Pre-Recorded DJ Mixes

SOUL FOOD – THE BROAD CHURCH OF NORTHERN SOUL
This podcast accompanies a blog piece ‘Northern Renaissance’, which simultaneously went online. Below is an excerpt; you can read the full piece here: 
https://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/2013/11/northern-renaissance/

As I hope this piece will illustrate, Northern Soul back in the 70’s was a much broader church than many might imagine. Whilst the stompers were central to the scene, especially when Wigan Casino was at its peak, not everything ran at breakneck pace as is often suggested, the movement encompassed a whole spectrum of styles and tempos. The scene was notoriously very snobbish about its music, dropping a previously loved record like a hot potato because it had subsequently achieved commercial success, although it was this fervent elitism that played a major part in its success and longevity. It’s also the reason why a track many might consider to be as Northern as they come, like Jackie Wilson’s ‘(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher’ (a Detroit artist doing an uptempo dance track with Funk Brothers backing) isn’t Northern Soul according to those at the cutting-edge of the scene, despite the fact it was a big favourite in the Soul clubs following its 1967 release. It’s sin was that it became a UK hit in 1969, just before the Northern scene got into its stride, so, along with a whole heap of Tamla Motown tunes that are Northern in everything bar their success in connecting with the masses, it was banished to the realm of pop. This is why another famous Jackie Wilson track, ‘I Get The Sweetest Feeling’, this time a 1968 recording, which, on the surface, given it’s much mellower vibe, is far less stereotypically Northern than ‘Higher And Higher’, is, in contrast, considered a bone fide Northern classic – the reason being that ‘I Get The Sweetest Feeling’ didn’t become a hit until 1972, having broken out of the Northern scene, then in full swing.

So, with the various aspects considered, I’ve put together an epic 3 hour 20 minute podcast selection of records that I hope will reflect Northern Soul in its wider context, from the nailed on classics to those with more nominal status. What can’t be disputed is that each and every track included has been played, at least somewhere at one point or another, under the Northern Soul banner. There are 70 tracks in all, with just 2 artists with more than 1 inclusion, the aforementioned Jackie Wilson and the great, but tragic songstress Linda Jones (3, if you count Frankie Valli, here both solo and with the Four Seasons). The idea to put this together grew out of a CD compilation I made for myself back in the 00’s to listen to whilst I was driving, which I called ‘Soul Food’, and the intention is for it to act as solid introduction for those wanting to hear what Northern Soul was all about, in all its diverse glory, whilst I’d like to think it will also evoke fond memories for those who were there at the time. The fact I wasn’t a part of the scene has hopefully allowed me to approach this selection in a more objective way than someone embroiled within it, who may not be able to resist the inclination to pack it with tracks nobody else, apart from other ultra-obsessives may know, or who might want to brush a few of the inclusions under the ‘you had to be there at the time’, carpet. Consider this, if you will, a beginners guide, of which I love all of the selections, each in its own way - just wonderful wonderful uplifting music.

Greg Wilson – November 2013

SOUL FOOD - THE BROAD CHURCH OF NORTHERN SOUL (greg wilson selection)

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)

Live recording from the Stonebridge tent at Glastonbury Festival 2022.

GLASTONBURY STONEBRIDGE 23.06.22 (greg wilson live mix)

From my final festival appearance of 2022, a summer highlight from the Roller Rink at We Out Here providing a fitting conclusion to a full-on summer schedule.

ROLLER RINK @ WE OUT HERE FESTIVAL ABBOTS RIPTON 27.08.22 (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)

Recording from my final London appearance on 2022 at Night Tales in Hackney 25.11.22.

