Run DMC - 'Down With the King'

Run DMC are total hip-hop heroes of mine. Whenever I hear any of their records, they totally portray to me how the macho swagger of hip-hop can have a transformative power that operates outside of the usual hip-hop cliches. Or to quote Scroobius Pip from his awesome track 'Thou Shalt Always Kill' - 'Thou shalt remember that guns, bitches and bling were never part of the four elements [of hip-hop], and never will be'.

I've no idea when or where I bought this, and I'm sure it was just for the track 'Oooh, watcha gonna do' on this disc. But it never really got any asses shaking on the dance floor. In fact, it just got moved earlier and earlier in any set that I played, and althought people would come up to me and tell me how great they thought this track was, and how I was the only DJ they'd heard play it, nobody would dance to it. It's the musical equivalent on a dish of lambs tongues in a restaurant - even the people who know that it's a brave choice don't want to know.

I played it for a year or so, on and off, and then gave up. The rest of the album is OK, although Run DMC were going through a bit of a pseudo gangsta phase at this point - they look like Onyx on the cover, ferchrissakes.

But still, on the opening track, they sample themselves, from the track 'Down With the King' from the album 'Tougher Than Leather', and it sounds awesome. Hip-hop legends - believe it.

The Charlatans - 'Some Friendly'

This immediately takes me back to a freezing bedsit in Salisbury, late 80s. I can even remember buying this from the now defunct Our Price chain. I was a fanatical NME-reading music fan, fascinated by the exotic notions offered by the paper. Manchester, that far-off land of baggy, where everything was groovy, and everyone was on one.

It's a OK record, just sort of slightly limp-wristed retro-futurist 60s revivalism. Was it obvious from this record that they would still be around in 20 years? No. Is it a classic first album? No. Will I ever think 'ooh, I must dig out 'Some Friendly' and give it a listen for old times sake'? Sadly, the answer is, again, no.

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.

DEBC - 'The Pulse'

This starts out quite jolly and floaty - intelligent jungle, they used to call it - before a filtered synth line snakes in under the door, itchy as a swarm of flying ants, and expands into a jittery buzzsaw hook.

This reminds me of frantic drum and bass sets at Dust in Leeds. Frantic because in the space of 4 hours, we'd squeeze in as many different genres as could - ska, nu-metal, house, disco, pop cheese, rock. I mostly did the dance slots, which would be me trying to play 10 records in 15 minutes. The crowd loved it, but it was hard work.

This record was good for about 90 seconds - basically, the intro and the first drop. Then, quick out into something a bit more recognisable - the drum and bass remix of 'Ready or Not' by The Fugees.

Mindless, sweaty, happy nights.

Tags: prototype, drum and bass, DEBC, 1999

Beck - 'Odelay'

The first thing you notice about this record is that it's super-heavyweight vinyl - audiophile 180gm, or something. It gives the impression of quality and, dare I say, phatness before the needle ever touches the groove.

Beck Hanson is essentially a surrealist artist. His musical career was something of an accident, catapulted as he was into the mainstream by the single 'Loser'. The rest of that album, 'Mellow Gold' - we'll be getting to that at some point - is a whimsical, downbeat set of doodles that wouldn't have seen the light of day without the chart-crushing juggernaut of 'Loser'.

'Odelay' is the sound of a white boy finding his dancing feet, releasing the funk, and cutting a fiery swathe across an indie dancefloor. The classic surrealist trademarks are all here - unusual juxtapositions, dreams made real, a strange hallucinatory quality pervading everything - and yet this is surrealist art you can dance to. It has a musically timeless quality to it that means it could be anywhere from Sgt. Pepper to the present day.

What does it remind me of? It reminds me of seeing Beck live at Leeds Festival in (I think) 2000. He wasn't quite at the peak of his powers, but there was a feeling that, as he boogied manically in front of 20,000 people, he couldn't put a foot wrong. He evoked the spirit of David Byrne in 'Stop Making Sense', which is a must-see gig-movie. He epitomised coolness, was slightly deranged, and was backed by DJ Swamp, who performed the most deck-defying feats of vinyl manipulation I'd ever seen. A year later, I found the 'DJ Swamp Skip-Proof Scratch Tool', and I was sold on the way of the wicky-wicky.

I'm not sure that Beck ever got any better than this, but crucially, he never got much worse either.

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?

Overseer - 'Zeptastic EP'

Hillariously, this record threw me a total curve ball. When I saw it, I thought it was going to remind me of late-90s Leeds, when everyone and their mate had a sampler and was making music. Seeing the record immediately took me back to Rob's bedroom studio in the top of a house on Brudenell Road in Leeds' Hyde Park.

I dropped the needle on to the first track, ready for the reverie continue, but was jolted forwards five years by the opening on 'Zeptastic'. I'd completely forgotten that this track had been reworked and re-recorded in the sessions for the album 'Wreckage'. It never made the final album, which was a shame as I think it was the best vocal I did for the entire record. I think it got buried under the weight of its own potential - at one point, the vocalists on it were me, Des Fafara (then of Coal Chamber) and (I swear I'm not making this up) Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue. Nikki Sixx slapped a great chorus onto it, but wanted to call the track 'Shake Your Pussy', which was clearly a non-starter for all sorts of reasons. Once you've got Nikki Sixx calling a track 'Shake Your Pussy', it's not going to make the cut.

I haven't even got a copy of that track any more - all my DATs and white CDs were pinched in a burglary in about 2005. Which is a shame, as my clearly biased opinion is that it's the great lost Overseer track, languishing in vaults, ready to swoop forth like rain washing scum off the streets.

The EP is good, the track 'Zeptastic' is great. Who knows what might have been....