Hacienda as pictured in ’24 Hour Party People’ – great film btw

…and the Hacienda, and piano house in general.

I’m sure at some point acid house devotees will become annoying as punk bores, but with piano house on the rebound a and late 80′s house references on the come back (see Hercules and Love Affair, Surkin, Math Head, AC Slater, Jack Beats, Juan Maclean (especially the remixes), Axwell even Eric Prydz!) it seems like the Summer of Love is on the comeback at last…moving away from the nu-rave chancers who tried to tag guitar music as rave, and into true piano chord bliss.

Of course it’s been a long time coming; from when I heard a Math Head Passions mix in 2007 and halfway through I shouted PIANO!!!! and started dancing manicly, to Axwell and then Eric Prydz massive Pjanoo from last year, the rehabilitation of the piano in dance music has taken a long time…yeah trance had a sort of pizzi fixation but that’s not bouncing hands-up-in-the-air whistle-blowing piano break that we all know and love. So welcome back the piano

So I present to you Mike Pickering and Graeme Park at the Hacienda, August 1989, a bit of dance music history and . (via iainh and someone who uploaded an excerpt to Soundcloud, I love Soundcloud…shame no download, but more about that in a sec)

I’m listening to this in the sunshine and it’s perfect.

And if you like that, some kind soul has uploaded the whole 3 hours to Archive.org. Get em while it’s hot, or still there.

Tracklist:

Read the rest of this entry »

Celebrity Murder Party XI went really well – you can see the selected highlights (all 240+ of them – I actually shot 633 pictures!) here.

Best thing about it was that traditionally they meet up in a public place, which causes all kinds of interest and amusement – this time it was Marble Arch, the venue was at Bond Street so cue a march up and down Oxford Street, in costume! That was fun, and the reactions were funny:

Miss Honey Bare aka Kelly provided the sugar highs

Bush No. 10 was one of the DJs, he was in a fighting mood:

Happy punters

Stick em up, Batgirl!

OH NOES! Who let Dobbin out?

Ahh Lt. Thaddeus Harris is here to save the day!

Time please! And stop ordering those Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, we’re fresh out of Qualactic lime.

Great news is that CMP has raised over £11,000 for Camp Cando – glad to be a small part of that…it’s going on a hiatus for the rest of 2009, but back bigger and better I hope in 2010. I had a lot of fun and it was a learning experince for me how to ask strangers if I can take a picture – I’m usually a candid sort of guy – but it worked out well!

I’m starting my portraiture studio course at Central St Martins in a few weeks so more photography to come from me – as the description over at the Flickr set suggests, let’s get this party started right! Let’s get this party started quickly…I want to make this my job. And I will.

Want to hear Little Boots covering Freddie Mercury?
Amiina (Sigur Ros’s string section, played on RC in the past) covering OMD?
Au Revoir Simone covering one of my favourite ELO songs (Here is the News)
AC Slater, probably the best remixer atm outside of Jackbeats remixing Prodigy?
Bonde de Role doing Pigbag?
Young Punx doing Clapping Song?
Nightwaves doing Phil Collins?
Good Books and Freezepop doing Yazoo?
JoolsMF remixing Gwen McCrae (heard good things about this from a mutual friend, and he’s a regular on Radio Clash).

Buffet Libre, who produced those excellent 80′s covers and remixes by modern bands from last year that I ‘rinsed’ like crazy on Radio Clash and my DJing online and off, have done it again – Buffet Libre Rewind 2.

Only listened to a few off the front page but already it’s HIGHLY recommended by me – highlights are the aforementioned current goldenboy of remixes AC Slater with his remix of The Prodigy (looks like the 80′s rule has been relaxed somewhat) and Bonde de Role’s funk carioca take on Pigbag

Just looking through the BBC’s Sound of 2009 – and I’m struck by the thought that unlike 2008 which in rock and pop has been fairly MEH with a few exceptions (dance and drum and bass is in rude health though; indie has become corporate and bland; pop is ringtones now with only a few smart exceptions) I think 2009 we’ll be in for a shock…and nothing on this list will be part of that.

The nu-rave thing has run it’s course, as has the 80′s references and electro, and the economy and future is uncertain so I doubt that ultra-bright shiny fluffy 80′s pop is going to be in. I think and hope that there is going to be a big leftfield surprise musically next year…the spectrum of boring safe mainstream stuff wanting you to buy things, coupled with what’s going on in the world energising a new generation, well does it sound familiar? Sounds very mid 70′s to me…

I hope so anyway, because what’s on this BBC Sound of 2009 is just more of the same.

There was an era in the mid to late 80′s where videos weren’t cheap. So when rave and hiphouse/hiphop came along they needed something for MTV and Top of the Pops etc – so enter the stand in front of a screen video, usually with graphics ‘genlocked’ (aka ‘keyed’) ie. placed digitally behind them, or stock video, even more cheaply projected behind them…and loads of silly dancing. Like this (Keith Haring a B movie inspired):

Other ones include A Guy Called Gerald’s Voodoo Ray, which owes rather a lot to Len Lye’s Colour Box, uses computer animation and projection, and suddenly I feel an unusual desire for Sanatogen, not MDMA:

Neneh Cherry might be more famous now for cookery programmes, but in 1987 she was standing in front of a screen with some very embarassing earrings. Am I bovvered?
Pointless fact: it was produced by Tim Simenon, aka Bomb the Bass hence the reference to Tim and Timmy, you might hear from that person shortly…

Obviously one of the problems was the complete anonymity of the dance music at the time – few vocals, no ‘stars’, just rhythm. What to do? Well what about constructor worker garb, ripped video game graphics, weird building shots (cos it’s house! geddit?) and dodgy mosaic effect (cos it’s the nu digital age, right?). Erm…

ACCCIEEEDDD! Certain Residents inspiration to this one – the tune was banned in the UK so never shown fully:

And as rave took over, the videos got cheaper and more like Amiga demos, which is funny because they were probably produced on the Amiga:

And FSOL aka Stakker Humanoid were making their own 3D videos (Amiga probably too ) which seem very ahead of their time:

And apparently you should move your body over glowing radioactive lava fields:

and some actually became soundtracks for Amiga games:

Also pop got in the act twith bigger crowds but basically the same idea (1990)

As an aside, it’s interesting because I remember seeing videos by Cerith Wyn Evans using these overlay techniques from the early 80′s, and of course one of Leigh Bowery’s videos which was shot purely in a video booth at the Tropicana in London using the same idea…sadly neither are on YouTube but I’ve had a lot of fun looking at video of Leigh, he was a lovely man.

Anyway back to the (day)glowing outline 90′s – what’s interesting is that those with bigger budgets co-opted that ‘dance in front a screen’ style but maybe lost something of the original charm:

And then you have modern day, were the whole thing was co-opted by the new rave scene – such as the pisstaking Trashfashion:

and the MGMT Time to Pretend video which I refuse to link because they’ve obviously asked everyone who posted the video to disable embedding – they or their record company REALLY don’t understand new media and should be slapped. So there.