Thursday, July 02, 2009

7" EXPLOSION - PT 10



This is the first NEW YORK HOUSE record I ever bought - and completely by mistake. I actually thought it was gonna be London Posse-style UK hip hop! 'Todd Terry' meant nothing to me back then. I know bloggers are meant to be all-knowing paragons of...fucking hell, is it hot this week, or what? Sorry, anyway...this is Yeah Buddy b/w The Chase by Royal House. On the rare occasions that comrades brave it round my pad and start flicking round my 7"s, sniggering, Can you still actually play these? this is the one they always seem to ask about.

I try to dissuade them from asking for a listen. This is cos I've got neighbours and I have to explain that, just as a Gurkha has to cut his thumb when he unsheaths his ceremonial knife (the blade MUST taste blood! Check their hands if you don't believe me), so I can't actually slip the vinyl out of its cover without spinning the block rockin' beats of The Chase at full whack.



I still don't know much about Todd Terry, except he was clearly swigging on the genius juice the night he cooked this up. I don't fully understand why a Noo Yoiker'd put a blocky graphic of a UK cop tearing after a raggamuffin on the cover, but this is such a great party 45 it does make me wonder why I still haven't been to NYC at the age of 33. It's probably all sterilised, gentrified crap now, but I've always wanted to test whether the 'American birds all go for an English accent' theory applies to gutter estuary.

This also sort of reminds me of how much fun it was taking Es, without dour Goa casualties blabbering on about Temporary Autonomous Zones, or how you shouldn't mix the chemical of universal love with Joy Division, Sigue Sigue Sputnik and Big Black (I highly recommend all three if you're on one!) - I mean, they used to give MDMA to freaked out GIs for fuck's sake, just so they wouldn't end up beating Bangkok bargirls to death during their Singha-drenched R&R breaks...

So much nonsense has been scribbled about E, it beggars belief. Like, apparently you can't have sex on it. I don't know of ANYONE who actually reported this complaint - but that didn't stop some work-shy, academic hippie from starting the rumour. Also, the myth you're somehow attaining a higher state of consciousness by necking a superdove - give over! The people who spouted this at me were normally churning out endless Word Docs of 'E fiction' - probably the most WANK literary movement of all time. Thankfully, few of these manuscripts have survived, but I read one friend of a friend's attempt once and it was so awful, we'd sneak bits down the pub and sit around laughing, quoting excerpts at each other. Happy planet...ecstatic planet...happy fucking planet! was one particular clanger. And the chapters all starting with lines from 'The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe'! Jesus cry me a river...

Look, maybe I missed the bit when Chinnamasta descends and plunges your brain stalks into a Mayan fractal hotpot, but as I remember it, a good time on E was about heading down to Dixy Chicken in Spiderman masks and soundly declaring war on the establishment, ranting about how Colonel Sanders had possessed us and sent us to warn them off his manor, before being chased away by the Algerian staff; walking up the M1 (believing it to be a short cut to Neasden); and deciding that we were going to form the first band ever to perform solely to animals (exclusive gigs in London Zoo, dolphin marinas, dogs' homes, amphitheatres packed with apes, etc). We never really got that one off the blocks...but someone did actually tape me and my friend Nick once (through the wall) sitting up all night in Camberwell, me on guitar and him screaming like that Geordie in AC/DC, with a chorus of dogs barking from the estate opposite. So we got semi-close to it. I have no idea if the tape still exists, but God...if you thought Schoenberg had 'atonal' sewn up...

A pox on this heat! Oh shit, I haven't mentioned psychogeography for about 17 posts...I don't know why, but the further North you went in England, the Es were always more fun to do. Doing them in London was never QUITE as mind-blowing, to be honest. Sheffield and Leeds were top locations, though. I have no idea why this was so. Actually, it's probably cos there were fewer crusties wandering around in fleeces and sandals, banging on about how they'd just discovered their cerebellums were spaceships and that there'd be no war if everyone got luv dup - and more kids just out to have an aggro-free laugh. Gimme this Royal House 7" and some tough Yorkshire valkyrie hairdressers, rubbing glitter gel over their bodies in a bubble-tsunami, over that pseudo-spiritual hocus pocus, any day...





But, as notorious street-level cultural historian Popstar McFabulous surmised: "Brian Harvey getting nicked for driving on E was our generation's Altamont". Apparently, we've all upped our odds of developing crippling psychiatric problems in later life - but I don't care, I'm probably gonna get Alzheimer's anyway (thanks, my family)! The only other Todd Terry-related thing I own is Black Riot's A Day In the Life b/w Warlock 7" - another slice of house magic, though I do prefer the Royal House platter - just...
Comments:
This is the only one of your 7 inch roundups that I possess, but then I do have that reality control record, so I win.
 
I'm holding back the really obscure commie punk 7"s til the end, so don't count your (battery farm-oppressed) chickens...
 
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