Big Songs & Music in Your Life

[patiirc]

Flaming June, there's a random pluck from the Gatecrasher canon. I love all that late 90s progressive/emotional trance. Carte Blanche, Push, Synesthesia, El Nino and basically anything else that was on a three disc compilation with disc names like 'Sunset' and 'FeelUreLife'.

 

Annoying techno ponce nerd out in 3,2...

 

I think that's why I'm so annoyed at EDM. It's just four to the floor with all the strings and melody of trance taken out and replaced with autistic synth stabs and drops and people have gone mental for it, particularly in the States which is where the name is derived from (it's a stupid term, EDM has always existed etc etc I know but it has come to define a certain sound now).

Could have gone for Binary Finary, Gouryella and all sorts in between to br honest. I may not get all the technical aspects behind it, but playing for the drop rather than a continual raise weirds me out about more Modern EDM. Not that I like the term either.

 

The northwest has an epic oldschool vibe at the moment with events like More Cake, Hacienda Classical. the recently departed A-wing and Factory as well as the upcoming Back to the Old Pool, taking in Syndicate,Maximes etc.

 

There's also a lot of pop up events at pubs and stuff, which is pretty cool. Never far from a decent weekend with everything from happy house,jungle, techno, trance included.

 

Successive girlfriends drew me into all of that and ended up seeing everyone from Carl Cox, Joe T Vanelli,John Digweed etc last major thing I went to was Tiesto, Calvin Harris and Judge Jules a few years back. Hey ho

[air_raid]

I dearly want to make a contribution to this thread but I'll make it tomorrow when I'm less sleepy because I'll need time to think first, about trying to make it concise enough to be worth reading. Music is massive to me and every time in my life or important person in my life has a song or songs that I make a connection, so it will need a bit of work to reign myself in to post something that isn't tl;dr.

 

I had a think about my reply and I decided rather than bore you shitless about people, places and numerous songs, I'd bore you shitless instead about one song, and one moment, intrinsically linked for me. Because I think that's what Mr E was after - the moments. If anyone reading didn't already think I was a massive dork, they will now.

 

When I was in my teens, I e-met a girl on a newsboard. We swapped emails and soon we were talking about stuff other than what we had been on the board to discuss - the Pokemon cartoon, sadly enough. Since we were both socially awkward types we both got quite into the burgeoning online friendship as we had a lot in common - sci-fi, comics, cats, indy music, loneliness. We romanticized a little that we'd meet and become a couple, in that way that something online can become better than what you've got in real life. We wrote soppy emails to each other addressing each other by the dumb X-Men names we picked for ourselves and talked about meeting even though at the time I'd have never had the spine for it. One time I emailed her to tell her that I'd recently watched the film Fight Club, and told her that she probably thinks it's not her kind of film but that she should watch it. She watched it, she loved it. At the peak of my dumb sappyness I told her how much I loved the ending, watching Jack and Marla standing watching the skyscrapers collapsing as "Where Is My Mind" by the Pixies played - and that I imagined our "characters" doing the same, holding hands watching the world end around them.

 

Fast forward. We drifted apart after a while. She went through some personal stuff, I think she was disillusioned that I had never reacted as positively to her asking if we could meet for real, and we went a few years without emailing. One day out of the blue in 2006, she got back in touch. She was going through a lot of stuff - she'd quit her job, was trying to arrange a divorce from the boyfriend she'd only married to keep in the country and found out he was cheating on her three weeks later, and was thinking of selling her place and moving back to her parents. Timing was impeccable as I was going through a black patch myself. I'd failed my Masters upon first submission of my dis and reacted by spiralling into a bit of a cocaine problem and been witnessed wishing for the courage to kill myself by my own mother in the midst of "coming down." It was her reaching out to me, but I was in need of something to pull me out of a hole too. This time, we actually met. I drove up to Manchester to visit her for a long weekend with the intention of nothing more than making sure she was OK, and quite accidentally (but perhaps inevitably) fell madly in love with her. I was no longer sleeping on the sofa by the second night, asking the "are we boyfriend and girlfriend" question within a week, and I was moved in with her within 6 months. This with my previous longest relationship being six weeks.

