Cross-posted from DM, because it's a great cause and because I am featured on this comp:
Compiled by friend of Dangerous Minds Elizabeth Veldon, and available as a free download from the net label Black Circle, Russia’s Full of Queers is a 29 track album designed to highlight the abuse of LGBT people’s rights currently being passed as law in several Russian cities. Elizabeth says:
This album is a response to proposed laws in Russia that would outlaw any discussion of homosexuality, bisexuality or transgenderism.
The artists involved gave their tracks free and in many cases produced work to a tight (24 hour) schedule.
There is a wide variety of styles here from Harsh Noise through weird Jazz Cut-Ups to Hip Hop and Ambient.
We only ask that you sign the online petition against these laws and pass the word on.
Alone our voices are tiny, when raised together we can change the world.
You can sign the petition here, and you can download Russia’s Full Of Queers here.
Following on from Friday's book signing by Nile Rodgers, Chic played at the Warehouse Project on Saturday night. Needless to say, we were there. Chic were awesome as per usual, even if the venue was not the best due to minor sound issues. It was my first time at the Warehouse Project, and it's pretty cool for a big empty warehouse space turned into a club, in the style of Fabric or The Arches. Chic were joined on stage at the end of the show by Manc guitar hero Johnny Marr who played on "Le Freak". Joe actually spotted Marr the night before at the book signing, but didn't think it was him, citing the commoness of Marr's haircut among a certain age of Manchester gentlemen. The Fast Show's lovely Jon Thompson was there too, which made me feel a bit funny inside.
On Friday I went to a talk and book signing by the one and only Nile Rodgers. I got my copy of his autobiography Le Freak signed, and got my photo taken with the great man himself. What an honour!
Last Sunday we brought a few drag queens to Kraak for s photo shoot for Tranarchy's Queens of Metal party. Here's some of the best (including the first sleeve of the hastily formed band GASH, plus pics of Motley Sue, Pam Tera, Nine Inch Gail and Pete Loaf)):
I'm really looking forward to this! Tonight sees the first ever DRUNK AT VOGUE at Kraak Gallery, with house and disco form our friends James Sizen Bell (Terrorist), Greg Thorpe (Off The Hook) and local scene queen Thom Docking (though I am sure there will be MANY more queens there tonight than just her...).
I posted this on Shallow Rave already, but it's gettin it's own post here too.
Sometimes I think hip-house is the best genre ever known to man - the perfect blend of old school dance sounds with rapping on the top. It was fast, it was funky and it was fun - the tempo of the music made the MCs concentrate on a different meter, one that was more rhythmic and inspirational rather than heavy and polemical. Both genres were new and exciting at the time, and fitted each other like a hand in a glove (lest we forget that house music originally started as a black, ghetto music too).
How could it fail? WHY did it fail? Was it something to do with a perception amongst the hip-hop communtiy that house was too gay? The fact that house came from gay clubs like Frankie Knuckles' Warehouse or Ron Hardy's Music Box perhaps didn't square well with the uber-macho posturing of rap. Or was it seen as too faddish? Perhaps a hangover from the "disco sucks" years and rejection of yet another hijacking of a black musical form by white folks?
Whatever the reasons, the music still kicks ass today - drop something like Tyree & Kool Rock Steady "Turn Up The Bass" or KC Flightt's "Planet E" on a modern dancfloor and watch them tear it up. Now that we have gotten past an era where hip-hop was alligned in direct opposition to house, where all these different sounds are now simply conceived of as "retro", younger crowds are more open to this music and respond to the upbeat, party vibe and the combination of simple key elements in a fresh, different style.
Here's a short documentary on hip-house from 1989 featuring pretty much all the key players in the game. Some comissioning editor somewhere obviously thought this genre was gonna break big! But you've gotta be glad that footage like this still exists to document a sadly forgotten scene:
BONUS!
Here's a clip of Fast Eddie performing "Yo Yo Get Funky" live for a super-square and uber-white show called "Nine Thirty" (this clip also features an interview with the legendary founder of DJ International Records Rocky Jones, sporting a bad-ass shellsuit):
BONUS 2!
Tyree Cooper and Kool Rock Steady "Turn Up The Bass" live on Top Of The Pops 1989 - I love this track, it's big in my box right now.
Halloween didn't end with those parties, oh no - on Monday 31st our good friend Kurt Dirt got married to his fiance Lisa Aspin at a Frankenstein themed wedding do in Blackpool! It was a great day and an even better night:
This year's Zombie Pride was THE BEST one ever! It was such good fun, it was very busy, and the costumes were immense. But hey, don't take my word for it... (pics by Craig Parker):
The Spencer clan workin the door!
Jimmy Saville died on Saturday, so at the suggestion of Trash-O-Rama's Kirsty Bradley I made it my Halloween outfit:
I'm pretty pleased with this pic - I have truly captured the essence of the great man: