Grace Jones (and my exclusive re-edit)

By now you all know that commendably barmy diva/icon Grace Jones has a new album out. If you've read the reviews you'll know that it's been generally well received after a 19-year hiatus. If you've listened to it you"ll know that it's - for the most part - more of the same. Not necessarily a bad thing that, but personally I was hoping for something a little more refreshing.

Nevertheless, the rejected remix of Williams Blood (that you can get here) is rather fine, and here's Grace looking mighty impressive (she is sixty after all) on Jools Holland:



However, as usual, I'm still listening to old stuff, old Grace from young Grace, if you will. The year is 1989. Love on Top of Love is the first single from her new album Bulletproof Heart and it's very obvious that the fertile days of Slave To the Rhythm are behind her. The album will only spawn one other single, Amado Mio, and it's pretty crap. Love in Top of Love however turns out to be one the greatest Grace tracks ever - at least for me.

There are some songs that you never tire of hearing, and this one - with remixes by the genius duo Clivilles & Cole - is one of them. The Funky Dread mixes are just filthy; there's a fair bit of self-referential plundering from Slave to the Rhythm, the percussion and production are amazing, and even the semi-cheesy rap gets risqué:

Teacher teacher, jungle love creature
Whip me, rip me, flip me let me eat'cha...

Jerk me, spank me ,work me and bank me
Beat me on the run when I come, then thank me

Kinda rude for a mainstream release. Anyway, as my infatuation for the song grew and grew over the years it became very obvious that I had to try and do my own version. Melding pieces of the club and dub mixes, my Fist Fusion is over ten minutes long. What I especially like is that you can't really feel the joins, always the mark of a good re-edit. Hope you'll like it too.

Click here to download my (definitive!) version. Oh, and there's the epic and rather saucy acapella-house version here too. Now that's what I call a hurricane.

I bit my tongue

...during a meal at a friend's house, and had to carry on as normal and pretend it didn't hurt. But if fuggin' well did! Only when I got home did I see that I'd actually sliced into into with my teeth. How can you do that to yourself? Astounding...

I want PINBALL!

When I first arrived in Paris, jobless, clueless and - for all intents and purposes - mute, I spent a fair amount of time in amusement arcades playing Raiden or pinball, pretending that a new life was going to happen to me without me really seeking it out. With the advent of home game consoles, business became tough for the arcades, and the places I used to frequent have now become:

- A musical instrument megashop
- A pasta restaurant
- Starbucks, etc.

Next, all the pinball manufacturers went bust. Only Stern has seen a gap in the market and started things back up again. Such is progress.

Anyway, once I got established in Paris, I bought a few pinball simulators for the Playstation, and although they weren't all bad, they weren't particularly good either. It just wasn't the same. Then in 2006 came a game for the PS2 called Gottlieb Pinball Classics, which recreated some actual pinball tables from the past for the digital generation. At last I could play some of the old favourites I'd known!

The only problem was that there weren't many of my old favourites in there.

Since then, I've been waiting for the release of Pinball Hall of Fame : The Williams Collection, which does have some of my old faves, like Funhouse, Whirlwind and Black Knight (a real classic). Unfortunately, although the game was released in the US inFebruary 2008, it still hasn't come out in Europe. So not only can I not play my favourite pinballs in the real world, I can't play themin the virtual world either. Bah!

I suppose that in the meantime I'll just have to drool over this gamplay video. Hmpff!

How much Mariah Carey can you take?

My answer these days is 'not very much', or simply 'none at all', but back in the days she had quite a few belters that she, er, belted out, and thank the Lord (of garage and house) for the music blogs that have reminded me.

One of them is Finest Def Mix, with Goff from Thailand (of all places) posting classic remixes from Frankie Knuckles, David Morales and Satoshi Tomiie. Some real gems on there, and quite a few rarities.

Another is Nineties Club CD Maxi Singles (the title couldn't really get more explicit than that), with some cracking stuff.

And then there's Remixes Galores which mostly posts fluffy new club stuff and has an unhealthy Kylie Minouge fixation. However, they were the ones to remind me of the splendour of Fantasy by Mariah Carey as remixed by David Morales. I had it on vinyl back in the day, but hadn't listened to it for quite a while. Hearing it again was - I have to say - a revelation.

Of course, finding two excellent mixes of the same song spurred me into action. Adding a third mix from here (basically, type the name of any piece of music into Google Blogsearch and you're likely to find it immediately) I put the drum track, tribal club mix and garage mix together to make one 20-minute extravaganza! With two slow-it-down-speed-it-up-again bits like they used to do in the old days!

I'm rather proud of it, and despite the fact that I find her recent material complete drivel, it brings back memories of better (musical) days. You know, when Mariah was Photoshopped thin.

Download my sweet sweet version here and see what you think.