Triple J Radio Mix

DJ Mix
[Triple J Radio – 2000]

01. Radioactiveman – Uranium
02. Wayward Soul – Europa
03. T – Power – Fuzzy Logic
04. Jackyl and Hyde – Go Bang
05. DJ Rap – Bad Girl (Tipper Remix)
06. FreQ Nasty – Check It Out
07. Flint – Everybody Funkin
08. Wayward Soul – Real World Child
09 . Filter – Welcome To The Fold
(FreQ Nasty Remix)
10. FreQ Nasty – Boomin Back Atcha
(Hybrid’s “Music To Plow Fields To” Mix)
11. Kasha (BLIM & Chris Carter) ft. Shara Nelson – U
12. Eminem – My Name Is (Uncouth Youth Bootleg)
13. Attica Blues – Inner Minds Eyes
14. FreQ Nasty – I Was Made For Loving You

I did this mix in 2000 in the middle of another awesome tour in Australia over the Christmas/New Years months. I can’t begin to tell you how good it felt to be lying on the beach between gigs instead of freezing my arse off in London. Most of the DJs in Europe (it seemed like anyway) made a habit of heading south for the Northern winter and would inevitably end up on the Australian festival circuit. In fact it became bit of a cliche that you would end up catching up with your DJ mates in OZ rather than at home, taking time once the tour was over to chill on a beach in Byron Bay while you waited for the ice to thaw in the Northern hemisphere.

Breaks had just blown up in OZ and soon after I found myself playing huge gigs with Cypress Hill and big trance DJs which had been unthinkable a few years earlier. Triple J, the best independent radio station in OZ had asked me to do a mix and I was really happy to do so. They are still pretty dope still and they are still doing the MIXUP show! In fact me old mate Lorin Bassnectar is up there this week!

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/mixup/

Anyway here’s a rundown of the tunes I played and what they meant to me at the time.

To start, I love that you can hear the crackling on the opening tune, Radioactiveman’s  “Uranium�. The dubplate so worn out that the crackle almost takes over the mournful opening strings of the intro. I can still see the yellow cover of that plate cut at Music House I think. Keith Tenniswood’s stuff was amazing and he want on to produce many great records with Andrew Weatherall as Two Lone Swordsmen as well as producing Primal Scream amongst many others.

“Europa� the 2nd track was also made by a super talented maverick. Wayword Soul AKA Tony Thorpe was also the rhythm programmer for acid house heroes KLF as well as a co conspirator with glitch-hop pioneer Si Begg. I shouldn’t really out more than one tune per artist on a mixtape but I always seem to succumb to my favorite artist at the time.

T Power, after one of his regular “fuck drum&bassâ€? phases, churned out “Fuzzy Logicâ€? and still manages to surprise me today. We hung out in Edmonton recently with Nick Knight Riderz and T told us has now joined South Ruckus Crew!! Always pulling a left field move is our T Power. And then there’s all his drum&bass hits with Shy FX all thru the 2000s as well. Awesome producer and one of the first people I connected with in the music industry as we both started out in the SOUR/Emotif/Botchit records group, as did Shy FX, MJ Cole, BLIM, with people like Trace and Ed Rush putting out some of there breakthough releases on the labels.

Jackly and Hyde’s “Go Bangâ€? still sounds sick today and it’s great to hear a bunch of up and coming producers in London and Berlin making this US electro sound hip again. It’s less Detroit and more Miami sounding and I love that heavy funky sound that sounds like it’s fighting to get out of the speakers at you. Those boys were always way ahead of their time.

Then comes “Check it Out� off my “FreQ’s Geeks and Mutilations� album on Botchit and Scarper. I got drum&bass MC Skibadee into the studio in Whitechapel where BLIM and I were based at the time, and we had gotten a bunch of new gear I hadn’t used yet. The compressor was distorting like #%&@ and I couldn’t work out why so I just kept the record button pushed and hoped there would be something useable by the time he left because I was too embarrassed to tell him I couldn’t get the damn thing to work. He was in and out in an hour as I remember it, and we never did get a chance to redo it, so there it is all distorted and messed up but sounding like I meant it. Skibba is a sick MC and it was an honor to work with him, especially as he’d won best DnB MC that year at the DnB awards in London.

