Dodgy acapella from General Base on the Partyzone

This was such a funny moment. I had forgotten about it until my friend Tavi from the Eurodance blog sent me the link.

We (the Partzone team) were never too keen on many of these studio/eurodance acts & asking them to sing live during a Partyzone interview was one way to find out if they were actually able to sing. This woman-obviously- couldn't. It was an awful acapella. And what we found the funniest, was her producer (who was sitting next to her on the sofa) sticking his finger in his ear as she sang. Plus the dodgy acapella rap....priceless!

Great! An old MTV's Most Wanted moment!!!

The funny thing is, I can't remember this for the life of me. I do remember being on Most Wanted occasionally with Ray Cokes, but this particular incidence I completely forgot (together with about 90% of my MTV years...)

Great to watch back though. And I think what shines through is that Ray and I have always gotten on so well. And then there is the mention of playing truth of dare with Steve Blame. I remember sitting under a blanket in a park in Berlin after a particular heavy night out with Steve Blame and playing truth or dare. The truths that would come out of Steve Blame's mouth always trumped everyone else's. The guy is a shocker! (in the good sense of the word)

Oh....I just noticed...it's the 14th of May. Steve Blame is performing with a punk band tonight somewhere in Germany. I tell you, that man never ceases to amaze me. He's such a lovely oddball. Blow up the soundsystem Steve!!!! I'm thinking of you....

Backstage at the MTV Europe Music Awards

I had been working for hours at the MTV Europe Music Award, doing the countdown to the Awards, the Red Carpet and backstage interviews and all I wanted was to join my partying friends. But I was told that there was one more thing I had to do, I had to play 'Tabloid Journalist', going around finding gossip and make up some myself as well.

Of course, my gossip had to be rather far-fetched. But do you think anyone helped me come up with some good lines? Not a chance! I had to think of stuff myself. Problem was, I was exhausted at that point & couldn't think of anything.

My best attempt was 'Did you know that Kylie fancies you?'

I thought that that was far-fetched enough. I mean, every guy fancied her, but I assumed that these guys would all understand that she would never fancy them back. Still, I was wrong. It was taken seriously.

So a few weeks later my phone rang and it was Kylie Minogue. She was pretty pissed off with me. Aparently, my stupid gossip had got her into trouble with Jay Kay from Jamiroquai and his girlfriend (who turned out to be a friend of hers)

I apologized to her then, we issued a press-release & I believe (I hope) that I was forgiven.

Here's the clip:

Another bit of old skool MTV Partyzone

There are so many of these Meditation rave clips on Utube (10 in total, I think). Here's number one. It was shot at our hotel as we suddenly saw these people sitting around in a circle, singing these schlager songs...it was most bizarre. Still, they probably would have thought that the place we ended up in that night was bizarre, especially seeing all these kids (myself included) suck at balloons of laughing gas, which were sold at the bar. Much more fun than drinking alcohol, if you ask me. And no hang-over!

Another meditation rave clip

The man who rocked the house that night (all those years ago)...DJ Hype. Still one of the best sets I have seen in my life. Together with his 'partner in crime' DJ Zinc. Lovely boys, great music. They were definatelly some of those who really made drum and bass exciting for me.

'Let this feeling' sample

How funny...some guys sampled my old Eurodance track 'Let this feeling' and even added some old MTV clips of me to it. Very silly.

Meditation V @ Halle 101, Speyer (19.10.1996) Pt. 7

Big up to Grooverider! He's such a lovely guy. I can't believe he got sentenced to four years in prison for posession of a small amount of grass at Dubai airport. Unbelievable! Does anyone know how he is doing? My thoughts go out to him...

Meditation V @ Halle 101, Speyer (19.10.1996) Pt. 8

Oh my God, how cool that this is on Utube. This party was so bloody amazing. It was one of the best night I have ever had in my life. Watching DJ Hype tear up the place was legendary. And the crazy laughing-gas balloon stands were something I had never seen before and have never seen anywhere since. Brilliant, brilliant night. Great Partyzone moment...

Will the real Richard D. James please stand up?

One of my strangest MTV moment was the following part of the Aphex Twin interview. Before the interview I was told by everybody that Aphex Twin (aka Richard D. James) was a complete freak, that he had simply taken 'one trip too many' and that he therefor made such bizarre music, drove around in a tank and performed live shows whilst lying down.

