Seven And A Half Hours Of The Flightpath Estate At AW61

Yesterday saw the latest installment in the continuing adventures of our album, Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1. Every step along the way has been a leap into the unknown and it has exceeded our expectations at every stage, from David Holmes saying 'yes' to Justin Robertson sending us the first piece of music to the rest of the tracks coming in to Andy Bell at the eleventh hour sending us his cover of Smokebelch to Rusty's beautiful artwork to the first run of 500 copies selling out in a day to Lauren Laverne playing some of the tracks on 6 Music and making it compilation of the week to the actual physical records arriving to it appearing on Piccadilly Records website a couple of weeks ago... on and on it's gone, jaw dropping at every turn. Last week when I went to see ACR at Soup I called in at Piccadilly Records and was massively excited to see our album in the racks. Then, entering the venue, the man in front of me had a copy in his carrier bag. Yesterday, another amazing moment- Piccadilly Records gave us a full window display. 

I've been buying records from this shop in three different city centre locations, since the late 80s. They are my first choice of shop for new music. To see thirty six copies of our album in the window was a fairly mind blowing experience. Me, Dan and Martin from The Flightpath Estate and Matt from The Golden Lion all attended- and here we are (left to right, Dan, me, Martin, Matt. Yes, Matt is bringing the average age down a bit). Twenty copies of the album went to Piccadilly but I believe they've all gone now. Ten went to Vinyl Exchange over the road (another shop I've been buying records from for decades). 

With this long running Sunday mix series I usually try to come in at around thirty to forty minutes, occasionally going up to an hour. Today's mix comfortably tops any and every Sunday mix for running time, seven and a half hours of tracks and songs played by us at The Golden Lion at AW61 at the start of April. We played from Saturday afternoon to evening, kicking off at about 2pm with Baz, taking an hour each (my set ended with the AW61 auction and raffle, the first time I've DJed to support an auction of Andrew Weatherall's belongings which included a mug, some cufflinks and his stash tin). At about 7pm we began to play back to back, three tracks each and then two each, rotating on and off. It was brilliant fun, a wonderful experience. The sets weren't recorded but we've done our best to re- create them since. It's not entirely as was played- there are a few things missing that are currently unreleased and which can't be distributed more widely just yet (including one that's missing that may well be one of the tracks for what will hopefully be Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 2 but I'll say no more about that at the moment). Also, in my three I played David Holmes' remix of Sylvia by Lisa Moorish. I hadn't been paying enough attention to notice that Mark had played it earlier so to avoid repetition I've taken that out and replaced it with David's remix of X- Press 2 (which I had in my bag and was planning on playing later but didn't). Some of our memories are a little sketchy in places but it's fairly close to what we played between 2pm and 9.30pm on Saturday 6th April at The Golden Lion in Todmorden before Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray took over and lifted the roof tiles.

The entire seven and a half hour set is at Mixcloud here. I have an mp3 of it which is a whopping 1GB file and too big to host at my usual file hosting service. I've uploaded into WeTransfer and it will be live for a week from today if you want to download it. I haven't managed to recreate the auction and raffle- that really was a 'you had to be there' thing. It took place between me playing A Mountain Of One's Star (GLOK Starlight Dub) and David Holmes' Emotionally Clear and you'll just have to use your imagination or your memory, but it looked like this...

The Flightpath Estate Live At AW61 

Barry

• Two Lone Swordsmen - The Crescents
• Barry Woolnough - Great Father Spirit In The Sky
• Manfred Mann - Just For Me
• Angel Corpus Christi - Dream Baby Dream
• Chris & Cosey - October (Love Song) (86 Version)
• The Prophets - Was Alive
• Minami Deutsch - Sunrise, Sunset
• Trash Kit - Every Second
• Tav Falco Panther Burns - Master Of Chaos
• White Williams - Route To Palm
• Noema - One (Kalabrese Re-Jam)
• Johnny Waleen - Mystery Train
• M&M Hardway Bros - Acid Edit
• Andy Bell - Smokebelch II

