Saturday 29 October 2016

Audrey 'Dre' Faye Ottewill


She's here - born on 30 September 2016 weighing in at 9 pounds, 14, Audrey 'Dre' is in the house and after your milk. Lock up your sons and get some extra pints in...

Bill Brewster's 100 disco killers for under a tenner

Ace DJ and disco historian Bill Brewster has put together this list of 100 killer disco 12 inches for under a tenner. It's riposte to FACT magazine doing a similar post but compiling either the blindingly obvious or the ludicrously expensive.

Check the ace list here and get on these heaters culled from it below...





Playing the Bass With Three Hands


Rock'n'roll biographies often follow a certain formula - get in a band, get famous, get fucked up, get dropped, get lost. But Playing the Bass With Three Hands by Will Carruthers is a different kind of beast.

As bass player in Spaceman 3 and Spiritualised, Will has played with two of the most cracked and fractious space rock groups the UK has spawned. But despite authoring a tome exploring his adventures with the bands, his tale is not one of success, nor one stuffed with the bragging so often afforded to musicians turned writers. Instead, his work follows him unceremoniously losing the plot and taking on jobs on building sites and abattoirs to fund his musical endeavours. The bleakness of the tall tale is off set by Will's self deprecatory tone, which takes on the eloquent rakish wit of a Victorian magician. I had the pleasure of meeting Will for an interview earlier in the year - we liaised in the lobby of a non-descript hotel in Fitzrovia and talked in its garden of his book tour and maiming song birds to make them sing sweeter. He drank a 10am Corona and smoked a series of small, gnarly little roll ups. It felt like I was holding court with a devilish gentlemen who, from his book and real life persona, has always been unsure of where fun stops and trouble begins. Read the book - it's ace..


Saturday 15 October 2016

Balearic Mike heads to a Desert Island Disco

Balearic Mike is one of our favourite DJs and was recently on Lauren Laverne's BBC 6 Music show to put together a selection for being stranded on a desert island. Here it is. It's fucking mega chums...

If you're not living on the edge, then you're taking up too much room...


Upping sticks and moving gaff can be a big ting, especially when it comes to leaving an area you've become a part of, that gives you a sense of self and purpose. But so it goes. You can't stand still.You're just getting in the way. Move on motherfuckers!

We high tailed it out of Dalston in mid-September to our new ends of Tottenham after a year of trying. Turning mid-thirties means it's probably time to give up our old place and make way for the next wave of starry eyed dreamers who believe life starts and ends in the N16 post code. Or at least, those who can afford it - elegant slumming such as this comes at a price. But for us, with the car boot at the bottom of our bed, the Marquis of Lansdowne across the road, Super Kebab, the Basak Off Licence, the weird grumpy guys in Kristina Records, the trendy overpriced clothes in Huh, Dalston and Hackney have become embossed in our very beings.

We've seen and done many things while in Dalston. One of the weirdest was nicking a doob off the youths downstairs, smoking it, then hallucinating we were being attacked by a helicopter to the point where I woke up and ran out into the street to find out what was happening. Or when we got so battered at Bar Tipsy that the owners had to carry us home. Or when I lost my keys after my work Xmas party, so had to sleep on the steps, Or when we had people back and ripped the breakfast bar off the wall. Good times yeah.

But now it's all change. Particularly with the Nordic Loft Space next door, possibly sign posting what the future of N16 is going to look like, At least in the eyes of developers who are really those who hold the cards when it comes to etching our future. So see you later Dalston. You've been kind if not very, very silly...

The view

A grand a month and you could get all this