GTO released some absolute belters, this being one. I’d put it in the same pigeonhole as Eon – UK rave music, but before the breakbeats had really kicked in – more like the Belgian post-New Beat sound.
1990 release on Holland’s Go Bang! label.
GTO were also Tricky Disco, and Lee Newman from the band was also Technohead. I remember when they did a live set at Rezerection they wore metal robot suits and attacked each other with angle grinders creating huge showers of sparks. Quality.
The Hitman and Her was a cheap late night music show presented by Pete Waterman and Michaela Strachan. They would visit a nightclub and dancers would strut about with normal punters in the background, leading to the weird scenes you see here, with scantily clad women doing aerobics right in front of leering drunk blokes wearing ties.
It took me a while to work out it was filmed at Flicks nightclub in Brechin, a small town north of Dundee which bizarrely has a cathedral – hence it claims to be a city. It happens to be where my mum is from.
In the 80s Flicks was famous throughout the land for its shonky lighting rig – you can see how rubbish it was in this clip. They would actually play the theme from 2001 at a certain point in the night when they switched it all on. People travelled from all over in buses just to see this.
Nevertheless the tune is the pretty tasty 1988 UK pop-acid number Humanoid – Stakker Humanoid, which was a chart hit from an early incarnation of Future Sound Of London. I think it’s because this is such a good tune that this clip is so wrong. Stakker Humanoid himself posted it on Youtube.
Durkit yesterday
Get your dad on for a tasty mix of slinky underground house and proper acid from olden times, put together by Edinburgh-based Techno Dad Durkit. Lovely stuff.
Tracks:
Cultural Vibe – ma foom bey
Bang the party – bang bang
Kenny Jammin Jason – jam tracks
Marshal Jefferson – Got 2 mix
The Children – Freedom
Sterling Void – It’s all right
Ten City – That’s the way love is.
You can catch Durkit playing this kind of thing at his occasional club night Bubble. Well worth a visit.
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The mighty Subhead: with what is in my opinion their best track, released on the Subemerge EP on Sativae in 1996. One thing occurs to me about 1996. I can remember at the time thinking it was bloody ages since 1992.
It sounded like nothing else at the time when I excitedly brought it home to Atholl Gardens from Fopp on Byres Road, and still sounds raw and fresh today. I love how it fidgets and mutates right the way through and keeps on surprising you. In 1996 techno was full of Jeff Mills copyists – pounding, relentless, dull, monotonous loops, and these guys were blazing their own funky path.
Phil Wells, half of Subhead, was a legendary geezer and all round good crack who sadly died in 2007. The other half of the group, Jason Leach, is still releasing mental music under a variety of aliases. Please visit his site.
Notice I have avoided the W word….wonky. Oh…
One of the best rave basslines ever. Simple yet devastating. Check the dancer with the bouncing bob’s elaborate arms dance. That’s something you don’t see nowadays.
It’s what really stands out from watching old rave clips. Blokes with long hair doing the turbo shuffle.
There was a time when N-Joi was my favourite band in the world. I still think they’re pretty good likes…
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Bleepy doom techno from an album on Berlin’s Tresor label in 1994. Seems to be advocating a positive outcome from narcotic abuse. So why is it so scary sounding? Mixed messages. Did drugs work for Phil Mitchell? I don’t think so.
Great tune though.
In 1990 pop music still had room for eccentric nutters larking about. Here’s Bill Drummond embarrassing himself pretending to play a keyboard on KLF’s What Time Is Love?
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In the second clip, he’s wisely used all the money he earned to splash out on quasi-religious robes and giant rhino horns in a bid to hide himself from view. It worked, you can barely spot him.
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Watching these clips makes me suspect that in some ways the good old days were better…certainly music TV. I can’t imagine this kind of nonsense on Joolz Holland.
Incidentally, Bill wrote a book a while back called 45, kind of a handbook for middle aged men who should know better. Well worth a read.
I’ve been a fan of Wevie Stonder since the first release Eat Your Own Ears on Skam back in 2000. I still have an A4 insert from that LP up on my wall featuring a chihuahua and a story about an Indian man who never cut his nails. It only cost half the price of a normal album, I was impressed by that. Also when my mate bought a T shirt, they sent him a one off limited edition arse print.
50% of them have children, so that means they win some sort of prize. They’ve had a number of albums out over the years, all with moments of genius interspersed with utter drivel. Next on the cards is a solo album from Mr Vast. Mr Vast promised to dedicate a rave tune on it to Techno Dads, which made me cry.
If you live on a planet where shit music is the best, then this is the shittest of the best.
