Some old-school pictures

Just got back from our travels to the UK and I decided it was time to scan some old pictures in before they get too old and trashed to keep any longer.

Partyzone with Howie B. & me looking odd with my space age shades ; )

Having a lovely traditional Japanese dinner in Tokio with my mum and James Hyman

Just an old press picture

Hanging out with Mark Wahlberg, back then still know as Marky Mark

James Hyman's blog posting

MTV's Party Zone - Keeping The Vibe Alive


''Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it"

A cliched yet classic cool quote from the late great John Hughes's masterpiece "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" really rang true today for me in regard to my MTV years (1988-2000).

MTV was in my thoughts as I'm DJ-ing this weekend at an MTV party with some real 'old skool-ers' sure to be there and this morning I had breakfast with former MTV presenter Steve Blame discussing some film projects so, inevitably we both reminisced and the memories always bring a smile to my face; we both confirmed how crazy those MTV times were in terms of creative freedom.

This was all reinforced again later in the day after some meetings, when I was totally touched & humbled by hooking up with Alex Belfi& Filippo Zuech, 2 long-time Italian fans of my MTV Party Zone/Dance shows. Filippo, now 23 was hooked back in '88 aged 9!) and Alex, more in line with my age (!) got my utmost instant respect with solid geek credentials that included a collection of over 40,000 hours of taped TV!! Alex & Filippo were visting London and had e-mailed to see if I would be willing to hook up for a chat about the 'MTV Party Zone/Dance' years and maybe fill some gaps in their VHS collection of shows!!

Their recollection and intricate knowledge of all those classic club clips got further props. We shared pop-culture passion & remembered those MTV 'golden days' and I kept having to "stop to look and listen around" because Alex &Filippo triggered memories not just from all those music videos, interviews etc, but also from recalling how working at MTV was back in the day; the process of putting together shows - the playlist meetings that often featured friendly fights with bosses over what I wanted to programme in my shows, scouring through & sourcing fresh videos, frantically getting them 'carted' on 'Beta', raw show-features like 'Flyer Of The Week' (!), early days of scribbling my running orders on scraps of paper and handing them to Rosemary Stock who was the cool MTV mum back then plus all those mad letters from fans in war-torn countries being bombed who seemed to be more concerned about getting their 'Party Zone' request played then what potential dangers engulfed their environment!

Again, being reminded of all that freedom & creativity I had producing those shows to an audience of 60 million+ households made me pause for the cause!! The irony nowadays is that with so much choice (Facebook, YouTube,Video Games, Spotify etc.), the 'soul' of sharing all this cool new stuff via a major media outlet like MTV has somewhat evaporated into a kind of 'very limited automatic playlist mode'; a topic that I'll happily & enthusiastically debate at length!

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!

James Hyman/Quentin Tarantino mashup movie trailer

Anyone who ever listened to my radioshow will know that I love mashups. And that love was ignited many years ago by James Hyman's old mashups on the Partyzone, called the Partyzone mega-mixes. He since released several brilliant mashup albums and has become a music consultant on many movies, including the Guy Ritchie movies. Here's a video version of his Quentin Tarantino mix-CD (please note...this is not approapriate viewing for young kids)

Spiral tribe& rave culture documentary

I loved the illegal parties back then and now loved this look-back at that era. Thanks to Gabor for putting me on to this one...

World Traveller Adventures.Spiral Tribe
Uploaded by o-tec

Getting nostalgic about the nineties

In my last post I mentioned that more and more people seem to be getting nostalgic about the nineties these days...well, may I just join in with that for a moment? With two equally crap videos that accompanied some amazing bits of dance music history. I would add 'Strings of life' to this too, but did that even have a video?

I used to get quite epileptic from the 'Stakker humanoid' clip, but still continued to watch it anyhow.

So, let's go back in time: LFO followed by Humanoid. And you just try and wipe that grin of your face whilst listening to it ; )

I know I can't....

