Nice Mixes

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)

Mr Lee is in full effect for 2 hours in the Connoisseurs Corner at Southport Weekender 50



free download

JN LIVE AT SOUTHPORT 50 CC DJ MIX

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.4022612,-2.9818988,3a,75y,51.16h,88.61t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s1j3Igtg2cSjI6HVbEBZF2Q!2e0!5s20140701T000000!7i13312!8i6656?coh=205409&entry=ttu

Graeme Park & Mike Pickering - Cream (13th Birthday) Nation - Liverpool - 08-10-05

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)

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ADJUST YOUR RADIO - MARCH 2004
Six Million Steps (named after the Rahni Harris & F.L.O track from 1978) are a collective of old soulboys who really know their mustard. Their website www.sixmillionsteps.com is a veritable treasure trove of radio shows and mixes aimed at black music enthusiasts. In early 2004, aware of my return to the DJ realm, they asked me if I’d be up for doing a mix for them, and, being an old soulboy myself, it would have been extremely rude not to oblige my Southern-based brethren.

Given that the site was geared to radio rather than the clubs, I wanted to do something a bit different for them – something that contrasted with, yet complimented the Music Is Better mix, which I’d just put together (see http://soundcloud.com/gregwilson/music-is-better-re-edited). I decided to kick things off with the intro part of a favourite track by Parliament, ‘P Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)’, which had blown me away when I first got a copy on import 7” in March '76 (one of the first imports I ever bought, released back to back with the equally wonderful, but more club friendly ‘Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)’). I looped the opening lines to set the tone - ‘good evening, do not attempt to adjust your radio, there is nothing wrong, we have taken control as to bring you this special show, we will return it to you as soon as you are grooving…’.

I also had some old jingles that fitted the theme I had in mind, which was a radio show, but without a presenter - instead the tracks would be segued together via edited sections, sound bites and samples. It’s a real cut-up, very raw and experimental, referencing a wide spectrum of black music, mainly from the 70’s and early 80’s, taking in Soul, Funk, Disco, Jazz-Funk, Electro-Funk, Hip Hop and Boogie, but with a few curve ball edits thrown in for good measure. Listening back I can clearly hear that, in some respects, I used it as an ideas pad, a number of which came to fruition later down the line.

It’s not a mix in the traditional sense, where the emphasis is placed on dancefloor flow – here the tracks are forged together in a more abstract manner via the link sections I created, and there’s certainly nothing linear about the programming, the tempo likely to slow down or speed up at any given juncture. Included is an old tape sketch, ‘Get Ready I’m A Comin’’, that I remember editing together in ’86 - the main loop being the drum break of Kool & The Gang’s ‘Jungle Jazz’, which would turn up the following year on the huge chart hit ‘Pump Up The Volume’ by M/A/R/R/S. There are some edits in progress, with the working titles ‘Still Lovin’ It’, ‘Sesame Seed’ and ‘T’s On The Mike’, which would appear a year later on Credit To The Edit Vol 1 - ‘Ooh, I Love It (Love Break)’ by The Salsoul Orchestra, ‘Open Sesame’ by Kool & The Gang and ‘Do It Anyway You Wanna’ by Mike T (‘Sesame Seed’ and ‘T’s On The Mike’ retained these titles for the first of the accompanying Credit To The Edit 12” releases). There was ‘Amp Trouble’ (mashing Amp Fiddler with rappers Double Trouble), which was later included alongside ‘Gotta Keep Workin’ It’ on the Young Dog Alien 12” in 2006. Then there were also a few more ruff’s that never got to see the light of day, at least not as yet – ‘Worldwide’, ‘Just A Touch’ and ‘This Is For You’.

Greg Wilson – October 2011

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

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ADJUST YOUR RADIO (by greg wilson for six million steps 2004)

Main stage set - Sunday Night @ Bass Coast.

"This year the theme at Bass Coast Festival was "SPACE". We had a blast putting together this set to close out the main stage on Sunday night. Aside from just playing our current favorite records we tried to include in some sounds that represented our connection to the space and bass!   "


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Smalltown DJs    ✖    Bass Coast  -  2017

Welcome to the weekly Glitterbox Radio Show, a place where we celebrate incredible dance music from across the decades.

This week to celebrate what would have been Larry Levan's 64th birthday we're dedicating a whole show to tracks that defined him. 

