Haunted dancehall – dancing to the twisted sounds of ZE Records

The story of the famous No Wave, Post-Punk and Mutated Disco label starts back in 1978 when Michael Zilkha, a wealthy heir to England's Mothercare retail empire, working in New York and of Lebanese descent, was keen on starting a record label that married punk with disco. He had purchased the publishing rights to a song called Disco Clone, a ditty by Ronald Melrose, a fellow Harvard student of his wife Cristina Monet.

When Michael bought Disco Clone, I said, That is, without doubt, the worst song I have ever heard, recalls Cristina. It is so bad that the only way you could record it would be as Brechtian pastiche. And Michael said, Do you want to give it a shot? And so it happened.

Zilkha persuaded his wife to record a song under the name of Cristina called Disco Clone, an eccentric pastiche dance record which featured the uncredited Kevin Kline trying to seduce the breathy Cristina.

After that one, Zilkha started a recordlabel with Michel Esteban who was the French owner of the Paris punk shop Harry Cover (a pun on haricots verts) and the magazine Rock News. He had moved to New York with his partner Lizzy Mercier Descloux, to become part of the punk and emerging post-punk music scene. In 1977, Zilkha and Esteban were introduced to each other by John Cale who went on to produce the single. Pretty soon Disco Clone became the first release on the new ZE label (the Z from Zilkha and the E from Esteban) and the rest is history.

Disco Clone would go through several incarnations (as PC from Music From The Third Floor pointed out), prompting Blackwell to dub it Island's most expensive failure, but its charms didn't escape notice. Melody Maker called the record artfully dumb, anointing it Single of the Week.

Disco Clone #2

Thanks to PC, who was so kind to upload them for me, the two early versions from 1978 and the b-sides from the second re-release.

Disco Clone #1 (English version)
Disco Clone #1 (French version)

Disco Clone #2 (disco mix)
Disco Clone #2 (instrumental)

Ballad Of Immoral Manufacture (aka Disco Clone #3) (final and best version if you ask me, from Doll In The Box)

Disco Clone became a cult success and encouraged ZE to release a proper full-length album by Christina in 1980. She soon became the princess of ZE Records but she was destined for greatness even before she ever cut a record. She attended Harvard and London's Central School of Drama. While working as an apprentice theatre critic at the Village Voice, she met her future husband, fellow writer Michael Zilkha. She had a keen mind, biting wit, and a model's beauty. With her dramatic training, Cristina had no problem playing a disco bimbo with a proper detached decadent upper class disdain to colour the pastiche.

Cristina’s career barely lasted a half-decade, despite the initial success. Her legacy? Some brilliant singles, two albums and above all praise from the likes of Siouxsie Sioux, Blondie and Madonna.

Christina’s first album, Doll In The Box, was produced by Kid Creole and contained poker-faced covers of the Beatles' Drive My Car and Peggy Lee's Is That All There Is? (if I’m not mistaken this famous song is one of Randy Newman’s first jobs as an arranger).

Jungle Love
Don't Be Greedy
Blame It On Disco
Drive My Car
Is That All There Is

Cristina's second album, Sleep It Off, was produced by Don Was and released in 1984 with a sleeve design by Jean-Paul Goude (a year before he used the same idea for Grace Jones). Again her lyrics dryly detailed a world of urban decadence, but the record flopped, and Cristina retired from the music industry.

What a Girl to Do Remix
Don't Mutilate My Mink


The producer of the first album was August Darnell (aka Kid Creole) who would turn the following years into one of the key figure in this spectacular outburst of extreme sounds filling the dancefloor. As singer, composer for his own Coconuts and arranger for a lot of the artists from the Label.

[Apparently some visitors are really reading this stuff here, because PC from Music From The Third Floor caught me making a few mistakes and assumptions about the Cristina kickoff of ZE and because he knows ‘a bit about the ZE label’ as he states, he was so kind to help me out on this with a few comments…
Disco Clone was in fact the first two releases on ZE. The initial one, while performed by Cristina (Monet), wasn't credited to her... the cover simply states 'Disco Clone' and 'Produced by John Cale'. It features an English and a French version of the song. There are different theories regarding who supplied the male narration on this release - it's not Kevin Kline, and many seem to think it was John Cale himself - I have it from a 1984 interview with Cristina however (published in The Face) that it was writer/socialite Anthony Haden-Guest.The second version is obviously more famous; backed by Chris Blackwell and Island Records it was re-recorded and re-released, now properly credited to Cristina, and this time featuring a pre-stardom Kline. Production was by Zilkha, Cristina and Bob Blank. Various different mixes exist; off the top of my head there's a 'Disco Mix', an instrumental version, and one retitled 'Ballad Of Immoral Manufacture' which turned up as the b-side on a later single.Cristina subsequently went on to make far superior records; her version of 'Is That All There Is', the Christmas song 'Things Fall Apart' and her second (and last) album 'Sleep It Off' are all brilliant.

