Posts by electrofunkroots

Just written a blog piece, 'Kudos To Morgan Khan', in appreciation of the UK Dance instigator ahead of the Street Sounds 30th Anniversary:

http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/11/kudos-to-morgan-khan/

Quote from 155;66340

As a separate point Greg will no doubt be aware that his decision to disengage from music, at a relatively early time, may be used to undermine the argument that he puts forward (rightly or wrongly). Recently this topic of conversation come up in a different context - and the point was made that some of the people being spoken about were not actually involved in the scene at that time. This didn't recognise the fact, of course, that the people concerned were still listening to music and visiting clubs - just not 'playing' there as DJs etc.

I can't help but wonder if Greg has considered writing a book about his experiences and his thoughts regarding the 'revisionism' that takes place?

155

I've pretty much written the first draft of a book dealing with my experience of how the Electro-Funk era unfolded. It's just a matter of finding the time to amend / add further info. One of these days!

Looked back through the forum archives, but couldn't find any reference to the Channel 4 programme, 'How Clubbing Changed The World', which was broadcast 3 weeks ago. Apologies if there's already a thread dealing with this.

Anyhow, some musings about the programme, and the documentation of club culture in general, in this piece I've just uploaded to my blog:

http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/20…ubbing-changed-the-world/

30 years on from the release of 'Planet Rock' - Afrika Bambaataa interviewed by Greg Wilson:

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The recent blog pieces, ‘The Haçienda DJ Booth’ and ‘The Haçienda Disco V Fiasco!’ have now been combined to a single page at Electrofunkroots:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/the-hacienda-dj-booth/

I've changed the link to the New Order / Rockers Revenge mash-up as well - this is the correct one:
http://soundcloud.com/gregwilson/new-order-rockers-revenge

30 years today since the legendary Manchester club opened – to mark the occasion I’ve put various uploads on the blog, at electrofunkroots, and on SoundCloud.

BLOG:
The Haçienda – 30 Years On:
http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/20…the-hacienda-30-years-on/

SOUNDCLOUD:
New Order / Rockers Revenge mash-up, ‘Walking On Confusion’ now uploaded:
http://soundcloud.com/gregwilson/new-order-rockers-revenge

ELECTROFUNKROOTS:
Confused Beats For Electro Freaks:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co…beats-for-electro-freaks/
The Haçienda – All Good Things Come To An End:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/articles/the-hacienda.html

30 years today since my first mix on Manchester's Piccadilly Radio. Just uploaded to SoundCloud:
http://soundcloud.com/gregwilson/it-was-back-in-82-by-greg

Backstory at blog;
http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/05/it-was-back-in-82/

Early 80's Floorfillers now 4 months in:

Jan 82:http://www.electrofunkroots.co…p-10-floorfillers-jan-82/
Feb 82:http://www.electrofunkroots.co…p-10-floorfillers-feb-82/
Mar 82:http://www.electrofunkroots.co…10-floorfillers-march-82/
Apr 82:http://www.electrofunkroots.co…10-floorfillers-april-82/

You can feel the Electro starting to bubble!

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse - The Hacienda Disco V Fiasco!

http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/20…-hacienda-disco-v-fiasco/

Quote from beagle;60913

Mastermind?

Chad Jackson followed on in the North. Westwood was building a reputation in London. Mastermind, of course, and Steve Devonne on Invicta. The Wild Bunch in Bristol. It started out with pockets of people then caught on in '84 like a forest fire

Hewan Clarke, the original Hacienda DJ, has unearthed a remarkable photo of the DJ booth – not the iconic one up on the balcony, but the initial ill-conceived side of stage location. The photo includes, of course, the infamous Akwil Digiteque mixer, which was the bane of my life when I worked there. Blogged about it here:
http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/02/the-hacienda-dj-booth/

Hewan gives the full lowdown in his fascinating Electrospective interview, which has just gone online at Electrofunkroots:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co…t-hewan-clarke-interview/

Now uploaded:

NO SELL OUT
Electro Retrospective
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/mixes/no_sell_out.html

EQUIP XXXO 1963
Proto Acid House:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/equip-xxxo-1983/

EARLY 80’S JAZZ-FUNK & FUSION
DJ History mix:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co…xes/jazz_funk_fusion.html

Quote from kerode;60685

@ Greg

did you ever go that saturday aftrenoon jam the dj Mike Shaft used to do in Manchester for the breakers I think it was held in legends but I could be wrong.

went a couple of times we used to sneak on the train from Chester to get up there and we always used to get caught and kicked off at Oxford Rd station. Great times.....

No, never went, must have been a little after my time (I stopped deejaying in '84). If it looked like this it was Legend: http://www.electrofunkroots.co…d-manchesters-other-club/

Just made the 'No Sell Out - Electro Retrospective' mix available to stream / download:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/mixes/no_sell_out.html

More info on the website, but here's the basic lowdown:

NO SELL OUT - ELECTRO RETROSPECTIVE (MAY 1982 – DEC 1983 )
MIXED BY GREG WILSON FOR A GUY CALLED GERALD - SAMURAI FM 2005
This is the most involved mix I’ve ever put together, even more so than my Essential Mix in 2009, for which ‘No Sell Out’ very much provided the prototype. I intended it as a definitive document to the period May 82 – Dec 83, when Legend and Wigan Pier were at their most influential, the new Electro-Funk sound turning the black scene on its head as the old gradually gave way to the new.

