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Paolo Mojo | Mojo, Mofo
Dead Babies
About once a month since June, in between their furtive and futile requests for sexual favours, (an occupational hazard of the jobbing RA columnist) Nick and Paul @ RA have been asking me 'where the hell my new column is'. And to my shame, I can never provide them with a satisfactory response.
It's not like I can't be bothered 1. At least that's what I tell them. I've attempted three new columns since September and given up on all of them. I was dolefully recounting this to Nick the other night over a 'tinny' or two2 when he suddenly said “Listen. Why don't you just do a review of 2005 if you can't think of anything else to write about?”
I'm sure he mentally tacked on “you stupid scouse twat” to that little suggestion but he was of course, absolutely spot on. I was quite alarmed at how such an obvious suggestion had escaped me. Well, it's the end of the year so why not. My new column is a review of 2005 from my own point of view. Because I don't have anyone else's to offer. And even my own is a bit precarious at times. So bear with me.
We left our hero (that'll be me then) back in March ... That strange month that can't decide if it wants to be winter or spring. And that's where I'll very roughly pick things up from. However, rather than go through month by month with a run down of what gig I played where and how the crowd were (my RA pal Hernan3 has this down to a fine art) I've decided to shake a few apple trees, cherry pick a few themes and unpeel some musical bananas that I consider worth munching on. Pass the pips, pulp the awful fruit metaphors and let's go.
By the way. I can't be arsed plugging CDS, mixes, gigs, my tunes or anything else here, so if you're looking for that kind of stuff go to www.paolomojo.com. Where it probably won't be updated anyway.
I spent a fair amount of time with Sasha this year, particularly in the late spring and summer. These days, the man like visits Europe mainly in the summertime between May and September. Rather like the giant leatherback turtle in fact. Fortunately for Sash, he's not (yet) a critically endangered species. However, much like the tropical marine reptile, any sightings over here tend to generate lots of excitement. So I happily tagged along for the ride.
From March to about August we were playing together fairly regularly; at least a couple of times a month. Most of the time obviously, I'd be doing the warm up for him although as time went on and he realised who this strange bloke was who always seemed to be on the decks when he arrived; we started doing more back to back stuff here and there.
I got to play some amazing places and gigs with him, including two visits to Athens, Fabric in London, the Radio One Essential Mix at Maida Vale, The Glade Festival in leafy England somewhere, Spain, Paris, Belgium, Scotland, Ibiza and a whole series of dates across North America.
This involved a fairly intense period in June supporting him on his North American tour to launch the Fundacion CD, as well as popping off in the middle for a few gigs in my own right. North America as a whole is an area I love to be in and play. It's such a fascinating place; as it's so close to the UK in many ways but so different in others. I've been promoting myself like a cheap hooker all year there, visiting three or four times to either play warm up for Sasha or gig in my own right.
Ahh America. I may miss the summertime thwack of leather on willow, lazy bumblebees droning around hazy rose gardens near sleepy churchyards4 but what America lacks in dry wit and warm beer it more than makes up for in enthusiasm and ice cubes. You just can't get away from the stuff; in fact the endless ice cubes are dispensed with such relentless enthusiasm it's almost too much.
Added to this the need for permanent shades due to being dazzled by the ultra brite smiles that are standard issue everywhere you go, I had moments where I wanted to start shouting “CANT! CAAANT! CAAAAANT!” eye popping vein bulging, Ray Winstone style just to inject a bit of old fashioned English anger in the proceedings. But I never did. I just smiled with my inferior English teeth and said thankyou.
Another good aspect of America from an Englishman's point of view is the rumour that if you talk with a British accent this automatically makes you more interesting to women. It's good because I'm pleased to report it's true. Well, at least if you're partial to girls who work in Pizza Hut. My greatest peak was scaled in this fine dining establishment's Commonwealth Avenue branch in Boston, picking up a takeaway.
The girl dishing out my heart attack in a heat retaining cardboard box said, “Oh you're British” (well done) Hey do you want to take my number? Are you in town for a while? Oh you're DJing here? Reaaaaaallly? I just like listening to your voice! You sound so sexy!”
Hmmm. Yeah, whatever love. Sex appeal resolutely ended with my voice. The poor girl was clearly blind; ignoring the steaming cold I had picked up, the Fundacion perma-bags under my eyes, the sloping DJ shoulders and the general air of malaise I had been carrying about since Philadelphia two weeks previously. It's amazing what a rounded vowel or two can do.5
America always throws up a few situations that are deliciously ridiculous. Take for example the end of my most recent set of gigs there in October. Picture the scene; I'm stood in the middle of a darkened rock clearing at the end of a long Halloween night (although it's now 5am on Tuesday morning) near Waikiki in Hawaii with a group of newly acquired friends. No one says a word; the only break in the silence is the rolling waves crashing against the rocky beach below and rather more disturbingly, the faint yet distinct sound of spectral babies wailing in the windy night.