01. Gwen Guthrie - Seventh Heaven (Levan Levan Mix) [4th & Broadway]
02. Logg - I Know You Will (Larry Levan 12'' Remix) [Salsoul Records]
03. Gwen Guthrie - It Should Have Been You (Larry Levan mix) [Island Records]
04. NYC Peech Boys - Don't Make Me Wait [West End Records]
05. Class Action - Weekend (Larry Levan Mix) [Sleeping Bag Records]
06. Loose Joints - Is It All Over My Face? (Masters At Work Remix) [West End Records]
07. MFSB - Love Is the Message [Philadelphia International Records]
08. David Joseph - You Can't Hide (Your Love From Me) (Original 12" Mix) [Island Records]
09. Change - A Lovers Holiday (12" Version) [Warner Bros]
10. Square - Let's Go Dancin' (Larry Levan & Francois K Remix) [West End Records]
11. Janice McClain - Smack Dab In the Middle (12" Version) [Warner Bros]
12. Taana Gardner - Heartbeat (Club Version) [West End Records]
13. Inner Life featuring Jocelyn Brown - Ain't No Mountain High Enough (Larry Levan's Garage Mix) [Salsoul Records]

iTunes: http://po.st/GBPodSub
Mixcloud: http://defct.de/GBRS69MC

Buy our new album 'This Ain't No Disco!' here: http://lnk.to/ThisAintNoDisco

Listen

Glitterbox Radio Show 069: Larry Levan Special

Full recording from my appearance at Ministry Of Sound in London for Art's House 09.03.19.

MINISTRY OF SOUND LONDON 09.03.19 (greg wilson live mix)

This is the mix I put together for Resident Advisor 4 years ago – it’s no longer available via their website, so I thought the time was right to share here. It was very well received back then and certainly served to enhance my reputation within the RA community, coming, as it did, 4 months before my BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix brought my name to wider attention. 

I’d decided to buck the trend by highlighting the lower bpm’s of the music I was playing in the clubs, rather than, as was the norm, going for a more typical uptempo vibe. Here’s how I described it at the time in the accompanying interview I did with RA - ‘I'd just done a BBC 6mix, which, with regards to tempo, was geared around the 116-120 region, so I wanted to do something different here, concentrating on the more downbeat side of what I play, which, despite being a rich and fertile segment of dance spectrum, many DJ's dismiss as being too slow. I also took the opportunity to put together some new stuff, with the mix providing the impetus for me to bring a few ideas to fruition—so thanks are due to Resident Advisor for its role as muse.’ The full interview can be found at RA: 
http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=119 

I also added in the comments section, in answer to a question asking how I put the mix together – ‘I recorded the tracks into my studio PC using Sound Forge, then overdubbed textures and fx in Cool Edit Pro, in a similar way to how I use the the Revox live, spinning additional sounds over the top of the tracks I'm playing. The mix itself was pretty straightforward, but I spent a fair bit of time in the preparation, editing up some new stuff - 'Body Movin' Freaks', 'One Lifetime' and 'Re-Working The Illusion' (which was based on a previous mash-up I did a few years back) - whilst adding the Donna parts to the Eddie Drennon edit I'd put together a little while back, inserting the Martin Luther King speech in the intro of 'Why Can't We Live Together', and sticking the 'Good Times' vocal at the end of Adrian Blunt's Ting Tings edit to conclude the mix.’ Full comments here:
http://www.residentadvisor.net/forum-read.aspx?id=48550 

Greg Wilson - October 2012

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

RESIDENT ADVISOR MIX (by greg wilson for ra.119 podcast 2008)

Stretch Armstrong on His NY Sh!t

BPM EVENT:
Rebel Rave with Masters at Work, Damian Lazarus, Danny Tenaglia, Subb-An, Infinity Ink, Fur Coat, Francesca Lombardo

Saturday, January 12, 2013 : 10:00 pm - 6:00 am

Blue Venado 
Carretera Puerto Juarez Km. 278, Ejido Norte Playa Del Carmen, Mexico

BUY TICKETS: http://bit.ly/REBELRAVE_BPM
MORE INFO: http://www.thebpmfestival.com

Masters At Work Exclusive Mix for Rebel Rave

Masters At Work "LIVE" from Sydney NYE 2013

Valentines day is right around the corner... Here is an oldie but VERY goodie, free and complete for your listening pleasure. 

BUT , don't be a cheap ass. Buy a real copy for you're boo thang. 

https://djneilarmstrong.com/store-main-page/warmfuzzy/

Warmfuzzy - For Valentine's Day

A live recording of David Morales, Louie Vega and Tony Humphries playing at Electric in Brixton (London) on Saturday 26th January 2013.

LIVE : Kings Of House @ Electric (26/01/2013)

Recorded July 17, 2010 for Cinespia's screening of "Saturday Night Fever" at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.  Cut Chemist mixes up party time classics from 1973-1979.

Nice Mixes

Wayne Buckley