 

After going out for 14 months, it was nearing the time of my 25th birthday. My actual birthday was spent in France as part of a holiday with her parents and brother but a few weeks later down in the Midlands we went out with all my mates for what we described at uni as the "state birthday". We had many drinks, we had a curry, we went to an indy night. It always takes quite a bit to drink for me to actually shake my ass, but as Saturday night gave way to Sunday morning, my then-mrs was able to prise me out of my seat. I think it may have been Time To Pretend by MGMT which was one of my favourite songs on the radio at the time. Later, I could tell the evening was nearing chucking-out time, and they played Love Will Tear Us Apart - not to be a complete indy stereotype, but that's my favourite song. So me and the proper serious "I'm crazy about you" girlfriend I had never thought I'd have when I was a miserable teenager bobbed away to my favourite song, surrounded by my best friends. As the song neared the outro, I said to the woman "If this had been the last song, it would have been the perfect end to a perfect day." Joy Division faded out... and Where Is My Mind started playing. I swear, I nearly wept. I took my tiny little woman into my arms and we slowly swayed back and forth, as I lost myself completely to the moment. The song reached its crescendo.... and the lights came up. On my 25th birthday, I finally took a girl to dance, and they played something akin to "our song" for the last song of the night. Right then and there when the lights came up and I looked into her eyes, inside I felt "This is the greatest moment of my life."

 

So yeah, there's one. That song, BOOM, I'm right back there. I'm 25, in Wolverhampton, sticking to the floor and the taste of Red Square lingering in my mouth. OK, it's a romanticized snapshot of that time in my life. OK, after four years we did break up. OK, even the evening itself didn't end so romantically - we watched AJ Styles vs Austin Aries over pizza before some truly shambolic drunken sexual outercourse. And then watched Bryan Danielson vs Roderick Strong over a huge slab of Dairy Milk. But I can't EVER hear that Pixies song without thinking about that one moment. Probably still tl;dr but who cares.

[handspants]

That made me think of another one, which'd be Bright Eyes - First Day Of My Life

Me and my ex (who I've probably mentioned far too many times on here, but y'know) were sitting on the settee and it came on on MTV.  And I thought, that's exactly how I feel about this girl, and I finally realised what being in love was like.  

And as much as I resent her for leaving me, whenever I listen to that song, I remember the times we had together, and feel thankful for every one.

 

[Mr.E]

Air_raid, yes that's pretty much what I started the thread for.

 

I genuinely love reading these stories so far. Non of the songs that take me back to places are either A) good stories or B)good places, so i'll probably skip some of my songs for now, but keep em coming

[Scott Malbranque]

This, lads..this is t

o be continued tomorrow.

Have sobmuxh to say on this but I'm driving

[The Gaffer]

Screech of breaks, white flash, solemn obituary thread.

[hallicks]

Before I was married, my friends and I had a bit of a Saturday routine. Subway and bets at lunchtime. Back to the flat to watch soccer saturday. Pub for the 5.30 kick off. Then stay out for however long afterwards. Whenever I could steer it, we'd end up at a small pub called the grove that has pool, darts, a juke box and match of the day. I tried to mix it up on the juke box, but I have nothing but wonderful, hazy memories of playing pool and listening to This is the one by the Stone Roses. It was kind of a strange post-uni amazing time where most of my old school friends had moved back home and started their careers in the area, but no-one was married or had kids so we were able to carry on the "old ways" of uni - at least on one or two nights a week. Whenever I hear it now, I'm just back there.

[Scott Malbranque]

Right, on the trance/house scene.

