An Hour Of The Jezebell Takeover

Last weekend's Jezebell Takeover at The Golden Lion in Todmorden was a lot of fun, two days of DJs and a live act playing to a full house. Saturday kicked off with Nessa Johnston getting things into gear quickly and setting the pace for everyone who followed. ACR's Martin Moscrop played a set that took in dub and disco, including a low slung dubbed out cover of Born Slippy, and at just after 8pm OBOST played a live set. 

OBOST is Bobby Langfield, ridiculously young, still in his teens- synths, keys, laptops, a microphone and an hour of uptempo electronic music that sounds like it has decades of experience behind it. Jamie Tolley took over at 9 and took things up a notch again, bpms and energy levels rising. At one point he dropped As I Ran by Yame, a bit of an ALFOS at The Lion moment last year and the pub erupted. The Jezebell headliners took over at 10, Jesse first and then Darren. The floor was packed, a mix of youth and older dancers...

I had to run for a late train back to Manchester so missed the last our of Darren's set but was back in the pub on Sunday afternoon where Jesse and Darren were starting proceedings off. Maybe they'd stayed up and played straight through. My guest slot was at 4pm and I had a few technical difficulties at first- I accidentally cued up a track from Jesse's USB instead of mine, then the right hand deck got stuck in an emergency loop and things took a little while for me to sort. Eventually Martin Moscrop turned the deck off and on again and as usual with piece of IT support advice it did the trick. Adam Roberts, due to play after me, was also official photographer. All the photos here are his and if nothing else he made me look like I know what I'm doing. 

I came off the decks feeling it had been a bit of a nightmare- technical issues, trying to cram too much into an hour- but looking at it now, a week later, it seems ok. The link below is the set recreated at home.

Bagging Area At The Jezebell Takeover

• Moon Duo: In A Cloud
• Durutti Column: For Belgian Friends
• The Charlatans: Trouble Understanding (Norman Cook Remix)
• The Beta Band: I Know
• Dub Syndicate: Right Back To Your Soul
• Soft Cotton County: The Future's Not What It Used To Be (Five Green Moons Remix)
• David Holmes: Blind On A Galloping Horse (Sons Of Slough Remix)
• Totem Edit 12: Feel
• Mogwai: The Sun Smells Too loud
• Orbital, David Holmes, DJ Helen and Mike Garry: Tonight In Belfast

Adam Roberts followed me, four four house and disco action and then Kim Lana. We had to leave so missed the remaining Sunday night fun, Stuart Alexander and then FC Kahuna, both of whom were outstanding by all accounts, Jesse saying Dan Kahuna was the weekend's highlight. Some hardy souls were back in The Lion on the Monday for St Patrick's Day celebrations, a live band and unplanned karaoke session. There's a second Jezebell Takeover planned for September. 

Jesse's been uploading recordings of some of the sets. His Saturday night hour is here and his Sunday afternoon set is here. 

I hadn't met Jesse or Darren before despite having had a several years strong online connection. It's always brilliant when people turn out to be as lovely in real life as they appear online and the crowd they drew to the Lion- regulars and newcomers- was testament to what they've built together as Jezebell. More power to them. 

Fifty Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

A year ago David Holmes released Blind On A Galloping Horse, an album that over four sides of vinyl and seventy minutes of music pulled together many of the political, emotional, cultural and psychological strands that seemed to come together in 2023. Protest in the face useless governments, , self- reliance, a roll call of the lost, the ongoing influence and spirit of Andrew Weatherall, the voices of refugees, humanity and community, the need to find the space and peace to clear one's head from all the noise and clutter that is out there. A beacon maybe, a call to arms perhaps, a face looking back at you from the crowd. I've played it again several times recently and it still hits all those spots. 

The songs from Blind On A Galloping Horse have been remixed, a slew of like minded souls refitting David's songs and Raven Violet's vocals into new sounds and shapes. There are over thirty of them, every single one worth hearing. It seemed to me that as we approach the end of 2024, a year on from the Galloping Horse, a Sunday mix of some of those remixes was in order. 

I featured each song only once, avoiding multiple versions- there were multiple remixes of several of the songs and all of the highest quality. There's some real high tempo bangers too which I held back from until part way through this mix when Timmy Stewart raises the bpms after a slow burning first twenty five minutes, and when I think of the remixes that didn't make this mix- Heidi and Lovefingers, Rich Lane, Decius, Sonic Boom, X- Press 2, Cosmodelica, Skymas, Daniel Avery- I think a volume 2 might be in order some day. 

