She's up all night for good fun

Wheeee! Another weekend's on the way...

#adecadeago today, dear reader, it was sunny and warm - quite unlike this current bleak, cold, dank weather [We have had the heating on most evenings - in June!]. - and we were preparing to move house to Dolores Delargo Towers #3 a few weeks later.

On that occasion it was a Friday 13th - hence the reason for this choice for our traditional end-of-the-week slot to get the party started. I need no excuses to play it again, however - it cheers me up every time!

Thank Disco It's Friday!

Daft Punk and Pharrell Williams - Get Lucky [Roller Boogie version]

As I said at the time, "I doubt Pharrell and Daft Punk were even born when that film was made"...

Have a great weekend, folks!

What is this I'm feeling?

Could an orange maniac finally be facing justice?

It's the middle of a short week, and I am going to spend the day closing down shit and preparing my handover for my well-earned extended Easter break [I'm off all next week], as I have loads of meetings tomorrow.

The weather's been quite fab, there's a "gathering of the clans Film Club" on Saturday, and much plant shopping (particularly fuchsias) to look forward to when I bugger off to Essex with Baby Steve and Houseboy Alex afterwards. Just two more days to go!

Meanwhile, it happens to be [the peculiar-looking] Pharrell Williams' 50th birthday today, so how about a little midweek joy?

Daft Punk feat. Pharrell Williams - Lucky

We've come too far
To give up who we are
So let's raise the bar
And our cups to the stars

Indeed.

Convoluted connections, #394 in a series

What links this song...

Gibson Brothers - Cuba

...with this...

Bananarama - Aie a Mwana

...and this one?

Daft Punk - Around the World

French songwriter and producer Daniel Vangarde began as an avant-garde synthesizer music pioneer in the early 1970s, and released a pseudo-Japanese album masquerading as a band called the Yamasuki Singers. Once the Disco boom began, however, he went on to write and produce some of the biggest (and cheesiest) hits of the era, including Ottowan's D.I.S.C.O., and local hits in France with artistes such as Rocky et Vandella, The Great Disco Bouzouki Band, Sheila (later of B Devotion fame), and the Soul Iberica Band.

He also launched the Gibson Brothers onto an unsuspecting world.

Along the way, he was also responsible for the song originally titled Aieaoa, that was later given Swahili lyrics and re-named Aie a Mwana. In the 1980s, a trio of wild-child girls, who were hanging around with The Sex Pistols at the time, decided to record it as a demo. While doing so, they improvised the lyrics to rhyme with "banana" - and lo and behold, Bananarama was born!

Finally - what possible connection is there with song #3?

Well... Mr Vangarde was actually born Daniel Bangalter. His son Thomas, who with daddy's encouragement became an electronic music maestro in his own right, is one half of the enigmatic synthpop duo Daft Punk!

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, they say...

Totty of the Day and paraskevidekatriaphobia

Any excuse, really, for another picture of Tom Daley in his skimpies

The walking sex god that is Tom Daley has not only recovered from his hip injury [I wonder how that happened? Dustin: we're looking at you!] to win his fourth Commonwealth Games gold medal (alongside his synchronised dive partner Dan Goodfellow), but he has also had a very public dig at many of the countries with whom he is participating:

"Coming to the Gold Coast and being able to live as an openly gay man is really important," said Daley, 23.

"You want to feel comfortable in who you are when you are standing on that diving board, and for 37 Commonwealth countries that are here participating that is not the case."

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Daley added: "I feel extremely lucky to compete openly as who I am, not worry about ramifications. But for lots of people living in those countries it is not the case.

"We have to talk about these things and shine a light on them in order to get change.

"By Birmingham and the next Commonwealth Games [in 2022], I really hope we see a decrease in that number of countries that criminalise LGBT issues.

"I feel with the Commonwealth, we can really help push some of the other nations to relax their laws on anti-gay stuff."

Good for him! We need more people in the public eye to speak out against anti-gay bigotry and discrimination, especially in the Commonwealth - an organisation supposedly dedicated to upholding "democracy, human rights and the rule of law" - which is so dear to Britain and HM The Queen...

Changing the subject completely, however, we have reached the crescendo of yet another gripping week's work - and for the superstitious among us it is also Friday the Thirteenth!

Pah, I say - I am not paraskevidekatriaphobic. I just wanna fucking dance! Thank Disco It's Friday, and let's let Daft Punk and Pharrell get the party started:

Daft Punk - Lucky

Have a good one, peeps!

Keep the beast in my nature under ceaseless attack

One of the bloggers I follow, Cookie over at Doing Hard Time in Shaker Heights, is feeling sorry for himself. The eyedrops he's on contain steroids, which means he "can't get no sleep". I was looking for something appropriate(?) to play - such as Faithless' timeless dance classic - when I came upon this instead - excellent orchestrated versions of Insomnia and other choons from the mega-clubbing '90s, courtesy of the BBC Proms 2015 "Ibiza Prom", with DJ Pete Tong and the BBC Heritage Orchestra.

Of course I love it...

