Snoop Dogg "From Tha Chuuuch To Da Palace"

In DJing, as in life, you sometimes have to do stuff you don't want to do. What I wanted to do was play a set of music that I liked, that would make people happy, make people dance, make people have fun. If they thought I was a good DJ as a result of that, well, bonus, but my music tastes always tended towards the basic and the obvious. Actually, they were basic and obvious to me, in the sense that I mostly played records that people recognised, rather than trying to weave an intricate musical journey out of dirty electro, scratch weapons and chutzpah.

DJing at an intro level - as a weekly job in a small, cheap club - is a weird thing. You're playing records mostly to people who are, shall we say, in the process of throwing off their cares, and as a result can be a bit disinhibited. I remember being asked by a British Asian girl if I had "any Indian beats", which after a split second pause was followed up with "actually, look at you, of course you haven't". You can't please all of the people all of the time. 

But in an effort to please all of the people all of the time, I made a rule - if someone asked for the same record 2 weeks on the trot, I'd buy it and play it on the third week. That HAS to be how I ended up buying this, because it's not the sort of thing that I actually like. It's got all the elements in place for a great record - Snoop at peak dillywizzle shizzle bizzle, Neptunes on production (that's yer actual Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo), languid rhymes about fourteen inch rims, puff and pass, and corn rows - but it just never really gels. Mind you, two years later, the Snoop and Neptunes released "Drop It Like It's Hot", a Certified Banger, and you can certainly hear elements of that track in here.

Do I ever remember playing it? No. Do I ever even think about it? No. Oh well. On, on, onto the next one.

Run DMC - 'Christmas in Hollis'

What a record. No, not the cheeseball title track, although that does have a certain swagger that demonstrates Rick Rubin's ability not only to polish a turd, but also have it mounted and displayed in a gallery and have people coo at it like the Damian Hirst of hip hop.

And not the track that follows it either, although 'Walk This Way' is a track that still hasn't lost it's visceral thrill despite repeated listens. If ever I'm lying unconscious, don't take my pulse or hold a mirror over my mouth. Just put on 'Walk This Way', and if I fail to purse my lips and do the angry pigeon head-nod, then finally I have found peace.

No, the star of the show here is of course 'Peter Piper', a track so simultaneously raw and full of life that every time you play it, you run the risk of B-boy zombies besieging your crib, screaming 'BEATS! BEATS!'

What does it remind me of? So many things. My first job. My first DJ set. The first time I managed to drop the opening acappella lines over another record (clue - the word 'piper' falls on the second beat of the bar). But most vividly, I played this at Dust in Leeds the week that Jam Master Jay was murdered. As I dropped the opening rhymes, someone walked up, choked up with emotion and cheap beer and reached out to shake my hand. As he did so, his sleeve caught the head of the stylus and zzzzzzzzzipped it of the record. Everyone turned and looked, and I screamed 'Jam Master Jay was killed this week, show some love people', dropped the needle back onto the record, and everyone went mental.

This record totally kicks ass.

Collapsed Lung - 'DIS MX'

After the warm reception my previous post received (mostly, it has to be said, from former members of the band), I was a little worried about how this would sound. And it's perfectly of it's period, in that the opening track is that elusive beast, the extended dance remix.

After a couple of minutes of looping drumbeats that pay more than a passing nod to the works of Depth Charge, the funky trumpets start up, and I swear you can hear the actual fertilisation of the egg that went on to gestate and become Collapsed Lung's world conquering anthemn 'Eat My Goal'.

Overall, it's a pretty standard romp, with some nice lyrical action, and fairly dirty production. The standout bit for me is the couplet 'Liberate the decks, liberate the decks, give 'em to the people who would least expect access'. Wise words indeed.

What does it remind me of? Oddly, nothing much. I remember playing this quite a bit, but it doesn't have that flashbulb eidetic moment for me.

Collapsed Lung - 'Down With The Plaid Fad'

It's funny that this should turn up on the weekend when Channel 4 is showing it's 'How Hip Hop Changed the World' weekend, because this is a particular slice of British hip hop that is very dear to me.

One of the central tenets of hip hop culture is 'keeping it real'. Exactly what that means is open to debate. KRS-1 would have you believe that REAL is an acronym for 'Rhymes Equals Actual Life'. Modern commentators seem to agree that hip hop hasn't been in a good place for some time now. You don't have to wait very long on Kanye & Jay-z's new album to hear Kanye brag about how has two big-faced Rolexes. Nice one Kanye - I'll loot Argos and steal an armful of Swatches in ironic homage. As Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip point out, 'guns, bitches and bling have never been part of the four elements, and never will be'. The four elements of hip hop are breaking, MCing, DJing and grafitti, as any fule kno.

The four elements conspicuously don't include sloppy, culturally accurate grunge-hop, but if you want an an example of a band keeping it REAL, look no further than mid-90s Collapsed Lung. I saw them in Manchester in 1995, and they were hilarious, and in a good way. A bunch of guys, playing tight, funky rocky grooves, two rappers trading rhymes over the top. It was like having the whole of global musical culture condensed into 3 minute snippets, lyrically tight and culturally smart, thrown back in your face with a cocksure swagger that said 'yeah, we know, it's all a bit mad, but you know what - we're kicking ass, and you're loving it'. It's the very antithesis of where hip hop is today, either a global sell-out or a ghettoised artistic statement.

Fresh stoopid rhymes, sloppy loud guitars, distorted vocals, hell yeah, I still love it today like I loved it then.

Beastie Boys - 'Scientists of Sound'

I'm a huge Beastie Boys fan. Well, I mean I was when I was a fan of any music. I remember being interviewed one night while playing at York Universoty, and was asked which band I'd most liked to be in. Without hesitation, I replied 'I'm actually the fourth Beastie Boy. Whenever I see them play, I can see how much they miss me. I'm missing in action, and they are trying to get me back, but it's not easy for them'. I said it with such conviction thst I must have seemed mentally ill. The nice young lady with the microphone took on a certain startled look and starting looking for an escape route.

I think I probably bought this record for the acapellas on it - certainly the remixes are pretty cursory, and I'm not sure I would've got away with doing anything other than using them as background music for that first 45 minutes of a club where no-one wants to dance, but you've got to have loud music playing. You don't want to start burning all your best tunes at 9.15, so you use remixes and album tracks to keep the punters in a holding pattern. And if it all goes off a bit early, hey, you're a great DJ for getting feet onto the dancefloor early.

For the avoidance of doubt, I never got to join the Beastie Boys. They probably still have me listed as missing in action.

Various Artists - 'Def Beats 1'

It's funny the crap you find in your record collection.

This reminds me of a couple things. The first is working in the printroom at Georgina von Etzdorf, with a guy called Ellis. He was bang into his hip hop, and sort of got me into it. I remember him telling me how to 'transformer scratch' (look it up), and I went home to learn how to do it. Of course, I didn't have Technics and a mixer, I had a crappy belt drive turntable and a tape dub button, but you can get a pretty good approximation of the effect with a Jesus & Mary Chain record and plenty of enthusiasm.

It also reminds me of an early trip to New York, staying at my friend Dave's place on Hoyt Street, Brooklyn. Being a music obsessive, I used to travel with tapes all the time, even though I'm not sure that I ever had a walkman to play them on. I guess I would show up and ask to put a tape on, which seems quite rude in retrospect.

Anyway, I remember Dave and his then girlfriend Leslie looking through my tapes. Leslie found the one that said 'Def Beats Vol 1' on it and said 'yayyy Def Beats'. Dave looked at her shocked and said 'you know this?'. Of course she didn't - she was just being nice.

This record is tripe - a sort of futuristic Ronco compilation deigned to exploit the current trend. It's one redeeming feature is that it features the late Derek B. Even he's crap on here, but we all know how great he became, right kids?

Gravediggaz - 'Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide'

Contrary to the previous record, this has a wonderfully epic swagger to it. It's the sound of a hip hop supergroup trading rhymes, smashing it and generally having a great time.

What really surprises me is how little connection I have to this. I remember it coming out, and being really excited about it, but I just doesn't stir anything in me. It's a good hip hop track, but it doesn't transport me to a time or a place. Maybe I made the mistake of believing the hype, or maybe music doesn't need to be an eternal. I guess pop music can be both great and disposable at the same time - why not hip hop?

Gravediggaz - 'Diary of a Madman'

I played this ten days ago, and it reminded me of using a sampler. How crap is that for a memory? I played it a few more times, and still nothing.

Boooring. It's not a bad record, but it means zip to me. And I spent 10 days thinking about it. NEXT!

DJ Shadow - 'Endtroducing'

This was such a massive record when it was released that it's hard to explain precise connection with it at all. It was such a big part of my life that it's like trying to describe what an old fork or a glass means to me. This is the record that every bedroom sampler geek wishes they'd made. It's simple but profound, a staement of humble genius.

The track titles hint that this album is compiled from masses of material, multiple versions of the same track, something that anyone who has made music at home will relate to - there's never a definitive mix of a track until it's mastered and in the shops. And even then there is the opportunity to release different mixes of tracks - I know I've got a version of 'Midnight in a Perfect World' somewhere with a vocal on it.

And yet this is a record that is so of its time that it it's almost empty now. It's a guy with a sampler trying to sound like a guy with a drum kit. It was such a cool record when it was released that it almost seems meaningless now. I think you had to be there at the time, or know the story of times, to really get this record.

Weird - I thought I'd go ga-ga hearing this again, but it's left me a bit cold.

Cat No: MW059

Tracks: Best Foot Forward. Building Seam With A Grain of Salt. The Number Song. Changeling. Transmission 1. Stem/Long Stem. Transmission 2. Mutual Slump. Organ Donor. Why Hip Hop Sucks in '96. Midnight in a Perfect World. Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain. What Does You Soul Look Like (Part 1 - Blue Sky Revisit). Transmission 3.

DJ Krush - 'Meiso'

God this is a great record. I bought this around the same time as I bought DJ Shadow's 'Endtroducing', and at the time, it seemed as though we - them and us, the producer and the consumer - were reinventing hip hop.

This is a sort of music that is totally stripped back to basics - a simple rhythm, some weird ambience standing in for a topline melody, and a vocal, a willing sacrifice of technical musicianship, an atavistic return to basics. The irony is that it takes a lot technology to make something sound so simple. Of course, you could argue that everything Mo Wax did was just James Lavelle selling a beautifully packaged lifestyle ideal, and you'd be right. But it was such a cool lifestyle that it was hard to resist.

This reminds me of Luke, who married my friend Bekki. He was a real Mo Wax junkie, and sort of still is - he's certainly still got lots of their first editions and box sets. I'll have to have a poke through his shelf next time I'm at their place, as we attempt to arrange a marriage between our children. I guess that makes us grown-ups, right?

Tracks: Only the Strong Survive. Anticipation. What's Behind Darkness. Meiso. Bypath 1. Blank. Ground. Bypath 2. Most Wanted Man. Bypath 3. 3rd Eye. OCE 9504. Duality. Bypath - Would You Take It?

Catalogue Number: MW039LP