Dance, dance, dance to the radio

You can find an archive of the On the Wire show where Steve Barker played Grievous Angel’s re-rub of Niney the Observer’s Blood and Fire here.

It’s very low res and so the quality isn’t all that but it’s OK — it’s the last of the jungle tracks (The Bug, Kid 606, Congo Natty… great company), at the front of the show, before tunes by Ijahman Levi and Tubby. Steve introduces the tracks at around the 36minute mark.

As you can imagine, my first play on the radio is a very proud moment for me :).

Shards, Fragments and Totems Charts

With all the talk about charts recently, here’s one you can trust: the July download charts for Grievous Angel!

1 Grievous Angel Vs Method: Man So High 262
2 John’s first reggae mix 177
3 The First Taste of Hope Is Fear: 153
Ambient Industrial 1980-1987
4 BreakBeat Mix May 2004 96
5 Grievous Angel Vs Niney: Blood & Fire 67
6 Grievous Angel Vs Primal Scream: 43
Come Together
7 Big Room Breakbeat 41
8 Grievous Angel Vs Tippa Irie 38
& Daddy Colonel: Tippa & Colonel Again
9 Grievous Angel & Buju Banton: Bad Man Dub 37
10 Abstract 2 Step Mix. 30

I’m not surprised Method Man comes out top: he seems to be one of the most-searched-for artists out there. I presume there’ll be a lot of hiphop heads getting confused by this strange broken garage stuff coming out of the speakers. Naturally I’m both pleased and irritated that so many people have discovered the beauty of John’s DJing via this site, in preference to my mixes! It’s curious that so many people are interested in industrialism — clearly this has been bubbling under, but is this meme about to collapse? I’m not surprised that twice as many people got the first breakbeat mix rather than the second (big room breakbeat); the second was probably more danceable, but the first had more of a reggae influence. In particular, a Renegade Soundwave track. Naturally, the Wire review means the Blood and Fire cut is the second most popular Grievous Angel track, but I’m particularly pleased that the Tippa Irie dancehall / hiphop track is also popular — I’d love a bit more feedback about that, I think it’s probably the best thing I’ve done. This track and the UK digidub-styled “Bad Man Dub” with Buju Banton are topping the list so far for August. And it’s great to see so many people still interested in old skool UKG — heep the faith!

Bubbling under are Grievous Angel cut ups of old reggae tunes (the source material was mostly culled from John Eden mix CDs, spotters — incestuous, moi?). I hope all ten of you will stand by for the new mix of Scotty’s Watch this Sound, which is a bit sharper and now has a serious bassline.

Great to be back after blowing my bandwidth quota in the last couple of days of July — never thought that would happen! Now, when do the Dog Days finish again? I expect everything will quieten down then…