The ZE Christmas album also exists in two versions; the first one was released in 1981, the second came the following year with a slightly altered track listing.]

Darnell began his career in the sixties and formed a band together with his half-brother. In 1974 they reformed under the name of Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band. This outfit gained them their first success, reaching gold and Top 40 status with song like Cherchez La Femme and Sunshower – one of my all time favourites – a song that M.I.A. covered for the first single of her debut album last year.
Subsequent releases could unfortunately not match this initial success. Darnell began producing for other artists before adopting the name Kid Creole and forming The Coconuts in 1980. He gathered a trio of female backing vocalist/dancers, including his wife Adriana Kaegi, and an ace band including vibraphone player Andy Hernandez aka Coati Mundi and legendary Jamaican drummer Winston Grennan.
Their first releases were heavily disco-influenced and critically well-received but not commercially successful. Darnell was recognized as a clever lyricist and astute composer, arranger and producer. Their first success was Coati Mundi's Me No Pop I, though not originally on one of the albums. It became a Top 40 hit single.
The real breakthrough came in 1982 with the classic threesome Stool Pigeon, Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy and I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby. Next releases turned out to be relative commercial disappointments again, despite the single There's Something Wrong in Paradise reaching the Top 40.

Coati Mundi – Que Pasa, Me No Pop I
Kid Creole & The Coconuts – Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy
Kid Creole & The Coconuts – I'm A Wonderful Thing, Baby
Kid Creole & The Coconuts – Something Wrong in Paradise (Larry Levan Remix)

Also in that first year, Esteban’s partner Lizzy Mercier Descloux, a talented artist, made some recordings under the name of Rosa Yemen which were released on ZE Records as well.
Lizzy Mercier Descloux was self-taught as a guitarist, but revealed herself as a supreme minimalist, concentrating on spindly, single-note lines combined with wrong-note harmonies and funky rhythms.
The following year ZE released her solo debut Press Color. Although the record had poor sales, she toured the USA and Europe. Being the partner of the boss has some advantages offcourse but luckily for us, because she went on pioneering World Beat with great effect on her following albums.

ZE Records quickly became a hip label with artist like Alan Vega, Arto Lindsay, Aural Exciters, Michel Bassignani, James Chance + The Contortions or James White & the Blacks, Coati Mundi, Cristina, Don Armando's 2nd Av. Rhumba Band, Garçons, Kid Creole & the Coconuts, Last Men, Lio [Lio wasn't part of the original ZE line-up. Her 80's output was however re-released by the label when Michel Esteban relaunched it in 2003. He initially co-produced her 1986 album 'Pop Model'], Lisi, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Caroline Loeb, Lydia Lunch, Marie & les Garçons, Mars, Bill Laswell’s Material, Miss OD, Optimo/Twitch, Ron Rogers, Suicide, The Rotations, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Was (not was),…

Really a beautiful line-up. The music Z+E were listening to, at this point at which music, art, cinema, literature, and fashion were closely integrated, was a mixture of the New Wave of Talking Heads and Television, together with the disco-funk played in clubs like The Paradise Garage and Studio 54.

As a self declared leftfield funk/disco label, ZE Records set out an agenda to bring the sounds of the New York underground together with Disco from the Paradise Garage to create something totally new.
Disco music, in its early form, was a multicultural mix of sounds, styles and grooves aimed squarely at freeing one's mind so the ass could ostensibly follow. Far from dying off, it retreated back underground once the masses got tired of the Gibb bros., Travolta’s and brain-dead dance formula their night fevers had come to represent.
It’s in this atmosphere where, in spite of all the formula and tackiness, disco's hedonistic instincts on the dance floor attracted a certain bizarre crop of wily punk, no wave, and dedicated avant-garde artists.
The people at Ze Records knew that disco in the hands of Larry Levan, Arthur Russell, West End Records and Prelude was subtly dislocating the musical norm in as spectacular and adventurous ways as anything emerging in the, back then, more respectable Rock scene. Under the influence of punk and the DIY-attitude labels as factory and Rough Trade were building the foundations of New Wave on the remains of the flash of heat and anger that punk was. ZE Records was destined to bring this attitude to the dancefloor.

