RIP Michael Jackson

Good Looking Records/LTJ Bukem Documentary

One of my favourite drum & bass producers is LTJ Bukem. I came across this documentary from back in the day ... his manager Tony was a proper Del Boy!

DJ Derek in da area!!!

Bodytonicmusic & Big Chill Present:
DJ DEREK (Sweet Memory Sounds, Bristol)
DJ Shepdog (Nice Up!)
Tom Beary & MC Little Tree (Scribble)



Grandad DJ Derek is back to rock the Bernard Shaw with some sweet reggae and dancehall. For the un-initiated, Derek is a retired former accountant for Cadburys Chocolate, who made a name for himself some 30 odd years ago for playing black music to a black crowd and doing it well. So well infact, that the BBC made a documentary about him and he hasnt looked back since, doing 3/4 gigs a week up and down the land and the tender age of 68.

A diehard real ale afficianado (he brought his own booze to the club but not before heating it on the radiator in his hotel room) he played in the Bernard Shaw last November and schooled everybody in how a real Gentleman DJ does it. Selecting sweet soul, ragga and dancehall jams and dishing out life advice in his see it to believe it Jamaican patois, he made us laugh, he made us cry, but most importantly he made us dance!

Bodytonic are doing this gig in association with The Big Chill Festival in the UK (August 6th - 9th) where Derek is a mainstay

Drum & Bass Documentary from 1996

Some badass tunes in the soundtrack to this...Goldie / Hype / 4Hero are some of the headz that feature from back in the day !!!

Tighten Up - Volume 1

This is the first in a series of classic riddims which i will be posting over the next while. I had to start with one of the all-time greats by Junior Reid 'One Blood' This is the massive 6 minute version too, with 2 minutes of dubbing after the vocals. Enjoy!

Album Of The Year so far....

Inspiration Information: Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics



Mulatu Astatke was born in Ethiopia in 1943. He is an innovative multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and the originator of a form of music he calls ethio-jazz. Mulatu Astatke's music is impossible to categorise. There are the obvious Ethiopian influences and then there are the jazz influences, reflecting the time he spent in the UK and the US. It's a predominantly instrumental style that first shook up the Addis music scene back in the late 1960s and early 70s, reached new audiences thanks to the success of the Ethiopiques albums, and is still evolving. Last year, Astatke gave his first live show in the UK in more than 15 years, backed by the London-based Heliocentrics collective.

Mulatu - Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics LIVE
Uploaded by granjeros

MULATU ASTATKE & The Heliocentrics
Live from Cargo, London
17th April 2008
ulatu Astatke - Vibes and Percussion
Malcolm Catto - Drums
Jake Ferguson - Bass
Jack Yglesias – Percussion
Adrian Owusu – Guitar
Finn Peters - Tenor Sax
Byron Wallen - Trumpet
Joel Yennior - Trombone
James Arben – Tenor & Baritone sax
Ollie Parfitt - Keyboards

The African bandleader joined them again for an intriguing studio collaboration which has resulted in this amazing album.


Probably a bit corny but yes listening to Mulatu Astatke really does take you away to a special place...

FUNK 45s @ SOUTHWILLIAM BAR & BASEMENT - NEXT THURSDAY APRIL 2ND

This should be fun!



FUNK 45s @ SOUTHWILLIAM BAR & BASEMENT NEXT THURSDAY APRIL 2ND 5:45pm-2:45am / zero euro

'M*ASH' 9 HOUR FUNKATHON 20 DJS on 2 FLOORS featuring: Afronova Choice Cuts All City Records Beat Finder Records Elbow Room Solace Billy Scurry Johnny Boyle Lex Woo Matjazz Warm DJ Keith O'Reilly Dave Rice Emma C Scribble Records Keep Schtum Stylus

It's "Strictly 45s" for this, the first FUNK 45s night at Southwilliam. 20 of Dublin's best DJs spinning rare funk and soul original 45s and fresh re-issues + brand-new funk cuts as well as disco, afro, latin & hip-hop 7inches from Dublin's most dedicated 45 freaks!

9 hours in all, starting upstairs at 5:45pm and winding up in the basement at 2:45am. DJs spinning 45min sets all night for the biggest funk party ever!

PASS IT ON!