There's more Holmes available at NTS this week, David's monthly God's Waiting Room show, two hours of the best music money can buy- this month includes his new remix of Five Green Moons, Spiritualized, V/Z and Poly High School Band's version of Midnight Cowboy. Listen here. 

Fifty Minutes Of Blind On A Galloping Remix

• Emotionally Clear (Ammonite Remix)
• Yeah x 3 (The Vendetta Suite's Reason To Drift Remix)
• Blind On A Galloping Horse (Sons Of Slough)
• Agitprop 13 (GLOK Remix)
• Hope Is The Last Thing To Die (Timmy Stewart's 11th Hour Remix)
• It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Hardway Bros Live At SSL Dub)
• Stop Apologising (Horse Meat Disco Vocal Remix)
• Necessary Genius (Phil Kieran Vocal Remix)

Emotionally Clear is one of Blind's slower, more blissed out songs but with several questions at its heart- do you believe in the absence of evidence? Do you believe in unjust punishment? Do you believe in cognitive dissonance? On her Ammonite Remix Amy Spencer breaks the song down into its barest bones, a spectral, whispery, ambient gauze with Raven Violet's vocals looped, FXed and chopped up. 

The Vendetta Suite is Belfast's Gary Irwin, a veteran Holmes associate and the in house engineer at Exploding Plastic Inevitable studio and label. This remix, one of a pair, keeps the drifting, ambient feel going. The Vendetta Suite's album from 2021, The Kempe Portal Stone, is well worth your time and attention if you haven't heard it. 'Got my mind on freedom/ And one foot out the door', Raven coos, and then the line taken from David's track from a GLS 10" from 2021, 'love is a mystery'.

Sons Of Slough (Ian Weatherall and Duncan Gray) bring the dub to the album's title track, a dissection of the world and its madness sent to the dub section via rim shots, a slowed down bassline, melodica, and also stir in a deeply Power, Corruption And Lies-era New Order feel. 

Andy Bell in his GLOK guise took Agitprop 13 and kept things weird and experimental, bass and synth with rumbling rhythms and layers of backing vocals- it builds insistently, more and more coming to the foreground. 

Hope Is The Last Thing to Die was the opening shot of the Blind On A Galloping Horse album, released as a single back in September 2021, a response to the incompetence and idiocy of governments in the face of modern crises, Covid and climate change. It lit up autumn 2021 for me and has done so repeatedly since. Timmy Stewart, another Belfast connection who DJs and produces as Black Bones, turns David's protest song and call to resistance into something tough and metallic. The rat tat tat of the snare breaks through, like a pipe being tapped with a monkey wrench.  

Sean Johnston's remixes of It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love are among his best Hardway Bros remixes, that cosmic/ ALFOS groove spinning out onto the floor with a lovely, brain twisting distorted synth riff and disco arpeggios.

Stop Apologising is the most direct song on the album, a genuine three minute glam pop anthem, Raven singing of self reliance, the importance of being grounded and 'the wonders of psychedelic therapy'. Horse Meat Disco turn everything up to eleven, add an enormous glam disco stomp, Goldfrapp amped up to the max, big piano chords, and keep it all going and going and going... 'Stop apologising for things you never done/ Stop catastrophising put your feet back on the ground'. 

Necessary Genius is David's tribute to the misfits, artists, dreamers, outsiders and radicals who make the culture, a roll call of the great and good- Serge and Jane, John Coltrane, Angela Davis, Samuel Beckett, Ennio Morricone- and particularly some of those who we have lost in recent years- Terry Hall, Andrew Weatherall, Sinead O'Connor. Phil Kieran is another Northern Irish DJ, musician, producer and remixer and his remix of Necessary Genius is a blinder, full on basement club, messy dance floor music and the perfect fit for those people listed in the lyrics. 

Monday's Long Song

This track was released a month ago today, Forearm Smash, by Sons Of Slough- eight minutes of chugging, bleep- laden, slow motion electronic music. Big bass, rising and falling synths, and two minutes in a voice slowly intoning, 'Same thing, over and over again', over and over again. After that it all goes a bit wobbly and intense. You can listen to and buy Forearm Smash from Tici Taci at  Bandcamp.

