitzroy.com for more info.

Shout out to @kcrw for featuring the amazing Hot Toddy remix of ‘Hope You Can Wait’ as their KCRW Tune Of The Day today, much appreciated!

‘Skyline’ - LP/CD/Digital

After I’d written the Robert Cray piece, way back at the start of last year, I remembered that somewhere I had a collection of vinyl labels and pasted-up label mechanicals, which included these Robert Cray Band ‘Don’t be Afraid Of The Dark’ album labels.

I found them again recently - while searching for something else, obviously - so thought I’d share some pictures with you.

In November 1990 I happened to be in Sydney, Australia, staying with friends of family friends, whose father worked in the print trade. We were happily doing the tourist thing around the harbour and so on, but one morning he mentioned he was off to the EMI pressing plant in Homebush, which was in the process of closing down. He was going to look at the printing presses - used for printing the record labels - with a view to buying them. Needless to say, even with only a burgeoning record collection at this stage, I jumped at the chance for a nose round an actual vinyl pressing plant!

We didn’t get to see the record presses, but the print room was littered with piles of labels, and even a few paste-ups, which I helped myself to. As a memento y’know.

My uncle is a graphic designer, and had his own printshop when I was a kid, so I’d spent lots of time around a noisy print room, learning to use a scalpel, and the smell of ink, glues and solvents is a formative part of my childhood. It was odd to be there in a huge print room with no machinery running, but the smell was exactly the same. I remember feeling quite unexpectedly homesick.

I wish I’d taken some photos of the EMI factory (maybe I did, I lost all the prints from this trip sometime in my university years) but for now, enjoy the varied label art of these early nineties Australian vinyl releases and re-issues. 

The plant (or the presses at least) were re-incarnated as Vinyl Factory Australia in the noughties, but has since fallen silent again as far as I can gather. Happy to hear from anyone who can help fill in the gaps in the EMI Australia factory history between 1990 and now!

Here we are, Part 6 already, and I only started this series a year ago. One day I’ll be something approaching prolific …

Anyway - in case you’d forgotten, it’s all about me trying to file my records autobiographically like that bloke in High Fidelity, and this month I thought we’d have a chat about, and a listen to, a recent album from an artist I’ve been following for a long time - Robert Cray. 

My route to discovering the Georgia-born guitarist came through my growing appreciation of electric blues in the late 80s, but although he toured the UK alot around this time, I didn’t get to see him live until I saw him with Eric Clapton at the Albert Hall in 1990.

Thus followed a spell of hoovering up as much of his work as I could get my teenage hands on, including his guest appearances with John Lee Hooker (on ‘The Healer’ and ‘Mr Lucky’ albums) and Eric Clapton (on ‘Journeyman’ & ‘24 Nights’ live) and even singing classic soul with Tina Turner (‘Live In Europe’)

Then, last summer I came across an article mentioning his Fender Custom Shop Signature Stratocaster, and it prompted me to see what else he’d been up to since my early 90s infatuation. I discovered ‘In My Soul’ had just been released on vinyl by blues specialists Provogue and it swiftly became a favourite on the turntables at Rubberfunk Towers.

A mix of blues & soul covers alongside Cray’s inimitable originals, it’s a really cracking record, with top quality playing and production (there’s even open drums for the #beatmakers!!) and smashing artwork too. 

Much as I really love his vocals (and I really do love his vocals), the surprise hit for me is ‘Hip Tight Onions’. You get two guesses from the title alone as to which band it sounds like, suffice it to say I wish it was on a 45 :)

For those following my ‘From The Collection’ playlist on Spotify, I’ve added a choice selection of tracks from ‘In My Soul’, plus some from ‘Midnight Stroll’ (with the Memphis Horns!), ‘Strong Persuader’ and ‘Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark’. Have a listen and get some soulful blues in your collection!

Whilst sorting out tunes for the next part of the riveting ‘From The Collection’ autobiographical odyssey that you’re avidly following here, I stumbled across this curio from the Rubberfunk Remix Archives.

I’d done a few remixes before this, some ‘on spec’, and at least one commissioned mix, but this was the first one to make it to vinyl. In fact, it was the first thing I’d had released on a ‘proper’ label - pre-dating ‘Harry The Guitar’ on Southern Fried Records by a good couple of months.

