touches my heart so much ♥️♥️♥️

❤️❤️ timeless and beautiful intro

Unbelievable. It’s an incredible tune 🔥🔥🔥

Accompanying blog post: http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2014/03/greg-wilson-versions-2005-2013/

Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/Escort-Cocaine-Blues/release/2511209

Check out my label's music at: https://superweirdsubstance.bandcamp.com

Escort 'Cocaine Blues' (greg wilson version 2010)

The Bassheads ‘Is There Anybody Out There?’ (greg wilson edit)

124 bpm

Never previously shared.

‘Is There Anybody Out There?’ was one of the all-time Rave classics. It was particularly interesting for me to witness its runaway success given that I knew its creators, Desa and Nick Murphy, who lived on the Wirral. Desa used to come to some of the local clubs I deejayed at as far back as 1977, before he started out as a club DJ himself (he remembered me switching between the Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes and Thelma Houston versions of ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ at the Golden Guinea in New Brighton), whilst I’d done some recording with Nick, who had a home studio, a few years before The Bassheads formed.

The name, The Bassheads, had come from The Bassment, a night Desa started in Birkenhead in 1988 (in a room where I’d deejayed myself 12 years previous, when the club opened as The Deerstalker). Initially pressing up their own white labels, The Bassheads blew up big time with ‘Is There Anybody Out There?’ – exactly the right tune at the right time. They worked on the track with Shaun Imre, who I also knew from my time living in London during the late 80’s, which took its title from the Pink Floyd recording it sampled, whilst other well-known acts sampled included Talking Heads, The Osmonds and Afrika Bambaataa. Having seen me use mine, Desa bought himself a Revox B77 reel-to-reel, utilizing it in fine style to help bring his ideas to life (as fate would have it, I bought this very machine from Desa a few years back, and it’s one of two I currently rotate for my DJ appearances).

Having been huge on white label during 1991, DeConstruction Records signed 'Is There Anybody Out There?' up and scored a top 5 hit before the end of the year. Prior to issuing the single they had to remove the Floyd sample though, and although the overall track still sounded brilliant and was now somewhat cleaner (Bam was still there, and the other key samples had been replayed to great effect), it was a shame the Floyd was missing for all those who knew the original.

Moving forward to 2009 and I thought it’d be the perfect track to kick off with at the Big Chill Festival, opening up with the atmospheric Floyd ambience. I dug around for the white label 12”, but couldn’t find it, so I got in touch with Desa to ask if he could burn me off a copy. His turntable was broken, so he was unable to do this in time, so he sent me a wav of the DeCon mix instead. I decided to see if I could re-create the original intro myself, so I pulled out my CD of ‘The Wall’ and set about reconstructing the beginning of the DeConstruction version. However, unlike the original, I also added the acoustic guitar section, which provides a great mellow prelude before the in-your-face ‘Crazy Horses’ guitar enters. Suffice to say that it worked a treat at the Big Chill and brought the house down.

I subsequently went back to it and did some further tinkering, most notably extending the aforementioned acoustic guitar section, whilst doubling the length of the euphoric piano breakdown, and building the tension before Bambaataa’s rap to add extra impact.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of this bona fide dancefloor anthem, so it presents the perfect moment to make this edit public as we move deeper into the summer months, whilst acknowledging how Desa, Nick and Shaun stamped their indelible mark on Rave culture.

Greg Wilson – June 2011

Check out my label's music at: https://superweirdsubstance.bandcamp.com

The Bassheads 'Is There Anybody Out There?' (greg wilson edit)

808 State ‘Pacific State’ (greg wilson electric chair edit)

130 bpm

Never previously shared.

Madchester anthem from 1989, which, along with ‘WFL’ by the Happy Mondays, ‘Voodoo Ray’ by A Guy Called Gerald and ‘Fools Gold’ by the Stone Roses, encapsulates the time when the rainy city was at the epicentre of the dance universe.

Twenty years later I included it as the closing track on my Essential Mix (http://soundcloud.com/gregwilson/essential-mix-greg-wilson-mix-for-bbc-radio-1), and, as with the opening track, the Dimitri From Paris edit of ‘Down To Love Town’ by The Originals, it features Jesse Jackson’s invocation from the 1972 Wattstax festival (which had previously been used to such great effect by Andrew Weatherall in his remix of ‘Come Together’ by Primal Scream).

However, I originally put this together not for the Essential Mix, but to open my appearance at the Electric Chair Last Supper on December 29th 2007. A number of previous guests had been invited to play for half an hour each, as the decision had been made to close this Manchester institution whilst it was still at the height of its popularity. As things worked out, I was the final guest to deejay at this cherished club night - only the residents played after me. I wanted to pay my respects in a proper manner, evoking the spirit of Manchester past, back through the halcyon late 80’s days of The Haçienda to my own time there in ’83, and at Legend beforehand, via a handful of track selections that reflected the spirit of this great music city, for which the Electric Chair, soon to be no more, had written a further chapter. You can stream / download the mix here: http://soundcloud.com/gregwilson/electric-chair-last-supper-29

The purpose of this edit was purely to extend the intro of the ‘Pacific 707’ version to suitably build into Jesse Jackson's poignant words before the beats kick in, whilst adding some subtle ambience to add to the overall atmospheric of this wonderful track, which always struck me as a ‘Stranger On The Shore’ for the Rave generation (the evocative 1961 single by clarinettist Acker Bilk, the first British recording to reach #1 in the USA).

