A Very Dull Post About A Very Awesome Event

When Herbert and I first came up with the concept for Mixatron 8000 it seemed like such a productive idea. The plan was to spend an entire weekend playing records, digging on the allotment, writing the genesis of a radio show demo and generally getting sh*t done. But we both knew deep down that it would end up like this...


So we didn't even say the word "radio" and it rained all weekend so we couldn't get to the allotment. What did we do? We played records, that's what. And we recorded the entire thing. Seriously, we have like about 12 hours of audio, solid mixing. Well, H did some mixing, I just played records because I'm a chump. Whatever. Actually, the audio that we havve will become radio shows in the end so I guess we did have a productive weekend. It just may not look it. Heh.
So I present, in no particular order and with enormous apologies to any members of my family that might be reading this who may have thought that I'd grown up and learned to control myself a bit, the first little sprinklings of honkstival in a photo-story style (like Look-In and that) .....

Mixatron 8000


Some records. This is on the Friday night when we were young and fresh-faced, all optimistic about the future, sure of our good work, purpose and effect. It went downhill pretty quick from here.

Herb kicked off the proceedings with a blinding selection of dirty, raucous funk that was SO GOOD that I daren't step in for fear of interrupting his mad flow. So I sat on the sidelines offering such choice jems of encouragement as "I'd play that" and "That's well good that is" and almost incessantly "Who the f*ck is this!!!!!?????". I'm sure I provided other forms of input but to be honest it became a blur pretty quick on.

Here's a shot of more records and stuff. We were recording the entire thing into some computer brainengine that's been designed using science and magic and stuff so we have a complete record of the proceedings. I dread to listen back to it to be honest. H played such a blinder of an opening 90 minutes that I couldn't even remember what records were.
Whatever.

Anyway, as you can see, there's a few records about.
Lovely eh?

There's the boy himself spinning the platters that matter. Seriously, it was an awesome demonstration of funk styles. He really hit the zone and just mashed out blaster after blaster. I was more than happy to sit on the sidelines and listen to the music. Also, I'd have only messed it up by playing Full Force or The Coconuts or something.

Here's me before I've even looked at a record let alone tried to follow the master. Yeah, it got worse. Hmmm, you know where things are heading when you take 62 photographs of your beard. And think they're all brilliant.
Fortunately for me Herb turned the funk masterclass into an electro hip-hop beast before offering me the spot. That was a bit closer to where I wanted to be so I grabbed that one.
And no, the photos don't get any better. In fact we only looked at the camera on the Friday night. Because really, we're not going to look any better than we do at this point. I know, it's depressing right?

So there I am trying desperately to remember how record decks work, what records are, how to mix, what a mixer is and where I am. I tried to play a selection of electronic musics that are designed to make you appreciate olives and coffee tables and Farrow & Ball paint all the more.

I'm not sure what this picture is about. It's either the exact moment that Herbert turned into a string of tiny red lights or I caught the record deck's tracer lights (or whatever the hell they're called). Once, twice, trice - whatever.

Herbert had started pumping out some banging house and 2-step by this point. And we all love a bit of that. Come on, admit it you terrible schlubs!!






And here he is.









So on Saturday we had a big, fat fry-up, a couple of beers in the pub and got cracking again. I played a nifty little drum & bass set, Herb played some cracking funky house, I played some abstract hip-hop and H played some dub heavy beats. This does no justice at all to the scope of musical genres that we covered. Everything came out, 60s psych-rock, acid-techno, live jazzbient pretentiobeat, African soul-step, movie schmoovies, everything. And at 4:45am on Sunday we finally switched the decks off knowing that we had a beautiful haul of material to edit into honkjazz radio shows, honkjazz mixes and three hour long honkjazz ringtones.
Just you wait.

So it's goodnight from me...
















And it's goodnight from him.