Guest petesasqwax Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8jzd3JyrD4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAjltED_7zM These vides, coupled with the Meltdown event in the South Bank & the Urban Archaeology book, have me on a serious Mo'Wax nostalgia tip. It's easy, amidst the UNKLE bollocks and his "superstar DJ" status to forget that James Lavelle was, at heart, a man who had a fine ear for interesting music at a time when few people were really championing it - especially in this country. In fact, irrespective of what people may think of him, there have been very people who even came close to achieving what he did & this video goes some way to reminding me of that side of him. Bet his record is fucking sick too - the Major Force section alone would be mindblowing 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest petesasqwax Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 http://www.mowaxplease.com/paul-bradshaw-talked-james-lavelle-jocks-nerds/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kut_class Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 nice find Pete !! very inspiring vid. Been picking up bits of cherished mo wax on vinyl that i had on tape as a kid, pretty much got the bits i wanted now but if i hadn't i'd start snapping up before this drives the prices up !! Controversial, but at the time i felt Psyence Fiction didn't live up to the hype it generated, it was too cross over for me, i liked the down tempo attica blues stuff n shadow, and was hoping for more of that.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest petesasqwax Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 ah man, I was a huge Mo'Wax obsessive - at some stage or other I've had nearly the entire catalogue and I'm sure at some stage I'll hunt it all down again. I've still probably got 3 or 4 dozen 12"s, LPs and 7"s/10"s as well as a good few dozen CDs too, but it's the one label I've got an overwhelming urge to own all of. I agree with Psyence Fiction - some great tracks on there, definitely, but overall it was pretty weak to me compared to earlier UNKLE work and a lot of the other things on the label Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ Rock Well Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 +1 for Psyence Fiction. I was a big Mo wax fan but purposely didn't buy it when it came out because it wasn't good enough. What i did come to love from that album though was the way Shadow always played the G Rap track and the Richard Ashcroft track with the vocals switched in live sets, so Ashcroft came in over the G Rap beat and then eventually got to play the Ashcroft track as an instrumental. I would have bought that live arrangement on vinyl if it existed, but as it was you couldn't even get the separate instrumentals and acappellas on the UK commercial release 12s - don't know if there was a US one or promo wax, or if Shadow kept that goodness for his own live shows. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest petesasqwax Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 I had this at one point but I don't think the Ashcroft accapella was ever put out there:http://www.discogs.com/UNKLE-With-Kool-G-Rap-Guns-Blazing/release/175205The thing is, I loved what Shadow did with a lot of the beats - and the Ashcroft track was truly superb (although it probably took the Assassin's Creed advert to really bring it home to me how great it was) as were various others, but a lot of the contributors really didn't do anything for me or for the album itself and as the album wore on, it became evident that it was more of a "I want to work with this person" affair, rather than a "this person will work perfectly in the context of the album" scenario. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ Rock Well Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 Yeah, it was the result of what happens when you make an album that's a collaboration between a producer and an A&R. I always felt that both the Kool G Rap and Ashcroft vocals worked better over each other's beats... almost like Shadow planned it just show off in his DJ sets 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest petesasqwax Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 You're right, completely - it sounds like exactly what it is, which should come as no surprise to any of us, but, for some reason, it did and we all expected it to be far more than thatHehe - I totally wouldn't blame Shadow if he did! That reminds me - when they did the live shows they had Prime Cuts & Tony Vegas working with Lavelle at one point. There was a CD released of one of the shows and all this Psyence Fiction talk has me thinking it might be time to dig it out and give it another listen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest petesasqwax Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 http://www.discogs.com/DJ-Shadow-Live-In-Milan-Italy-September-1st-1999/release/2002220interesting tracklist on this, Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ Rock Well Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 That is interesting indeed. It's exactly how he always played those tunes in all his live sets. If it wasn't planned, I reckon he discovered it pretty early on and made sure nobody else had the parts to recreate it. I always heard of the Perverts UNKLE gigs but never made it to one. In a similar vein, is was meant to be at the In Tune On Time gig in Bristol where Thom Yorke came out unannounced to do a live PA (as mentioned in the DVD liner notes), but I was student at the time and pulled out last minute to do some other dumb shit that weekend that I can't even remember And Malcolm Catto was there that night too. All my "friends" who did go gave me a lot a of ribbing for missing that one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest petesasqwax Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 ah, man - I remember friends of mine going to the Catto gig and regaling me tales of how he played the whole set with a fag hanging from his lips. foolishly I missed so many gigs when I was younger in favour of doing some other dumb shit. other dumb shit has robbed me of priceless memories, the bastard. I'm on an immense Mo'Wax nostalgia tip right now - may well have to dust off the In Tune, On Time DVD shortly...Do you ever get any MW stuff in the shop? