remix audio bar playlist 1

This is the first live mix I’ve uploaded since restrictions lifted, two hours recorded last month by the side of the River Thames on London’s South Bank between Waterloo and Westminster bridges, next to the London Eye.

BETWEEN THE BRIDGES LONDON SOUTH BANK 21.08.21 (greg wilson live mix)

Great to get my first gig of 2022 under my belt last Saturday at Ministry Of Sound. I’ve played at this legendary club a number of times down the years, but this certainly ranked amongst my favourite appearances.

In light of my Essential Mix being chosen for BBC Radio 1's classic series earlier in the month, I decided to kick off the year with a selection of some of the tracks included, a few of which are different edits/mixes to those featured back in 2009 when the mix first aired.

MINISTRY OF SOUND LONDON 29.01.22 (greg wilson live mix)

Full recording from The Social in London's West End, 18 years on from my previous appearance there, soon after I’d started DJing again, for the launch of the Don Letts 'Dread Meets B-Boys Downtown' compilation. With its recent refit, The Social surely stakes a claim to being amongst the best small venues in the land. Great close-up atmosphere and a wicked sound system in a compact 150 capacity space. 

There's a short video clip/photo montage over at Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CZ_yi_vqRoC/

It provided the perfect opportunity for me to debut a bunch of new edits I’ve held back for the right occasion, which I thought would be The Riot at Depot Mayfield in Manchester on New Years Day, but that fell victim to the covid uncertainty. I struck lucky though - there couldn’t have been a better environment for this than The Social, complete with a fully vibed-up crowd emanating an extra special atmosphere, which, with January’s Ministry Of Sound gig (where I focused on tracks from my recently re-broadcast Essential Mix) sets the tone for 2022.

THE SOCIAL LONDON  11.02.22 (greg wilson live mix)

This show aired on www.ndcradio.co.uk

@iryaz-sabir on hosting duties for The Disco Waltons Sunday Service, followed by the legendary @gregwilson in the guest mix slot. This one's not to be missed!  

Catch the Disco Waltons Sunday Service on NDC Radio every Sunday evening - 9pm-11pm GMT 

Please spread the Disco Waltons love! :)

Iry Sabir and Greg Wilson - The Disco Waltons Sunday Service (NDC Radio 10.04.22)

Greg Wilson live from the Burial Ground at Lost Village 2018.

YouTube 🌲📺🌲 www.youtube.com/lostvillage

Website 🌲💻🌲 www.lostvillagefestival.com

Live from Lost Village - Greg Wilson

Mr Scruff live from the Junkyard at Lost Village 2019.

Live from the Village - Mr Scruff

Recording from La Discothèque at Printworks in London 13.12.19.

LA DISCOTHÈQUE @ PRINTWORKS LONDON 13.12.19 (greg wilson live mix)

I’ve been waiting to write a full blog post before I put up this mix from what is going to be my last festival appearance for some time, but its been difficult, given the circumstances we all find ourselves in, to fully engage, and although I’ve made a start there’s still more I’d like to say, so the post will have to wait a bit longer.

*now online here:
https://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/2020/04/16600/ 

Its Easter weekend, so I think its about time I shared the mix – it was recorded on March 8th at the WOMADelaide festival, the centrepiece of my recent Australian tour, and was pretty much a perfect gig for me – environment, crowd, sound/set-up – featuring a jamboree of some old favourites alongside more recent releases / re-edits. There’s a strong Aussie representation, with tracks by Tame Impala, Confidence Man and Owl Eyes - a great new remix of ‘You And I’ by Late Nite Tuff Guy who also provides, along with Dr Packer, a number of reworks.

This was only a month ago, but how times have changed. Hope you’re keeping safe and coping during lockdown.

WOMADelaide FESTIVAL 08.03.20 (greg wilson live mix)

Recording from socially distanced event at Escape To Freight Island @ Depot Mayfield in Manchester 08.08.20.

A socially distanced gig is strange, but it’s all we have for now. With people required to be sat at tables and dancing a no no, a different approach was required, where I could be a bit more free-flowing in what I played without a dancefloor to take into consideration. I started off at Freight Island with a Beach Boys favourite from ’68, ‘Do It Again’, harking back to their surf style of the earlier ‘60s, having scaled the heights and sailed the psychedelic seas in the intervening years, ‘Do It Again’, with those wicked drums, carried a weight of nostalgia and a hint of melancholy – an after the summer song if you will, about a time that can never return. This seemed an appropriate starter for the situation we find ourselves in – dancing in a club or a field already a memory.

