Tracks

Recording from the main stage at the Garden Festival in Tisno, Croatia on 05.07.13.

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

GARDEN FESTIVAL MAIN STAGE TISNO CROATIA 05.07.13 (greg wilson live mix)

Two and a half hours of classic disco. With a twist.
*Finally remembered to enable downloads if anyone's still interested!!*

Al Kent Classic Disco Mixtape. August 2013

Live recording from Bollywood tent at Bestival 08.09.13.

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

BESTIVAL BOLLYWOOD 08.09.13 (greg wilson live mix)

Full recording from 10th Anniversary Special @ Underdog in Manchester 20.12.13.

There's a blog post about the anniversary here:http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2013/12/10th-anniversary-flashback/ 

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

GW 10TH ANNIVERSARY @ UNDERDOG MANCHESTER 20.12.13 (greg wilson live mix)

Joey Negro live at Horse Meat Disco Dec 8th 2013 - Free Download

Live recording from Homoelectric @ Antwerp Mansions in Manchester on 08.02.14.

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

HOMOELECTRIC @ ANTWERP MANSION MANCHESTER 08.02.14 (greg wilson live mix)

ESSENTIAL MIX - JAN 2009
Uploaded on 17.01.10 and exclusive to SoundCloud. Available for the first time without voiceovers and jingles,12 months on from original Radio 1broadcast on 17.01.09.


EMAILSHOT A FEW DAYS AHEAD OF MIX BEING AIRED:
2009 kicks in for me this weekend with my first gig of the year for Udio (1st birthday) at The Gramaphone Club in Shoreditch, London on Friday night, which coincides with the airing of my only just completed in the nick of time Essential Mix on Radio 1, made up of 43 tracks in just under 2 hours.

Given that the 5th anniversary of my DJ comeback has only just passed, I decided to take the opportunity to make the mix totally representative of this period, with all the selections being amongst the biggest tracks I’ve played since I made my second debut at Music Is Better in Manchester.

Five years represents a significant package of time, a fixed point from where I can reflect on what’s been a continually snowballing sequence of events, set in motion when Danny Webb asked me to appear in Manchester on that December night back in 2003.

There were less than 100 people there that night, but they were the right people, and I was taken aback by the response to my return, both on the night itself and during subsequent days, when people who were there began to post on the forums. I’d never expected all the feedback be so totally positive!

I’d figured that I’d play that night, using the combination of laptop and reel-to-reel for the first time, then go away and think about what worked and what didn’t before I made my next move. I would never have believed that things could come together so immediately, it was as if I’d hit a completely unexpected hole in one, especially when two of the people who were there, Ralph Lawson, DJ from Back To Basics in Leeds, and one of my fellow DJ’s that night, Richard Hardcastle (Solid State) from Society in Sheffield, both asked me to play at their nights no sooner had I finished my spot.

One thing kept leading to another and, in Sheffield, I was approached by Tony Daly to play at the now legendary Tyneside Cinema party in Newcastle, a bespoke event where he took on the substantial risk of presenting me in a city I’d never DJ’d in previously (unless you count the 1983 TV appearance on The Tube, which was filmed in the Tyne Tees studio). Then, of course, there was London, where Steve Kotey and Bill Brewster booked me for their parties, bringing me to the capital within the first few months of my return for Ouch and Low Life.

The bookings kept coming, and I found myself driving up and down the country on an increasingly regular basis. Later in 2004 I was approached by Sav Remzi, from Tirk / Nuphonic, with the idea of putting together an edits album, which would be issued the following year as ‘Credit To The Edit’. This would help bring my name to the attention of people outside the UK. There was soon a need to step things up further, now that I was receiving enquiries from Europe, and so began a fruitful relationship with my agent, Matt Johnson (Matty J), who’s done a wonderful job of representing me during recent years.

The last few months have been, to say the least, manic for me, with 25 flights, including 6 long haul, taking me to gigs in the US, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Europe. From a personal perspective I still find it remarkable the way everything has developed, pretty much organically, since I made the decision that I was going to be a DJ once again – had I concocted some sort of comeback masterplan, it could never have worked out anything like as well as it has. It’s definitely been a case of ‘from small acorns’.

It still never ceases to amaze me that people from another continent are interested in my DJ past. Back in the early 80’s, before I went into retirement for 20 years, the furthest I travelled (with the exception of the appearances I made in the South of England as part of The Hacienda Review in late ’83) was to places like Birmingham and Nottingham, when I played at All-Dayers, so to find myself in clubs on the other side of the world is pretty nuts!

