Jungle – A History of Dubious Taste

Friday Night Music Club Vol 54

The more astute of you will have spotted that each week, when I can find one, I include an image or gif related to the number of the volume of Music Club we’ve reached. Usually, the image will have no bearing whatsoever on the contents of the mix that is to follow, and never has that been truer than this week.

For, had it occured to me that the obvious choice this week would be hedonistic 70s New York nightclub Studio 54’s logo, then this week’s mix would have been suitably disco and diva-ish. But the penny didn’t drop until I came to write this and did a Google Image seach for something with 54 in it, letting out an audible groan when the realisation dawned.

So, if you’re new to these pages, have stumbled across if because of the Studio 54 emblem, then I’m sorry to disppoint you, but there’s barely a whiff of glitter or poppers in this week’s mix. If I can misquote Sheryl Crow: This ain’t no disco/It ain’t no country club either/This is…Friday Night Music Club.

But stick around, you never know, you may find there’s something you like in what’s to come: 18 songs squeezed into 63 minutes, as this week more than any other we skid around the circuit of musical genres with barely a gear-grind in earshot.

No sleeve-notes this week, partly because I’ve not had time, but mostly because of a last-minute change of heart as to which mix to post this week. I know you may find this hard to believe, but I do exercise a little quality control around here, and having listened to the mix that was scheduled to appear I decided it was just a little bit…well, shit is probably the kindest way to describe it, so it got bumped. Now you may listen to this mix and think: this is better than the other one?? which is fair enough, can’t please all the people all the time and all that. In particular, we kick off this week with a tune by a band who, whenever I feature them on these pages, are consistently met with absolute indifference.

But stick around, you never know, you may find there’s something you like in what’s to come: 18 songs squeezed into 63 minutes blahblahblahblahblah you get the gist.

Let’s crack on, shall we?

Friday Night Music Club Vol 54

The Beautiful South – Tonight I Fancy Myself
The Mighty Wah! – Come Back
The Coral – Dreaming Of You
Echo & The Bunnymen – The Back Of Love
Eat – Fecund
Jenny Wilson – Let My Shoes Lead Me Forward (The Knife Remix)
Jungle – All of the Time
Da Hool – Meet Her at The Love Parade
Swedish House Mafia – Greyhound
Greyhound – Black and White
The Mighty Diamonds – Pass The Kouchie
LL Cool J – Mama Said Knock You Out
Stereo Total – I Love You, Ono
Billie Eilish – Bad Guy
Juliana Hatfield – Totally Hot
Wings – Goodnight Tonight
Hot Hot Heat – Goodnight Goodnight
We Are Scientists – After Hours

Now, you’ll have to excuse me; I’ve got to prepare a new mix for next week now, and also write a post about disc 2 of Now That’s What I Call Music Volume 1 to annoy you all with tomorrow, if the reaction to last week’s post is anything to go by.

In other words: more soon.

Friday Night Music Club

It’s another Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK, so another long weekend which I will doubtless spend putting off doing all the odd jobs – like finish unpacking, or finally construct my bed (it’s only been seven months…) around the house which I’ll be cursing myself for not having done come Tuesday morning.

To soundtrack that, and whatever you’re up to, here’s another of the old mixes split down into manageable one hour chunks. I was surprised when I revisited this one to find that it the original mix was only two hours long, so we’ll have rattled past this one and on to anew one in no time.

I shan’t waste anymore time (except for the usual disclaimer which you all probably know off by heart by now: any skips or jumps are down to the mixing software; any mis-timed mixes are down to me; all record selections are mine) so here’s the link:

Friday Night Music Club Vol 2.1

…and here’s your track-listing:

Peter, Paul & Mary – I Dig Rock And Roll Music
Pixies – Weird at My School
The Walkmen – The Rat
Interpol – Evil
Lene Lovich – Lucky Number
The Jags – Back Of My Hand
The Vapors – Turning Japanese
Generation X – Dancing With Myself
Marvin Gaye – Got To Give lt Up
Prince & The Revolution – Girls & Boys
Mary Mary – Shackles (Praise You)
Jungle – Busy Earnin’
Belle & Sebastian – Your Cover’s Blown
Friends – I’m His Girl
Micachu – Golden Phone
Le Tigre – Hot Topic
The B-52’s – 52 Girls

Enjoy!

More soon.

Friday Night Music Club

Yes, I know the titles implies this should be getting posted later today, but let me explain.

Today it’s Children in Need night in the UK, and that can mean only one thing: nothing to watch on TV, unless newsreaders performing poorly choreographed dance routines floats your boat.

It’s a worthy cause, don’t get me wrong, but once you’ve dipped your hand in your pocket, as I’m sure you undoubtedly will, there’s really no need to carry on watching.

Personally, I think they would make loads more money if, once you’d contributed, your TV programmes went back to the normal schedules. The whole thing could be over and done with in half an hour or so.

Anyway, I thought I’d help out with your evening entertainment after you’ve done your charitable duty, by giving you a top mix of tunes to while away a couple of hours. So here you go, just shy of 140 minutes of tunes to bop around your kitchen to and suffice it to say, it’s a real mixed bag, covering the contemporary to the antiquated, the oft-impersonated to the never-bettered, the cherished to the forgotten, the much loved to the…erm…not loved so much. You’ll see.

But – and I mean this most sincerely folks – I love every record included in this mix. Yes, even that one. And that one. And definitely that one. Yes! This mix includes (at least) three acts generally considered to be among the naffest of if not the late 1970s, then ever. But I’d invite you to give them a go with a fresh pair of ears: kitsch, maybe, but loosen up, you might find you quite like them too (NB: I would recommend having a few drinks to truly accomplish this turnaround in opinion. Also, there’s a fair bit of effin’ & jeffin’ on some of these, so if you have kids a) hard luck, and b) put them to bed before playing this, or you’ll have to explain to them exactly what Fiddy is getting up to in “da” club, or worse, just what is going on on the Cansei de Ser Sexy record).

And when I say “mix”, I don’t mean anything has been beat-matched, or scratched, or whatever the cool name for mixing is these days: we’re in purely fade-in/fade-out territory here.

(There are, of course, a couple of technical glitches, by the way. Sorry, but I didn’t have time to go back and re-record the whole mix to get rid of them. I would have done, had the mixing software I have not crashed when I was on the penultimate tune the first time around, forcing me to go back and start all over again. Hope they don’t spoil things – look on the positive side: they will, at the very least, give you that real club feeling as you spin round to face the DJ/your sound system and call him/it whatever rude name you plump for.)

Last time I did one of these, I put the songs on Spotify, only to find they didn’t have many of the songs anyway, so I’ve not renewed my free trial subscription with them (until next time they offer it to me); instead you should (if I’ve done it right…) be able to stream it via Soundcloud here, or you can just download or stream it from the Dubious Taste vaults here (as a WAV file), which should play just fine on iTunes or Windows Media Player.

To make it as close to a “going out” experience as you can, I’d recommend playing it from one of those two sources, rather than scrolling down here to see what I’ve included. You wouldn’t approach a DJ in a club and ask him what he intended to play for the next couple of hours, now would you? No.

But if you must, here you go, 34 songs, in the same running order as on the mix, and without any of my usual snarky comments. As with most of my mixes, its starts innocuously enough….

Enjoy!