OK one of the best moments of my life was seeing Holly Johnson do ‘Power of Love’ at my first Pride in ’97 with fireworks kicking off behind us at the same time, a very moving moment, especially as we were all glad that Holly was there at all (he’s still doing well since, I’m glad to report) and I think that gave the whole event a pathos and finality….I’d never really thought much of the song before then.

So this originally was a mashup with that annoying Frankee woman (hence the ‘cover’ comment seemed to work so well) but it just wasn’t working til I realised how Whitney’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ is actually quite yearning and sad, if you listen to the lyrics…hence Whitney met Frankie and the rest is, well, history…

Whitney Goes to Hollywood (aka Power of Whitney)

One of my best bootups/mashlets ever was this one using one of my favourite Super Furry Animals tracks ‘Long Gone’ with ‘Caroline, No’ from the Beach Boys…seems to some up Brian Wilson’s state of mind, so I did a skit on the SFA’s album cover using Brian instead of Howard Marks…

I think it works quite well, but then again I would wouldn’t I?

Caroline’s Long Gone

OK so I might not be an Outkast obsessive but I am a Peaches fanatic and have used her in at least 4 mashups before now – but none as weird as this. It came to me where I was working at the time there was a 60′s golden oldie station and Roy Orbison’s ‘You Got It’ came on…and it shows you my warped mind that my first response was ‘that’s the same beat as Peaches’ ‘Set it Off’….so Peaches n’ Orbs was born.

It was played (badly by me) at Bastard in February 2004, it went down well despite my nervously bad DJing…I have become slightly better at it since then.

Peaches n’ Orbs

An old one now, played at Bastard in Feburary 2004 I seem to remember, this is Avenue D ‘Do I Look Like a Slut’ vs Salt n’ Pepa ‘Push it’. I’m still rather fond of it despite planning to revisit it sometime to make it tighter as it’s a bit creaky now…not sure I ever will tho so catch it while you can!

Push It Slut

Another Bootie track, this has been cleaned and tidied up a little since, and made shorter…it seemed to divide opinion at the time; it seemed a rather obvious mashup using Outkast’s Roses (sheesh I must sound like I’m an Outkast obsessive, I like em but I’ve done 3 bootlegs using them so far!) and Stone Roses funky ‘Fools Gold’

I must have done something right tho, as Partyben span it before I went on (I’d already planned not to play it, but was using it to promote my Bootie appearance) and it’s been in not one but 2 of his SIXXMIXXes. Thanks, Ben! So I feel slightly happier with it now…

Stone Cold Roses

Quite proud of this one, it mashes up my favourites Scissor Sisters, Outkast ‘Ghetto Musick’ (Benassi mix) and Peaches up into one funky club mix, I don’t do club/house tmixes, and this was my attempt at being a ‘superstar DJ’…I’d finished the mix almost

I have to say I’m indebted to solcofn for the original idea of using the original instrumenal of Ghetto Musick with Peaches; this came out of a session of demonstrating how I’d do it (I wasn’t intending to create a new track, just suggest a different more clubbier way of doing it) and accidentally came up with this club stomper. Thanks sol! Owe ya one


Ghetto Sister Peach (aka Ghetto Peaches)

And to show I’m not dead, it’s my *fairly-new electro-tastic and Missy-reviving tune…basically the story goes a little something like this:

In 1983 or 4 a little known electro-hip-hop act called Grandmaster Scott and Dynamic 3 (they did the oft-copied ‘The Roof is On Fire’) recorded a track called ‘Request Line’ – now you probably know where this is going – Missy Eliott sampled this for her hit a couple of years back, ‘Work It’. Here I reunited the long-lost-cousins with some other classic electro/house tracks – ‘Telephone Call’ by Kraftwerk and Coldcut’s classic ‘My Telephone’ from their first LP with Lisa Stansfield on vocals.

This originally was intended to be a longer mix ‘Telephonic Symphony/Sympathy’ – a bit like the Money mix on Radio Clash; but ended up being this bootleg

My Telephone Doesn’t Work

*unless you knew where to err, dig that is

In honour of the 25th anniversary of Clash’s London Booted Richie over at CultureDeluxe decided to get everyone to mash up the whole album, Grey Album stylee back in Jan/Feb 04…I got ‘Spanish Bombs’, which was a very Strummer polemic about Lorca, the Spanish Civil War and ETA…I prevaricated (even wrote long words like that) until the night I was actually starting it the Madrid bombs went off – so I had 2 choices…either be silly or make a point, but the latter seemed forced on me, really.

It’s a topical political mashup, using Outkast’s Bombs Over Baghdad with the Clash…got quite a few comments about this on blogs and Boing Boing, and even reviews in Catalan Yahoo (which I couldn’t read – well have YOU ever seen Catalan as one of the options over at Babelfish?!?)

The London Booted site is currently down, but apparently this and the other tracks might be err ‘seen’ again later this year…I’m saying no more :-X

Spanish Bombs (Over Baghdad) from London Booted

At Bootie I had a great time, met loads of great local bootleggers – some of the US’s best DJs and remixers – such as Adrian and Mysterious D, DJ Tripp, Partyben, Matt Hite, Dada and loads others….I was staying with DJ Jay-R – I still miss SF and hope to get back there soon. I was proud to be the first English bootlegger to play there (I think that’s right?) and I seem to have started a trend what with GHP, Payroll and Lionel Vinyl all going out to play since then! (not that I’m in their category, oh no…but I’m really proud that I was one of the early international guests at Bootie ) .

Smells Like Sylvester gets an honourable mention because it got me my airplay on XFM; and was my intro for Bootie. It’s Nirvana vs Sylvester ‘Mighty Real’ and the intro is Sandra Bernhard’s great tribute to the gold-lamed afro’d one. This is the rare full version played on the night, which mixes in Pansy Division’s ‘Smells Like Queer Spirit’ – the shorter version was the one played on XFM.

The next two were done for Bootie – I DJed at Bootie in San Francisco in September 2004, was a big thing for me, my first international gig and it went down well…which is good cos I was shitting myself.

Triple Spin is so called because it comprises a trilogy of ‘Spin’ tunes – the I-Blame-The-Toitles classic ‘Spin That Wheel’ over the top of Marilyn Manson’s ‘Spin Me Round (Like A Record) ‘ and the Dead or Alive original mixed in for good measure. What is it with Marilyn and goth-guitar cover versions? Anyway this is one of my faves…and then follows…