Pete Tong and the BBC Heritage Orchestra - Insomnia (Faithless)

Pete Tong and the BBC Heritage Orchestra - Right Here Right Now (Fatboy Slim)

Pete Tong and the BBC Heritage Orchestra - One More Time (Daft Punk)

Pete Tong and the BBC Heritage Orchestra - Lola's Theme (Shapeshifters)

Brilliant! I wish I had been there.

Musical catch-up, part 2

As promised (threatened?) yesterday, I am endeavouring to do a major sortie through the past few months of "newer" music that people may have thought I had overlooked, and this is the second instalment. These amuse-bouches are all for your enjoyment, dear reader. I do hope they provide some modicum of entertainment...

To get the ball rolling, it's our friend Marcus Reeves with his newest - and stunningly gothic - single, featuring erstwhile cabaret artiste (and briefly a member of Fascinating Aida) Miss Sarah-Louise Young...

Marcus Reeves - Smoke and Mirrors

I can never understand why this marvellous Aussie duo have never had a hit in the UK - it's Parralox (this time featuring a rather sassy lady by the name of Francine):

Parralox ft Francine - Crying on the Dancefloor

Definitely not new (even this mix is a year old), but new to me, is this fab New Order vs Depeche Mode vs Daft Punk mashup:

New Order vs. Depeche Mode vs. Daft Punk (Sterbinszky and Coddie Mashup)

Oozing a dance-bitch-diva attitude of which our own beloved Luciana would be proud, here's Veronika Vesper with (a song that I am sure we all know someone to whom we'd like to dedicate):

Veronika Vesper - Fuck the Ego

A follow-up to the rather catchy Hideaway (that I featured back in March), the new single from the unpronounceable Kiesza is every kind of wonderful (song and video). I first saw this on a big screen in a local sandwich shop in my lunch break, and it really made the rest of my afternoon in work go with a swing!

Kiesza - Giant In My Heart

Now, as any fule kno, I'm no great fan of Miss Katy Perry. However, I was rather struck with this cover version of one of her faux-OTT hits ET by the (s)punky Garek (last featured here in December 2012). With a video featuring piss-takes of both Ms P and Ms Gaga, how could I not?

Garek - E.T.

And finally, peeps, it's time for some smut and filth! With its definitely NSFW video, here's the kinky-boots-lover SirPaul, and his paean to Black Leather:



As always, enjoy - and let me know your thoughts...

Up all night to get lucky

It's Friday 13th, peeps! Oo-er...

To end our week in traditional fashion, let's have something "lucky" to ward off the bad omens - how about a bit of tight-trousered Roller Boogie to get the party started?

Daft Punk and Pharrell Williams - Get Lucky ("Roller Boogie" version)

I doubt Pharrell and Daft Punk were even born when this film was made...

Thank Disco It's Friday!

Have a great weekend!

Greetings, pop-pickers

It's been ages since I've compiled a selection of some of the newer music that I've discovered, so let's have a go...

Played on BBC Radio 2 - apparently for the first time - by Dave Pearce on his Dance Years show on Saturday (I was listening!) was Pet Shop Boys' newest single from their forthcoming "return to dance-pop" album Electric. Here's the fabulous Vocal:

Pet Shop Boys - Vocal (Live in Argentina)

And, just because I haven't mentioned it before, the Boys' most recent release Axis - and its video - is wonderful, too:

Pet Shop Boys - Axis

Speaking of music that I have completely omitted to mention before, how about the mega-over-hyped comeback of Daft Punk? Their world-beating Get Lucky featuring Pharrell Williams just spent four weeks at the top of our charts. It also (surprisingly) happens to be collaborator Nile Rogers' first Number 1 in the UK - so let's feature the (inevitable) mash-up with another of his classics, Good Times by Chic:

Daft Punk vs Pharrell vs Chic (mashup)

Back to the new...

Hailing from Rennes in Brittany, here's Juveniles with their rather good new single (somewhat reminiscent of OMD, methinks), Strangers - and a most bizarre video indeed:

Juveniles - Strangers

Appropriately described as "shimmering flecked electro house", here's an excellent collaboration between music maestro Kris Menace and a vocalist calling himself Black Hills - Waiting For You:

Kris Menace feat. Black Hills - Waiting For You

A jaunty, funky little number, Only You Can Show Me by Goldroom crosses old-school disco and Ibiza house rhythms to create a likely summer hit, I reckon...

Goldroom feat. Mereki - Only You Can Show Me

The lovely Little Boots continues her obsession with the darker side of discotheque with her new song Broken Record, and its roller-boogie-inspired video - I love it!

Little Boots - Broken Record

However if we really want kitsch, then... the latest outing for Steps support act Kamaliya [complete with samples from Puccini's Flower Duet, of all things] makes every effort, and succeeds, in producing a (very) Ukrainian impression of a Pepsi commercial - it's I'm Alive:

Kamaliya - I'm Alive

And finally, with an uplifting sound that harks back to the handover between Hi-NRG and Eurobeat dance music in the 1990s, Canadian popstrel Gali (and her dreadful hair extensions) got my glitterball spinning with her new wannabee anthem - coincidentally, the same title as Kamaliya's - I'm Alive:

Gali - I'm Alive

As always, enjoy - and let me know what you think!