A year ago Sons Of Slough played the Convenanza festival at Carcassonne, playing outdoors in the courtyard of the castle. This clip has Ian and Duncan playing Mission Implausible. 

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. 

Saturday Live

Sons Of Slough, the duo of Duncan Gray and Ian Weatherall, were reborn in 2021 with an album called Bring Me Sunshine, seven new tracks of squelchy chuggy nu- disco/ acid house with a couple of remixes thrown in for good measure. Duncan and Ian had re- united previously that year to record a heartfelt cover of New Order's In A Lonely Place as IWDG, releasing it as a 12" for Record Shop Day with remixes by David Holmes, Hardway Bros and Keith Tenniswood. Following that burst of activity (and a remix of Primal Scream earlier this year) they played three gigs in 2023, one in their home town, one at The Golden Lion in August and one in late September at Convenanza in Carcasonne. If we apply New Order's standards of what constituted a global tour in the mid- 80s*, then that's a Sons Of Slough world tour achieved in 2023. 

An EP came out yesterday, three tracks recorded live completely as played at Convenanza, in the courtyard of the castle, straight from the sound desk with no overdubs. I saw them play at The Golden Lion, a night to remember with a full on performance from the duo and by all accounts Convenanza was even better. 

The first track is One Up From Five, thumping tom toms, an upfront bassline, a keening guitar line and some lovely melodica. A sleek, dark groove with a big dubby undertow. It's followed by Boston Crab, a six minute thumper, a more urgent track with an always rising, distorted bassline and some Detroit inflections, synth toplines dancing about, as the rhythm pushes on and on. 

The EP finishes with Without A Plan, a low rumble of bass and skittering percussion, whooshes and rushes, lights glancing off mirror balls and 21st century acid chug bouncing off the stone walls of a Medieval castle in south west France. There are some synth/ vocoder breakdowns that set pulses racing and ominous keyboard parts. When the vocoder resumes at four and a half minutes, there's a hint of Without A Plan turning into Man To Man Meets Man Parish's Male Stripper, a cheeky nod to the early 80s perhaps, chug and throb and heavily distorted robotic voice coming together perfectly. 

The latter two tracks were both filmed in this clip from the live gig in Slough in July.

Sons Of Slough (Live EP 2023) is available at Bandcamp and other digital retailers. They've got t- shirts too.

* The story, possibly apocryphal, is that Tony Wilson demanded a New Order world tour to bring some cash into the Factory coffers. Bernard was unwilling to tour but eventually relented telling the Factory boss, 'ok Tony ok, we'll do a world tour. The first gig's in Macclesfield, you choose the other three'.

The Lion, The Sloth, The Sons Of Slough And Hardway Meets Monkton

I've spent the last two Friday nights getting the train from Manchester Victoria up to Todmorden, a twenty five minute train journey that drops me off a two minute walk from The Golden Lion, a pub (run by the most brilliant and generous hosts Waka and Gig) in a small town in West Yorkshire variously described as a portal, the vortex and the best pub in the world. 

On Friday 12th August Paul Simonon and Dan Donovan were due to play a DJ set. I bought a ticket back in March, the prospect of being in a pub with the bass player from The Clash too tantalising to miss out on. The Lion was busy from late afternoon, the crowd eagerly anticipating an evening with former members of the Clash and Big Audio Dynamite. News came through from London that Paul was unable to travel due a back injury. Dan Donovan stepped up solo and played a blinder, spinning reggae, dub and dancehall to the packed pub and later on some Clash songs. One of the many highlights of Dan's set was this 1985 Barrington Levy song...

Here I Come

I missed the last hour due to the train times back to Manchester- last train out of Tod is at 12.06am- and the need to connect with the last tram out of the city centre but it was a very good night. Hopefully Paul can make the trek north at some point to play at The Lion. One of the sights of the evening was the appearance of a giant sloth working its way through the pub just before Dan took to the decks. It seemed perfectly natural and exactly as things should be. 