Another old-school dance gem! Josh Wink's 'Higher state of consciousnes'

This is one of those tracks that I had kind of forgotten about until I heard someone play it again on the radio. I nearly blew up the speakers of my car! Man, this track is still insane. It's one of those tunes where you try and dance harder and harder as the pitch raises at the end until your limps nearly fly off your body (well, that's how it feels to me anyhow; )

Funny I forgot about this though as I am even in the video (only for a second, but still...)

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.

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...

Some old school gems

So what are some of my favorite videos/tracks from my MTV days? Well, here are two of them. First of all, 'Voodoo Ray' by 'A guy called Gerald'. An absolute dance classic and probably my favorite dance tune of all time. It always brings an instand smile to my face. My God, do I have some good party memories to go with that track.

The video for 'Voodoo Ray' shows one of the problems that we used to face on the Partyzone, namely that record companies refused to spend money on promos/videos for dance tracks. So we were often forced to show crappy videos to amazing tunes. Still, it didn't detere us. We played the tunes that we believed in & continued to put pressure on the labels to give us better quality vids. It just took those dinosaur record- execs years to figure out that dance music had crossed over into the mainstream.

Anyway, enjoy this old-school diamond...




The next video was more of a mini-movie, so it's in two parts. It's the 'Weekender' track from 'Flowered up'. James Hyman (the producer of the Partyzone) and I loved this when it came out. It is absolutely 'spot on' with its depiction of the drug culture in the nineties & especially the little things like those cabbies outside the clubs in the morning made us laugh. I don't know if any other show apart from the Partyzone used to play this video (and we used to play the whole thing), but as far as we were concerned it was a classic. So again, enjoy and let it transport you back to those crazy days ; )

Strange music, stranger man: Tricky

People often ask me if I ever had any famous boyfriends in my MTV days & generally I have to disappoint them as I always stayed clear of relationships with rock stars or other men who were in the limelight (too much ego and too many potential problems)

There was one exception though; I did have a relationship with Tricky for a while. Now, I’m sure that he seems like a strange choice to most people. Out of all the famous men out there, surely I could have picked someone better looking and appealing than Tricky? Yes, yes, yes, that’s surely true. Tricky does look like an alien and even after knowing him I sometimes wonder if he actually is one. He’s the strangest man I have ever met in my life & for a while he had me ‘hypnotized’ with his strangeness & I became quite besotted by him.

This is what happened. I had recently met Tricky as I interviewed him for the Partyzone. His album ‘Maxinquaye’ had just been released & was the breath of fresh air that I had been waiting for. I loved that album, as it had seemed to me that, at the time, no one was doing anything new in the dance music scene & this was finally something original. Up to that point I had been bored out of my skull with what was going on musically and was seriously considering packing in my job with MTV. So ‘Maxinquaye’ restored my faith in what was possible musically and re-ignited my passion for music.

A few months later I bumped into Tricky again. This time at a ‘Dazed and confused’ party. He pulled me aside from the dancefloor, sat me down and told me: ‘Listen, you’re not at all the way people think you are…’ And then went on telling me all about myself. He told me things that I had never shared with anyone, he told me about my fears, my hopes, my dreams…I mean, he knew everything, really weird specific stuff, like things that I did when I was a little girl. For instance, about how I used to pull the sheets up to right under my chin at night, so that I would wake up if a Vampire would try to bite me. And he knew that my wild confident persona was all just an act, that I was actually a lot more introvert and insecure than I pretended to be. And these were just two of the things he told me; the list went on and on. When I asked him how on earth he knew all of this, he just said ‘I’ve been observing you for a while’

I was in utter shock. On the one hand I felt flattered by the fact that someone bothered to look that deep into me and on the other hand I was just confused by it all. I didn’t quite know how to react when Tricky said: ‘Look, the real issue is this, you like me and I like you’
‘I do?’ was all I could answer. He really had me confused now. I had never even considered looking at him like that. ‘Yes’, he answered, ‘And so the question is, what are we going to do about that?’

