“It seems that deep house has become the new minimal, I saw it coming a while back and some people say that it never really went away, but truthfully, more and more people are playing deep house, not your Miguel Migs type of deep house but more like the raw house sound that came out of Chicago and the West Coast back in the early to mid 90’s. Its more refined, the production is slicker but the elements are the same. Check out Luna City Express’ Ibiza Voice Podcast, Ralph Lawson or any of the guys on Cadenza and you will be pretty close on what’s happening on the underground house scene. The Eclectricity B-Live event was held a couple of weeks back at the Custard Factory in Birmingham and oh boy, it was ridiculously busy. Hence the name Eclectricity! This genre busting night consisted of Annie Mac, Simian Mobile Disco, DJ Hype, Chase and Status, Does it Offend You,Yeah , the Scratch Perverts, Terry Francis to name but a few of the acts that were on. They spanned across six rooms and arenas, two of which were outside marquees. It kind of proves to me that the dance scene is still thriving as most of the attendees were under the age of 21 – all getting into drum n’ bass, techno and electro – some for the first time. I have been scouring the pages of Ebay until the wee hours this week – I bought myself a mixing desk for my studio so the drum machine could run through it and have noticed I have a couple of spare channels, so being the hawk eyed geek that I am, have been looking for vintage synths. There’s old Casio’s, Moog’s, Juno’s, even an old Jupiter in mint condition on there. The bids have been made, which admittedly has been a bit silly of me and now I am hoping to be out bid on a few of them as the bank balance wont stretch to all of them. Last weekend I trekked up to Cleethorpes to play for local underground house and techno night ‘Glitch’. Having gone strong for over two years, the Glitch lads Arron Whall and Carl Hardy have been educating the locals with their cheeky after hour’s parties. Recent guests have included Jamie Jones and Mistress de Funk. It’s wicked to see this sleepy seaside town hosting a night that is so forward thinking and with the venue situated on the pier, tumbling out at 8am you could be mistaken to be in a foreign country! Another of my recent obsessions is All Saints clothing. Their new autumn/winter range is awesome, little cowgirl boots, leather jackets, punky tee’s – I’m in heaven! I bought some boots which my boyfriend commented that I was now looking more like a rocker than a DJ and would soon to be biting a head off a bat during my sets! With all the excitement of the last few weeks and my half term week being preoccupied with family commitments and tune making, I have had little time left to rummage through my old house records.must dash…I have a bandwagon to catch….!”