I thought that that was too simplistic an explanation. I was convinced that there had to be more to it. I mean, Aphex Twin is weird. Without a doubt. But I wanted to know what really made this guy tick. Why was he so weird? If what he said in this interview is true, it would definitely explain it all. Unless...it's all one big lie. You never actually know with him. So be ready to be sucked into the weird world of Aphex Twin.

Let me just set the stage: Aphex Twin had released an album called Richard D. James and had told the press that it was dedicated to his dead brother. No one knew anything more than that. So I asked him about it & here is his answer:

Some random Partyzone & MTV Dance clips

Over the years I've noticed that American TV crews nearly always use cue cards or auto-cue (where the text scrolls down in front of the camera lens, seen by the presenter, but not visible on television). Nothing they film seems to be spontaneous, everything is scripted. I've always hated that. Whenever I was forced to use auto-cue, I felt like a school teacher. I always preferred to improvise (even if it didn't look as 'slick') or else I would spend hours learning my lines. Anything to avoid cue cards/auto-cue. Have a look at this Jenny McCarthy clip & you'll see what I mean...




This next clip cracked me up when we found it in our archives. It was one of many bizarre and funny Ibiza moments. Sadly enough, it's not the clearest. The 'stun gun episode' had already started by the time the camera started rolling. Still, I like it.

And I believe that this clip is from that summer in Ibiza when Lisa I'Anson, Tania (who worked on the Partyzone) and I went 'missing'. Any of you from the UK may remember that moment. Lisa was meant to do a live BBC radio show from the island, but never showed up. So what happened in those missing hours???? Let's just say that things got slightly out of hand at the infamous Manumission Motel. You just can't help doing stupid things in Ibiza (just see this clip, if you don't believe me...)



One of the worst interviews I've ever done was my first interview with Underworld. Karl from the band treated me like dirt, he really did. I had never been treated so badly by anyone in my life. He wouldn't answer my questions, told me to look the answers up myself & was trying to get the other band members to be rude to me too. It got so bad that at one point I told the camera man to just 'stop rolling' (lucky enough, he only pretended that he did, so everything ended up on tape)

I then said something along these lines: "Look, do you think that I care about any of these questions? Do you think that I give a flying f*** about your stupid band? You're not doing me a favor, I am doing you a favor. I'm promoting your music here. If you can't be bothered to co-operate, let's just end the interview right here."

After that, he behaved a bit better.

I've never tolerated much bad behaviour by bands on my show. As far as I was concerned, they were on my turf. They had to play by my rules! I even once handcuffed a bad behaving guest (forgot his name) and told the Guns & Roses guys to go f*** themselves. Again, after that, they were nice as pie. Stupid rock & roll behaviour!

Anyway, here's Karl trying to apologize....

Shaun Rider on poisoning pigeons

I love this interview with Black Grape, especially because it is so unique to get Shaun Rider interviewed whilst he is (reasonably) straight. The reason for him being sober was that the guys had just come back from somewhere in Scandinavia & had not been able to buy any drugs there. This whole interview is brilliant to watch. I'll make sure we'll digitize the rest of it in the near future.

Later on in the day, Shaun Rider came over to me and passed me an LSD (paper) trip with the Black Grape logo on it. He told me that if anyone ever offered me one of these, I had to tell him. He said "I designed them. I have the copyrights"

My plan was not to take the trip, but to keep it folded into the artwork of my Black Grape CD. Thought it might be worth something some day. Sadly enough, I lost the bugger. What a shame!



And my sincere appologies for looking like a dodgy drag queen in the following clip. Especially the wig is too bad for words. That must be why they brought in stylists for the veejays in later years ; )

Still, it was cool watching Junior Vasquez in action. New York nightlife always made for a nice change of scenery for me...

MTV's Partyzone clips

We've finally got the old Partyzone clips digitized. Here are two short ones. The thing that makes all these 90's MTV interviews even more special is that most of the MTV Europe footage from that time got burned down at a fire at MTV's library. Guess we were the lucky ones...

So on this blog in the near future, expect the following clips:

1. The only ever Aphex Twin TV interview (with a rather shocking revelation)
2. The tape that got me in trouble with Kylie Minogue many years ago (I never meant to upset her and did apologize afterwards)
3. Shaun Rider on poisoning pigeons
4. Looking like a drag queen with Junior Vasquez
5. Moby unplugged, plus Moby and I cross-dressing
6. Our mate Justin getting stung with a stung gun (on his own request no less!)

And much, much more...

So let's get started. Let's go back to the old school!