Tipper’s remix of DJ Rap’s “Bad Girlâ€? was sick and a big moment for the early 125-140bpm scene then known as “Nu Skool Breaks and Future Electroâ€?. It’s a mouthful I’ll grant you, but you can hear on this mix why it was used. At Friction, the classic Nu Skool Breaks and Future Electro night at London’s Bar Rumbha in the late ’90s, these two sounds were always mixed up and it was as much Kraftwerk as drum&bass that was influencing me at the time.

“Everybody Funkin’” by Flint was a hang over from the Big Beat days that had seen Norman Cook hit the top of the US charts as Fatboy Slim in the ’90s, and I have to say I was really into the idea of mixing up the party records with the harder stuff… and I still am. A great party tune on Fingerlickin’ Records that gave us the Plump DJ’s amongst others.

Wayward Soul launches into “Real Wild Child” next – 2nd tune by one artist on this mix… nuff said.

Next is a mix I did for Filter (ex-Nine Inch Nails guitarist player’s band) in Rennie Pilgrem’s studio as things were hotting up, and BLIM and I didn’t have enough time in the studio for both of us to finish everything that needed doing. The result is really minimal and with a strong techno feel which was BLIM’s influence. Kinda spooky tho. First time I had heard this properly in years.

Then comes a remix Hybrid did of my “Boomin Back Atchaâ€? tune. It felt like there was remix of that track coming out every 3 months after its initial release but looking back there was only 3 that were released. I was kinda being a sensitive artist, not wanting to rinse something out just because it was a big tune. Maybe I was right… maybe not. I’m blad Hybrid did this one though, stretching the vocal to half time and getting all cinematic on it, as is their wont. Great job lads.

Kasha’s “U� featuring Shara Nelson drops next. To have THE Shara Nelson come into the studio was amazing. Her of “Unfinished Sympathy� and “Safe From Harm� off the first Massive Attack album. I was pretty star struck when I first met her as I LOVED that album. She was sweet as you could hope and super friendly, and BLIM and Chris Carter and her made an epic track that got played a lot on the radio as I remember it. Big soul tune with a heavy metal bass line. Wicked!

The Slim Shady “My Name Is� bootleg that drops next was by Uncouth Youth. Back in the day kids you could make mad cash by making a bootleg of a big tune and pressing it up on vinyl and boshing it out to the shops. You’d get £2.10 from the distributor and they cost you a quid or so to have the stampers made and press up the records, so if you sold a few thousand or more you’d make some good ££. This was a good one. Jody from Uncouth Youth you may now know as Hellfire Machina and makes bass music from his adopted home of New York.

Attica Blues’ “Inner Minds Eye” I just dropped in there because I loved it, and I kept a few things I loved that I couldn’t play at a club in my box for radio slots when I was on tour. Perfect opportunity to play it right here

The last tune in the mix is a cover I did of “I Was Made For Loving You� by KISS, the dodgy 70/80’s rock band. I don’t know what possessed me to do this but there is something epic about the original that transcends the cock-rock vibe of the original. Is that a good enough excuse? Probably not, but oddly enough I have a had a few people come up to me over the years saying “ We got married to your ‘I was made for loving you’ tune� …which makes me very happy.

So there you go. I hope you enjoy it. It’s a good document of a scene that was just breaking internationally and I distinctly remember being in the Triple J studios, and being really happy that at last I got to play on my favorite Ozzy radio station. I lived in Sydney briefly before going to London, and Triple J’s specialist show DJs kept me alive musically, so it was a great opportunity return the favor to one of them.

Thanks Triple J!

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