Martin

• Andrew Waite- Smokebelch (Final Fanfare Mix)
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Love Letter
• Joshua Idehen - Learn To Swim Pt 2
• Lee Perry - Future Of My Music
• groundsound - Trod
• Alev & Jas - A World Beyond
• Kreidler - Mount Mason
• Golden Bug ft The Liminanas - L'effet
• Mildlife - Chorus
• Two Lone Swordsmen - Get Out Of My Kingdom (unreleased demo) 
• Sorcerers - Yasuke In Roppongi
• Phil Kieran - Atlantic
• Leo Hellden & Rocket Mike - Strange
• Ashley Casselle - Wannabee (Andrew Weatherall unreleased remix)

Adam

• Coyote - Western Revolution
• Durutti Column - Bordeaux Sequence
• Psychederek - Test Card Girl
• Four Tet - Loved
• Rick Cuevas - The Birds
• Biosphere - En- Trance
• Underworld - 8 Ball
• Wixel plays Sonic Youth - Expressway To Yr Skull (Long Champs Bonus Beats)
• This Mortal Coil - Edit To The Siren
• Bjork - One Day
• James Holden - Common Land
• A Mountain Of One - Star (GLOK Starlight Dub)
• David Holmes and Raven Violet - Emotionally Clear

Dan

• Fragile X - Initial Conditions (0.506)
• Sabres Of Paradise - Duke of Earlsfield (LFO Mix)
• Toy - Dead & Gone (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Bedford Falls Players - Cosmosapien Revisited (The Long Champs Remix)
• Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s - Curtains Twitch On Peaks
• Jah Division - Heart And Soul Dub
• Adrian Roman - Thoughts Against Death
• MOY - Sunrise (live)
• Deutsche Wertarbeit - Auf Engelsflugein
• Golden Age - Lives Of Angels 
• Jah Division - Division Dub

Mark

• 100 Poems - Joyness Magnificent (We'll Find The Light Together)
• Zeb The Spy From Cairo - Alladin Dub
• Coyote (Featuring Rolo McGinty) - Marijuana
• 10:40 - The Engineer
• International Observer - Saturday Night In Camden Town
• Against All Logic - Cityfade
• Lisa Moorish - Sylvia (David Holmes Dub)
• Rude Audio - Swamp Ting (Unmastered/Unreleased - out in the next few months)
• Bedford Falls Players - Agent Cooper Coffee Dreams
• Supereal - Body Medusa (The Leftfield Dub Mix)
• Franz Ferdinand - Stand On The Horizon (Rude Audio's Massive Re-edit)
• Music For Swinging Mothers - Everyday
• David Bowie- Ashes to Ashes (speed garage bootleg)
• In Dada - Uptown (Crooked Man's Dubtown Mix)

Martin

• Domenic Cappello - Mushroom Waltz
• The Light Brigade - Human : Remains
• Andrew Weatherall - Liar With Wings (Mat Carter & Ian Weatherall Unreleased Remix)

Adam

• C.A.R. - Anzu
• Orbital, David Holmes and Mike Garry: Tonight In Belfast
• X-Press 2 ft. Kele Okoreke: Phasing You Out (David Holmes Remix)

Dan

• Psychederek - Tongue Tied (Moodymanc's Listen To Me Remix)
• Adrian Roman - I Think It’s Not You 
• Alter Ego - Beat the Bush (Ewan Pearson Slow Nrg Remix Edit)

Martin

• Man Power - Maybe Even Never
• Yuksek ft. Luedji Luna - Santas Almas Benditas (Red Axes Remix)
• Wah Together - I'm A Swimmer (Friends In Town Remix)

Dan

• Rude Audio - Running Wild
• Llewelyn - These Days (Don't Make Me Wait)
• Glok - That Time Of Night (Hardway Bros Meet Monkton Uptown Dub)

