January 16th, 2004 6:21pm
Loose Joints "Pop Your Funk" - This was recently...
One Two Three Dance Energy
Loose Joints "Pop Your Funk" - This was recently released as a 12" promo for the new World Of Arthur Russell compilation on Soul Jazz. This was only ever released as a privately pressed 7" single, and is one of the rarest songs in Russell's discography. It's also one of the best that I've heard. It sounds very loose and perhaps even improvised. The arrangement is extremely sparse; there's very seldom anything in the mix other than vocals, drums, and one other instrument, usually an organ. It may not sound like much, but it's a very compelling track. I'm loving it; I've played it at least eight times today already.
Tiga "Burning Down" - I've been meaning to post this song for a few weeks now. The phrase "dancefloor anthem" is a bit cliched, but that's pretty much exactly what this is. London's burning down down down down down down. New York's burning down down down down down down. This is one of the songs which makes me most want to get back into live party DJing - it's been a while since I've done anything like that, and I miss it a lot. I've got to say, though, that if I played this and it killed the floor for some stupid reason, I'd be heartbroken.
Loose Joints "Pop Your Funk" - This was recently released as a 12" promo for the new World Of Arthur Russell compilation on Soul Jazz. This was only ever released as a privately pressed 7" single, and is one of the rarest songs in Russell's discography. It's also one of the best that I've heard. It sounds very loose and perhaps even improvised. The arrangement is extremely sparse; there's very seldom anything in the mix other than vocals, drums, and one other instrument, usually an organ. It may not sound like much, but it's a very compelling track. I'm loving it; I've played it at least eight times today already.
Tiga "Burning Down" - I've been meaning to post this song for a few weeks now. The phrase "dancefloor anthem" is a bit cliched, but that's pretty much exactly what this is. London's burning down down down down down down. New York's burning down down down down down down. This is one of the songs which makes me most want to get back into live party DJing - it's been a while since I've done anything like that, and I miss it a lot. I've got to say, though, that if I played this and it killed the floor for some stupid reason, I'd be heartbroken.
1/16/04 7:53 pm
There’s NO WAY “Burning Down” would kill a floor. Love it.
1/16/04 8:24 pm
Was it what you were excited about? The other thing is going to wait til next week, probably. (Sorry to be so cryptic, everyone on earth except for Paul)
1/16/04 8:50 pm
Yeah, the Tiga track was it (don’t even remember what the other one was now).
1/16/04 8:54 pm
That shall remain a mystery now!
As for killing a floor: you never know, it depends on the room. I remember being soooo excited to play “Rock The Parti” by Gold Chains a while back, I had thought that it would go over really well, but it totally vacated the floor and I had to pull it off two minutes in. I was crushed! I was vindicated a year later, when a friend of mine played it at his club night in Brighton, and it went over really really well. But I wasn’t there!
1/16/04 9:56 pm
‘burning down’ is great - i’ve heard it out and the kids all seem to love it… we’ll see the next time i try playing it out i guess
1/16/04 10:49 pm
that is the worst feeling ever - when something that you think everyone should be going bonkers over just kills the floor. it happened to me last spring and totally threw me off. i ended up trying to compensate for it by dropping two of my unfuckwithables in a row, which was not a good idea. at least i composed myself and rebounded later on in the night.
1/16/04 10:50 pm
Out of curiosity, James - what bombed? And what were the two unwithables?
1/16/04 11:48 pm
it was an indie-rock party, so i wasn’t very diverse. some song by ride (maybe “taste”?) didn’t go over well at all - i mean, totally cleared the floor. then i pulled out “common people” by pulp and “velouria” by the pixies. still no action, and i was losing my mind over that.
1/16/04 11:50 pm
Well, if it was a really indie crowd, it may not have been your fault at all.
1/16/04 11:56 pm
I don’t get “indie” crowds, to me, it seems like half the time they don’t seem indie at all!
1/17/04 12:06 am
What do you mean by that? I’m not sure if I understand you.