As I wrote at the time:
“The tracks on this mix represent this now distant time of both musical and cultural change. I’ve selected the records that were regarded as controversial at the time within black music circles, the ones that the traditionalists were up in arms about. I’d originally chosen 50 of the biggest tracks played at Legend and the Pier, but this was upped to 60, all of which needed to be edited down to an average of a minute and a half in length, which was no small task in itself! Realising that there were still other tracks I wanted to include, I decided to keep it to the main 60, but drop in snippets of additional records from the period, not only Electro, but also other big floorfillers from my nights. I never played purely Electro, but mixed it in alongside Soul, Funk and Disco (or as people refer to it nowadays, Boogie), and this is reflected by the numerous ‘references’ sprinkled throughout the mix.

It’s good to be able to place some of these tracks back into their original context. Tracks like ‘The Message’, ‘Rockit’ and ‘Buffalo Gals’ would become big hits in the UK, but they were completely unknown when first played at Legend and the Pier. A perfect example would be ‘White Lines’, which was an underground favourite for many months before the penny finally dropped with the mainstream audience and they came to appreciate it as the wonderful record it is, resulting in a chart stay of over a year! Nowadays, ‘White Lines’ can be played pretty much anywhere to a great response. It’s a sure-fire floorfiller, regarded as a dance standard, but it wasn’t always that way - without the initial specialist support it could quite easily have ended up as just a minor hit.

The title of the mix, ‘No Sell Out’, comes from the opening track. It seemed an appropriate name, given the fact these records were very much regarded by the purists as the selling out of black music, rather than its salvation (something which pretty much everyone can now, with hindsight, clearly see). Listening back to these tracks you can trace the evolution of Hip Hop, Techno and House. This was the point in time when black music fully embraced the available technology and took dance to new dimensions. Hearing these records for the very first time, we knew that the future was upon us and that dance music had entered a whole new phase of its development.”

The ‘No Sell Out – Electro Retrospective’ page at Electrofunkroots gives the full lowdown and complete tracklisting. It includes an introduction by Gerald Simpson (aka A Guy Called Gerald), for whose Samurai FM podcast this mix was originally put together.

http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/mixes/no_sell_out.html

The clip is from later down the line, but perfectly illustrates how House was originally played on the black scene alongside Electro.

Manchester was the city where the Electro (or as we called it Electro-Funk) scene first took root. The full lowdown re this period can be found at Electrofunkroots:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk

This article, about the origins of the scene in the UK used to be on the old Electro Empire, but seemed to have vanished once the site was updated:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/articles/what.html

Quote from kaos;57420

Yes i agree the Demo version is the better version ................ it was on the ICA 1984 version of UK Electro that Greg Wilson and myself distributed back in the early 00`s, it was never released before that in any form.

Don`t you have it Sanj?

Also the ICA 1984 UK Electro mix is much better than the Streetsounds release.

Hi kaos, good to see you're still here - hope life's been treating you good. Just launched the new electrofunkroots, I think you'll notice a big difference from the old days.

Thanks for your support back then, always appreciated.

I'll upload the demo of 'Style Of The Street' to SoundCloud at some point. As I've always said, this is my personal favourite. Here are the relevant pages at electrofunkroots:

UK Electro:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/misc/uk_electro.html

Broken Glass:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/articles/broken_glass.html

Finally found time to give electrofunkroots a complete overhaul, with full re-design and loads of new content. It’s the resource I’d always hoped it would become, and I’ll be adding to it more regularly from now on.

There’s a new Electrospective section, with interviews from the event back in ’08 (both video and transcribed) - pure knowledge from Mike Shaft, Colin Curtis, Hewan Clarke and Chad Jackson, 4 of the era’s most influential DJ’s, talking about Pre-Rave Manchester. Mike’s interview is currently online with the others to follow over the next 3 weeks:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/category/electrospective/

The early Piccadilly Radio mixes, ‘The Best Of 82’ and ‘The Best Of 83’ are now embedded, and can be streamed / downloaded (more back in the day mixes to be added in the coming months):
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/mixes/the_best_of_82.html
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/mixes/the_best_of_83.html

Then there’s the ‘Early 80’s Floorfillers’ podcast, again embedded on the site with label / sleeve scans and full credits (you can also get this as an ap, details on the page):
http://www.electrofunkroots.co…p-10-floorfillers-jan-82/

There’s lots more stuff – articles, record lists, interviews etc. Hopefully you’ll go and have an explore for yourself.

Quote from lj;59478

Would be interesting to get this confirmed or cleared up somehow. I always assumed that Planet Rock was first. I mean they are both from 1982, but maybe somebody has the exact release dates?

Planet Rock WAS a historical divide, that much is certain. "Clear" (1983) was influenced by Planet Rock; it even contains parts of Planet Rock's melody. The same applies to "Pack Jam" - there was an earlier version from 1981, but the version we all know all of a sudden features parts of Planet Rock's melody.

'Planet Rock' (May '82) was released 6 months before 'Hip Hop Be Bop' (Nov '82). At least that's when they first came into the UK on import.

I go into a lot of this stuff over at electrofunkroots, which has just undergone a complete re-design with loads of new content added:
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk

Bloody hell

Quote from kaos

Greg, glad it went well and will definitely be at the next one,next year.

I don`t suppose anyone filmed it did they ?

Sorry you couldn't make it. Hopefully we'll see you next time.

All the discussions plus the B Boy section were filmed - just a matter of compiling everything. All being well there'll be a limited edition DVD at some point.