Martin

• New Order - Vanishing Point (Rich Lane Cotton Dub)
• Jain - Makeba (T-Bone Edit)

Mark

• Bedford Falls Players - Beautiful Chaos (Dub Mix)

AW61

I can't remember who took this photo, maybe the wonderful Claire Dollers or possibly Neil Overall, Todmorden's Golden Lion illuminated by the heavens, a rainbow the least we could have expected for the AW61 weekender that happened last weekend. There's was so much that went on it's difficult to piece it all together, so many people gathered in one place to pay tribute to the departed Andrew Weatherall, to dance and enjoy the music of the various DJs and live acts, lots of people where we were able to put faces to names, lots of familiar faces from previous outings at The Lion, and many magic moments which could only take place in that particular pub in Todmorden. 

Friday 

Rotter and Rusty were in the DJ booth. Rusty designed the artwork for our Sounds From The Flightpath Estate album, a copy of which sat centre stage on the booth (as pictured here with me behind the decks on Saturday afternoon). 

Rotter and Rusty played all sorts- country, funk and soul, cosmic stuff- perfect Friday afternoon sounds. As afternoon turned into evening and the pub filled, Matt Hum took over downstairs, some heavy sounding electronics, superbly mixed and sequenced. Upstairs a capacity crowd filled the live room as Keith Tenniswood aka Radioactive Man and former Swordsman played behind a bank of kit, mixer, synths, drum machines, FX devices and kicked up a storm of electro/ techno, basslines thumping and filling the room. The room was heaving, dark and sweaty, the floor bouncing, the kind of space and music that are perfectly suited for each other. I've no idea what tracks Keith played. This one is from his self titled 2001 Radioactive Man album.

Gone Forever 

Downstairs Matt Hum handed over to David Holmes, a man who has played the Golden Lion several times recently. He hit the ground running, a set that started out with music for dancing to and kept it going for four hours, plenty of deviations into disco in the first half, the second half having some crossover with sets played last year (a Galloping Horse remix, Rich Lane's edit of Jackie by Sinead O'Connor) but filled with new tunes, 80s electro- pop and acid house, Can's I Want More and the giddy synth ecstasy of Figures by Absolute Body Control from 1983 standing out, reaching a crescendo after 1am, the pub's mirror ball spinning, red lights dancing around the stone walls, the place filled with dancers and revellers. 

Saturday 

We arrived at 2pm for our marathon Saturday afternoon and evening sessions, five Flightpath Estate DJs taking an hour each and then playing back to back, two or three tunes each in rotation. The sets weren't recorded but we aim to recreate them at some point. Baz went on first, chilled afternoon sounds building to an end with White Williams' Route To Palm (first heard on an Andrew Weatherall BBC 6 radio show in 2008) and Andy Bell's cover of Smokebelch from our album. Martin followed, his usual eclectic and inspired selection of tracks. I played from 4pm to 5pm. You spend so long preparing for these sessions, selecting tracks, planning what to play and what to put next to what, and it's over in a flash. My afternoon set was woozy electronic music, ambient sounds and spaced out stuff- Coyote, Durutti Column, Psychederek, Four Tet, Rick Cuevas, Biosphere, Underworld, The Long Champs/ Weval/ Sonic Youth threeway edit/ cover, an edit of Song To The Siren, Bjork and James Holden. I had just cued up GLOK's spaced out remix of Stars by A Mountain Of One when the auction and raffle began, Gig (the Golden Lion's legendary landlady) and Lizzie (partner of Andrew at the time of his death) auctioning a select set of Andrew Weatherall connected items, accompanied by Sofia Hedblom (dressed as a cupcake). 

