It was an inauspicious start. It was a Saturday morning at a hall somewhere in the town I grew up in that was usually used by the St Johns Ambulance. But, it was a disco, and I had been invited to spin the famous wheels of steel. Well, when I say invited – the residents at the annual girl guide group disco were (due purely to financial reasons) my mother, and her friend who ran the girl guide group with her. And the invite was they had run out of orange and crisps/biscuits, and both needed to go to the shop. I was forced into it, something I had literally no experience of.
I started off with a couple of tunes that had been lined up. I pretended to use the headphones, but in reality I couldn’t hear a thing, and so there were long extended periods of silence, and my first choice, Hazell O’Connor (I was picking at random) didn’t go down with the 11-14 year old saturday morning crowd. However, I happened upon Dexy’s Midnight Runners classic, Come on Eileen, and the dancefloor went….well, slightly more enthusiastic, and ABC’s The look of love, had the massed throngs, making an almost enthusiastic effort of working off some of the crisps they had clearly been previously over-indulging on. Flushed with this success, I played the two records, with (as I recall) a song by the Cure and Kids in America by Kim Wilde until my mother returned. As we speak, I’m still waiting for my second booking as a DJ.
Someone who made it past that initial booking is french DJ/musician Alan Braxe. Best known for his funky house remixes and collaborations with Fred Falke and Kris Menace, he’s one of the go-to men for remixes, having created some magic for Goldfrapp, Justice and Kylie Minogue, amongst others. He’s in London (a rarity these days sadly) on Friday to DJ at XOYO alongside Alex Metric and Du Tonc in the country to DJ for the first time). Also on the bill will be Hot Boy Dancing Spot. You can grab tickets over at www.xoyo.com.
Recently out is Alan Braxe’s new EP, moments in time, out on Scion AV. It features the Spimes (french duo Madjik’d and vocalist Romauld) on a couple of tracks and it see’s Braxe step away from the dancefloor, not much but just a little, making this feathery-light (but very funky) Synth-pop based stuff. A particular high point for us is the laid back summery feel of Voices, one of the tracks that see’s Braxe step out on his own, and there’s a raft of remixes provided on the ep as well including DJ Falcon, Memory Tapes and Mr. Gonzo reworks. You can get a free download of the EP here
I’ve dug out my Kim Wilde, Hazel O’Connor, Dexys and ABC if he needs me at short notice.
www.facebook.com/alanbraxeofficial/info
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