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ Rock Well Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 Yeah, at the Bristol one I bailed on Shadow did his full set of course, plus showed the B+ film Keep In Time followed by him doing a couple of things with Catto and as it was told to me (many times!), right at the end "some bloke" came out of the audience and without any introduction launched into a song as whispers of "eeek, it's Thom Yorke" went round the audience. Never see any Mo Wax at work I'm afraid. To me, In Tune On Time represents the pinnacle of what is possible for a producer/DJ. He went out and did unbelievable digging, made amazing music from his digging spoils then deconstructed and reconstructed them into a perfect live set. Each of those three individual elements are executed as well as anyone has ever done them (within their chosen style, etc) and where most people couldn't top his efforts in just one of those things, he excelled at all three. Before I saw that DVD I'd got a bit bored of Shadow and particularly all the hipster attention he was getting, might even be why I sidelined going to the gig ironically, but once I saw that I knew it didn't matter what everyone else was doing, his considerable skills were all that mattered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest petesasqwax Posted June 11, 2014 Share Posted June 11, 2014 I think that sums it perfectly, mate. I was massively into what Shadow was doing from the first time I heard "Entropy" and those early 4-track recordings like the "Basic Megamix" and his "Lesson 4" really brought home the notion of moving from DJing to production. Of course I'd read interviews where people talked about making pause-button mixes etc. but it was those early pre-MPC Shadow tracks that made all that made sense to me in real terms. Ironically, I wasn't as immediately into 'Endtroducing...' as everyone else I knew because it felt like he'd gone too far away from that and the Groove Robbers aesthetic that I loved. Obviously, the more I listened to it, the more I got past all that and recognised exactly what he'd done i.e. made the logical progression from beat miner to DJ to artist by taking more than just the sample sources from the records he listened to, but also a better understanding of how to produce and write songs. so many people I've known over the years have talked to me about how many great samples there are on an old psych record, but have no appreciation or understanding of the arrangements etc. I always thought that was a bit sad It goes back to that notion I've always felt about the way it worked for me - I started off wanting to find samples like my favourite producers used so I could sound more like them; these days I'm closer to wanting to sound like the artists they sampled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest broke Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 Ironically, I wasn't as immediately into 'Endtroducing...' as everyone else I knew because it felt like he'd gone too far away from that and the Groove Robbers aesthetic that I loved. That's me to this day, more or less. IMO the best parts of Endtroducing had already come out on the EP or singles (Entropy, In/Flux). Endtroducing was pretty much the end of Shadow for me, but people think I'm being some sort of elitist dickhead for saying that. I mean, I can appreciate what he did after that point, but it just wasn't for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest broke Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 Also, I saw Lavelle DJ at some basement club on Shaftesbury Ave back in 1994. Great records, but he couldn't really mix. Cool Story Bro etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest petesasqwax Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 Endtroducing was pretty much the end of Shadow for me, but people think I'm being some sort of elitist dickhead for saying that. I mean, I can appreciate what he did after that point, but it just wasn't for me. I can relate to that 100%. I may not have mentioned this before - it's a bit of a secret, in fact, and I don't speak about it often - but I'm rather a large 1200 Hobos fan & the early Shadow material really appealed to that side of me. For a while I was trying to put everyone who raved at me about Shadow onto Signify's 'Mixed Messages' mixtape. Mentally I labeled all those who didn't see and appreciate the parallels as hipster wannabes (possibly I didn't use the word hipster at that stage, but you get the point I'm sure) but I was pretty militant in my Hobo appreciation I never saw Lavelle DJ but it was a very open secret that more than just his Cream Live 2 mix was done by the Psychonauts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHouse Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 James Lavelle is dope. So is Mo' Wax. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldielocksnthethreebrares Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 Have you listened to Lavelle's records from the last 3-4 years? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest petesasqwax Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 Have you listened to Lavelle's records from the last 3-4 years?Trick question - nobody has listened to his records since shortly after MW closed 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 POP FACT: If you've got Psyence Fiction on CD, there's a hidden track on it before track 1 that you can only hear if you hold down rewind when you first start the album playing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest petesasqwax Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 <nerd> only on certain versions </nerd> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHouse Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 Have you listened to Lavelle's records from the last 3-4 years?Not since like 2004. Ha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldielocksnthethreebrares Posted June 15, 2014 Share Posted June 15, 2014 Don't do it! Its like watching Alien resurrection, you cant un-watch it and you'll just think 'shit' afterwards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
medinah_nitro Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 Broke you mean bar rumba "that's how it is" Giles Peterson and James ran it through the 90s I went near every Monday in the mid to late 90s Lavelle actually got quite decent when he started the fabric residency but before they just played records one by one. You used to get some good guests down there Kenny Dope, Josh, Numark, Stretch and Bob and a few others Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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