Playing support act to this auction and raffle was a brilliant way to spend part of the weekend, bizarre and utterly Golden Lion. A mug from Andrew's studio was bid for and won by Moggieboy (Alan McGregor who used to write the superb Ripped In Glasgow blog, one of the inspirations for this blog back in 2009/ 2010). Among the lots there were a pair of Andrew's cufflinks, a Boy's Own bag with incense in it, a photograph taken by Lizzie and used for the sleeve of Andrew's The Bullet Catcher's Apprentice EP and a metal tin from Andrew's studio that used to contain his stash. The auction and raffle raised over £800 all of which went to Todmorden's Incredible Edible charity, a local urban gardening project growing, celebrating and  sharing locally grown food. As the raffle ended I put David Holmes' Emotionally Clear on and handed over to Dan. 

I missed most of Dan's set having moved to the restaurant area to get some food, a stomach lining being important ahead of the evening. Mark took over from Dan and played a customarily superb set of tracks, dubby and chuggy, pushing things up a gear. By a bit after 7pm we were ready to go back to back, four of us taking it in turns to entertain a by now busy and keen pub. Sons Of Slough played upstairs, an hour long live set with lots of new material. Downstairs we were pushing the tempos up a little- after Martin played a three, I went back and played Anzu by C.A.R., David Holmes' remix of Lisa Moorish's Sylvia (I think Mark played this earlier too, always a risk with so many people involved at the decks) and Orbital and Mike Garry's Tonight In Belfast, before handing over to Dan and then Mark and round again, but there were so many tracks that didn't get played sitting in my bag. Hearing The Light Brigade's Human : Remains pounding out of the sound system was a bit of a moment. In the run up to Sean Johnston and Duncan Gray taking over Dan, Martin and Mark nailed it, a blend of well known and obscure, Rich Lane's edit of New Order's Vanishing Point and Bedford Falls Players' Beautiful Chaos both pumping loud and clear through the speakers. 

After 9pm Sean and Duncan took over and took the roof off. Often when they play together they play a lot of dub but this set went to chunky, pumping and spaced out, ALFOS style sounds quickly, thumping drums, synths, lots of vocals and many tracks that people couldn't place. Radio Slave's recent remix of Fun Boy 3's The Lunatics (HaveTaking Over The Asylum) caused some mayhem. 

My memories are admittedly sketchy but at one point Sean dropped this monster from 1991 by LaTour, People Are Still Having Sex (possibly an edit of it)...

Vox Low's Something Is Wrong was played at some point and Awrite by Manakinz but there was so much going on its difficult to keep track. I spent some time down the front in the mass of dancers, a happy blur of faces and limbs. When the lights came on and people hugged and blinked and wiped the seat from their brows and grinned in the early hours of Sunday morning there was a pause and then Sean finished with one of his signature tunes from last years' ALFOS sets, Yame's As I Ran, a euphoric and giddy dancefloor gem from 2022, a squiggly topline, wayward synthlines and a section that breaks down into chanted vocals and then rattling snares driving back in and the synth melodies kicking back in. The sequenced bassline runs on and on, running round in your head long after the track has finished. 

As I Ran

Sunday

Remarkably there were still people back at the Golden Lion on Sunday for more, Curley on the decks all afternoon spinning ambient and some floor shaking dub and then Rico and Waka playing a Double Gone Chapel set of rockabilly, garage and punk. I was present for some of it, waiting around until I felt well enough to summon the strength to drive home. 

Quite the weekend. 

We had a blast, it was a great thing to be involved in and we, The Flightpath Estate team, all feel so honoured to be a part of it. Massive thanks to Waka, Gig and Matt at The Lion, Ian and Lizzie, all the DJs and acts. And a big thank you to the beautiful and brilliant Golden Lion crowd, all the dancers and fellow travellers. In no particular order and I know I'll miss someone out so apologies to anyone whose name should be here and isn't - Claire and Si, Annabel and Tessa, Rotter, Rusty, Emily, Sofia, Curley, Rico, Alan/ Moggie, Cat and Robert, Raphael, Dave Croft et al, James, John, Marc and Harriet and the Glasgow revellers, Ian, Hugh, Michael and the Liverpool contingent, Gill and Damo, Andrew and friends, Jono, Gary J, Dickie, Joanne and friends, Neil, Simon, Chris, Andy and Ruth, and all the people I bumped into on the floor, in the garden or around the decks whose names I can't recall right now. Thank you each and every one of you. 

