Merry Christmas!

I guess you're all well into the eternal hang-over that is the Christmas season.

Nowadays there are no office parties for me, no frantic shopping sessions, no 'Christmas number 1' nonsense (Thank God, so much crap gets released that time a year) and no Christmas tree.

We're in the middle of construction as we have to finish our new accommodation by the 28th. In the meantime, the resort is full & my babysitter is on holiday.

So what I'm trying to say is that there is little room in my head for music, blogging, etc. I will check in again after Christmas. Have a good one!

I'm having a bit of a Faithless day

Okay, I'll promise to stop going on about Faithless and 'To all new arrivals' after this. But I just love that being a parent has been such a muse to their new music. As a mum, I can totally relate to the lyrics on 'I hope' and the little kid's voice on 'Music matters' melted my heart. So big up to all the mums and dads out there! May we all be so inspired by this, the hardest job on earth. Enjoy your little angels!

Outrageous!!!

After reading up a little on Faithless today I was outraged to discover that MTV banned the video for Bombs when it came out last September. The video shows how war and violent images have become part of our everyday life. It is social commentary at its finest! So why was it banned?

So from being the ones to play Faithless when no one else would, MTV has now become the corporate giant that does not allow people to express their dissatisfaction with things like the war. All I can say is that I am happy that I was part of MTV at a time when it had a social and political conscience.



This video also reminds me of the old Damien Loeb paintings, which were actually the ones he was working on whilst I was staying with him years ago. They depicted pictures of beauty pageants and other cute images in front of explosions and other war scenes . Quite disturbing, but incredibly powerful.

Faithless

Yes, they've done it again. Rollo, Sister Bliss and Maxi Jazz have produced another musical gem with 'To all new arrivals'. It really is a great album & something that is even playable in my serene jungle setting here in Belize (a lot of bands/acts that I used to listen to simply sound 'too urban' and chaotic here)


When Faithless released their first album 'Reverence' no one seemed to be particularly interested in them. I believe their label was even thinking of dropping them at the time (or am I getting confused with Moloko? I'd have to check with James now, I'm not 100% sure anymore)

Anyway, when James Hyman (my old Partyzone producer) and I first heard 'Reverence' we got incredibly excited. This was one of those albums that we phoned each other out of bed for. One of us would occasionally discover a track or an album at 2 or 3 in the morning and would instantly wake up the other as we knew that there weren't many other people who would freak out to the same level as we did about music, so this is something we shared with each other. We would virtually be screaming, jumping up and down and just generally be so excited that would not be able to go back to sleep. Being passionate about what we were doing with the Partyzone doesn't even do it justice, being obsessive about it is more accurate. We lived for this stuff. And we especially lived for 'discovering' gems like Faithless.

So we contacted the label, set up Faithless' first ever TV interview (on the Partyzone of course) and we even supported their first tour! And the rest, as they say, is history...

A few months later they flew James and myself out to Amsterdam to join them at one of their gigs as a 'thank you'.

To this day, my proudest achievement as a Veejay was playing a small part in the breakthrough of new artists to the mainstream. Acts like Faithless, Moloko, Prodigy, Tricky, Goldie, etc.

Some more retro moments...