NIGHT TALES LONDON 25.11.22 (greg wilson live mix)

GREG WILSON @ Slide/Get Diverted - MINISTRY OF SOUND COURTYARD LONDON 26.07.14 - set time 5-7pm

http://soundcloud.com/gregwilson
https://www.facebook.com/DJGregWilson
http://www.gregwilson.co.uk

http://slideuk.com/
https://www.facebook.com/SlideLdn
https://twitter.com/SlideUK/

https://www.facebook.com/ministryofsoundclub
http://www.ministryofsound.com/club
http://www.twitter.com/ministryofsound
http://www.soundcloud.com/ministryofsound

GREG WILSON @ Slide/Get Diverted - MINISTRY OF SOUND COURTYARD LONDON 26.07.14

Recorded live at the Berkeley Suite in Glasgow, as part of Red Bull Music Academy UK tour on Friday March 27 2015. And that was quite some party too !  Enjoy ! 

Dimitri From Paris Live @ The Berkeley Suite Glasgow - RBMA UK Tour - March 27, 2015

Recording from the Credit To The Edit event at the House Of Rum at Portmeirion's Festival No.6 09.09.17

FESTIVAL NO.6 CREDIT TO THE EDIT @ HOUSE OF RUM PORTMEIRION 09.09.17 (greg wilson live mix)

NO SELL OUT - ELECTRO RETROSPECTIVE
LEGEND / WIGAN PIER MAY 1982 – DEC 1983
MIXED BY GREG WILSON FOR A GUY CALLED GERALD - SAMURAI FM 2005

This is the most involved mix I’ve ever put together, even more so than my Essential Mix in 2009, for which ‘No Sell Out’ very much provided the prototype. I intended it as a definitive document to the period May 82 – Dec 83, when Legend and Wigan Pier were at their most influential, the new Electro-Funk sound turning the black scene on its head as the old gradually gave way to the new.

As I wrote at the time:
“The tracks on this mix represent this now distant time of both musical and cultural change. I’ve selected the records that were regarded as controversial at the time within black music circles, the ones that the traditionalists were up in arms about. I’d originally chosen 50 of the biggest tracks played at Legend and the Pier, but this was upped to 60, all of which needed to be edited down to an average of a minute and a half in length, which was no small task in itself! Realising that there were still other tracks I wanted to include, I decided to keep it to the main 60, but drop in snippets of additional records from the period, not only Electro, but also other big floorfillers from my nights. I never played purely Electro, but mixed it in alongside Soul, Funk and Disco (or as people refer to it nowadays, Boogie), and this is reflected by the numerous ‘references’ sprinkled throughout the mix.

It’s good to be able to place some of these tracks back into their original context. Tracks like ‘The Message’, ‘Rockit’ and ‘Buffalo Gals’ would become big hits in the UK, but they were completely unknown when first played at Legend and the Pier. A perfect example would be ‘White Lines’, which was an underground favourite for many months before the penny finally dropped with the mainstream audience and they came to appreciate it as the wonderful record it is, resulting in a chart stay of over a year! Nowadays, ‘White Lines’ can be played pretty much anywhere to a great response. It’s a sure-fire floorfiller, regarded as a dance standard, but it wasn’t always that way - without the initial specialist support it could quite easily have ended up as just a minor hit.

The title of the mix, ‘No Sell Out’, comes from the opening track. It seemed an appropriate name, given the fact these records were very much regarded by the purists as the selling out of black music, rather than its salvation (something which pretty much everyone can now, with hindsight, clearly see). Listening back to these tracks you can trace the evolution of Hip Hop, Techno and House. This was the point in time when black music fully embraced the available technology and took dance to new dimensions. Hearing these records for the very first time, we knew that the future was upon us and that dance music had entered a whole new phase of its development.”

The ‘No Sell Out – Electro Retrospective’ page at Electrofunkroots gives the full lowdown and complete tracklisting. It includes an introduction by Gerald Simpson (aka A Guy Called Gerald), for whose Samurai FM podcast this mix was originally put together.

http://www.electrofunkroots.co.uk/mixes/no_sell_out.html 

Greg Wilson – February 2012

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

NO SELL OUT ELECTRO RETROSPECTIVE (by greg wilson for a guy called gerald - samurai fm 2005)

Recorded live in one of LA's best sounding rooms, we are honoured to host another amazing musical journey courtesy of @gregwilson.