This booking, my first since I got back from Australia in March, fell just a few weeks on from the death of Denise Johnson. This was a big shock – she was literally just about to release her first solo album ‘Where Does It Go’, and nobody could have imagined that this would be issued posthumously. Denise came to the clubs I was playing at in the early-‘80s and I remember her first band Fifth Of Heaven from the latter years of the decade. She guested with likes of New Order, Electronic, Ian Brown and A Certain Ratio, but will forever be remembered for her contribution to Primal Scream's ‘Screamadelica’ in ’91.

It has to be said that the Manchester Evening News and a number of publications including The Guardian, The Independent and the NME were shambolic in reporting her death, running a picture that wasn’t Denise. I know that Dave Haslam, the former-Hacienda resident who DJ’d before me that day was one of the first to point out this insensitive blunder on social media, which evoked long-standing black stereotypes and must have been horrible for her family and friends.

I, of course, wanted to play something in memory of Denise, as I had with Andrew Weatherall following his death earlier this year. That two of the key contributors to ‘Screamadelica’ had passed within a matter of months is still difficult to take in, the chaos of the times we’re experiencing amplifying the unreality of things.

Rather than a Primal Scream track I picked out a lesser-known personal favourite Denise recorded for Creation Records with Hypnotone, 1990’s ‘Dream Beam’. The Primal Scream hook-up came about when Hypnotone performed at Danny Rampling’s legendary acid-house party Shoom in London, with Denise impressing. Hypnotone faded into the memory as she scaled the heights with the ‘Screamadelica’ LP and subsequent recordings with Primal Scream. The Jesse Jackson speech over the top of Hypnotone was unplanned, but randomly reeled up on my tape at that point for me to appropriately add its Weatherall reference.

The mix then heads off in its own direction, which turned out to carry a recurring jazz-funk theme via big back in the day tracks from George Benson, The Crusaders, Sea Level, Rodney Franklin and MFSB. These are tracks Denise would have instantly recognised from when she first started going out to the clubs. The late-'70s Jazz-Funk scene in the city, with Colin Curtis and John Grant at Rafters and regular all-dayers at The Ritz, a far too rarely mentioned, a part of Manchester’s musical lifeblood.

My next gig was supposed to be a socially distanced Halloween fancy dress at Camp and Furnace for the Liverpool Disco Festivall, but the new COVID-19 restrictions placed on Merseyside put paid to that. The good news is that it’s now been re-arranged for the final weekend of November, which falls around on the Festival’s 4th anniversary, so all is not lost and there’s something to look forward to after restrictions are lifted. Tickets/details here: skiddle.com/e/13892893

ESCAPE TO FREIGHT ISLAND @ DEPOT MAYFIELD MANCHESTER 08.08.20 (greg wilson live mix)

My mix from The Haçienda's 24 hour live stream on New Years Eve 2020.

All of the tracks I featured were from the opening two years of the ‘90s. I hadn’t set out to do this, but it was very much guided by the opening track I’d chosen, in memory of two irreplaceables we lost that year, DJ icon Andrew Weatherall and Manchester’s own Denise Johnson, both crucial to Primal Scream’s ‘Come Together’, which is followed by Weatherall’s mix of ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ by Saint Etienne, whilst Denise’s vocals feature on the lesser-known gem ‘Dream Beam’ by Hypnotone.

The event, hosted by United We Stream GM, had begun at 10am with Hewan Clarke, the club’s original resident, and concluded at 10am on NYD morning with Peter Hook. I followed on from Norman Jay MBE and DJ Paulette, and seeing all the comments on social media, it was soon clear that a lot of people felt a strong emotional response watching the DJs, some among their all-time favourites, playing much-loved tunes in empty spaces, devoid of the dancers who made that music make sense in the first place – a sad, but poignant parody. Also appearing were Haçienda Classical, Inner City, Phuture, Carl Craig, Danny Tenaglia DJ, Dj David Morales, DJ Woody, Graeme Park, Jon Dasilva, Justin Robertson, K-Klass, Moby, Soul Central, Sub Sub, Todd Terry, Tom Wainwright and Tony Humphries. It was line-up, even including a tribute to Frankie Knuckles by way of a recording of the house legend’s 2013 NYE appearance for The Haçienda at Albert Hall, Manchester.

remix audio bar playlist 1

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