TECHNO DAD: Hello Wevie. Welcome. What tunes are most likely to get the Wevies up dad dancing ?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: balkan brass, james bond tracks, pink panther theme and a bit of napalm jazz here and there.
but then anything goes really, depends on the volume i guess….
MR VAST: Herb Alpert.
AL: Theme from Black Beauty
ADMIRAL UMNEY: I can only dance to Mariachi band music? Dunno why? Maybe it’s the Mayan obsession again?
Download: Theme From Black Beauty ( Bungo edit)
TD: Tell me about the Wevie writing process. I imagine lot of giggling and beer.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: mainly beer.
ADMIRAL UMNEY: belly laughs + spirits
MR VAST: I Think Vodka is usually the thing that gets the job done. though the cumulative effect of everything else we´ve had for the last 20 years also saves time and money these days…in fact the current project , Mr Vasts solo album, involves mainly ´using´ new wool for inspiration- pure as feck.
AL: It’s the audio equivalent of scrap heap challenge but with monkeys as contestants / an extreme form of (inescapable) music therapy / the aural proof of the heisenberg uncertainty principle. And it takes months and sometimes years to get right.
A kind of cross between the kind of excitement you have when you’re a kid when you laugh so hard your head goes a bit wonky, and a deeply disruptive ongoing unavoidable curse. Everything I do to try to stop doing it only makes it worse. And now there’s Harry Vast’s “Solo” project which is taking even more of my time per track than stonder… and is much much worse. It is a curse.
TD: Is there likely to be another Wevie album? It must be quite hard keeping the cack momentum up, it’s not like you can just bang out some beats…
THE VICE PRESIDENT: we could knock out an album every week i suppose. but what for? It takes on average 2 and a half to 3 years to make a Wevie record so if we were to start next week we are looking at 2014 earliest for the next one. Unless the Mayans were right and then if any of us survive the apocalypse I guess we’ll be too preoccupied with avoiding cannibals to write Cack.
MR VAST: well like i mentioned in previous answer, The Mr Vast thing is whats going on right now, should be ready this year- single hopefully arsing round youtube and the general net in the spring….
AL: Yeah there will be a stonder ‘best’ of comp out in the summer, and possibly a film of someone drawing a horse. A proper new album will happen soon after that.. and I don’t mean vast..
TD: Your stage show was quite complicated when I saw you live in Glasgow some years ago. Complicated and scary. The bollard tune inspired some serious dad dancing. How did you come up with the show, did you lock yourselves in a garage with some nitrous oxide?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: we just copy the audience basically, so i bounce that question back to you.
MR VAST: Before every show theres usually some loose planning, or at least i will scavenge around to find some new ´props´from wherever we are, the most preperation we ever had was the Cock Hat a life size 1metre dong that was erected on a bike helmet and fitted with disco lights,pump-action supersoaker and furry dice. Sadly one tour ,it got stuck on a swiss mountain pass and was never seen again.Probably for the best since one austrian girl lost the use of her left eye by taking a fully pressurised piss jet at pointblank range.
AL: It’s quite a simple formula really – I play the tracks I made in the studio whilst everyone pretends to play instruments over the top and wear the worst outfit they can find after drinking heavily.
ADMIRAL UMNEY: We never rehearse so whatever comes down the pipe is real. If it’s sometimes shit them’s the chances you take.
TD: In your BBC Radio 3 Mixing It session a few years ago you said ‘I’ve seen your arse’. I’ve checked, and that is the first time anyone has uttered those words on the BBC. What was it like bringing the Wevie roadshow into a BBC studio, and how did it come about?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: i remember some good arses at the bbc. really nice arses man.
MR VAST: We did Breezeblock session for radio one and they were daft enough to get us back in for mixing it, I remember sticking a plastic donkey in a black nylon stocking and twatting their kettle drums…havent been invited back since…hmmmmm. having said that i would quite fancy doing a bit for the freak zone on 6 music, just in case stuart marconies reading this….
AL: It was highly enjoyable and embarrassing in equal measures. The best bit about it for me was telling my grandparents to listen to radio 3 as we were on it. My grandad called me afterwards and said he loved it all except the bit where we did a ‘lets all make as much noise as we can’ – as it was easy for anyone to do that. He wasn’t wrong. He knew how to do wevie better than me that man. He once taught a whole school of kids how to play every instrument in the orchestra; he wasn’t a music teacher, and he couldn’t play a single one of them himself. An inspiration. Their first concert was the first true wevie show.
ADMIRAL UMNEY: I think the Mixing It boys played one of our tracks and made the mistake of saying ‘yes, one day perhaps we’ll get Wevie in to do us a session’ or some such. I remember the food was quite good, we drunk a lot and the producer holding his head in his hands.