On the night Greg performed with his iconic Reel to Reel setup and played after another Gouranga favourite @luxxury.

https://www.facebook.com/soundnightclub/
http://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/

DOWNLOAD

GREG WILSON - Live From Sound Nightclub - Los Angeles, USA 2017

GREG WILSON presents The Chic Organization – 1977-79 Selection Reworked
 
Greg writes about the mix and all things Chic at his blog:
http://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/2018/06/the-chic-organization-1977-79-selection-reworked/
 
Chic had a sound of all their own, the crack rhythm section of Nile Rodgers (guitar), Bernard Edwards (bass) and drummer Tony Thompson providing the highly infectious grooves that characterised their records. They would be massively influential as a consequence, their anthemic tracks still loved all these years later, with a new younger generation embracing their good time vibe in the same way their parents might have.
 
The mix consists of 12 edits / reworks of 9 Rogers & Edwards produced tracks, all of which happened to be originally recorded during 1977-79, the years which saw Disco peak and decline, with Chic at the helm during those halcyon days, their own recordings providing 4 US top 10 singles, including a pair of #1s, whilst Sister Sledge, whose success they mentored, weighed in via the hit-laden ‘We Are Family’ LP. They even found time for a French excursion via Sheila & B Devotion’s ‘Spacer’.

SISTER SLEDGE ‘THINKING OF YOU’
1.‘Things You Do For Me’ - Killer Funk Disco Allstars Edit
2.Sister S ’Living Ecstasy’ – Norington Remix
CHIC ‘CHIC CHEER’
3.Leroc Sportif Edit
SISTER SLEDGE ‘HE’S THE GREATEST DANCER’
4.’Greatest Dancer’ – Daz Digs Disco Re-Edit
5.’One Nite In A Disco’ – Late Nite Tuff Guy Rework / Greg Wilson Edit
CHIC ‘I WANT YOUR LOVE’
6.Todd Terje Edit (incorporates Moodyman ‘I Can’t Kick This Feeling When It Hits)
CHIC ‘STRIKE UP THE BAND’
7.’Feel The Rhythm’ – Deep & Disco Edit
CHIC ‘LE FREAK’
8.Chewy Rubs ‘Future Freak’
SISTER SLEDGE ‘LOST IN MUSIC’
9.DSD Balearic Mix
CHIC ‘DANCE, DANCE, DANCE (YOWSAH, YOWSAH, YOWSAH)’
10.Greg Wilson Rework
11.In Flagranti ‘A Brag Mount’
SHEILA & B. DEVOTION ‘SPACER’
12.Greg Wilson Edit
 
Addition overdubs / editing by Greg Wilson
Recorded June 2018
 
Greg Wilson is set to support Chic in Manchester, Wed 27th June at Castlefied Bowl, alongside a live performance from Crazy P.
 
http://gregwilson.co.uk

GOURANGA MIXTAPE: Greg Wilson - The Chic Organization - 1977-79 Selection Reworked

Taken from blog post ‘Festival Anthems’:
http://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/06/festival-anthems/

Back in March, in the lead up to the Rainbow Disco Club festival in Tokyo (an event that would frustratingly be rained off), I was asked to make a list of my 10 favourite festival tracks. I came up with a dozen, all edits which have served me well during recent years and certainly merit anthemic status. Around the same time I was approached, via the Garden Festival’s PR dept. to supply an exclusive mix for the oki-ni series. As an example, I was linked to Derrick Carter’s contribution, where he referenced the mixes he used to hear on Chicago dance station WBMX in the early 80’s, focusing on Disco & Classics. 

Whilst thinking about a suitable theme for my mix, I had the brainwave of working with the list of festival favourites I’d recently compiled– I thought that putting these 12 tracks together into a single mix would not only provide a solution, but gives me the opportunity to document some of the music that’s served me so well in the festival environment, which I’d never otherwise play all together. So, from there, it was just a case of finding a way to jigsaw them into a coherent whole, which didn’t prove to be difficult, the mix coming together in no time.