Every producer or record label needs a Christmas album. Phil Spector knew it and ZE Records knew it too. So in 1981 all the American artists on Ze came up with a special Christmas track. Cristina, with the two Was brothers, went to Detroit to record Things fall Apart, while David & Don Was recorded Christmas Time in Motor City with their own band Was (Not Was). August Darnell drew inspiration from New York for his Christmas in River Side Drive. Chris Butler composed a piece for his band The Waitresses entitled Christmas Wrapping, later covered by The Spice Girls.

Lisi – My Silent Night
The Waitresses – Christmas Wrapping
Charlelie Couture – Christmas Fever
August Darnell – Christmas On Riverside Drive

… à suivre, en plus de lalala.

Aleksi Vitra Meets Torsti at the Space Lounge


Every once in a while the internet provides us with some crazy surprises. Like people who give away brand new homemade records for free. Aleksi Vitra Meets Torsti at the Space Lounge is such an album which I downloaded a couple of years ago, totally free, from the Archive.org site.
I never gave it much of attention until this week. It turns out to be a very nice record with some fine Jazzy downtempo electronic dancemusic. Not outstanding but definitly worth listening.

If added here three track that I really like. You can still get the entire album for free and it looks like the Label Monotonik gives away more goodies for free.

More information here and here.

Nebulae Herb
O Tema De Viagem Especial
Princess Melodiae

I’ve just been watching this documentary that I found in the archives of the American Athlete blog about the origin and beginning of House Music. From the early disco days in the Chicago Warehouse, where the name comes from, all the way to the Hacienda in Manchester. It turned out that I had quite a lot of music which is featured in the documentary.

It’s always nice to see and hear these classics within the context of a story told by some of the key figures involved. I also got a chance to listen to Voodoo Ray again. What a great early track from A Guy Called Gerald. I almost forgot about it, what a shame!

There was also another fantastic classic in the documentary which sounded very familiar but I can’t remember the name of it or the artist. They didn’t mention it either. Very frustrating, so if anybody knows the title from that dark minimal track playing from 11'50'' until 12'17'', during those images of the Manchester skyline and high-rises at sunset/sunrise, please let me know.

Here’s (some of) the music…

163 Inner Life feat. Jocelyn Brown – Ain't No Mountain High Enough (Larry Levan's Garage Mix)
164 The Salsoul Orchestra – Ooh, I Love It (Love Break) (original Shep Pettibone 12' remix)
165 Marshall Jefferson – Move your body (Frankie Knuckles Anthem mix)
166 Farley 'jackmaster' Funk & Jesse Saunders – Love Can't Turn Around (1986)
167 Judy Street – What – Northern Soul
T-Coy – Carino
A Guy Called Gerald – Voodoo Ray
A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray (The Frankie Knuckles Paradise Ballroom mix)

And a statement…

Noir – All About Housemusic (full vox mix)

Do you remember this one?

Scritti Politti – Absolute
Scritti Politti – Absolute (12 inch)
Justin Timberlake vs Scritti Politti – Like I absolutely Love You

If you’re living in the States or Canada, check out spiralfrog for free legal downloads. I’m curious when we’ll get lucky.

I've seen seen both of them live but never together. Will these suckers ever release a new album again?
Metro Area myspace video – Dance Reaction

The Bleep musical paysite is having a mega album sale in September. A lot of WARP label records are sold at a reduced price of € 6,99 instead of € 9,99 (EP’s at € 4,99). These are some tokens of the material I bought on sale at Bleep.

Daniel Wang – All Flowers Must Fade – Milky Disco
Georges Vert – Electric Bird – Milky Disco
Kerrier District & Black Mustang – Mad As Hell – Milky Disco
Sorcerer – Surfing At Midnight – Milky Disco
In Flagranti & Black Devil – Coach Me Again and Again – Black Sunshine EP
Jimi Tenor – Outta Space – Innervisions
Autechre – Under BOAC – LP5
Autechre – Corc – LP5
Plaid – Seph – Not For Threes
Plaid feat. Björk – Lilith – Not For Threes

In the next couple of days I will be posting stuff from the ZE records label – best known for Kid Creole & The Coconuts, Coati Mundi and Was (not Was) – to document my current interest for New York’s 70’s and 80’s music scene. On the crossroad of musical styles from New York’s underground, ZE records produced milestones that made people think and dance - a rare combination - and helped to define Worldbeat, Minimal Music, No Wave and New Wave, Mutated Disco, Jazzpunk,…
ZE records also featured some of my favourite artists like Lizzy Mercier Descloux, an all-round self-taught artist who produced a couple of stunning records that were ahead of there time and as a result didn’t sell well but still have a powerful impact today.