1/17/04 12:15 am
Sorry, it might just be around my area. But I’ve noticed that bands like Pavement/GBV will get almost no reaction when played. Almost anything new, or in fact “indie” will get no recognition. Only recognised bands and classics (Smiths/Joy Division/Velvet Underground/Datsuns/Strokes etc) get any sort of response. It just strikes me sort of odd, that those who strive to be indie, just sort of aren’t.
Sorry, this is all just in my head right now because a new “indie” club has opened here, and I was looking at their playlists and it worries me.
1/17/04 12:21 am
It depends. I’ve been in GBV and Pave crowds where the fans were going totally apeshit the whole night. In NYC, there’s a lot of really hardcore GBV fans, so they all come out and get really drunk and it can be really cool.
One thing to consider is that indie rock is mostly popular with really shy selfconcious kids, so you can’t really expect them to be too animated.
1/17/04 12:39 am
Oh, it’s totally not that at all. Seeing a dancefloor clear when Stereo comes on is just plain upsetting. And that’s if you can get it played! I think here, there’s a sort of indie trend at the moment, and they just haven’t heard of a lot of the other stuff. Mainly here - and this is me being terribly general - it’s a lot of scarf wearers who will go wild for the Thrills, combine that with the most undaring djs (the same songs every week, they will never play anything they don’t know the reaction to).
An example being me asking for the yyy’s to be played when they first came out, and being told to ask for something “more mainstream”. Of course now it is a staple.
So what we get is any popular current guitar band, mixed with oasis and other safe bets. It’s more Dandy Warhols and Offspring indie, y’know?
1/17/04 12:52 am
Aw, that didn’t come out how I meant it to at all! Hopefully I don’t seem like an indie snob, I’ll just say that all the indie nights here are very “nme approved” and that if you try to get anything else played, you will fail. It’s limited.
But I think I should end this before we have to discuss what is and isn’t indie!
1/17/04 12:56 am
yeah, i know what you mean. i use “indie” very lightly though. at the party i bombed at, i saw what people were wearing and made assumptions. so yeah, partially my fault, but it was a dimitri from paris remix that got everyone jumping about a half-hour later. so i now forget the stereotypes when i dj.
1/17/04 1:02 am
I dream of playing Beyonce* at indie nights, to see the distaste and hurried rush for the bar.
We get nothing so eclectic here, but if you’re lucky you might get a James Brown track (advertised as “soul” on the flyer).
* “Crazy in love” straight in to “Miss Teen Wordpower”. You know it makes sense.
1/17/04 1:05 am
Even after all this time, I still get confused when people in the UK say “indie” cos it’s not quite the same as when people in the US say “indie.”
Eee. The Thrills. Talk about a misleading name!
1/17/04 1:24 am
“Pop Your Funk” was indeed pretty much improvised–it was beats from “Love Dancin’” (an unreleased version of “Is It All Over My Face”), cut up and reassembled, with vocals and what I’m guessing is a cello part by Arthur R. added.
1/17/04 2:01 pm
Suede, “indie crowds” in Spain are exactly the same as the ones you are describing. “Almost anything new, or in fact “indie” will get no recognition. Only recognised bands and classics (Smiths/Joy Division/Velvet Underground/Datsuns/Strokes etc) get any sort of response.” That’s the Madrid so-called indie scene!
1/17/04 2:41 pm
Matthew,
Totally off-topic: I downloaded Inca Rag/Name Game off here whenever you put it up (a month ago? more?). And yet I still had no idea what your new ‘Pulling an H. Singh’ banner meant. Today, in the shower, I started singing the Furnaces–”I was listening to classic VH…” and got it, of course.
What’s weird is that I wasn’t listening to the actual song and heard the line–I had already memorized the lyric, i just hadn’t put it together yet…Good times, good times.
1/22/04 10:04 pm
sorry while I geek out -
actually - it’s not the 7″ version of POP YOUR FUNK - it’s the 12″ version which was on the B side of the original release of
It’s All Over Your Face - the 7″ is even better and has 2 mad mixes one really out there and one even funkier than the 12″ mix
very hard to find and it came with a hand silkscreened cover …