Anyhow, I’d like to wish everyone all the best for 09. Big thanks to all the promoters who booked me and everyone who danced to the tunes I played during ’08 in Adelaide, Barcelona, Belfast, Berlin, Birmingham, Blackburn, Brighton, Bristol, Dublin, Dundee, Edinburgh, Fukuoka, Glasgow, Hamburg, Leeds, Lisbon, Liverpool, London, Los Angeles, Manchester, Melbourne, Milan, New York, Newcastle, Nottingham, Paris, Porto Alegre, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Sheffield, Sydney, Tokyo and Warsaw. Also the festivals and special events that I appeared at - Bestival (Isle Of Wight), Big Chill (England), Camp Bestival (England), Garden Festival (Croatia), Ibiza, Lovebox (England), Notting Hill Carnival (England), Rockness Festival (Scotland), Sonar (Spain) and the Southport Weekender (England).

Hope to see you soon.

Greg


FORUM POST DURING FOLLOWING DAYS:                                                        
Thanks for all the positive words. The feedback has been pretty phenomenal, far exceeding what I’d hoped for, especially on the BBC page, where I’d expected that some people would criticize the amount of older music included - the Radio 1 audience is used to current stuff ('in new music we trust'), so I’d anticipated a more mixed reaction. What’s particularly pleasing is that they were all made without the people seeing what each other wrote (they all came online at once, having been checked first by whoever moderates the BBC pages, I presume for swearing etc following the Ross / Brand controversy).

You always hope something you've done will be well received, but the response to this has blown me away.

Greg


ANSWER TO POST RE MIXING PROCESS:                                                      
It was quite a laborious process. Before I could start the actual mixing part I had to edit every track to a coherent length of around two and a half minutes average, inclusive of in and out points. I had a pool of about 90 tracks that fitted the criteria I'd set (a representative selection of the biggest tunes I've been playing during the past 5 years). It wasn't as straightforward as just editing the 43 tracks I ended up featuring - in order to have the necessary options once I started to piece the mix together I needed to have all the tracks at my disposal, just as I would have if I was out deejaying in a club, so the only thing to do was edit all 90 to the required length, even though I knew that only half would make the cut .

Once that was finally done they were all taken across into my laptop, enabling me to vari-speed them via PCDJ whilst I recorded across to my home computer into Cool Edit Pro, where I put the mix together track by track, before adding overdubs (fx, samples, textures) in a similar way to what I do live using the Revox (reel to reel).

I could quite easily have spent another day, tweaking bits here and there and adding more overdubs (the older I get the more finicky I become), but I had a deadline to work to, so, as it moved ever nearer, it became a race against time, with me doing as much as I could before the cut off point arrived.

Greg
                       

Greg Wilson - 2009


ESSENTIAL MIX (by greg wilson for bbc radio 1 2009)

The music that rocked our 30th Birthday Boat Party... the live recording.... Matt Brown & Jimmy K-Tel all night long... 😊

Our 30th Boat Party Celebration - April 30th 2023

The 11th mix in our series comes from Crazy P!

This time its a live mix!

Recorded at 'The Big Weekender' with Cirque Du Soul, this set was one of the highlights from the weekend!

Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/goodlifeltd

Enjoy...

Good Life Mix: 011 : Crazy P

On The Roof @ Output unfortunately rained off, but we moved indoors to The Panther Room where this was recorded 31.05.15.

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

THE PANTHER ROOM @ OUTPUT BROOKLYN NYC 31.05.15 (greg wilson live mix)

MUSIC IS BETTER RE-EDITED HIGHLIGHTS 20.12.03
Related blog post here:
http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2011/09/music-is-better-re-edited-highlights 

When I upgraded my SoundCloud account it was with the intention of adding selected mixes from the period 2003-2009, bringing everything under one roof by placing them alongside the ongoing additions that have been continually made available since I uploaded the first of my SoundCloud mixes, recorded at Café Mambo in Ibiza exactly 2 years ago today (27.09.09). So it’s fitting that Music Is Better Re-Edited Highlights, the mix that marked my return to the DJ world, should kick off this process, with further uploads to be added periodically.

The following piece was written in 2004, some months after the Music Is Better mix had been made available as a limited CD via Manchester's Piccadilly Records.

MUSIC IS BETTER RE-EDITED HIGHLIGHTS:
Last December, twenty years on from when I stopped deejaying professionally, I came out of retirement, so to speak, and made what seemed like, as I described it at the time, a ‘second debut’ (my first being way back in 1975). In the two decades that have passed since I decided to call it a day, I’ve made the odd guest appearance here and there, but had no inclination to seriously start up again.

That all changed during 2003, with the launch of the electrofunkroots.co.uk  website, which I’d set up to document the crucial early 80’s period, when dance music (or black music as it was still referred to) was going through some radical changes that would have a huge bearing on the subsequent course of club culture. It was at this point in time that I was fortunate enough to find myself behind the decks in two of the greatest British clubs of the era, Wigan Pier and Legend in Manchester, where I’d bring a new flavour of music to the table, along with a fresh (from a UK perspective) approach to the way I worked, as one of just a handful of British DJ’s back then who had made the decision to switch the emphasis of their presentation style from microphone to mixing. 

