Got No Room for Ravers

Samples Small Faces's "Lazy Sunday"! 

The bit about his grumpy next-doors objecting to the noise of loud fun - "wouldn't it be nice to get on wiv' me neighbours? / but they make it very clear they've got no room for ravers"

Features the phrase "mustn't grumble" - the soul of Englishness (pre-ravers, at any rate) quintessenced

There is also a blink-and-you'll-miss-it  comb-and-paper quotation of a Stones song - "Satisfaction" it says at Wikipedia, although it sounds almost more like "Let's Spend the Night Together" to me

I should have put "Lazy Sunday" in my list of Greatest Number Twos 

The album as a whole I've never quite clicked with except for the opening title track with its amazing colorized bass and phased drums and keyboards.

And of course enjoy the Stanley Unwin element

Got this album 

"Lazy Sunday" is very much rooted in the same oh-so-English world as Carry On

A-wouldn't it be nice to get on with me neighbors?

But they make it very clear they've got no room for ravers

They stop me from groovin', they bang on me wall (what's going on in there?)

They doing me crust in, it's no good at all, ah

Lazy Sunday afternoon

I've got no mind to worry

I close my eyes and drift away

Here we all are sittin' in a rainbow

Gorblimey, hello, Mrs. Jones

How's old Bert's lumbago? ("He mustn't grumble")

I'll sing you a song with no words and no tune

(Tweedle-dee bite) to sing in the khazi while you suss out the moon, oh yeah

Lazy Sunday afternoon, ah

I've got no mind to worry, ah

Close my eyes and drift away, ah

A-roo-dee-doo-dee-doo

A-roo-dee-doo-dee-die-day

A-roo-dee-doo-dee-dum

A-roo-dee-doo-dee-doo-dee

There's no one to hear me

There's nothing to say

And no one can stop me from feeling this way, yeah

Lazy Sunday afternoon

I've got no mind to worry

Close my eyes and drift away

Lazy Sunday afternoon

I've got no mind to worry

Close my eyes and drift

Close my mind and drift away

Close my eyes and drift away

 You could probably essay an, er, essay that claimed for Ogden's Nut Gone Flake what Greil M claims for The Band, i.e. the ravers (Sixties version of) generation mending the breach with the parent generation....

Which (despite "She's Leaving Home") already started happening on Sgt. Pepper's, to some extent. "Penny Lane", certainly.

Or perhaps simply that for all the trips and the dabbles with Eastern spirituality and all the other Sixties neophiliac adventures breaking loose from tradition.... you still wake up in England, embedded in centuries of history... 

Tale "Itchycoo Park" 

Spiritually hungering Ronnie Lane got into Sufism by 1968, but he lifted the melody or part of it from a 16th Century hymn, "God Be In My Head"   while "the theme to the words" came from "a hotel in Bath or Bristol. There was a magazine in the room with a rambling account of some place in the country and it was about ‘dreaming spires’ and a ‘bridge of sighs’ – there was a write-up on this town – and I just thought they were nice lines.”

Steve Marriott meanwhile said lyrical inspirations come from stinging nettles and an actual park in Ilford:

"Ronnie Lane and I used to go to a park called Itchycoo Park... We used to bunk off school and groove there. We got high, but we didn’t smoke. We just got high from not going to school. Itchycoo Park is the nickname of Little Ilford Park in London. An “Itchycoo” is slang for a flower found in the park called a Stinging Nettle, which can burn the skin if touched.”

"Life is just a bowl of All Bran"

Talk about Englishness - Marriott as the Artful Dodger for the album-of-the-original-stage-musical Oliver! He was in the original stage production playing various boys roles.