Quality time - Lindstrøm + Ornette Coleman

Last night was wonderful. Delightful :-) No, seriously, Lindstrøm gave everyone a genuine space jam disco treat. No four on the floor this time. Definitely one of the best DJ sets this year but what a real shame that there was practically no one to witness it. The attendance was really slow. Was it the strange programming, countryrock and space disco? Or was it the fact that the club season started which resulted in an indigestion of choices? People who came for Lindstrøm, they were scratching the back of their heat at the curtain raisers Violent Husbands and Partchesz and the hootenanny lovers, well they went to bed at 3 o’clock. For me it was ideal. I’m a slow starter. The Violent Husbands turned out to be Violent Femmes lovers and Partchesz were living in Paris, Texas.

The Violent Husbands – De Boeren van Vroeger
The Violent Husbands – Shooting at the Natives

What a damn shame, but on the other hand, for once there was enough room on the dancefloor to move (to malphrase a famous Dutch football player: every wrong has its right). And boy, did I move! It doesn’t happen a lot that I’m left jumping for joy because I don’t know what to do with myself, not knowing what kind of move to do first to respond to the music because it’s just way to funky.

Lindstrøm – Limitations
Lindstrøm & Christabelle – Music (In My Mind)
Lindstrøm & Christabelle – Music (In My Mind) – Prins Thomas Remix
Lindstrøm – There’s A Drink In My Room And I Need A Hot Lady
Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas – Nummer Fire En

The best, or one of the best, DJ sets this year brings to mind the best concert I attended so far, this year. I had the luck to see Ornette Coleman play with his quintet at the Middelheim Jazz festival in my hometown. It’s not often that he swings over this way and considering his age, it was maybe the last opportunity to see this legend alive.
The quintet performed the new album Sound Grammar which is a live album with an unique 3bass setting. I already had the album but hearing it alive is a totally different experience altogether. they played those pieces far better, more adventurous and with more fire than on the live album. It was definitively no time wasted but quality time spend. I hope I can get a hold on the recordings the national television and radio made of the concert.

Lonely Woman
Street Blues
Street Woman
Free Jazz
Sleep Talking
Matador
The Good Life
The Veil

Indian Summer

I’m not really in the mood for small talk now. The sun is shining at last, so I rather mind spending time outside and this evening it’s party time again. Just a quick one with some great music.
I’m currently using DivShare as a tryout. Free registration and they say these files will not expire. We will see.

Kyu Sakamoto – Sukiyaki (1963)
Evie Sands – Run Home To Your Mama
142 Sister Wynona Carr – God Is A Battle / Life is A Ballgame
143 Jon Lucien – Adoration
144 Jon Lucien – Maiden Voyage
145 Jon Lucien – The Ghetto Son Another great artist who past away this year. I always liked Lucien, especially his soulful rendition of Bossa.
146 Dexter Wansel – You Can Be What You Wanna Be
147 Taste of Honey – Boogie, Oogie, Oogie
148 Dorfmeister vs Madrid de los Austrias – Boogie No More (Reverso 68 remix) The original one and a remix of the cover version by Dorfmeister with some Spanish guys.
149 ESG – Moody (a new mood) I’ve been posting ESG before, but this is a better alternative version of Moody from an new compilation album.

Intermezzo.
A Patrick Cowley tribute. I’m in a disco spirit right now but I think I will go to Lindstøm tonight instead of Baldelli or Miss Kittin. There’s a nice mix of styles in Petrol tonight, some rock music and even country and Lindstrøm as the cherry to finish things off. I hope he’s playing his Breakfast in the Diskjokke remix which is still not for sale. I will post it when I get my hands on it.
Anyway, back to Cowley. Patrick Cowley sadly pasted away somewhere in the early eighties because of HIV. Just like Larry Levan, Arthur Russell,… Just a reminder what a disaster AIDS already was for the New York culture scene back in the eighties.