The Ears Of The Town

The lads over at the Bubble have put together a really nice short documentary on Plugd Records, Cork’s finest independent record shop. A year or two ago i was down in Cork to play a gig and i finally got a chance to visit the shop after hearing so many heads say it was Ireland's best underground music shop. Well it turned out they were right! Great shop, i remember dropping €150 (including about €15 discount, nice touch) on Moodyman records, some hip-hop albums and loads of other bits and pieces. It was nice to meet the friendly and knowledgable Jim the owner of Plugd. Just wish the video was a bit longer and they interviewed Jim!


The Ears of the Town: Plugd records from John Callaghan on Vimeo.

Voice & G. Frequency

Check out Voice performing one of Dublin hip-hop producer and Scribble Sound system members G. Frequency tracks.

Jazz Is The Teacher

The Godfather of techno Juan Atkins dropped into the BBC studios for an interview with Benji B. for his Deviation radio show. Check it out here.
I've been listening to Juan's records for many years now and they still sound as fresh as the day he made them. This interview is a fascinating insight into the mind of Juan and he comes as a very sound and humble guy. Benji plays a lot of Juan Atkins classics so it a great introduction to the man for many who might not be aware of this man influence on music. Without question this man is the Godfather of moden electronic music.



Last year Juan brought his Model 500 project to Dublin for the city's annual DEAF festival. Here they perform the classic track 'Future'.


[YNTV] Model 500 - Future (Live) at Whelans - DEAF 08

The making of 'Angie', take two!

A capture of a beautiful moment when inspiration hits...

For a limited time, Emusic and Truth & Soul are offering a free sampler that includes various tracks from the Truth & Soul catalogue. From El Michels Affair to Lee Fields, Bronx River Parkway to Quincy Bright, there is something for everyone, and the best part is....it's free!!! Go here to download all 12 tracks.

Phlash & Friends

One of the most anticipated albums of 2009 is about drop soon. Phlash is Phil Asher and amongst his 'friends' you find such names like Karizma, Zed Bias, Dego, Mark de Clive Lowe, Afronaught and Zansika.
Here is a little taster of things to come. Featuring all the songs on the Lp “Deep Electronic Sound” forthcoming on Archive Records. Watch out for the Phlash!

Qtip live on Conan O'Brien...can't wait for the Dublin show!

Love Me For This

It's a pity that people who do re-edit's don't have the same attitude and talent as Floating Points. This has to be one of the best edits of a track ever and he has given it away to all of us for free! Here is the original version of the track 'Love Me Like This' by Reel To Real



And here is the fantastic re-edit that Floating Points has been floating about recently Reel To Real - Love Me Like This (Floating Points re-edit) If the link expires shout me!

DJ kormac in Austria

In early November, Scribble Records DJ Kormac travelled to Vienna for a show in a museum. During the mini-tour Kormac does radio shows, meets his travelling fanclub and samples the delights of the country that gave us Red Bull and Mozart. Directed, edited and shot by Ross Killeen. Starring Kormac and the good people of Austria.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

One To Watch in 2009 - Mike Slott

I really think 2009 is gonna be Mike Slott's year. For those that haven't heard of him before, he is a producer in the Heralds of Change who have had a number of impressive releases. Mike is a native of Dublin and now resides in Harlem, New York. His releases on All City Records and LuckyMe, as Heralds Of Change and on his own, have been compared with Flying Lotus who he has just recently remixed on Warp Records. BBC Radio 1 Extra's Mary-Ann Hobbs recently aired a mix by Mike of his own productions on her show which can be downloaded here

The tracklisting for the mix is as follows:

Mike Slott featuring Muhsinah - Flunky 45 [All City]
Mike Slott - 7x7x2 [All City]
Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators - Remixes [ATC]
Heralds of Change - Secrets EP [All City]
Heralds of Change - Puzzles EP [All City]
G Frequency - Eggs n Cheese 12" [All City]
Heralds of Change -Sittin on the Side 12" [All City]
Heralds of Change - Show You 12" [All City]
Surface Emp - The LuckyMe EP [Far Cut]

One of the track remixed by Mike which is featured in the mix above is his remix of Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators which has a great video. Check it out here



Limerick's Cheebah did a nice interview with Mike in September:

Your father mike recorded the first modern irish jazz ep, did he have a big bearing on you musically?

Yeah he did in some ways, we didnt live together when i was young but i always remember music being a general part of the home, be it an old rhodes type thing in the corner or suitcases of sheet music that my dad used to write on...

Did your cousin oisin get you into the hip hop or had you figured that out already before the marxmen?

yeah, theres about 10 years between us so when he went off to live in london to make the marxman records he used to send me back these mixtapes of stuff he was listening to, de la soul, tribe, das efx etc etc....he'd come back with these stories of working with Primo in DnD studios in New York or Guru freestyling with their emcee or playing festivals and gigs here and there.

