I first came across this song sometime in the summer of 2000. It was a Saturday night, and my 15-year old self was at home, bored and with very little to do. Desperate to find something to take my mind off this, I switched on the radio and heard a show called The Beat was on. The first song I heard was something quite nondescript, a rather unspectacular remix of…
These days, you can commission as many remixes as you like of a song. It all depends on how much money you've got to spend - there's room these days for hundreds of different remixes, if you wanted them. Sales or streams inevitably drop off after the first two or three, but it's still possible. But in the pre-internet days, this was impossible to do. When pressing music onto vinyl,…
It's hard for me to explain the story of Amateur At Play, my production alias, without referencing 95 North. They were a DJ and producer duo who consisted of two friends called Doug Smith and Richard Payton. Six years ago, I was compiling a 95 North tribute mix - but struggled to get hold of some of their records. In desperation, I reached out to 95 North and Richard replied.…
I have a confession to make. Around 1997 and 1998, there was a lot of garage house kind of music that I simply didn't appreciate. I'm not quite sure why - perhaps it just didn't resonate with me at the time. Either way, I became a fan of them later on. This is one of them. Charles Dockins is a name which appears all over the history of house music…
For this week's column, I bring with it a revelation that isn't entirely high on the credibility stakes. I originally read about this single somewhere in late 2003, but with this being the earlier days of the internet, a preview was next to impossible to obtain. I ended up hearing the Tom Middleton remix of this on a Ministry of Sound compilation - Clubber's Guide to 2004 in early January.…
It's hard to believe, but the record I'm including in tonight's column is a little over 30 years old now. Yes, this one was made and released all the way back in 1991 - and came out of ID Records, an in-house imprint consisting of Steve "Silk" Hurley, Maurice Joshua and E-Smoove. These days, it's pretty standard for the producer and singer to both headline a track. Not then. This…
Continuing with the week long selections from this series, I'm going back to 2005 for this choice from the box. This one is unashamedly on the commercial side, but it's the sort of record dance music occasionally needs in order to keep the attention of the mainstream. This one actually appeared in 2004 on Moody Recordings, but was soon licensed by Ministry of Sound in the UK for release on…
All this week, you're getting special editions of this series. Partly because it's a weird time of year and partly because I can stick them all up on the blog ahead of time - I'm probably having a drink right now. Anyway, tonight's installment goes back to 2002 and a tune I wasn't particularly keen on when I first heard it. I'm talking about "At Night" by Shakedown, a Swedish…
There are times in life when all you want to hear is an unrelentingly happy record. You just want to let yourself go for a few minutes and forget about everything - you just need something to throw yourself into. And since tonight is my birthday, that's exactly what I'm looking for. From around 2000 onwards, the musical output of Frankie Knuckles seemed to almost totally dry up. For around…
Because it's Christmas time, here’s a special Boxing Day edition of the blog's series looking back at highlights from days gone by. And I'm going to say something which some of you might find controversial - but it's what I think! Back in 2004, Skylark - a duo which consisted of Andy Chatterley and Nic Fanciulli - did a remix of Prana's "The Dream". Now, the original mixes came out…
