Bug eyes at night, blogger's delight

Okay, what’s been going on…

Friday, we held our monthly bash Mutant Pop at the Arc Bar in Bristol. Having now moved to London, I have to say how much that night made me miss my former home. So many familiar faces – the Kingpin boys, the Underscore lot, my old housemates, old workmates, Sonar buddies, friends and friends of friends – the club was like a pale, fleshy bosom enveloping me (but, you know, not suffocating me – thank god I gave up draw). Our special guest for the evening was Mock, of Mock & Toof fame, and he certainly did the business for us with plenty of tasteful disco, gnarly electro-house and the odd DFA exclusive. Carnage will give you the full low-down anon.

Having spent the earlier part of the evening in Cheltenham (don’t ask why – or, if you care, make 'friends' with me at www.myspace.com/allsexistape) with an old friend from Oxford and five pints of sludgy ale, not to mention a hefty gin-and-tonic and a nightmarish trainride up to Bristol, I arrived at the venue as Carnage was finishing up (Radioslave mix of ‘King of the Mountain’, innit) and dived over-enthusiastically into a rack of tequilas and a wee parcel of putrid, mind-bending and jaw-locking powder. This, quite obviously, was a mistake, especially when supplemented with further pints, joints, a line of coke and repeated honks on what I, in my innocence, at first took to be helium balloons. They were, of course, full of nitrous, a fact which eluded me until I realized my voice wasn’t sounding high-pitched and my head felt like it was going to explode. Ah, youth. What’s left of it, anyhow.

We went back to Puffin’s listening lounge, where I made the mistake (as if I hadn’t made enough already) of washing some Es down with absinthe. Now, you see, I thought I’d drunk absinthe before (there are very few things which haven’t passed my lips, with the exception of, er, cocks – although if you saw the flyer for Blogger’s Delight you’d be forgiven for having your doubts - check www.myspace.com/bloggersdelight), but I obviously hadn’t, at least not the proper stuff, and though I held it down, God knows what it was doing to my insides, especially in conjunction with everything else crowding my bloodstream. The only reason I tell you all this (apart from a sad, self-aggrandising duty) is to explain why I felt SO awful on Saturday. Now, in the past, when I was a student, I treated my body so badly – drug consumption accounting for only a small part of it, the rest attributable to woeful diet, no exercise etc – that I got used to it, and could have a night like I did this Friday and still feel just about human the next day. Well, though I’ve become an alcoholic and fair-weather cokefiend in the last year, I have satisfactorily eschewed all other forms of chemical stimulation (for the most part). So imagine how DREADFUL I felt on Saturday. After catching a couple of hours kip at Carnage’s (I got his bed – poor cunt had to be at work – but God knows it probably made me more ill), I boarded the Megabus (if you’re not from the UK, the Megabus is basically the budget intercity bus service which, frankly, isn’t even that budget anymore. I shoulda got the train…) and braced myself for the 3 hour trip to London. I actually felt so ill, that when I tried to have a sip (a sip) of water, I started dry-heaving and seeing spots. Jesus. I couldn’t listen to music, ‘cos the 4x4 throbbing I’d loaded my walkman with was tantamount to torture, I couldn’t read my book (the nausea would’ve been UNBEARABLE) and, most tragically, I was companionless. Needless to say, the bus broke down, the traffic was horrendous, and by the time I was back in London, five hours had passed. I honestly felt like I had brain damage. All I wanted to do, by this stage, was jump under the wheels of a train, but I’d promised friends I’d meet them at my local, so I did the decent thing and went and told them the exact long and self-indulgent story I’ve just told you, albeit with more annotations and elaborations than I could ever commit to (virtual) paper. I still couldn’t eat, but a whiskey-and-coke settled my stomach and I was able to smoke again, so I ended up going to bed a happy(ish) man with my ex warming the bed if not, understandably, putting out.

Woke up, had a ferociously greasy breakfast round the corner, and just about felt fine. This was important, ‘cos it was Blogger’s Delight down at the Lock and I, Mr Soft, was scheduled to be spinning some tunes (something I haven’t done for tooooo long). It was bloody good fun, as well, I was playing early evening downstairs so got to rock the disco in a very apt setting. What did I play? I started with Arthur Russell’s amazing Muzik Box edit of Colonel Abrams, then, among other things, Terje’s mix of ‘Camino Del Sol’, Whomadewho’s ‘Hello, Empty Room’ (respeck Carnage), Brocksieper & MIA’s mix of Pantone, Morgan Geist’s ‘Probs’ and a bit of Long Blondes and Patrick Wolf to appease the indie kids (and my hangover).

Ill Will (pictured above), from Adventures Close to Home, played after me, and absolutely smacked it – bashing out some Kompakt bits, a real nugget called ‘Sapphire’ by Zombi and, I vividly recall, Alex Gopher’s excellent new ‘Motorcycle’ on Kitsune. We were all loving it, and having never heard him play before, we hope to have his Illness down to Mutant Pop some time in early ’07.

I also introduced myself to the Skull Juice boys (pictured above), who I’d not met before (though Benedict did actually play at the 2nd Mutant Pop) – lovely fellas. Ben has just started working for Phonica, a bizarre coincidence given that Carnage has booked SJ to play the TAPE birthday blow-out alongside, yep, Phonica’s Simon Rigg. If that’s not enough of a coincidence, who should Lazerboy bump into as he wheels down Camden High Rd in search of cash other than….yep, Simon Rigg. It’s a small world, just the way I like it. And with Lazers, my housemates, my old mucker George, as well as the aforementioned electro types all chinwagging quite happily, it all felt rather like home – thank God, ‘cos Friday made me think, “Shit. Maybe Bristol is still home…” The great and the good of the unpaid slogosphere could be spied all about the place: James Headphonesex and Kevvy K from Dilated Choonz both popped by, while Simon A. Carr from This Is Not An Exit played before me (and played that DFA mix of 'Springfield' that I'd planned to kick off with - the bastard) and, of course, Casper Fluokids, who organized the whole night [links to all these fellas musings and postings are in the sidebar). Anyway, I didn’t really head upstairs that much (I had some free booze and a beefburger to dispatch with) so I didn’t get to hear Skull Juice properly, nor much-loved TAPE associate Matt “Nightmoves” Waites, and, sensing that my rice-pudding of a brain wasn’t getting any better as the night wore on, I left before secret guest Midfield General turned up and ended up, as I so often do, falling asleep in front of the telly (of all things, Forrest Gump) with unlit joint betwixt finger and thumb.

Some stuff about music or something to follow. Here's my current listening, anyways:

1. ALEX SMOKE - SCI:FI:HI:FI VOL. 3 // SOMA

2. MICHAEL MAYER - IMMER 2 // KOMPAKT

3. ARTHUR RUSSELL - SPRINGFIELD (DFA REMIX) //

4. DIBABA - THE TRUTH-BLENDING CONSORTIUM // PLONG!

5. VA / ANJA SCHNEIDER - BACK 2 BACK // MOBILEE

6. LATEX - THE PORCUPINE // REBELONE

7. LUCIANO - BLA BLA BLA // DIAMONDS & PEARLS

8. DJ KOZE - NA CHA CHA // KOMPAKT

9. COBBLESTONE JAZZ - INDIA IN ME // WAGON REPAIR

10. CAMERA OBSCURA - LET'S GET OUT OF THIS COUNTRY LP // ELEFANT