150 Patrick Cowley – Megatron Man
151 Patrick Cowley – I Need Somebody To Love Tonight
152 Patrick Cowley – Get A Little
153 Patrick Cowley – Menergy (original 12')
154 Patrick Cowley – Lift Off
155 Patrick Cowley – Mind Warp
156 Patrick Cowley – Right On Target

157 Patrick Cowley feat. Sylvester – Do Ya Wanna Funk (extended) (1982)
Patrick Cowley & Sylvester – Don't Stop (extended)
158 Loverde & Patrick Cowley – Die Hard Lover

and 3 of his most prolific and famous revamps.
159 Donna Summer – I Feel Love (Patrick Cowley remix)
160 Michele – Disco Dance (Patrick Cowley & Tom Moulton mix, west end 1978)
161 Tantra – The Hills Of Katmandu (Patrick Cowley mega-mix)

162 Oh Romeo – These Memories
Midnight Juggernauts – Shadows
Midnight Juggernauts – Into The Galaxy New electro band from… Australia, of all places.
Glass Candy - Computerlove Can’t wait for that Glass Candy album.
Simian Mobile Disco – Clock
Justice – Phantom Pt. II (Soulwax Nite Version) Even better than the real thing. Mind the break in the middle.
Infected Mushroom feat. Berry Sakharof – Statik Dancing Minimal Compact cover for the dancefloor, with one of the original band members.
Albert Hammond, Jr. – Holiday

September the 15th - start of the club season.
Where should I go? To Miss Kittin, Lindstrøm, Baldelli or Belgian revelation The Subs?... tuff choice.

I just had to share this one... a brand new single by Chaka Khan featuring Mary J. Blige and it's really awesome. There's probably some ace producer behind this song but I don't know which one yet but it sounds similar to Amerie's One Thing by Rick Harrison.
The rest of it is more random stuff from the radio I'm recently listening to. The new Go! Team album sounds promising even though the first thing I hear is a coversong.

141 Chaka Khan feat. Mary J. Blige – Disrespectful
The Go! Team – Grip Like A Vice (Sonic Youth cover)
The Wombats – Kill The Director (CSS Remix)
The Wombats – Let's Dance To Joy Division
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Down Boy
The Teenagers – Homecoming
Pinback – Crutch
Spoon – Don’t You Evah

You might have noticed that my BOX files are down. That's because my account has reached full capacity. I’ve used all of my 20GB bandwidth for uploads and downloads. I’m using Zshare for a while now instead. I will try to get my BOX account working again because I also use it for sharing files for work. I probably need an upgrade but how long will that do?

Jens Lekman – And I Remember Every Kiss
Beanfield feat. Bajika – Tides (C's Movement #1 - Carl Craig Remix)
Rilo Kiley – Silver Lining Reminds me a bit of In My Life by The Beatles. One could do far worse.

Exo... zdravei :) Kak si i kak ia kara6?

I just got back from a business trip to Bulgaria - lecturing on traffic control - somewhere in the Rodopi Mountains, of all places. Nice country with some nice people and nice food but they should go more slowely on those Dairy products. I think I had enough cheese and eggs for years.

And to top that, I got back with a nasty flue - a present from my collegue who joint me - eventhough the weather overthere was really great. Almost 30°C and sunny. But spending a week in the same airconditioned room with a guy who sick, finally has it's results. I've spend 2 days in bed now, sick.

But I managed to get out of bed occasionally, to check my mails and to post some of the music I found on my old antique mp3-player I forgot about. I rarely use it and this was one of the occasions.

112 The Jungle Brothers – What U Waitin’ For
113 Thomas Dolby feat. George Clinton – May The Cube Be with You
114 Jay Dee aka J Dilla & The Brand New Heavies – Sometimes (Remix)
115 Joe Dukie and DJ Fitchie – Midnight Marauders
116 Money Mark – Information Contraband
117 Red Snapper – Hot Flush
118 Isley Brothers – Fight The Power
119 Arthur Russell – Arm Around You
120 Decept-A-Freak-On (Le Tigre vs. Missy Elliott)
121 Ellen McIllwaine – Higher Ground
122 Hugh Masekela – Mama (Metro Area's Birthday Dub)

Penguin Cafe Orchestra – Music For A Found Harmonium

123 Maceo & The Macks – Cross The Tracks
124 Joe Simon – Drowning In The Sea Of Love
125 Rick James – Give It To Me Baby
126 Ben E. King – Supernatural Thing
127 John Legend – Live It Up
128 The O’Jays – Backstabbers
129 The O’Jays – Family Reunion
130 Jill Scott – Family Reunion great song, but it really needed an update from a present day woman's point of view
131 Aretha Franklin – It Only Happens (When I Look At You)
132 Mos Def – Umi Says
133 Isaac Hayes – Joy
134 Brigth Engelberts And The B.E. Movement – Get Together
135 Opa – Brooklynville
136 Zillatron – Bugg Lite
137 Googie Rene Combo – Smokey Jo's La La
138 Lady Bug – Lady Bug (Larry Levan mix) I finally found that Levan mix back, it was still on my mp3 player.
139 Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators – If This Ain’t Love (Don’t Know What Is)
140 Soul Sonic Force – Play At Your Own Risk