Jessica, or Sejika as she prefers to call herself is my lovely chaperone and instigator of this trip. She had decided I had to hear them for myself. Apparently, the site where we are standing is an ancient Hawaiian ritual burial ground, its macabre nature compounded by the fact that it was also used as an early 20th century abortion clinic. And there's no doubt about it - we can all hear the ghastly, ghostly wains howling at the moon.
Not quite how I imagined my latest tour of America would end up. And of course, they weren't dead babies at all… just a nesting site for a local species of bird (Jessica told me their name but I can't remember it). They are protected by law as they are very very very rare. Really fucking scarce. Ducks dentures. Thin on the ground matey. The 'babies' are simply the younguns squawking away in their nests, complaining about the food, or whatever.
Earlier that evening and about 10 miles down the road in Waikiki we'd had a great party at the Living Room. This was the last stop on an 8 date October tour of the States, arranged by the super enthusiastic Ramyt, who is fast developing a reputation for putting Honolulu on the map as a stop off for touring DJs (albeit one that's off the beaten track).
Hawaii may be the 50th state, but physically it's almost as near to Japan as it is to mainland America. Its over 5 hours out to sea by plane from Los Angeles and its remoteness is part of the attraction - and also part of the charm of the clubbing scene here… there's a fresh enthusiasm that is really rather infectious. However being remote (and highly contagious) doesn't mean they don't know their musical chops. Jessica and her friend Tara were quick to reel off a list of Djs, tracks, mixes and labels they were rating along with a fairly comprehensive dissection of what I'd been up to this year. All this while wearing grass skirts and peacock feathers, which by happy coincidence is my own preferred dress code when discussing my creative output.
And the party itself? I managed to blow the sound system once (hurray) but otherwise it was a rocking end to a great tour. My only regret is my fairly insane schedule for the rest of the year dictated I could spend no more than 1 and half days here… I was so tired come 6am and my beach head encounter with the dead babies – I got to my hotel and slept solidly for the next 12 hours… before you know it you're back in the airport again.
That's pretty much how it goes for most gigs. Being British, I moan about these things. If you click somewhere to your left6 and access the much more regular column of Hernan's (I'm told he's so regular you can set your watch by his bathroom habits) you'll see him blithely list about ten different cities / time zones / 20,000 capacity clubs he's played every month without a second thought. I'm not as hardened as the South American rock idol to all this business. Besides as a race we like to have a grumble.
What else….Fandango. Fandango is the identity that Nic Fanciulli dreamed up for his parties at Turnmills two years ago and while that party sadly comes to a close in January, its also become known for the sets we play together. Nic, a very good friend despite his long standing personal hygiene issues continues to invite me down to play there and we always end up doing it back to back. Rather like a Greek tragedy, this summer had a 3 act Fandango play; beginning and ending with two fantastic parties at Turnmills, with the darker bleak, second act being set in Ibiza for the Radio One Weekend. I say bleak, the weekend was great but unfortunately we were sidelined to the old Space terrace which meant we didn't really play to too many people with first Pete Tong then Laurent Garnier playing the main terrace while we did. We still had a lot of fun, playing all our secret hard house records we play at home while we had the chance, as no one was listening. We recorded both the London parties from May and September and the recordings got a lot of interest from interweb people, house music fans, message board geeks, the MCPS and er, the copyright protection society of America7.
Brushing all this aside we took the back to back shows to Italy, Ibiza (as mentioned), Lush in Northern Ireland and Stealth in Nottingham. The last ever Fandango in its old home of Turnmills back room will be held on January 6th 2006. It's a free party all night so come along and shake a leg as Nic and I will play back to back for the last six hours. The self styled angriest man in dance music; Nick Sneddon will be playing the first set as well, which should exponentially increase the female contingent. The knickers just fly off when Sneds is in the house.
Life in the Mojo studio this year was dominated by my left foot back in July. I'm not talking about a spastic Daniel Day Lewis (although I can if you want me to) no: I refer to my own plate of meat. I expertly used it, while gabbing away on the instant messenger to Lee Burridge (and thus not paying any attention) to hook my external hard drive off a desk. It clattered just a foot or so to the carpeted floor and on initial inspection nothing seemed to be wrong. But it made a very funny noise when plugged in again.
It turned out I'd done about as much damage to a disk drive as you can do and of course, I hadn't backed up a thing. For three months my drive sat dolefully in the disk drive hospital with me calling like an anxious mother every few days to see if there was any progress. Eventually at the very end of September the disk doctors proudly announced they could now fix the drive thanks to a “revolutionary breakthrough” in their procedures. Excited at the thought of my samples, rex files, logic songs, dj sets, tracks and porn8 being returned to me, I agreed. I soon found out the 'revolutionary breakthrough' was clearly in the copius amounts of piss they were able to take, as the invoice revealed a whacking £800 repair bill. Ashen faced, I re-mortgaged my father's house, sold my mother's jewellery and grudgingly paid the bill. To their credit the drive arrived promptly, although not without the magnum of champagne and free whores that kind of price tag should have justified.