Well, that was it. It was the start of our relationship. I fell for him in quite a bad way, probably because the guy was just so endlessly fascinating. His mind didn’t work like anyone else’s. Whatever was going on in the world, Tricky would see the issue from a completely different angle. I didn’t always agree with him, but I liked the fact that he made me question things that other people would take for granted. Being with Tricky was never dull as it really felt like being on a different planet. His life was utter chaos though. People would actually have to wake him, get him out of bed, drive him to the studio and stay with him until he started to get into the music, otherwise he would just walk back out again. And I remember packing his bag for him as he was walking out the door to go Norway or something, without even his passport on him. People were always looking for him & there was just this general sense of disorganization and the feeling of this dark past hanging over him. Still, in the midst of it all, there was always his inspiring creativity.

But what I didn’t know was that he was seeing Björk whilst he was also seeing me. They were already together when I first met him. When I finally did find out things had already gotten quite messy. Björk had apparently shouted out during a performance ‘Why won’t he love me?’ and was fuming with me and with Tricky. I never spoke to her about it, but it was obvious from that moment on that she hated me. And I can’t blame her. And things continued to get messy as Björk started to go out with Goldie who, at the time, wanted to kill Keith from the Prodigy, who I was hanging out with a lot, etc. It was all a bit of a crazy time. Tricky laughed it all off & didn’t see what the fuss was all about. He suggested that we would have an open relationship; free to see whomever we wanted. But that just wasn’t something I would ever be comfortable with. So that’s when I bailed out.

We did stay friends though and many months later he told me that he had not wanted to commit to me, as I had been too much of a stable influence on him. He was worried that without drama in his life he would not be able to create. He said that he needed to feed of this drama and that I was simply too ‘together’ for him. It reminded me of the time as a teenager when I got dumped by a guy for being too ‘proper’ & decided to see it as a compliment.

Now, looking back, I know that it was all the truth. I am too ‘together’ for a crazy, drama filled, rock & roll lifestyle. I opened the door, looked in, smiled at the interesting chaos and walked away. I’m just happy to be normal.

You've come a long way baby!

I've always been a sucker for Drum n Bass. There's nothing like the full body work-out you get when dancing at a good DnB night. When the DJ was really good, I didn't even want to intoxicate myself in any way as it could get in the way of my dancing (you never know how things might 'fall' from time to time, know what I mean?)

Some of the most memorable club nights I have ever attended have been DnB nights, with a vibe that is impossible to explain to anyone who wasn't there. It was a mix of danger, decadence (at a later stage) and explosive devotion from its followers. Instead of putting their hands up in the air, people would throw flames up or just hold up their lighters on the highest setting (DJ Hype told me that on some nights people were even firing guns in the air, although that would have been a bit too much danger and excitement for my liking). The crowd on the dance floor and around the DJ booth would just go insane on some tracks, demanding several 'rewinds' to keep them happy.

The Partyzone was around at the early days of Jungle, which over time became Drum and Bass. I remember interviewing the likes of Goldie, Roni Size, DJ Krust, DJ Hype, Zinc, Fabio, Grooverider, etc. on a regular basis. Now, it took a fair while to get accepted by those in the jungle/ Drum and Bass scene. Many were very anti media and thought that we (James Hyman and I) were just jumping on the bandwagon. So some of my hardest interviews have been with DJ's and producers from that scene. My God some of them were moody. Although none of them ever beat Rebel MC. He was the biggest s**t I've ever had on the show.