Greg Wilson – July 2011

808 State 'Pacific State' (greg wilson electric chair edit)

Jungle Sax

Listen on Spotify

Sim's & Sam L Feat Fantasia - Jungle Sax

Edit The Edit ‘Two Sides Of Sympathy’ (greg wilson edit of pta mash-ups)

112 bpm

Previously limited vinyl only in 2007 & 2009.

Of all the tracks I’ve played since my DJ return at the end of ’03, this has been undoubtedly the most requested. It was very much a signature track for a number of years, and still makes an appearance from time to time nowadays.

It all stems from when I picked up a 12” from Piccadilly Records in Manchester during the summer of 2005. It was by The P.T.A (Paul Martin and Tyrrell) on Throw Away Records, and included two mash-ups, both of which used the vocal from Amerie’s ‘1 Thing’, which had been a big R&B hit earlier that year. On one side of the 12” it had been mashed with Massive Attack’s ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ (this was titled ‘Unfinished Thing’), whilst on the other, ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ by the Rolling Stones (‘One For The Devil’). Not only had each of these combinations melded brilliantly, but both had ‘Sympathy’ in the title. This impressed me no end – some genius juxtaposition going on there.

Listening closer it was clear that there’d been some tampering, but it wasn’t until much later that I realised that, apart from the Amerie acappella, everything had been re-created by Canadian producer / DJ Tyrrell, including Keith Richard’s iconic guitar solo, which sounded better than ever - I’d presumed that the version of ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ he’d used had come from some Andrew Loog Oldham type instrumental (as was the case when The Verve famously sampled Oldham’s orchestral arrangement of the Stones’ ‘The Last Time’, on their 90’s classic ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’), so this only added to my awe at what Tyrrell and Paul had somehow managed to magic up.

Brilliance on vinyl is all good and well, but I’d bought the track with the dancefloor in mind, so it was now a case of how it walked the walk. Straight away I had a problem – which side to play? They were both really strong and I couldn’t make my mind up at first, but then I went between the horns of this dilemma and decided to mix one straight into the other, as though it was a single continuous track. I originally did this live (they appear together this way on a recording from Birmingham’s much lamented Jigsaw night, where I played in August ’05), but then I decided to put together an edit so I could take the combined length down by about three minutes and tighten the idea up. I called this version ‘Two Sides Of Sympathy’ – I utilized the percussion from ‘One For The Devil’ for the intro, before moving into the main body of ‘Unfinished Thing’, which then mixes back into ‘One for The Devil’ during the breakdown, reaching its climax with the guitar solo. To round things off I gave it a customary peppering of samples and spins.

The edit went Big with a capital B for me, and everywhere I went people were asking for it – it was one of those tracks you couldn’t stop playing because you knew that people would be disappointed not to hear it. When I came to put together my Essential Mix for Radio 1 in January ‘09, ‘Two Sides Of Sympathy’ was probably the first track on my list (the mix focusing on the tunes that had served me best since my comeback five years previous).

A limited 12” on the Edit The Edit inprint was made available in 2007 – as the name suggests, this was for my edits of other peoples edits (or mash-ups, as in this case). The original P.T.A release was fully credited on the label – I’d made contact with Tyrrell via email and he’d given his blessing for the 12” to be pressed. We got to meet for the first time when I was in London appearing at Plastic People in April ’07, where he’d hear me play ‘Two Sides’ over that killer system.

In 2009 it would re-appear on vinyl, this time as the second release in the Reactivate series (following on from ‘I Was A Teenage DJ’ / ‘Gotta Keep Workin’ It’), a new wave of DJ demand resulting from its Essential Mix inclusion.

Given that I can’t list the artists as Amerie, Massive Attack & the Rolling Stones (because two thirds of that trio are Tyrrell in disguise), I’ll stick to Edit The Edit ‘Two Sides Of Sympathy', which is how it’s been listed most often, Essential Mix included.

When I asked Tyrrell if he was happy for me to upload it here he told me to ‘go ahead, spread the love’. So here it is, maintaining the bi-yearly sequence – 2005 original P.T.A 12”, 2007 Edit The Edit 12”, 2009 Reactivate 12”, and now 2011 SoundCloud download.

Greg Wilson – August 2011


Edit The Edit 'Two Sides Of Sympathy' (greg wilson edit of pta mash-ups)

Double Dee - Found Love - Danny Tenaglia's International Mix

There's no doubt that DJ Koze's "Pick Up", a monster chunk of sweeping disco-house bliss built around elements borrowed from Melba Moore's "Pick Me Up, I'll Dance" has been one of the biggest cuts of 2018. Here, Yam Who delivers his own house-friendly rework of Koze's classic as part of Midnight Riot's "Dubplate Disco" series. We'd argue that it's even better than Koze's cut, primarily because it gets to the point far quicker than the German's stretched-out epic and utilizes more chorus repetitions. Arguably even bigger is flipside "Disco Madness", a thunderous and seriously heavy disco-house re-edit of a driving Teena Marie cut that's almost worth the admission price on its own.