I had no idea that, all these years on, an ever-increasing amount of clubbers were now beginning to look back to exactly this time and rediscover the great underground music, mainly from New York, that preceded House, and which was originally played here in the UK on the specialist black scene. Having decided to become pro-active in drawing people’s attention to this hugely important, but largely overlooked period, it was a pleasant surprise to realise that this process was already underway. Before I knew it, I began to receive enquiries about possible DJ bookings and it soon became obvious that the logical next step for me to take was back into the clubs, so I could actually play these records to an audience who’ve finally come to appreciate their significance in inspiring the music that inspired them.

Had this been all about playing some tunes for old times sake to the people who were there at the time, there’s no way I’d have been into it as anything more than an occasional one-off. However, the fact that there’s a whole new generation who are looking for a return to underground values, as well as an older audience who (having maybe got into dance stuff at a later stage) missed much of this music first time around, prevents it from becoming a purely nostalgic exercise and, instead, presents a whole new dynamic. For this is something relevant to now, which is rooted in the past, yet forward looking.

To further emphasise this link, the equipment I decided to use was a Revox B77 reel-to-reel (past), vinyl (present) and laptop (future). It was also important that I didn’t just stick to the records that I used to play, but included a few more recent releases, from artists with a clear respect for what’s gone before, like Chicken Lips, Metro Area and Diplomat. The laptop would also allow me to feature my own re-edits and the Revox to add live sounds and effects. Having been regarded as progressive in my approach to deejaying back then, I figured it was only right that I should continue to work by the same principles, trying new ideas alongside the old ones in an effort to highlight the ongoing links between then and now.

The night I chose for my ‘comeback’ appearance was called ‘Music Is Better’. It was held at The Attic in Manchester. It obviously had to be Manchester as this, although not my actual home, is certainly my ‘spiritual home’, the place where I found my ultimate DJ highs – so it was important to make that vital connection with the past immediately. ‘Music Is Better’ was the perfect type of night for me, suitably low-key, whilst attracting the kind of people who understand that four-to-the-floor isn’t the be all and end all.

I’d planned to use the night as a tester, so I could identify what worked and what didn’t, before I started accepting the bookings I’d been offered in other parts of the country. I’d anticipated a gradual acclimatization for myself, estimating that once I’d got 3 or 4 appearances under my belt I’d be able to gauge things better. In no way did I expect this first night to go so well for me, without any of the teething problems I’d envisaged. 

The night wasn’t recorded, but it was decided that, to mark the occasion, I’d re-create it track for track for a limited edition CD (edited down from the two and a quarter hours I played to single disc length). 

So this is how ‘Music Is Better – The Re-Edited Highlights’ came to be. The 500 copies that were made have now all gone, the response to the CD echoing the positive reaction on the night. I’ve since taken bookings (and often re-bookings) in Birmingham, Bristol, Dublin, Glasgow, London, Leeds, Limerick, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Plymouth, Sheffield and Wrexham, along with further dates in Manchester. 2004 has been a year I’ll never forget and I can’t thank everyone enough for their support, their warmth and their energy. Having been totally detached from the club scene for so many years, it’s all been a bit of a Rip Van Winkle re-awakening for me! 

I never thought I’d say it, but it’s great to be a DJ once again. 

Hope you enjoy this mix,

Greg Wilson
http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk
 
WRITTEN FOR SIX MILLION STEPS WEBSITE IN 2004

UPLOADED ONTO SOUNDCLOUD 27.09.11


MUSIC IS BETTER RE-EDITED HIGHLIGHTS 20.12.03 (by greg wilson for ltd cd 2004)

In this mix we explore Classic Disco, Funk, Rare Groove, House, Balearic and Soul plus Worldwide delights, this is an easy listening, up beat vibe.

Expect tracks by Grace Jones, Hercules & Love Affair, Brand New Heavies, KC & The Sunshine Band, Tiger & Woods and the legendary John Carpenter.

Now kick back and let the Funky rhythms take you.

All tracks are selected and mixed by @thefunkassassin with Love.

Follow the call of the Disco Ball!

For all past shows click here ==> https://soundcloud.com/thefunkassassin/sets/the-word-is-love-soul-funk

Thank you for listening.

Instagram: www.instagram.com/the_funk_assassin/
Spotify: open.spotify.com/user/g2fac3ls3k8e1ucxe4fqe7g89
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheFunkAssassin/

GRACE JONES HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR BRAND NEW HEAVIES GROOVE HOUSE FUNK DANCE WORD IS LOVE SHOW 45

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.

BESTIVAL BOLLYWOOD 08.09.13 (greg wilson live mix)

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