Last Friday, 19th August, was a long planned tenth birthday party for Duncan Gray's Tici Taci label, a night with the mighty Sons Of Slough (Duncan and Andrew Weatherall's brother Ian) playing a live set upstairs with a Hardway Bros/ Monkton DJ set afterwards downstairs (Hardway Bros being Sean Johnston and Monkton being Duncan). Chris Rotter and Rusty provided warm up DJ duties, chilled tunes for those in the back room and beer garden. 

Sons Of Slough played to a packed room, heat dripping off the walls and ceiling by the end. They kicked off proceedings with their cover of New Order's In A Lonely Place, a song they released as a tribute to Andrew back in 2021 as IWDG, Ian dedicating the song to his brother and then taking up melodica. 

In A Lonely Place is a moody song, New Order finding their way out after the death of Ian Curtis. Andrew was a huge fan of Factory and early New Order. Ian and Duncan's cover adds some hefty 21st century bottom end to the song and a slo mo acid house rhythm. The only line from Bernard's original lyrics that made it into the final IWDG version is 'how I wish you were here with me', a poignant one for obvious reasons. 

This footage shows Ian and Duncan playing In A Lonely Place a few weeks ago in Windsor, a live set in front of an invited audience. There are clips of the set on various people's Facebook pages but none on Youtube to link to yet. 

After In A Lonely Place Sons Of Slough played a seamless, non-stop set of acid house, electro, oompty boompty music, songs from their 2021 Bring Me Sunshine album, synths, keyboards, vocoder, melodica, guitar and laptop put through the Lion's top class sound system. 

Downstairs Sean Johnston had made a start playing songs, waiting for Duncan to join him. The whole pub becomes a club once night falls, the mirrorball bouncing beams around the stone walls and floor. The crowd at The Golden Lion are, without fail, friendly and lovely people, everyone up for a good time, a cross generational smiley crew who want to dance. 

Sean played Jah Wobble and Sinead O'Connor's Visions Of You early on and some slow paced stuff before Duncan joined him and they started to ramp it up a bit, playing back to back, thumpy, wiggy acid house/ dub disco tracks spanning the last four decades including Secret Circuit's Jungle Dogs (Tiago Remix), Liaisons Dangerueses, the new Rich Lane one, Mandrake, Rule Six's The Ride (a summer 2023 Tici Taci release) and Peza's edit of Mystic Thug and Rock The Casbah. And loads more that I can't remember or didn't know or was too lost dancing to to want to know.  

Jungle Dogs (Tiago Remix)

Bring Me Sunshine

Sons Of Slough (Ian Weatherall and Duncan Gray) first made music back in the 1990s and most of their recordings date back to the early 21st century. Now reunited they have put out a new album called Bring Me Sunshine, a six track dub techno/ electro/ acid house punch (plus three remixes). This one, Sonblind, is a low slung pleasure with piano melody lines and huge bass, the sort of thing that hits all the right spots if you ever spent part of your youth in dark, sweaty clubs with strobe lights going off around you and music frying your synapses. 

There's loads more like it on Bring me Sunshine and it's perfect music for travelling to as well, the kick drums ticking off the miles and the synths swallowing up road or rail. Much More Spark is chugging dub techno, Basic Channel via Berkshire. 

As well as a very tasty Rude Audio remix of the above there's a Sons Of Slough remix of I Slip Away by Rich Thair. Rich is the drummer in Red Snapper, a group who have explored jazz, techno, and all points in between since the mid 90s. Their latest single The Warp And The Weft is a slowed right down head nodder, led by some really nice double bass, keys, trombone and a rap from Natty Wylah. 

One Minute's Remix

A little additional Weatherall/Asphodells post for those of you who might be interested in such things- a remix of One Minute's Silence by Andrew Weatherall's brother Ian (who once traded musically as the Sons Of Slough). Adds some thumping live sounding drums and dense guitars.

Sons Of Slough 'Snares & Temptations'

Sons Of Slough (not Andrew and Ian Weatherall apparently, but Ian Weatherall and Duncan Gray) from the Haywire compilation cd I wrote about yesterday. I remember a while back when Weatherall did one of his 6 Mix shows he played a version of Liar With Wings (from his excellent solo lp A Pox On The Pioneers released last year) that Ian Weatherall had remixed. That's the sum total of my knowledge about Ian Weatherall's musical contributions, although Discogs lists various Sons Of Slough singles, an lp and a few remixes.

The photo? Slough bus station. Beautiful isn't it.

03 Snares & Temptations.wma