A happy monkey yesterday

Pianos were the first synthesizer, in that even a moron with no musical ability can just monkey about and make nice noises.

Here’s 10 big piano tunes, some of which will make dads cry. Many of them pretty obvious really. Feel free to share less obvious ones.

1. Derrick May – Strings Of the Strings of Life

Don’t need to say much about this…do we? Other than – I think the story is that Derrick had his mate over and he played the piano bit. Then May made an entire career out of it. This is a nice kinda chill out room version. Bit long. We actually had Strings of Life on our first ever rave tape which we obtained in 1990 when most people still didn’t really know what a rave was. It was an unbelievably hissy copy of a copy of a Pure tape and Strings of Life was the first tune.

2. Marshall Jefferson – Move Your Body

Another one we dont need to say much about really. Chicago. House. Etc.

3. The Hypnotist – The House Is Mine

This one would also go in a top 10 massive rave drops category for the big noise that bursts in. RIP Caspar Pound. Stole the piano vamp from Richie Havens…see below.

4. Suburban Knight – The Warning

Spooky UR batcave techno. As in a lot of rave music the piano is sampled and pitched weirdly so it almost doesnt sound like a piano any more. This is a lot more morose than rave music tho. Always liked morose techno rather than happy stuff…Classic from the Test days, remember Shandy dropping it in the ‘warmup’ at the Sub Club with far too much smoke going on.

5. Awesome 3 – Don’t Go

Had to pick at least one big piano pop rave tune. This is awfully cheesy admittedly but there’s something about the break…sounded awesome blasting out the huge warehouse rave sound system at Rezerection and begs for a bit of turbofoot rave dancing. All the big rave DJs used to play it. XL records.

6. Richie Havens – Going Back To My Roots

We were actually lucky enough to meet the great man himself one time a few years back. Lovely bit of disco soul for that sun coming up good feeling 6am party vibe, that supplied the piano riff Caspar Pound sampled for The Hypnotist tune above.

7. Jeff Mills – Changes Of Life

It’s kind of interesting how many of these tunes are really obvious. This is a monster tho. One of those turn the lights on at the end of the night numbers…as is the Hypnotist. Something about a big piano riff.

8. Paul Woolford – Untitled

Had to have SOMETHING new on this list just to prove we’re not dead. This is a summer hit from Northern dude Woolford on Hotflush…dangerously close to being generic tech house gubbins. HMm. Is it any good? Actually not sure now…you decide.

9. The Juan McLean – Happy House

This became a bit of a staple of Techno Dads’ more housey/disco-y sets a few years back…and we still play it sometimes. Usually slow it down a bit tho as you can hear here.. Kind of a cover version of Do It Now by Dubtribe Sound System, by New York DFA dude Juan McLean.

10. Cannonball Adderley – Come Sunday

Finishing up with some piano jazz. One of the things about being an old cunt is you start to realise that stuff like this is not half bad. Round about the same time you stop worrying about whether it’s OK to wear a cardigan.