Oliver! creator Lionel Bart appears in this delightful Georgia Brown (Nancy in the original stage version  - did she share scenes with Marriott?) conceived and presented investigation of the Jewish East End and the question of what makes you a Cockney

I was just thinking that Georgia looks the spitting image of Marc Bolan, another famous Jewish East London singer, and then at 19.28 she says "that's a gas" 

Another amazing time travel capsule, a BBC report on Cockney idiom from 1976

"The First Worldwide Big Beat Newspaper"

 No, not a shortlived end o' 90s publication devoted to all things Skinty and Wall of Soundy...  at home with Monkey Mafia profiles... Portrait of the Propellerheads as Consumers.... an advice column from Lindy of Hardknox

No, we are talking much, much earlier than that... 

Based out of San Francisco 

World Countdown was the creation of a fellow called Charles Royal  - and his brother Mark.

"Big Beat" being a phrase, a concept, a vibe, that harked back to the 1960s 

As was the term "beat group", meaning an imposing drum beat rather than "beat" as in poet or beatnik.

The magazine dropped the "big beat" bit from its frontal boasts, perhaps reflecting the shift from beat-y energy to a more "heads" oriented sound, especially in San Francisco, which I would never have thought of as a hotspot for big beats in the Dave Clark Five sense. 

It ran for 29 issues and at the end was simply billing itself as This Earth's Leading Music Newspaper.

Before that it claimed, absurdly, to be the World's First Music Newspaper

It was only 40 years behind Melody Maker, which I doubt was the first weekly periodical about music anyway. 

"The Voice of Music" my English arse

Yes, there was a certain grandiosity to the World Countdown operation, as with the incorporation of the surname Royal in the title  on the front cover - Royal's World Countdown. 

If your surname is Royal, does that mean you end up with a "King of All I Survey" complex?

Also - what is with this repeated sales pitch of it being a "souvenir" issue? 

Or "collectors edition"

"You will cherish our magazine forever!"

Now I have been obsessively following music for decades, with a particular interest in the history of music magazines, the underground press, and especially the early days of rock criticism - and I'd never heard of this publication until a few days ago. 

It's been pulled together as a compendium. 

Back to the other Big Beat... I am surprised in that late '90s Boom for Dance, when publications were springing up all over the shop, there wasn't a Big Beat dedicated magazine. Perhaps there didn't need to be since it was well covered in the big three dance monthlies, Mixmag, Muzik and DJ. 

I seem to remember that at the absolute peak glut of dance and dance mags, someone tried to launch a dance-dedicated weekly music paper. But then the bubble burst... 

Special Request (Labello pt 2 - the samplige)

Ooh Macka Brown sampling the Pirates Anthem

4 Meg Soundboy with some nifty usage of "Can't turn me away" by Sylvia Striplin

Then there's Smokey Joe with a famous vocal lick

The "Special Request" vocal licks are sampled from Shut Up and Dance's "Rest In Peace" - but where did they get them from? 

Another iteration of that vocals lick - as well as another, different "special request" -  in this Reinforced tune 

Those reggae vocal licks from Smokey Joe's "Special Request" et al recur -  alongside JVC Force "Strong Island" riffs - in DJ Double G's UKG classic "Special Request" 

Ah (bit nuum nummy this) DJ Double G turns out to be DJ Gunshot as in No U Turn, making the same shift as No U Turn becoming Turn U On, but not sticking with the label

Real name Gordon Gummer, a veteran deejay on Don FM and Flex FM

a different "special request" occurs in this track - and the "special" recurs passim

A title-becomes-artist-name homage 

More Smokey Joe

Posse and crew

Two of my most cherished 'Mystery Tunes' - 'Do the Right Ting' identified a while ago by a knowledgeable reader, and 'Honey Love' I only just spotted myself

Artist name comes from a Queen Latifah album

But who is Princess of the Posse? Answer to come in a minute 

Now Labello Blanco did some fun things

Also the tune I insist on calling "Sexual Feeling Is Mutual" - as 'slow jam' lyrics go that is some clunky writing

And Labello put out some great things - mostly those involving Rogue Unit

Like this unofficial, only-released-on-a-Jungle-Massive-comp Steve Gurley rmx of  UK R&B micro-star Princess

And this gorgeous dreamy wistful remix

Labello Blanco - wouldyabelieve I only just twigged it's a play on "white label"!