Forty Minutes Of Andrew Weatherall

It's day three of AW61 at The Golden Lion in Todmorden today, a day of dub and the Double Gone Chapel with Curley, Sherman and Nicky General bringing the dub and Rico, Louise and Waka bringing the Double Gone sounds. At the time of writing I don't know how yesterday went but let's assume it was really good and The Flightpath Estate DJs pulled it off in fine style.

Today's mix is a tribute to Andrew Weatherall, with a selection of tracks that feature samples of his voice, a lengthy tribute from Kenneth Bager and an unofficial and unreleased oddity ripped from a radio show. As well as being a top class DJ, remixer and producer Andrew was a great interviewee, eminently quotable and entertaining. Most of the tracks below feature snippets from interviews he did during the 2010s, the topics under discussion including the importance of Factory Records, his A Certain Ratio fixation, and whether acid house is in the end 'just a fucking disco'.

Forty Minutes Of Andrew Weatherall

• Prana Crafter: Starlight, Sing Us A Melody
• Sabres Of Paradise: Clock Factory (Joe Mckechnie North Star Edit)
• IWDG: In A Lonely Place (David Holmes Remix)
• BTCOP: Just A Disco (Lights On The Hills Mix)
• BTCOP: Just A Disco (Blavatsky and Tolley Mix)
• Kenneth Bager: Late Night Symphony (Tribute To Andrew Weatherall)
• BBC Radiophonic Workshop: Electricity, Language And Me

Prana Crafter released Morpho Mystic, a six track album in September 2020. The album is the work of William Sol, a psychedelic/ folk musician. Starlight, Sing Us A Melody is a few minutes of gently psyche acoustic and electric guitars with the voice of Mr Weatherall appearing at the end. 

Clock Factory was a fifteen minute excursion into spooked industrial ambience on Sabres Of Paradise's 1993 album Sabresonic. Joe Mckechnie's edit is entirely unofficial, Andrew's voice dropped in to a shorter version of Clock Factory. Joe is a Liverpool based DJ, producer and remixer, formerly a member of 80s Liverpool band Benny Profane whose name was all over the city's gig posters in Liverpool in the late 80s, regularly supporting bigger names and the touring indie bands who passed through venues such as the Mountford Hall, the Haigh Building and Planet X. 

IWDG is Ian Weatherall and Duncan Grey (also known as Sons Of Slough who played at The Golden Lion last night). In 2021 they covered New Order's In A Lonely Place, a tribute to Andrew and to Factory Records. David Holmes was one of the remixers, sampling Andrew's voice as well as singing Bernard's words. 

Just A Disco came out in November 2022, a track built around a quote from Andrew where he mused on whether coloured lights, dry ice and trance inducing music was just a fucking disco or whether it's something more than that- a gnostic ceremony he might have said with a smirk. The Lights On The Hill Mix is ten minutes of ambient/ Balearic gorgousness. The Blavatsky and Tolley Mix is much thumpier with the title rattling round and round. 

Kenneth Bager is headman at Music For Dreams in Copenhagen. His Late Night Symphony is from an EP released in 2022 called Stones And Steel and is a ten minute long tribute to Andrew- no voice on this one but a very lovely piece of wonky electronic music all the same. 

Electricity, Language And Me is a 2013 collaboration between the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Andrew that remains unreleased. There are some unreleased remixes as well which I hope will see the light of day at some point. This is a short piece with Andrew providing a spoken word vocal, ripped from one of his NTS radio shows which were the gateway to so much music, both new and old. 

