retrorave facsimile

 

Boomkat blurb for Face of Another's "808 Sunset 90" - a limited edition, custom, screenprinted tape and case, includes an insert of liner notes by Graham Massey, drawn from an original cassette recording of the 808 State radio show by Tim Sheehan.

Made entirely out of samples taken from an 808 State show on Sunset 102 Radio from 1990, ‘808 Sunset 90’ is to Acid House what Lee Gamble’s ‘Diversions’ was to Jungle, a ghostly spool of faded memories parsed through the mists of time.

808 State, a constant presence, always looming; so many paths crossed; our first office was their old studio, memories of Graham Massey bringing Leila Arab to our shop, chatting about the Radiophonic Workshop, signing copies of that Rephlex / New Order remixes 12” in our office, the looming, ever-growing presence and influence of fu-cking NEWBUILD, Gerald, the GOAT.

The OG radio show, broadcast on 27th March, 1990, was made at a time when 808 state were ostensibly a chart act, just 3 years after they met and formed at Eastern Block, and just a few months after Pacific State was absolutely everywhere.

The music on this tape, issued by DDS, was made by Face Of Another in 2022-2023 and assembled entirely from samples of that radio show. it runs like one of those Pirate Radio tapes smudged and screwed to fuck, bits of manc dialogue buried beneath rave stabs and spasmodic kickdrums, pads frozen for eternity, strobe blasts almost audible. 

Listen closely, join the dots.

Doesn't seem to be any audio available, but in conception if not necessarily outcome, it is reminiscent of the DJ Wrongspeed collages of pirate radio material as done on Resonance FM and the CD-R Pirate Flava, which really ought to be on the internet.

And of course makes me think of Death Is Not the End's cassette releases documenting pirate radio transmissions and pirate radio ad breaks. 

Love Energy

 More Manchester jungalistic pirate action from June '94 via Rob Chapman - DJ Direct and the Revolution Crew on Love Energy FM. First  side o' original tape includes "a Spin Inn Jungle Top 10" - the other side mixes ambient-j and ragga-y vibes. 

What's the first couple of tunes played in this? 

Check out the rest of his fab gear at Mixcloud

stop press Friday May 27: Rob just added another great tape with a bunch of different sets from July and August 1994, mostly DJ Direct but some other Revolution Crew deejays too

Manchester pirates ahoy!

The writer and music historian Rob Chapman has been putting up some tasty pirate radio sets from Manchester in the early '90s. Like this one - the Revolution Crew on the station Love Energy from April 1994.

Rob is also an expert on the original pirate radio of the 1960s. Indeed he wrote a whole book on the subject, Selling the Sixties. So alongside the vintage jungalistic techno, he is also depositing some very rare slices of broadcast buccaneering from the '60s. Like all five and a half hours of John Peel's last piratical transmission, the farewell finale of his Perfumed Garden show on Radio London, August 14th 1967. 

Check the full and growing Mixcloud motherlode here. 

Freaky Dancing

Well now - here's a really cool thing that I've been meaning to do a post about for a while: The Quietus's new publishing arm, TQLC, has pulled together as a single volume every issue of the ravezine Freaky Dancing, which as the Happy Mondays-derived title suggests was the unofficial house organ of the Haçienda.  You can get it here.

Created by Ste Pickford and Paul Gill, the zine consisted almost entirely of comic strips, cartoons, illustrations and visual-led spoofs 'n' satires.

Starting July 1989, the duo gave it away free to punters queuing outside the Haçienda on a Friday.

It ran for 12 issues.

The eleventh issue came out in August 1990, by which point the Haçienda scene was souring in a miasma of drug excess and paranoia, gangs and guns. Which brought the hostile attention of the authorities - such as "God's Cop" James Anderton, the chief constable of Greater Manchester -  and ultimately led to the club's demise.

There was one final issue, in May 1994, when the Haçienda had a re-opening night, but that consisted of reprinted highlights from the original run of issues.

unfinished strip for abandoned Freaky Dancing revival issue, circa 1994 

Freaky Dancing: The Complete Collection is a marvelous document of a cultural moment happening in real-time - hats off to The Quietus for putting it out and Ste & Paul for doing it in the first place.

Oh and A Guy Called Gerald wrote the foreword.



I was about to say that one of my great regrets is never making it to the Haçienda.

But in fact, I did go to the Haçienda - just a bit too early!

In the summer of 1987, I went up to Manchester to visit a Monitor comrade who'd moved there. That night, we went to see Big Black, then doing their last tour ever, play in a small club. Afterwards, my friend suggested going on to the Haçienda. I think Dave Haslam was one of the deejays, but this was before the whole house thing kicked off - possibly just before it all kicked off. So the soundtrack was a mixture of indie-dance and assorted vaguely clubby music. It was an impressively large, yawningly cavernous kind of space; the crowd was lively; it was pretty full. But after the intensity of Big Black, it didn't really compete and so we didn't stick around long.

So I never X-perienced the The Haç at its height - or Thunderdome or Konspiracy or any of those clubs.

I really don't know why I didn't just hop on a train in those days, jaunt around the country, visiting various rave temples.




I was, however, a fan of Happy Mondays before they went full-tilt house-rave (and declined, musically, in my opinion).  As were many of us at Melody Maker - in fact we put them on the front cover in May 1987, ahead of everyone, and indeed prematurely -  at least in terms of them becoming a cultural phenomenon, which never seemed remotely likely at that point.

The "greatest poet since Yeats"...  eats... all sorts