 

I was a very, very early starter. My first exposure to the scene was New Years Eve 1995 when I was just a little 16 year old pup, where I went to see The Prodigy ring in the New Year at the Point Depot (O2/3 Arena) in Dublin. There was a gang of us from school and one of the lads handed me a Gary when a band called 4^th Dimension were playing. It was a speckled Dove and I didn’t want it, because Ecstacy was essentially advertised and pushed as the AIDS of the 1990s.

 

I was content, and fairly well slaughtered, with my naggin of vodka and few cans of Stag in me system, but I soon sobered up at the prospect of necking this pill under the pressuring eyes of my mates. I’ll never forget the fucking terror and peer pressure I felt but because I was one of the more mouthy, Billy Big Bollocks’ of the class I had to man up and swallow it.

4^th Dimension finished and during the wait for the Prodigy, I pretty much fell in love with everyone in attendance. I hugged everyone in eyeshot, and my poor girlfriend didn’t know what hit her when I started rubbing off her Beetlejuice tights like I was a Labrador with that lipstick hanging out of it.

 

The Prodigy then came on and Keith Flint burst out onto the stage inside a big plastic ball as the venue fucking exploded while Break and Enter upended the place, and my jaw went out to Wales. I didn’t stop dancing and hugging and loving everyone I crossed paths with for that night. After the gig we went to a club named The Asylum. This was the biggest shithouse you could possibly imagine.

On reflection, every gentleman had a jaw that looked like Bubba from Forrest Gump and every woman was gurning like Vicky Pattinson. Herbie can vouch as to how much of a dive the Asylum was...it was fucking horrific, but hearing Fantasia (Cosmic Baby) and Legend B’s Lost in Love made everything better.

 

There’s a tune called Rays of the Rising Sun by Mozaic (Dekkard and Dane remix). There’s a break in the middle of it, and that night I heard it. I got down on me hunkers and broke down crying in the middle of the dancefloor, it was that intense and emotional...and a load of inner city, pure hard lads in their 20’s – who probably would have battered this long haired skater in reality – all put their arms around me and hugged the shite out of me while I was crying with joy.

Following that night, I fell in love with the scene. Getting to see the likes of Oakenfold, CJ Bolland, Sasha, Digweed, Hallucinogen, John Cecchini, Solar Stone and fuck loads more in Dublin and Liverpool was incredible, until I burned myself out and had to take a step back through the end of 1997, but then 1998 hit and we had Homelands and Creamfields over in Ireland and the trance scene blew up with the likes of Seb Fontaine, Tall Paul, Danny Rampling, Cecchini, Mauro Picotto, Nick Warren and the likes which tugged me right back into the again. (I posted a picture up a few days ago of me and my mate in the midst of this scene.)

 

I met Jakes (me sons’) mam through this scene pretty much and our relationship was based around getting rinsed on a Friday or Saturday night, ridiculously long bouts of sex because any bloke who’s done a pill knows how – excuse the pun – hard it is to sprout porridge no matter how hard you tense the back of your thighs. She got pregnant. Then we got very grown up and bought a house, got engaged and started to put on weight and look good an healthy again. Looking at the before and after pics, I swore I’d never take a yoke (ecstacy) again...ever, and subsequently got hooked on fitness and eating healthily. Jake was born, all was well, we lasted two years after he was born and broke up due to being too young with a mortgage and the fact we had literally nothing in common besides thinking certain parts of each others’ bodies were great, so I became a weekend da, which devastated me not being able to see him every day. (We lived very very far away from each other and I didn’t drive so Jakes mam would drop him on Friday night and pick him up on Saturday night)

My mates were worried about me coz I just pretty much locked myself away, feeling like a failure as a da and a person coz I couldn’t keep the relationship together. Then they booked Ibiza and paid for me behind my back, because they knew I was smashed and paying crèche fees and a mortgage I couldn’t afford etc on a shit wage. Anyone who has been to that side of Ibiza will know the score. We went on a Sunday, I took one bit of a burger for nutrition for the whole week, and the rest of the week was spent on a diet of pills and Jack Daniels. Every club just led to the next, but it was one of the best weeks on my life and the last time I actually smiled for days on end without a negative though creeping in.

