BC086 - Five Mixes: Old School, June-July 2024

Static-laden senses of the new, even at this late hour: Post-punk, rave anthems, and more!

Top Buzz, via Discogs

A few meanings to our theme here—most obviously, it’s older sets, but it’s also new sets explicit about highlighting influential older music. One of the latter highlights newer music as well; I counted it anyway. A fuller justification is below.

Here is a SoundCloud playlist with all five sets.

Fast Eddie, 107.5 FM WGCI, Chicago 1987 (Manny'z Tapez; uploaded June 3)

Farley ‘JackMaster’ Funk, Live 102.7 FM WBMX Chicago 1987 (Manny'z Tapez; uploaded June 3)

I would imagine that, for someone not totally steeped in dance music, a certain amount of the late-eighties Chicago selections I sometimes spotlight in this space might look repetitive. It’s true that a number have come from Manny’z Tapez (he was a key source for my Deep House Page history as well), but to stick with the two above, I’ve only ever written about one previous Fast Eddie or Farley Jackmaster Funk set apiece before, though both are also from 1987 with no further dating. (Manny cites yet another Farley set in his interview, that one from 1988, but I haven’t written about it, per se.) And 1987 was a real fission year in terms of DJing—a lot of records coming out, a lot of machines coming onto the market at ever cheaper prices, a lot of experience editing tape gained among Chicago’s DJs. Let’s A-B them, shall we?

The earlier Fast Eddie set, Chicago Acid Jack Hotmix, WBMX, Chicago (DHP 505) (Mixcloud; YouTube; MixesDB2), is a fairly famous one; the “DHP,” as it happens, means it was one of the sets that was uploaded to Deep House Page’s section for downloadable sets, typically, as Manny notes in the above-mentioned history, at deliberately low bit-rates. I chose it in part because of its early (in the mix—before two minutes is up—and in the longer time frame alike) use of Rhythm Controll’s “My House” a cappella. The 45-minute Mixcloud version (the YouTube’s only a half-hour) is big and splashy, the city-bred sound in its imperial phase, the DJ one of its early stylists. The June-uploaded WCGI set has much of the same momentum, even a few of the same selections, but it is also more steady-state and less boisterous. That’s not to call it sedate—it’s very lively, just not as seething as the earlier-posted one.

The earlier Farley set, which Manny’z Tapez uploaded in January, is similarly high-spirited as both of the Fast Eddies, and as clean sounding as well. The June upload, on the other hand, is pretty muddy, but it doesn’t obscure the music but rather adds to its patina, as they say on Pawn Stars (whose first three seasons I’m in the midst of re-watching; thanks, Tubi). It’s also shorter, 36 minutes to the 48 from January, and it has a very different musical outline as well—moodier, keyed by the slowed/slurred “Let’s Go Crazy” intro over stomping acid, followed not long after by a political speech that isn’t by MLK or Chuck Roberts. The tracks are less anthemic and more delirium-inducing. And the ad for WGCI’s rap show—a whole half-hour long, in 1987, right as hip-hop is flourishing, gosh—is for the ages.

BFTT, Take It Higher Mix (Resident Advisor; June 4)

Per RA, this “Manchester DJ . . . blend[s] tried-and-true club classics with cutting-edge UK dance music,” so there’s a few new things on this one. But it doesn’t really sound like it, which means the new stuff is doing its job and so is the DJ. OK, fine—the new stuff has that sticky-soled low end and gaseous sound design, so it does sound new. But it fits perfectly with the motion of the thing—from heedless tracks you can practically bang your head with to something a little less certain of itself by the end (“Lonely,” ace pick, an old favorite), and also from four-to-the-floor to vintage jungle. The clutch of classics near the end—in particular, “We Can Be Free,” a shock to the system in any setting—are the set’s true signature.

Top Buzz, Starlight at the Edge—10th July 1993 (Deep Inside the Oldskool; uploaded July 11)

This group is presented in the order uploaded, not strictly chronological, which enables this to follow BFTT like night follows day—so you like circa-’93 junglist thrills? Well, here’s an hour of them. It’s mid-fi, oh well—cassette quality varied, and so did aerials. It doesn’t have the kind of clean arc you get from something as targeted as BFTT—this is an hour from a rave and cuts off in the middle of a tune. The tune happens to be “Obsession (Music’s So Wonderful),” a key record in the shift from jungle to happy hardcore while still remaining in the drum & bass camp. Here, the nervous sweat of tracks like “The Atmosphere” and “Darkness Becomes You” (back to back, yum) is like the weather rather than the topic of conversation.

Matthew Collin, Dream Machines Electronic/Punk Mixtape (July 11)

I’m slightly chagrined that I’m not further along reading Dream Machines than I was the last time its author made an ear-catching hour illustrating some of its chapters. This time around, I’m much more familiar with the selections—“Nag Nag Nag,” “Ghost Rider,” “TVOD,” like that—and also with (some of) their backstories from prior to snagging Colin’s book. It’s not beat-matched or anything, and its familiarity may work against it for some, but it’s airtight and transmits a static-laden sense of the new even at this late hour.