The Go! Team – Get It Together
Cat Stevens – Was Dog a Doughnut
Isolée – Demon
Erotic Discourse - Erotic Discourse
Plaid – Even Spring
Isolée – Pictureloved
Tura – Reishi

Laurie Anderson – From The Air (Dan the Automator Remix)
Dat Politics – Pie

Cheb Khaled – Aleeh Taadi
Bolivar – Merengue
Tito Puente – Para Los Rumberos
Noro Morales – Serenata Ritmica

Eagles of Death Metal – I only want You
Sufjan Stevens – All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever
Linda Perhacs – If You Were My Man from an upcoming Daft Punk movie called Electroma

Kompakt Labelnight in Köln


The Köln-based German dance label Kompakt is holding it’s annual label night which features as usual a presentation of yet another episode in their ongoing Total output. Number 8 this time, which features the likes of Justus Köhncke, Burger/Voigt, Jürgen Paape, Reinhard Voigt, Partial Arts (with the wonderful Trauermusik), Rex The Dog and many more.

Apart from DJ sets by Thomas/Mayer and Superpitcher the evening will also be enlightened with some live sets. For me the most eye-catching name on the list is The Field. The album From Here We Go Sublime has been so far one of my favourites this year. Axel Willner from Sweden has made a very atmospheric and highly addictive, sweet sounding minimal soundtrack which could be for some a bit to much easy listening but which in the end has an intoxicating overall effect. Everyday is the best track of the album but the others are really great as well.

Over The Ice
The Little Heart Beats So Fast
Silent
Mobilia

Apparently the link for Everyday on the MeckerMecker site has been broken. So here’s a new one.

Hey people, I'm back... save and sound. I had a great bike trip but after this type of holiday I'm actually in for a proper one: a real, full horizontal break... but there's no time for that now.

Meanwhile I got myself Simpsonized. So, if anyone was wondering what I look like, you can see the result above. Looks pretty accurate if you ask me but I should better ask somebody else to verify it.

27/07 Bangkok >>> oVo >>> 12/08 Saigon

I'm off, heading towards Southeast Asia. Have a nice holiday too y'all.

I’ve been wanting to use this picture from Grace Jones for a long time now (it fits well with the black background) but I couldn’t find an appropriate occasion. But now Mute Records released the Mute Audio Documents - Volume 1 1978 – 1981. With 128 tracks over 10 CD’s in an ongoing series of all the A-side and B-side single tracks ever released by Mute and with some rarities, it is a unique document that gives insight into the musical development of the label and its artists, highlighting the great music produced since its inception in 1978.

Mute emerged in the post-punk era. It was a era of Do It Yourself, anyone could make a record. You didn't even need to know three chords, according to Mute founder Daniel Miller. All you needed, was an idea. He called himself The Normal (Mute was actually another option), made a double A sided 7 inch single featuring the songs T.V.O.D. and Warm Leatherette (with just synthesizer / drum machine / voice), stuck the name Mute on it, and accidentally started a record label back in 1978.

The songs were very Kraftwerk influenced and although very dark in subject (reading the J.G. Ballard novel Crash led him to write this) it remains quirky with an underlying humour.

Now what does this have to do with Grace Jones? Well, Grace Jones made a fine cover of Warm Leatherette a couple of years later.

The Normal – Warm Leatherette

Grace Jones – Warm Leatherette

I recently added this visitor's counter down below and it's really going fast. I never thought that I would have more than 600 hits in just a couple of weeks! Considering the fact that probably 10% of them is due to me, checking out if everything looks as intended, more than 500 is still pretty cool. Apparently there are more people out their reading this stuff apart from me and my friends.

I’m counting the days now because I’m leaving next Friday and will only be back after 2 weeks. I really have to start packing so that in the case I’m forgetting something, I still can go out and buy it.
In the last post about my trip to Indochine I added a song from the LA band Dengue Fever because I couldn’t find another musical match at the time which is strange because there’s a very obvious one as I now can recall: Holiday In Cambodia by The Dead Kennedys off course !
Another match I was thinking of and which is crossing my mind more often lately, every since the idea of travelling during the monsoon period begins to sound less and less attractive as it gets nearer and nearer, is The Fish Needs a Bike from Blurt.

Anyway, as I went looking for a digital file of it (by using only the word holiday in the search function on my documents) I found all this other tracks in my collection dealing with varies aspects of the subject Holidays. They make up a fine collection so I’m posting them so that they can keep you all company while I’m struttin’ my stuff on a bike waydown yonder.