Did you feel it was inevitable that you would get into music considering that your family has such a history of producing great musicians?

i never really thought about it to be honest...i just always loved music, i always listened to music and then as time went by became particularly interested in hip hop and then the whole idea of sampling and djing etc and wanted to try it myself, messing with a turntable or tapes or the like. My mum was brilliant, she bought me a wee sampler one birthday, a midi keyboard another and i just kinda built up from there. i dont think it was a conscious i want to "get into" this, more like a "i enjoy this"

Did you have any musical training/learn any instruments etc. as a child?

I took piano lessons when i was young and then drums lessons from my uncle but i never saw it through...I would love to be able to play both now but ill get back to it in time

when did you first start making beats, what producers influenced you to do this?

Hmmm i always listened to a lot of hip hop so just the same ol names anyone will tell you from the nineties and backwards...i always liked good pop music and somewhere i became interested in jazz i think because of general sampling and my dads background. Everything really though.

What equipment did you start out on, what do you use now?

I started on some dance ejay thing program and then cubase and fruity loops and nuendo and an mpc60 and all sorts...i was trying to really find something i was comfortable with until i kinda came full circle and started using fruity loops again.

How did the hearlds of change come about/ how important was this for your development musically?

It was very important, thats when i really began to feel like i was starting to make the music i wanted to make..it coincided with meeting hudson mo also, he showed me a lot and over the course of a summer we spent a lot of time making beats, swapping beats, talking about doing something together and eventually putting a wee beat tape together which ended up leading to our first 12" "Show You/Part of the World" on All City

Do you prefer to work independently or to collaborate, is it pretty difficult to collaborate with others with geographics etc being an issue?

I enjoy both but i don't always find it easy to collaborate in actually writing the music, i dont think geography is an issue for most people anymore - its never really been a problem since i started putting records out. By the time the first Heralds of Change 12" came out myself and hudson were living in different countries so that side of things has always seemed normal. It makes no difference if he's in glasgow and im in new york or dublin or whatever now.

Would you like to have more vocals with your beats, or do you prefer to let them stand alone, muhsinah track is a fine example of how it can work so well?

I really like both, i want to start doing more vocal work because i dont see myself as just an "instrumental hip hop" guy. I love making that stuff but i enjoy making the other stuff too. Theres a place for it all, i just wouldnt want to consider myself one or the other of anything.

Are there too many beat makers out there now and with myspace can you become lost in all the music?

I dont know if you can ever say that theres too many...half the time its people who just enjoy sitting making beats and they can put it on myspace and get some feedback, i think thats great. The flipside is that its a lottttt of music to wade through if thats what you want to do. gift and a curse.

How can you push out the boundaries of your music to set you out from the rest?

experiment, be honest and use your imagination as much as possible...?

Does your musical training stand to you in that i think that some beatmakers have a good idea but they can't develop it so it ends up being a two minute track that ends suddenly and doesn't go anywhere whereas you are able to have interludes in your tracks and then take it in a different direction...

I dont know if its anything to do with musical training because i really dont have much if any at all.Maybe more to do with a period of being obsessed with not making just loops anymore and to make music that actually moved and took you somewhere, something that wasnt so obvious as a lot of the hip hop i was listening to... so that you wouldnt really know where something was gonna go or what was gonna happen next. Music is a ladder for the soul apparently so there ye go....Not to be tricky or anything but just to keep interest and create a picture of sorts for myself.

You have a new 7" in the pipeline, any other solo work we should know about?

Yeh i've a new 7" with Muhsinah out on All City this month, then a Flying Lotus remix on Warp Records in nov followed by an ep on LuckyMe...

Dilla's studio

A rare insight in to J Dillas studio by Dilla himself…..

Dubsteppa doc

All you need to know if you were afraid to ask! Here is a short documentary that gives you the lowdown on the origins and some of the main players of the dubstep sound....

Don't think twice about this one....

Saturday 7th February sees the return of one of the finest house and techno producers around to Dublin. Henrik Schwarz has been putting out some quality releases over the last couple of years and his unique, improvised approach to live performance has been earning him much aclaim from house and techno club goers. We're in for a treat in that regard as it looks like he will giving a little talk & Ableton Live showcase before his performance in the Twisted Pepper. Keep an eye on Bodytonicmusic.com for the full lowdown on this. Here is his remix of The Detroit Experiments 'Think Twice' which has yet to be released...