It wasn’t until I’d submitted it that I found time to have a look at the oki-ni website and check out some of the mixes already on there, a pretty substantial 75 of them. It was only then that I realised that my approach was somewhat  out of sync with the ethos of the series, which was outlined as follows; ‘the series aims to venture off the dancefloor, allowing the artists involved the freedom to produce unique and personal mixes that speak directly to them. The results are always eclectic, compelling, and unique’. 

Being that this was supposed to be more a personal choice of tunes you wouldn’t play out, rather than the clearly themed mix I’d mistakenly believed it was, I pointed out this anomaly, but was assured that all was fine. Had I not been off to the US that weekend, then onto Japan, I’d have probably insisted on doing something else, which fitted their criteria, but they maintained that they were more than happy with what I’d done, so it became mix #76 in the oki-ni series (and exclusive to their website for the past few months):
http://www.oki-ni.com/scat/mixes 

Half of the tracks are my own edits, half other people’s (big up Psychemagik, Dimitri From Paris, Joey Negro, Bermuda Triangle, Leftside Wobble and Michael Cook). The mix features some iconic names, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Talking Heads, The Clash, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, Prince and Fleetwood Mac included. As they say, great music never dies, especially when there’s an edit that helps introduce it to a whole new younger audience, whilst rejuvenating the spirit of an older one in the process. Hopefully this collection of climatic tunes will help bring on the festival spirit – here’s to sun and mud to come!

I’ll be appearing at the following festivals / special events:

23rd June – The Summer Soiree / Blackpool
http://theblackpoolball.com/#/ball-info/4548984235
 
6th / 7th July – The Garden Festival / Croatia 
http://thegardenfestival.eu/ 

15th July – Vintage / Northamptonshire
http://www.vintagefestival.co.uk/about/vintage-festival
 
28th July - Camp Bestival / Dorset 
http://www.campbestival.net/#/home

4th August – Eastern Electrics / London
http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/easternelectrics/2012/

5th August – Standon Calling / Hertfordshire
http://www.standon-calling.com/ 

2nd September – Preston Guild / Preston
http://www.prestonguild2012.com/?OBH=413&ID=583 

8th September – Bestival / Isle Of Wight
http://2012.bestival.net/

Greg Wilson - June 2012

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

GREG WILSON FESTIVAL ANTHEMS (for oki-ni 2012)

In recent years Late Nite Tuff Guy has stood out as one of the best DJ / Producers in the re-edit game. His productions and live sets are loved by DJs, musicheads, ravers and people who just want to have fun.

LNTG headlined the Rabbit Hole's Funkingham Palace on the Thursday night of Glastonbury 2019, setting the tone for a long weekend of musical bliss.

That day he played hours and hours of Prince tracks at The Spike, then made his way up to the Rabbit Hole to close the night after excellent sets from the FP Footmen, Flying Mojito Bros and Algy Strutt.

The next night LNTG played after Fatboy Slim on the Glade Stage in front of thousands, a career highlight for a man on the top of his game.

LATE NITE TUFF GUY - Live From The Rabbit Hole's Funkingham Palace - Glastonbury 2019

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)

Things were somewhat on top for Liverpool radio station Melodic Distraction, having lost their studio space in the Baltic Triangle they were left homeless, and this mix was put together in support of their plight. They set up a Kickstarter and I’m happy to say that they reached their required amount of £35,000 and plan to move across the city into new premises in the Fabric District, novelly housing their studios in shipping containers.

The hour-long mix features original tracks I’ve played during more recent years, rather than re-edits or older stuff, so, especially given it’s a bit different to the norm, it’s good to be able to get up onto SoundCloud, where my uploads have been a bit threadbare (in comparison with previous times) since coronavirus shut down the industry.

DISTRACTED MIX (by greg wilson for melodic distraction 2020)

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.

DISTRACTED MIX (by greg wilson for melodic distraction 2020)

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