 

Then was the comedown...and it was grim. I got back from Ibiza over a stone lighter, bruised and battered, just missing the Philadelphia Phillies cap and racked with guilt over a weekend of debauchery when I was supposed to be a real man and dad to my son. So after that week, I made a consciences decision to wind my neck right in and only go out on the piss once a year or once every six months, and I stuck to that for the most part. I think I’m entitled to a gary every once in a while. I don’t smoke, would maybe have a glass of wine once a week, I train, I eat healthy, dedicate me time to me wife and kids, but once in a while, I love to go to one of my old favourite DJs, have a crafty one, dance to tunes that give me rushes and goosebumps and hug everyone while I run around with me top off and smile at everyone smiling like it’s the 90s/00s again.

 

Case in point. This weekend I’m going to Underworld and Darren Emerson’s after party. That’ll be me probably until October or December. I think I’m entitled to it. Plenty of cunts go down the boozer every fucking Sunday and have 5 or 6 pints watching the ball while their kids run around and make their own entertainment. My weekends are spent in the park with my family or doing something fun with them and interrracting with them and the odd time when Emily’s in bed (Jakes nearly 15 so he’s his own man) the folks will babysit for me and the missus while we fuck off for a meal and a glass of wine, or to the flicks, or for a few drinks where I can get her drunk and nasty. And although I think it’s wrong to have children in a pub unless there’s a family day or bouncy castle or something outside, I wouldn’t scorn them or pass judgement the way cunts pass judgement on somebody who enjoys indulging himself in trance music and all that comes with it for 6 hours once in a blue fuckin moon.

 

I also love Mike Patton, jazz, funk, Steely Dan, Deftones, Liberty X and stuff like that. I just find trance and house to be socially glorious genres of music.

 

EDIT – Didn’t know Gay as FOOK...I’m calling you Julian...Jules...was from Cork! Come up to Dublin! There’s a Legends of the Old Skool gig on Sunday and all.

 You get a flight over here Brewster and all! So fucking help me, you get a flight over here!! Or I’m coming to Fabric!!!

 

EDIT EDIT - If I decide to post on Sunday and I happen to be under the influence, where do I do it, coz no doubt I'll want to come on and tell yiz all I love yiz. Like, I mean, reeeeeally love yiz.

[The Gaffer]

Ha! My man. Legends Of Old Skool sounds tasty, alright.

 

Saw The Prodigy at the Marquee in 2009 and they were unreal, few times at festivals and always good by default because you're binned but I do think they're taking the piss touring pretty much Jilted and Fat Of The Land into Rolling Stones years. Those discs aside they're a singles band for me. Compared to Chemical Brothers albums? Forget it.

 

Still have to knock Chemical Brothers off my list. Fucked if I'm going to Electric Picnic though. My friend in works talks about seeing them with genuine religious vigor.

 

Course' there's only one of them and a helping hand now on this tour because Ed Simons has gone of to study being an astronaut or something.

[Scott Malbranque]

You're friend is right! I've seen the Chemical Brothers three times. Once I was an absolute shambles, with me chin touching me forehead against a fence and Ray Shah in a Q102 hat asked me did I want any orange juice.

 

Their best one, that I seen anyway, was the Point in 2005...Paddy's Day Eve. First half was pretty much the Push The Button album, then they fucked off for five minutes and came back for the rest to do a ‘classics’ set, starting with Come With Us which when kicked in, ripped the place a new stink chasm! That was an absolutely incredible gig, And those who were at the Chemical Brothers got into Spirit (The Academy) for free afterwards which was a night of the likes of Higher State of Consciousness, Yeke Yeke etc.

 

Lekky Picnic is overrated and all!