V.A. Saturday And AW61 Double Header

Today's main action is AW61, the celebration of what would have been Andrew Weatherall's 61st birthday at The Golden Lion in Todmorden, one of Andrew's spiritual homes. Last night's line up had David Holmes on downstairs with former Two Lone Swordsmen Keith Tenniswood playing a set as Radioactive Man, both ably supported by Matt Hum and the Rusty and Rotter DJ team. 

Today sees us, The Flightpath Estate DJs, return to The Golden Lion with a marathon set starting early afternoon and playing through until Sean Johnston and Duncan Grey take over to carry us all through til the early hours. Sons Of Slough play the upstairs room, Ian Weatherall and Duncan Grey picking up from their set at The Lion last August and at Carcassonne in September, promising a set packed with new material. Each of us in The Flightpath have an hour this afternoon and then we're going back to back, playing three tunes each before handing over the next man, which really keeps you on your toes and can lead to some interesting changes in musical direction. We have the tracks from our album, Sounds From the Flightpath Estate Volume 1, to slip in at various points. Last year I was very nervous about DJing in the Lion for AW60. This year I've been more relaxed about it, pulling a folder of tracks and songs together over the last few months and then pruning it and giving some thought to selection and sequencing this week. AW60 was a superb day and night- hopefully this one will equal it. The honour of being asked to play is a huge one. I said to someone a while ago in conversation, without meaning it to sound like a massive name drop, 'when we DJed at Andrew Weatherall's birthday party...', and caught myself mid- sentence thinking, 'how the fuck did that happen?!'. The saddest thing about it all is that the man himself is absent, physically. His spirit though is very much in the room. Today, 6th April, was Andrew's birthday. Many happy returns Andrew. 

Andrew was an inveterate record collector, tape and CD compilation maker. He made scores of tapes and CDs for friends and for his club nights, often given away to the lucky first punters through the door. He was often asked to put together Various Artist albums, his song selection and eye for detail legendary. Andrew's Masterpiece album, three CDs/ triple vinyl from 2012 is a career high in some ways, the ALFOS sound with several of his own remixes. His Sci- Fi- Lo- Fi compilation for Soma in 2012 pulled together lost rockabilly nuggets, T- Rex, The Fall, The Cramps, The Flaming Stars and Killing Joke among others for a flawless selection, a peak inside the Weatherall record box. 

At the start of the 21st century he complied a pair of CD compilations that show the breadth and depth of his talent as a selector. In July 2000 the Nine O'Clock Drop compilation on Nuphonic was one of the kickstarters to the rebirth of the post punk/ punk funk sound, a thirteen song album that put early electro, Mancunian post- punk dread, reggae, proto house and reggae alongside each other- A Certain Ratio, 23 Skidoo, Quando Quango, Gina X Performance and Colourbox rubbing up next to Aswad, Chris and Cosey and William Orbit's Torch Song. Not a dull moment and an album that showed how pioneering the early/ mid 80s were. Members of A Certain Ratio have said it was a crucial spur in them getting back together in the early 2000s and releasing their own early 80s compilation, titled Early (naturally) on Soul Jazz. They've gone from strength to strength since. 

I could pick any of the thirteen tracks and have gone for this one by Colourbox. Looks Like We're Shy One Horse/ Shoot Out is riotous sampledelic dub, parts of Once Upon A Time In The West scattered throughout, squealing guitars, deep bass and kicking drum machine rhythms, with  a superb slowed down and dubbed out end section.

Looks Like We're Shy One Horse/ Shoot Out

A year later in 2001 Andrew's name and selections were on a CD from Force Tracks, a German label specialising in early 21st century minimal techno and house, a pared back and very Teutonic sound. The fifteen tracks are all from the label, largely without vocals, and seamlessly mixed in the Weatherall bunker. It works as a whole piece, an hour of futuristic dance music that concludes with Tessio by Luomo, the only track with a vocal. 

Tessio (Matthias Schaffhauser Decomposed Subsonic Remix)