If I were ten years younger...

...and the music was like it was back in 1993, I'd be there in a flash!

Plus, there's free Red Bull and vodka until 1am. I predict a scrum early at the bar, and lots of drugged-up snogging towards the end....

What do Britney Spears and Mercury Rev have in common?

It's been tough blogging recently. I'm supervising the renovation of an apartment (supervising, as in 'not doing any of the actual physical work') and have got quite a bit of proper paid work on too, which is good, but leaves less time for the more pleasurable things in life.

And it's been an age since there been any decent music on the blog too. Time to remedy that.

I've been a fan of James Holden ever since his extraordinary and brilliant mix compilation At The Controls (available here for the ridiculous price of £4.29). His label Border Community 'blurs the boundary between the bedroom and the dancefloor', and frankly I've seen quite few people do things on the dancefloor that would be best confined to the bedroom. But anyway...

I recently came across some unreleased remixes that he did for Britney Spears. The track Breathe On Me was not released as a single and James' remixes never got released... until he put high-quality mp3s on his site for a while. There was a mix and a dub, and of course I couldn't resiste tinkering with them, so Britney got the Fist treatment: I put a bit of the dub before the main mix, the whole thing now clocks in at 12'39" and Lord I love it to bits. Download my version here.

Mr. Holden doesn't actually do many remixes, but it seems his next one is for Mercury Rev. Their next spacey album is due out 29th September, and the track Senses On Fire has been remixed both by Holden and Fujiya & Myagi (who?). The mixes are only being streamed on the official site for the moment, but you can here a pretty good quality rip here.

Holden's mix is nearly ten minutes long, and pulses along quite nicely, although I challenge anyone to actually dance to it. By the way the lyrics to the original are "Senses are on fire (repeated 8 times), My senses are on fire (x2), Ready or not here I come, Senses are on fire (repeated 8 times)." What are they on?

Download the Britney Fist Fusion here, and Mercury Rev here.

Isn't this the best album cover EVER?

Came across it on a blog yesterday (forgotten where). I have never listened to Rick James. But I will now. And I mean NOW!

The joys of living in Paris

I love my flat and I love the area of Paris I live in, but for years our building has been neglected, as the people that owned the apartments let them out rather than live there. We've had three water leaks already (two from upstairs, 1one from the façade that created a waterfall through our bathroom ceiling), for a long time we had cockroaches (all gone now), but regularly there's some new problem, something not terribly lovely.

Last week we came back from dinner, and walking up our stairs came face to face with... a rat! Now I've seen a few rats around Paris, mainly squashed in the street, but I never thought I'd see one in my building. He didn't seem particularly bothered by us, didn't run, and actually looked rather cute.

Photo by Amy's Babies

But when he did finally move, rather than go into the street (I'd opened the doors) he scuttled into the interior courtyard. It would seem that he managed to get up through an old water fontain there.

I 'phoned the people who look after our building, and they sent someone round to put poison down there, saying that if a rat came back a few months later we would have to cement the thing up, putting broken glass in the mix to stop the buggers scratching away at it. I thought it could probably wait, but three days later there were rat droppings outside our door, so I think we'll be doing that sooner rather than later.