Labello had a bunch of sub-labels including Urban Gorilla, who did this beauty

Did not realize that  Labello was the precursor label to UK Garage stalwart Public Demand (as in Artful Dodger, Steve Gurley, Sticky feat Ms Dynamite etc)

Some serious Nuumy Nuum stuff there, history fans!

There was a 2steppy sublabel called Absolute Corruption

Add that to this long list of Erik Satie "Trois Gymnopedies" rifling tunes

For a second there - in a feat of absolute nuumtinuity - I thought this might be a cover of Goldie's "Kemistry" / "You and Me" - but it seems more inspiration / homage

Labello / Public Demand / etc is-was a tightknit operation clustered around the Low family 

Key figure is Jimmy Low,  who set up Labello in 1990.

Also known as Macka Brown and MC Kann aka Bug Kann (as in Bug Kann & The Plastic Jam, Labello's most successful act with "Made In Two Minutes") (although Macka's "Go Down Baby" was a big tune too)

But there's also younger brother Dave Low and sister Patti Low

Patti is Princess of the Posse - at least it says that "all tracks created by" her, but "all tracks produced by the Plastic Jam"

Which is Grant Bowden, the key non-family member of the operation. 

An interesting distinction - what is the difference between "created" and "produced", in this sort of music? 

Nuum nuuumy alert -  Bowden became the UKG artist Gass,. Named after the UK garage club I  assume. 

Back to Princess of the Posse

The other two tracks on the Pun Project EP are solid ruffige with squeakified raggavox

One of  Grant Bowden's aliases is Payback, as in "Eastenders' and "Dope" 

Huge bass on this tune and nice clangy beat

Monster tectonic rumblizm on this 

I'm guessing Bowden's got the lion share of responsibility for the label's early classic "Made In Two Minutes"

1990 and this is almost ambient jungle ahead of schedule - the main lick is a dreamy, chilled version of the 'rave signal' melody-riff

But it also came out as Reel To Reel?

Now is this the same as the Original Bleep version or slightly different?

The famous incarnation of "Made In Two Minutes" is very UKrappy in the Criminal Minds / Genaside II / Rebel MC mode.  And presumably that's sister Patti cooing over the top. 

And there's raggamuffin bizness at the start (ALLCRU - mouth-mangled it sounds more like ARDKORE) and at points throughout....

Many remixes

Foul Play - a remix by them I missed

And many other versions, including second go's by Gachet and others

And keeping it nuum nuum nuumy here's a coupla UKG remixes from 97

Talking of the UKG era....

It says at Discogss that the younger scion of the Low clan  -  Dave Low - is "the DJ in Artful Dodger"

But this was achieved in an unusual way

In 2001, Hill and Devereux parted ways due to creative differences and the trademark, name and usage rights of Artful Dodger was purchased by Blessed Records.

Capitalising on the significant live demand for the group, the owner of Blessed Records DJ Dave Low accompanied by MC Alistair adopted the name, in essence creating a cover band. They continue to tour under the name Artful Dodger to this day, performing the music of Hill and Devereux frequently in their sets.

Hill and Devereux reunited in 2017 but were unable to release new music or perform under their own name so formed Original Dodger.

I wonder what the market value of the Artful Dodger brand was in 2001-ish?  

They had had a run of Top 10 singles - five of them - and two of those were #2 smashes. 

And they must have done a million remixes.

But as a performance outfit...  how much would someone pay them for that, as the UKG-goes-pop bubble bursts? 

As for Princess of the Posse, it says at Discogs that Patti Low is a

"session singer from Essex, England based in Marbella, Spain.

Now works as a vocal coach and songwriter and performs in an ABBA tribute act."

So both of them ended up in nostalgia acts.... 

A snippet on Labello at 18.30 in this doc