I’m Ready For The World ‘coss ...

01 Holiday Rap – Mc Miker
02 Captain's Holiday – Captain Beefheart & the Magical Band
03 Everyday Is A Holiday (With You) – Esthero feat. Sean Lennon
04 Satan Takes a Holiday – Rosengarden & Kraus (yes people, I’m a big exotica fan…)

05 Get Back Together, Maybe, M-M-Maybe! – Jerry Finegold [OST Holiday Shmoliday]
06 Happy Holidays Pt. 1 – The Ohio Players
07 The Turning Point – Jimmy Holiday
08 Dreadlock Holiday – 10CC
09 Handjobs for the Holidays – Broken Social Scene
10 Holiday In Berlin (live Royal Albert Hall 1968) - Frank Zappa [Ahead Of Their Time]
11 Holiday In Berlin, Full-Blown – Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention
12 Holiday – Celebration
13 On Holiday – Jamie T
14 Happy Holiday – Jim O'Rourke
15 Touch The Tiger – Holiday On Strings
16 Holiday Inn – Stereo Total
17 Holiday (DJ Spinna Vocal remix) – Roy Ayers
18 One Big Holiday – My Morning Jacket
19 Holiday Home – Zoot Woman
20 Summer Holiday – Cliff Richards

21 Holiday For Strings – Eddie Bush

22 Holiday – Lemon-Curry

23 Holidays In The Sun – The Sex Pistols
24 Labor Day (It's a Holiday) – Black Eyed Peas

25 Holiday, It Wasn't Me (DJ Coco Snatch White Label Mix) – Shaggy vs Madonna mashup

Finally somebody came up with the brilliant idea to make a documentary about the brazilian enfant terrible Tom Zé. It’s called Fabricando Tom Zé or Fabricating Tom Zé. I’m only curious when it will be released around these parts or it will probably be straight on DVD I guess.

Tóc – Tom Zé (Estudando O Samba 1976)

Ashley Beedle Presents...

The London Heavy Disco Revue

Ashley Beedle is one of the UK's most prolific producers and remixers. His wide range of musical tastes finds him recording under a variety of pseudonyms, including The Ballistic Brothers, Black Science Orchestra and X-Press 2.
He returns now to his Black Science Orchestra sound with an outing for his London Heavy Disco Revue project on his own label Outhear Audio. The result is a fantastic deep, funk-drenched and warm spaced-out electrodisco affair! With some trademark sound from the Nottingham house duo Crazy Penis on the remix. Especially War on bullshit is a killer space disco track while Height is a tribute to the 70's jazz-funk producers, The Mizell Brothers.

103 Ashley Beedle & Uschi Classen – Jump Up (Massai)
104 Ashley Beedle – Height
105 Ashley Beedle – The Balloon Room
106 Ashley Beedle presents The London Heavy Disco Revue – War On The Bullshit
107 Ashley Beedle presents The London Heavy Disco Revue – The Balloon Room (Crazy P remix)

And since we’re busy over here doing such a great job on keeping you al informed and happy, I give you some more recently added stuff on Black Gold Radio.

By the way, Sly Stone was in the country for his first life show in many years (maybe it was even the first he visited the country). I didn’t go to see him play but I heard he sucked big time. I ‘ve read that his live gigs in the USA received equally bad reports, that’s why I didn’t go. It’s never a pretty sight to see such a genius get wasted. I guess he had to go on tour to promote the re-releases of his old records.

108 Dexter Wansel – Disco Lights (1977)
109 Philadelphia International All-Stars – Let's Clean Up The Ghetto (1977 Gamble & Huff, arranged by Dexter Wansel)
110 Willie Hutch – Come On And Dance With Me (12 inch)

111 Chemise – She Can’t Love You

Cambodia and Vietnam used to be French colonies and the French influence is apparently still present, even in the small details.
Like for instance, they drink a beer over there which carries the French actor and singer Alain Delon’s name. I hope it’s any good so that they don’t use his name in vain.

I found out that there ain't any beer brands overthere who use Alain delon's name but there's a brand of cigarettes instead. and what else, they eat bread just as we do, how nice.

Dengue Fever... for the Holidays


The Holidays are comin’... At this very moment I’m still working but in a couple of weeks I’m heading for Southeast Asia where I’ll be spending 2 weeks biking from Bangkok to Saigon and visiting Angkor Vath and Cambodia on the way.
Some pictures of from a friend and some more of what’s waiting me there. I hope I don’t have to spend much time riding my bike trough heavy rain.

