Radio Ga Ga

Hello, hello! First off, apologies to anyone who made it down to the Flection night at the Arc on Saturday to see us play. Unfortunately there was a bit of a poor turnout, so things were moved onto one floor. We were offered to play for an hour at the end, but we unfortunately had to decline and head off into the night with our record bags. Thanks to Dan Mincham of Radioplastic for sorting us out with the booking, and I hope that we can do something together another time. After leaving the Arc we headed on down to Puffin's other night, Big Ting, to check out Tom from Rooted Records playing a rare dubstep and grime set. Climaxing with Digital Mystikz's 'Earth A Rin Red' on Soul Jazz, Tom deftly laid down an impeccable selection of tunes, so cheers to him for kicking our Saturday off with a bang.

Also present was the nicest man in dubstep, Bristol's own Pinch (pictured above), who revealed his plans for the next few months. Excuse my memory as the Guinness may have been taking its toll by that point, but he's got a new 12" dropping on Planet Mu in late August/early September entitled 'The Punisher' (currently available on the 'Sacred Symbols Of Mu' double CD compilation - get it from Boomkat for a fiver here). As with Qawwali, the 12" will have one of Pinch's VIP mixes on the flip, and I for one can't wait. He's also got a remix coming on Tectonic (no idea who of), and is in the middle of touching up his debut full length release.

Following on from Cosies, we headed down to Stokes Croft's Blue Mountain club, which recently held Venn festival's dubstep night. No adventures in sub-sonic bass tonight, however, as it played host to both Switch and Erol Alkan (pictured left). We didn't get there in time to see Switch unfortunately, but we arrived to see Erol already relentlessly boshing it out with his stern brand of rough and ready electro-house. Everything was bubbling along nicely, until I heard a guitar refrain and turned to my good friend Puffin and exclaimed 'that's bloody Rage that is!'. Little did I know that Mr Alkan had re-edited the beginning of Killing In The Name, and it proceeded to slay the dancefloor as you'd expect it to in that situation. It brings to mind Twitch's set down at Our Disco at the beginning of the year, where he mixed The Ramones' 'Blitzkrieg Bop' into some techno track to a rapturous response. Well done Mr Alkan, and apologies for me getting you to down that double in my addled state. Extra apologies to one of the organisers that I pissed off by running around the booth like a headless chicken at the end of the night looking for my misplaced record bag. Needless to say, I was very fucked by that time, but as the Tape saying goes, 'Carnage by name, Carnage by nature'!

Speaking of TAPE sojourns to the capital, there's a series of Adventures In The Beetroot Field boat parties going on at Waterloo Pier, the last one of which we plan to attend. All seven of the weekly Sunday night parties have strong lineups, but the one going on on the 27th August has a bill that'll take some beating. First off you've got TAPE cohorts Simon Rigg of Phonica and Antony from FACT magazine propping things up, along with various DJs from Nottingham's Liars Club. I haven't spoken to Mr Waites (a.k.a one half of Nightmoves), but I'm guessing that he'll be a part of this along with Ricky Haley. All this is just the icing on the cake, however. The meat of the lineup starts with the production team of Riton and Ben Fat Trucker who'll be appearing under their Gucci Soundsystem guise (check their recent double A on Bugged Out! for some fat electro action), and then you've got a Padded Cell DJ set. It's probably no mystery that I'm a huge fan of Padded Cell, and I've been wanting to see Richard Sen in action on the decks for a while now, probably due to the fact that it seems like no-one in Bristol even listens to that style of dub disco goodness, never mind playing it out. The night will finish with two of the techno game's big boys; Wagon Repair's Konrad Black, who will no doubt take the roof off with his quirky, dark tech-fest of a set, and man of the moment Matt Edwards who will be appearing under his Radio Slave moniker. All this and a few live acts to potter about and see, and I think that we've got a night to maybe even beat that Sweeney/Optimo/XXJFG Our Disco party. Full line-ups for all seven of the parties can be found here.

The blog should be kicking up a gear in the next week or so as we've got a dubstep mix from Puffin coming up, another of my mixes, and I'll be ripping some clips from some of my latest vinyl purchases for you to salivate over. As always, we'll be subjecting you to some chart action from ourselves and also some celebrity guests (hopefully!) so keep checking back. I may also have some audio up for you later tonight, you lucky kids!