Henrik Schwarz is one of the few producers who could pull off such a sublime remix of this classic track.

Fat Freddys Drop - Live @ Tripod

For me the best live gig of 2008 was Fat Freddy's Drop at the Tripod on 16th November. Thanks to this video we get to re-live six minutes of that amazing night. Enjoy!



I'm looking forward to checking out their new album which should be droppin' shortly. Check out this track called 'The Camel' which will be one of the tracks on it.

Omar-S to play Dublin

This is one to get really excited about! Omar-S is to play Dublin's Twisted Pepper club on April 4th. He is just after mixing the latest of the Fabric series of mixes and it's full to the brim of his own productions. As the man himself explains

"My booking agent and I were talking about doing a mix for fabric over the last year, and for me, over the last year I haven’t really been feeling anybody’s music. I’d rather do a mix for fabric that’s all my own shit, because there are still a lot of people out there that don’t know about FXHE records or Omar-S or Oasis. I did a few different versions, remixes, of a few of the tracks on the CD, and there are about four tracks on there that haven’t been released yet. I know a lot of new people will listen to it, so of course I put my important songs on there, but I wanted to make it varied and mix it the right way. That’s why I mixed a lot of the songs a different way; but with the famous songs, I didn’t touch those because I want the new people to hear the original. I don’t need other people’s music; I got over 100 songs released. I can make fucking six fucking fabric records right now. I can probably make fucking ten CDs just of unreleased shit.”

The mix album will be released on March 16 and it really is a great introduction to the man's music if you haven't heard it before.



My favourite track from Omar was released last year and its included on the mix. Check it out .... Psychotic Photosynthesis

"You can not copy Omar-S style. You can only copy a song that has already been produced by Omar-S"

Omar s is a man who doesn't comprimise in his art or opinions ... check out a fascinating insight into the man through an interview he did with the excellent infinitestatemachine blog a couple of years ago here!

See y'all up the front on April 4th!!!

When Perverelist Came To Town...

Perverelist the dubstep producer from Bristol played Dublin's Twisted Pepper venue last Friday. He’s the proprietor of Rooted Records, the place to buy your vinyl if you’re a Bristolian with a fondness for big riddims, and also runs the Punch Drunk label. Since its first releases last year, Punch Drunk has become quietly revered worldwide, consistently pushing bleeding-edge innovations from the Bristol scene. Peverelist’s own productions cover a great deal of ground, from ghostly, dubbed-out techno, to skeletal post-2-Step, to the kind of bleeping sound-poems that the likes of Wiley and Danny Weed were putting out in the earliest days of grime. Yournight.ie caught him just after his wicked set for a video interview which you can check out here

All-City Records 7" Series

I picked up the final instalment of the 7" series from All-City Records in Dublin last weekend and i think its my favourite of the lot. The French beatmaker Onra gives us a double sided dose of French bruk hip hop soul with a nod to the East. If you want to hear future funk check this one out...



Specialising in hip hop culture All City Records opened its doors as a small record and graff supplies store back in July 2001. They've always been based in the Temple Bar area of Dublin despite having moved premises about 3 or 4 times i think. Olan runs the shop and is a straight up dude.



They kicked the label off around 2003 and have been putting out some great music since then. This one is my favourite of all their releases so far ...

The times they are a changin'.... Road Records to close

Focused mainly on rock music, Road Records in Dublin also used to stock a small selection of reggae, funk, soul and electronica. I liked popping in there every now & again to have a browse and always found the owners Dave & Julie to be extremely helpful. Their passion & committment to independent music in Dublin was huge. I wish them well for whatever they decide to do with their future and thank them for all the great music they put me on to.

In Dave & Julie's own words:

First of all, thank you all for your kind words about our store and us personally, we really do appreciate it as Road has always been about a personal approach from day one.

I am very sad to say that we will in fact be closing down the store in the next 2 - 3 weeks as things have just become too difficult for us to proceed, we basically have no money left and as it is just a small shop run by Julie and myself we can longer afford to fund it. Belive me if we were at least breaking even each week then we would continue on in hope but as we are continually losing money, and have been for at least six months, we cannot carry on as any losses incurred will have to be personally paid for by us. We have put enough of our own money into the store in the last year just to keep it afloat but I am sad to say we really don't have anything left at this stage, if we continue to trade we will just continue to lose money that we honestly do not have any more and thus we will end up paying off bank loans for the rest of our lives. I know a lot of people think if you have your own store that you have money behind you but believe me that is just a myth.