The Space Channel 5™ ‘Mexican Flyer’ 12″ is a proper oddity - a piece of 60′s big band library music, originally recorded by Ken Woodman and his Piccadilly Brass, with additional production then added by Dan The Automator, to be featured in a Sega Dreamcast game about a dancing space reporter from the future, and then remixed by me for the Silver Label imprint that Tommy Boy had just set up to release everything they liked that wasn’t hip hop. Needless to say, I was VERY excited to see my name next to Dan’s on the artwork. Tommy Boy and Dan The Automator?? Big-time fanboy business for me right there.

Props to Stuart Winterton and Glen Newsam at Tommy Boy for going out on a limb with an unknown producer. And paying me.

Check out the reply card - that ‘fix stamp here’ box was like a QR code for analogue emails back in 2000…

I didn’t ever get a Sega Dreamcast, or even a copy of the game, but the whole project was an interesting first excursion into the world of video game music tie-ins, more of which in a later post!

New Year, new instalment in my vaguely autobiographical wander round my record shelves! 

Back in the early part of the century, like many of us, I was spending a bit of time (OK, alot of time) in charity shops hunting for interesting records. Things to sample, to listen to, to learn from. But mostly to sample. I’d already found a couple of Peddlers albums and had become a swift convert to their Hammond-heavy trio sound when I started reading about Suite London, their 1972 album with The London Philharmonic Orchestra. Threads abounded on such sites as Vinyl Vulture (which became the equally splendid VG+) regaling the avid reader with tales of it’s orchestral grandeur, silky string arrangements and open drum breaks. But mostly the open drum breaks. A 50p holy grail it seemed.

When I finally tracked down a UK copy in all it’s gold-foil-lettered-cover glory, I wasn’t to be disappointed - what a great sounding record. Brilliant musicianship (this was the last Peddlers album with the original line-up of Roy Phillips, Tab Martin & Trevor Morais) and Roy’s suberb songwriting, combined with wonderful instrumentation, including lush orchestral sections specially composed by Peter Robinson (of Quatermass & later, Brand X fame). The album was recorded at Air Studios - a mainstay of UK orchestral recordings for over 40 years, whose future, in a disturbing twist of modern life, is now under threat from a neighbour who wants a swimming pool in his basement … 

I quickly began spotting the bits that others had sampled, and whilst I’ve never been averse to using a well-rinsed sample, so far this is a record I’ve kept away from the sampler. Although, listening to it again whilst writing this piece is certainly testing my resolve.

I’ve added a few tracks to the From The Collection playlist on Spotify, alongside some songs that have covered or sampl… erm, been inspired by the Peddlers - hope you discover some things you might not have heard before!

Oh yeah! I’m still rattling on about some records I’ve accumulated! 

In February 1992 I’d somehow got myself elected as Entertainments Officer at University (I remember being paralysed with fear and almost unable to speak at the Hustings) and was talked into playing some records in the Student Union for Rag Week or somesuch. That was probably my first ‘proper’ DJ gig, and set me on a path to having alot of late nights and blagging alot of records.

Having been buying records for a few years, I was aware of the concept of the ‘promo’ - but this was the first one I got sent later that year. It was very exciting.

I was already into Gilles Peterson’s Talkin’ Loud label by this point, picking up second-hand Young Disciples & Galliano promos, and Omar had been a bit of local hero (North Kent represent!) when he’d had a hit with ‘There’s Nothing Like This’ in ‘90/’91. Sleeve design on the records I was buying at the time was also having an impact, and the phrase ‘Typographics by Swifty’ was spotted with increasing frequency - not just on sleeves, but on flyers, and in the pages of Straight No Chaser magazine.

‘Swifty - Full Circle’, a retrospective of his work, is available to pre-order now - something of a must have if you’re interested in graphic design at all. Follow the link for a great write up on his work by Paul Bradshaw - former editor of Straight No Chaser.

Back to the record - both tracks on this 12″ used to get alot of play from me through the mid nineties - I’ve added Jus’ Reach (and a couple more Talkin’ Loud treats from that era) to my ‘From The Collection’ Spotify playlist - have a listen, and subscribe to get notified when new tracks are added.

Until next time, keep building your collection!