Still, like I said, I did love the DnB scene. And the best set I ever watched was by DJ Hype. I can't remember the name of the night, but it was somewhere in Germany. When Hype played the stage was full of other DJ's, producers, etc. Normally people would leave after their set was done, but here they had nowhere else to go, so everyone stayed and watched Hype. And they all just freaked out when they saw him play. The guy is a bloody genius & he mixes with an ease that I have not often seen in anyone else, he even looks slightly bored or disinterested whilst doing it. It's such a turn-on to see such a genius in action. So I did end up have a slight crush on him back then. Not that the guy was particularly good looking, but just because he was so cocky and talented. I never told him or anyone else, though : )

I've always had a soft spot for geniuses. I can't help it. It's just so bloody sexy to see that kind of confidence and skill. Guess that's why I ended up marrying a genius myself (no, not a DJ, but a man with many talents including football, search engine optimizing, other 'nerdy' computer stuff, plus an outlook on life that's genius in itself ; )

Anyway, I'm digressing...back to DnB.


The minute I moved to another kind of jungle (the one here in Central America) I stopped looking at what was happening in the DnB scene. I literally haven't looked back since that November in 2001 when we moved away from London. I still listened to my old DnB music when working out, but that was it. But recently I decided to take a quick peek at what's been happening in that world.

And it's great to see things like DnB TV , to see all the old faces still doing their thing & to see the talent that has emerged since I disappeared from the scene, like Logistics and of course Pendulum. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!

Oh, I do miss a good dance now and then.....

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...

Moby & I

I am very confused about the new Moby video. It's for his track with Debbie Harry, called 'New York, New York'. The song itself is pleasant enough, but the video????? The reason I'm so confused it's that it's such a bad 'not funny!' video & Moby normally has a great sense of humor. I know, because Moby & I used to be very good friends. Sadly enough, we don't talk to each other these days. I think I broke his heart or just bruised his ego (to this day I'm not sure which it was). I'll go into the story in a minute, first have a look at the 'New York, New York' promo & make up your own mind...

So anyway, how/why did I break Moby's heart? Well, we used to hang out a lot. We actually made a great team, Moby and I. I stopped him from getting too uptight about things & he used to inspire me mentally-he's incredibly intelligent- and blow me away musically-he used to play my piano or sit and and play the guitar for me. We really loved hanging out together, the only problem was that he fancied me and I didn't fancy him.

Anyway, Moby got the wrong end of the stick and started hinting to people (the press included) that we were some kind of item. I had planned a trip to New York to stay with him, so I decided to let him know ahead of time what the deal was. He took it well and we both decided that I should still come to New York.

Once I got there it turned out that he was a bit peeved and had ordered his best friend Damien Loeb (an amazingly talented but struggling artist back then & a superstar painter now) to entertain me whilst he would continue his work in the studio. So during the day I would hang out in Damien's art studio/apartment and at night the three of us would hang out together. Visiting the three vegan restaurants in New York that were strict enough for Moby to eat in (yawn!) or watch crap videos like Pooh Bear in Apocalypse Now (Moby's choice of movie). After a while, Damien and I had more fun together and didn't really want to drop whatever we were doing during the day to suit King Moby.

So, to make a long story short...Damien and I started seeing each other. Moby was not too happy (obviously) and the whole thing became a bit of a mess for all of us. The relationship didn't last & I let the two best friends get on with mending their friendship.

It's a shame really. They are both such interesting characters. It would have been nice to have stayed friends with them. But there you go, love triangles are messy things to get into. I guess I should have known the trouble it would cause and never have gotten involved with Damien in the first place.

Anyway, that's all a long, long time ago. I'm just happy that life as a married woman and a mother is so much less complicated : )

So, just for old time's sake, a very melancholic live version of 'Go' from the Partyzone studio. Check out Moby and I cross-dressing in this clip too. We swapped outfits half-way through the show & continued the interview with me wearing Moby's jeans & T-shirt and Moby wearing my sparkly dress.

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....

The only ever Aphex Twin TV Interview! (part 1)

This was a very unique interview. I had been warned beforehand that Aphex Twin (Richard D. James) only answered questions with yes or no. If he answered them at all. Well, I had no problem getting him to talk. It actually became quite a revealing interview. Enjoy!