Its been an absolutely amazing eleven years for us and neither of us regret one single second of it, when we close I will not be looking back on wasted time in any way. We have made some amazing friends through the shop and have had the pleasure of dealing with some truly fantastic bands [and their members]. Without blowing my own trumpet I do think Dublin will be a worse place without us as I think from day one we were always the most approachable store for Irish bands and their independent releases, it was one of the main reasons for setting up the store [some of you may remember the fact that I spent most of my youth plugging away in bands with nowhere to sell our music] and we have always tried to be as supportive to local music as possible, mainly because people in this country make music as good as if not better than anywhere else but have never had a proper outlet to sell it. We have always had a policy to make sure to play Irish music in the store so people in here can hear it and understand the quality and diversity of music being made in Ireland. If we heard something that excited us then we would always go out of our way to promote it as much as possible both in the store and on the site.

The reasons for the downturn are many and varied and if there was just one then we could try overcome that in some way but its no longer possible to pinpoint just one. I will try list some of the reasons I see for the death of the small shop and I really do hope I am not right in thinking that many more will go the same way, I have always been optimistic that this city can sustain a couple of smaller indie shops but I no longer believe that to be true, again, I really hope I am wrong with this opinion but the way people go about buying their music these days does not instill me with too much confidence.

Regardless of what I have thought over the years downloading has effected our business, probably more so the illegal side of things, filesharhing and the likes. I speak as a shop on this one but god knows how much small bands suffer because of this aswell.

Below cost sellers online, everybody wants a bargain and its hard to take the moral highground on this one, but everytime a purchase is made to the likes of Play etc is a nail in the coffin to the indie store, these online sellers don't care one hoot about indie bands and music, they just need to sell in bulk and as quickly as possible. They will never put any money or effort back into indigenous music, try asking them to sell 50 copies of a beautiful hand made cdr release.

The city centre just does not have the same volume of people walking around it anymore, its a simple fact, less people means less sales. We have noticed a massive downturn in the amount of people visiting the store in the last year.

Kids don't buy music anymore. That sounds like a fairly broad statement to make, I know there are still some out there but we don't see any young people in the shop anymore so as we lose older customers we don't gain any new ones.

Obviously this country is going through a recession at the moment so it would be stupid of me to claim that this wasn't having an effect on our business but having said that things were already beginning to change long before that.

The deal with selling independent local releases always had to be a two way exchange for us, we never made much money from local releases [and that was never the idea] but we always sought the support of bands. By that I mean if we were selling your music then we would always appreciate the bands making a purchase in the store in return, sadly that did not always happen, and before you jump at me for making this statement I do accept that plenty of you out there were very supportive of us but take if from me we did have quite a lot of bands coming in to us with their own release to sell whilst also carrying a hmv bag with a purchase they had just made, simply because it was cheaper there.

The cost of running a store in this city has increased dramatically in the past 4 / 5 years, rents have gone up so much, insurance increased, bank costs and so many other things that over the years it has become increasingly more difficult just to meet our costs on a week to week basis.

Whilst this one may not seem so obvious the cost of an average cd or record in the store is now less than it was 5 / 6 years ago and that is a good thing to the consumer but it has also seriously dented our chances of making a living in any way, it just means we have to sell more to cover our costs but as I mentioned with less customers coming through the door that has not been possible.

As you may gather from this piece we are both very very sad about the prospects of closing down our shop, this is our only way of making a living and now we are both back to square one with pretty much no money [and a brand new baby to support], I don't know what either of us are going to do from now on but I'm sure we will survive.

I say this from my heart that I really hope the last few remaining indie stores will survive in the city and I hope you can take time out to visit them and make a purchase, otherwise these stores will not make it through these times either, and don't leave it for a couple of weeks, do it today as they really do need your support and its only when they are all gone that you will then miss them.

Again, thank you all for your kind words and to anybody out there that has supported us in any way thank you also, we have had so much pleasure over the last eleven years doing what we do.

Dave and Julie

Vaughan Mason feat. Butch Dayo - Feel My Love

This was one of many amazing records dropped by Dam-Funk when he played at Deviation in London one Wednesday night during 2008. Listening to it inspired me to start this blog in which i intend to share my love of music with you!

Check out Dam-Funk in action at Deviation... second tune in he drops "Feel My Love"...inspirational!!!

These Things Will Never Fade

Hola! and welcome..... more to come