Dubplate Disco - Pick Up (Yam Who? Edit)

Staxx - Joy (Original 12_ Mix)

Beatport: http://www.beatport.com/track/joy-original-12-mix/1051759

Website: http://www.championrecords.co.uk

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/championrecords
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/championrecordsuk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/championrecords
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/ChampionRecordsUK
Last FM: http://www.last.fm/label/CHAMPION+RECORDS

Released by: Champion Records
Release date: 2nd May, 2011

Joy (Original 12" Mix)

DOWNLOAD

Staxx - Joy (Original 12" Mix)

Dionne - Come Get My Lovin'

Rescue Me (12" Mixes)

Rescue Me (Club Mix)

Urban Soul - Alright (Sasha Strings Mix)

Bookings: matt@thepool-london.com 
Promos: promo@gregwilson.co.uk 
DJ Dates: https://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/upcoming-dj-dates/
Greg began DJing in 1975 and is regarded as one of the most important figures on the UK dance scene. He enjoyed hugely popular residencies in the early eighties at Wigan Pier and Manchester’s majorly influential Legend, having originally started out in his hometown, New Brighton. A pioneer of mixing in the UK, he became the first ‘dance music’ specialist hired for a regular weekly session at Manchester’s now legendary Haçienda club in 1983. Greg was instrumental in breaking the new electronic, post-disco records coming out of New York, a sound he has dubbed ‘Electro-Funk’.

In 2003 he set up electrofunkroots, a website documenting this crucial era in the evolution of dance culture. After a two decade hiatus from the booth, he returned to DJing and soon welcomed bookings throughout Europe and, subsequently, worldwide.

Greg was the first DJ to mix live on British TV, putting together the first UK radio mixes of their type for Piccadilly 261 in Manchester and showing a certain Norman Cook (later Fatboy Slim) how to scratch.

Nominated by DJ Magazine for outstanding contribution, and also named amongst their top twenty remixers of all-time, Greg’s remix credits include Grace Jones, The XX, Groove Armada, Bryan Ferry, Confidence Man, Gilberto Gil and Simian Mobile Disco, whilst he’s edited tracks by A Guy Called Gerald, Talking Heads, O.M.D., Electronic, Imagination and Missy Elliot.

In January 2009 Greg’s reputation was further enhanced when his Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1 received almost universal acclaim and was selected as one of 10 classics that spanned the show’s near 17 year history.

Greg’s Blog, ‘Being A DJ’, was launched in June 2010 for observations on various aspects of club culture now an online touchstone for an ever-increasing amount of dance enthusiasts and aficionados.

In August 2010 he co-curated areas at the inaugural Vintage Festival at Goodwood, which was named ‘Best New Festival’ at the UK Festival Awards.

He has produced a series of documentary podcasts, Time Capsule, Random Influences and Early 80’s Floorfillers, as well as the long-running blog series, Living To Music.

Greg has given talks on music and DJ culture at a number events at venues The Tate Gallery in Liverpool and London's Southbank and Institute Of Contemporary Arts, whilst in 2013 he was invited onto a panel alongside legendary figures Nile Rodgers and Giorgio Moroder @ ADE in Amsterdam. 

In 2014 he unveiled the multi-media label Super Weird Substance, focusing on recording and live events. In 2015, the label released 8 vinyl singles, brought together in the 2 CD comp, 'Greg Wilson Presents Super Weird Substance'. September 2015 saw a memorable Festival No.6 Happening in Portmeirion and Greg rounded off the year with the Liverpool-based celebration of the 40th anniversary of his first club date in 1975 as well as being presented with DJ Magazine's Industry Icon award.

Greg launched his Credit To The Edit club collective at 2016's Festival No.6 and since then has taken it to Liverpool, Berlin, Brixton, Bethnal Green and finally back to Portmeirion for Festival No.6 2017.

2017 saw his label host the epic 14 Hour Super Weird Happening at Liverpool's Florrie, following a mixtape collaboration with Alan Moore, who also appeared at the Happening, whilst it also saw the digital release of The Super Weird Society's 'Gone With The Vibe', released the following year on the first Substance Select 12" vinyl alongside 'The Ghosts Of Watling Street', 'The Best Is Yet To Come' and 'Summer Came My Way'. 2018 also saw the release of Vol.3 in Greg's long-running Credit To The Edit compilation series.

After a handful of further releases, the label was put into hibernation with the onset of covid. Diversifying, ‘Greg Wilson’s Discotheque Archives’ was issued during 2020 lockdown as a limited run paperback, with more books, both Wilson’s own projects and by other authors, now planned.

808 State 'Pacific State' (greg wilson electric chair edit)

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