Download: Wevie Stonder – BBC Radio 3 Mixing It Session Pt 1
Download: Wevie Stonder – BBC Radio 3 Mixing It Session Pt 2
TD: I’ve always thought you’d go down a storm scaring the hippy idiots at Glasto. Has anyone booked you for festivals this year? If not why not?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: dunno really.
MR VAST: our one and only glasto gig at the glade was a real hoot, we got some nice fan mail later people said we were the best show they saw. so yeah – festivals are our element – see the photo´s on our Cack site, (from last years Fusion festival ) for evidence .
AL: I didn’t like glastonbury. I think we should move more towards playing village fetes , the Nasa AGM and private concerts for wealthy foreign dictators.
ADMIRAL UMNEY: We did the Glade in 2004 I think and it went down a storm and we all got wet. This year we’ve had no takers though I wrote to over 200 festivals at the end of last year? Bloody shame. We don’t have a gig agent so it’s all down to our incompetent attempts to drum up interest or people contacting us through our site, which happens less and less. Like I said, shame coz we are ready to go at a drop of a hat.
TD: In a recent interview, Carl Craig talks about teaching his kids how to do techno, to further the family business – Carl Craig and Sons. Does Wevie have plans to do something similar? Like the (frankly creepy) Devo 2.0?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: mate…
MR VAST: Half of us have sprogs on the go already, so theoretically its a possibility. (bagsy being stavros)
AL: It is already under way. My wevie jnr has already recorded her parts for the next album – an expert cartoon sound fx percussionist, casio sk5 player and ukelele twanger at 20 months.
I've tried to explain to her about the curse, but there is a fire deep within.
ADMIRAL UMNEY: I can't see us not being up for doing Wevie so as the kids grow maybe they'll just join in and swell our ranks?
TD: I spend quite a lot of time looking at old rave clips from 1990 on Youtube. What really stands out is people had a lot more hair, blokes with bobs everywhere. In the comments, you always see 18 year olds saying ‘i wish i was around back then’ which is quite sad. Was it really better in the old days?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: the future days were better i think after all.
MR VAST: I intend to rerave on the new vast album- will dedicate the track to the techno dads if you like?!
AL: The idea of it all was better than the reality. There are some choice moments in hair and music, but I think they mostly need some swift and precise editing to stand the test of time. The same will undoubtedly be true of the vast album.
ADMIRAL UMNEY: i wish i was around back then
TD: Kids today, what do you reckon?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: i prefer chicken.
MR VAST: Once they can turn the album over without supervision parenting is a doddle.
AL: Our perfect audience. the under 5’s mainly.
ADMIRAL UMNEY: i prefer dogs
STOP PRESS: we have a dadcast we did for the baggy dads, get it right in your pod.
Back to the clip…Impressive example of dad dancing from Keith Allen. He’s managed to actually wangle his way onto the stage to do his chubby little rave dance.
The clip captures the controlled chaos of the Mondays at their peak. Filmed at New York City’s Sound Factory in 1990, it’s like a load of munters from a rave have suddenly formed a band.
Wrote For Luck is their best song by far. About 5 minutes in it descends into madness – it really captures the atmosphere of a club dancefloor in 1990. There’s all sorts going on. Some proper gurning – watch the bass player’s eyes rolling into the back of his head. Bez being Bez to the full – his face at the end when he grabs the mic is amazing…God knows what the Yanks made of it at the time.
Absolute belter of an R&S Record. The bit where the bassline drops after the rave stab breakdown is massive. I have it on the original vinyl of the 1991 Order To Dance compilation.
There is something really special about the early R&S catalogue, most of it hasn’t dated at all, it still kills most modern techno. When you mix it in it just cuts right through anything – BANG. Something to do with the simplicity of the programming, maybe the analogue recording – did they have a big sexy analogue desk and tape setup in their studio? I don’t know.
I think this is one of those rare examples of a remix being better than the original – remix duties by Mr Lenny Dee (later to become the mulleted king of US hardcore) and Eric Kupper (someone I know nothing about but might investigate further) .
All filler no killer - 100% dadcore. Honesty pays no bills.
Where did it come from, that mad noise?
The world's top cack squad reveal their bollards
Scantily clad ladies perform aerobics to Humanoid with Pete Waterman in Brechin
Mike Ink demonstrates his excellent hair
Hudson Mohawke's dad rapping with cheerleaders outside Greggs
Mach On & On cuts out, causing an epic outbreak of dad dancing in Chicago
Rent-a-celeb mongs it up with the Mondays in 1990 New York
Nothing is more embarrassing than a dad on crack
When techno went glam
techno dads 