Dengue Fever – Lost in Lagos

Soul from Jamdown

I just saw Les Rita Mitsouko again for the second time this year but this time in my hometown. It was a bit different. An outdoor concert even though it was raining all day but luckily the rain stopped just in time for the concert. The concert site was seats only which was not in line with the partyvibe on stage. Last time I saw them in Brussels it was a big party but now the (infra)structure prevented the crowd a bit from joining in.

Another concert I saw was Chromeo. The first time they played in Belgium. It was actually more of a short live set instead of a genuine concert. Way to short but really fine. Just strictly the hits up-tempo one after the other. Nice! They made the crowd dance on one of the last closing nights. The Mirano closes for the summer just like some other clubs.

I don’t think I pledged here before my love for Jamaican music. Apart from some randomly scattered tracks, Jamdown has not been going strong around here. Probably because I haven’t been listening much to Reggae, Dub or Dancehall lately in contrast with an absolute overkill a couple of years back. Not that I lost interest but tastes and (dis)likes often go in (big) waves. Reggae has always been popular but I’m getting the impression that more and more people find Reggae to be boring. Now that it’s getting stylish or even hip to say one likes Country & Western it’s Reggae which is getting’ the sack.
What can I say. It’s a larger than life cliché to state that Reggae is laidback dope fiend music but all clichés have a element of truth in them. And it’s true that Jamaicans are not that keen on original material but on the other hand the many ‘versions’ of other people’s material they come up with, often reveal a unique original point of view. It helps when you start to see the entire Jamaican output as one collective effort and expression of a common state of being. A vast body of work still in progress. And one simply can’t overlook the sheer amount and quality of the vocal prowess this tiny island has to offer. I regard Jamaican music at it’s best as some pretty soulfull stuff.

Time to give some proof. In 2001 there was a compilation from Blood & Fire focusing on the soul side of Jamaica: darker than Blue – Soul From Jamdown 1973/1980.

100 Freddie McGregor - Get Involved
101 John Holt - For The Love Of You
102 Tinga Stewart - Why Can't We Live Together (extended dub)

Great Big Western MOFO Store

Something nostalgic for the Old Folks right now. It’s celebration time. Some classic pop albums are turning 40 this year and hey surprise… they receive a deluxe reissue.
Sergeant Pepper by the Beatles is one of them but I’m will not go in to deep on that one because other blogs will and besides, I think it just sounds pretty outdated by now and features, apart from a couple of outstanding tracks, mostly crapy tunes. That’s what you get from to much dope, although Pet Sounds still sounds great.
Anyway, another classic one is Freak out. It was originally released in 1966 as one of the first double albums along with Bob Dylan’s blonde on blonde. It’s not my favourite Frank Zappa or Mothers album but it’s their first one so it deserves attention but a 6 cd reissue sounds a bit to much. There’s a 4 cd set and a 2 cd set with the appropriate MOFO title (which is short for Mother’s Freak Out or just plain old Motherfucker – which is the main reason they had to change their original name into Mothers Of Invention). The extra’s on the two packages don’t really overlap so real fans are screwed and have to buy all 6 (2 sets).

And what do you get for all that money? Well, I’m not sure. If you’re interested in the man’s work it’s illuminating documentary stuff but if you’re just a music fan with a taste for the straight and the bizarre it’s just way to much of the same stuff. 5 not all to different versions of one song sounds like overkill but if you take the time for it, the basic instrumental tracks, stripped down from their silly compulsory lyrics, reveal early experiments in advanced contemporary percussion, jazz and electro-acoustic sounds by what was actually a really great genuine R&B band. They not only rocked but also knew how to make it swing which was a pretty rare thing in those days if you compare them with other so-called psychedelic West Coast bands (some albums in the YCDTOSA series give a token of their Soul and R&B side). This concept got well develop later on, on other albums but the foundations of the early Mother’s sound are to be found on the Freak out album.

I found both MOFO packages on Chá De Pila which features more recent Pre and Post Mortem Zappa stuff but I thing I will go and buy them for the liner notes and memorabilia stuff because I’m that kind of nerd.

How Could I Be Such A Fool
Anyway The Wind Blows
Trouble Every Day
Help I'm A Rock

Who Are The Brain Police (basic instrumental tracks)
I Ain’t Got No Heart (basic instrumental tracks)
You Didn’t Try To Call Me (basic instrumental tracks)
Vito Rocks The Floor
Psychedelic Upholstery (Mixed Media Detroit 11-13-67)