I learned my lesson though. I'm currently writing this surrounded by more external hard drives than soft Mick.9 They are actually supposed to be backing each other up but in true to form fashion I've started storing bits and pieces on all of them, no doubt cooking up a recipe for disaster in the future when one goes down. *sigh*
Finally this month I need to give credit to the awesome Dan Deacon and his exploits on NBC. Rather like a car crash, you can't tear your eyes away from this even though you know you shouldn't be looking. I don't really need to add any more to that other than to say you can check it out for yourself here.
Equal praise goes to Michael @ Distrakted Entertainment in Orlando for bringing this to my attention. I had the pleasure of playing Michael's party back in October too. Top bombing fella.
Oh, I can't be arsed anymore, I've used all my drivel up for the moment. I'm sorry for keeping you so long. If I can get it together, I'll post my top twenty of 2005 before the year is over on here. In the meantime in all seriousness… I wish you a very merry Christmas and a peaceful and happy New Year.
Salute.
Paolo
Footnotes:
1 Absolutely fucking massive whopper of a lie. Huge.
2 More fallacy. I only communicate with Nick on the Internet. In fact I don't even know what he looks like.
3 That will be a hat trick of fibs then. I've never met Hernan. I have however, met his hairdo in several nightclubs around the world.
4 This doesn't really happen in England either you know. Only in Inspector Morse. But it's amazing how many Americans you can persuade that it in fact, does.
5 There's no James Bond style ending to this story unfortunately. I mumbled some excuse and wandered off to scoff my pizza in the hotel before flicking through the porn channel. Must work on that.
6 You see what I did there? Not just a pretty face you know.
7 Paolo is only kidding here. (RA Legal Department)
8 This is absolutely true. There was a mound of hardcore grot on the drive as well as the music… that the doctors turned a discreet blind eye to. Or so I presume. Who says the studio can't be fun?
9 Legendary northern English reference. As in 'you've had more of something than Soft Mick'. Who he is or was, is unclear.
Dead Babies
About once a month since June, in between their furtive and futile requests for sexual favours, (an occupational hazard of the jobbing RA columnist) Nick and Paul @ RA have been asking me 'where the hell my new column is'. And to my shame, I can never provide them with a satisfactory response.
It's not like I can't be bothered 1. At least that's what I tell them. I've attempted three new columns since September and given up on all of them. I was dolefully recounting this to Nick the other night over a 'tinny' or two2 when he suddenly said “Listen. Why don't you just do a review of 2005 if you can't think of anything else to write about?”
I'm sure he mentally tacked on “you stupid scouse twat” to that little suggestion but he was of course, absolutely spot on. I was quite alarmed at how such an obvious suggestion had escaped me. Well, it's the end of the year so why not. My new column is a review of 2005 from my own point of view. Because I don't have anyone else's to offer. And even my own is a bit precarious at times. So bear with me.
We left our hero (that'll be me then) back in March ... That strange month that can't decide if it wants to be winter or spring. And that's where I'll very roughly pick things up from. However, rather than go through month by month with a run down of what gig I played where and how the crowd were (my RA pal Hernan3 has this down to a fine art) I've decided to shake a few apple trees, cherry pick a few themes and unpeel some musical bananas that I consider worth munching on. Pass the pips, pulp the awful fruit metaphors and let's go.
By the way. I can't be arsed plugging CDS, mixes, gigs, my tunes or anything else here, so if you're looking for that kind of stuff go to www.paolomojo.com. Where it probably won't be updated anyway.
I spent a fair amount of time with Sasha this year, particularly in the late spring and summer. These days, the man like visits Europe mainly in the summertime between May and September. Rather like the giant leatherback turtle in fact. Fortunately for Sash, he's not (yet) a critically endangered species. However, much like the tropical marine reptile, any sightings over here tend to generate lots of excitement. So I happily tagged along for the ride.
From March to about August we were playing together fairly regularly; at least a couple of times a month. Most of the time obviously, I'd be doing the warm up for him although as time went on and he realised who this strange bloke was who always seemed to be on the decks when he arrived; we started doing more back to back stuff here and there.
I got to play some amazing places and gigs with him, including two visits to Athens, Fabric in London, the Radio One Essential Mix at Maida Vale, The Glade Festival in leafy England somewhere, Spain, Paris, Belgium, Scotland, Ibiza and a whole series of dates across North America.
This involved a fairly intense period in June supporting him on his North American tour to launch the Fundacion CD, as well as popping off in the middle for a few gigs in my own right. North America as a whole is an area I love to be in and play. It's such a fascinating place; as it's so close to the UK in many ways but so different in others. I've been promoting myself like a cheap hooker all year there, visiting three or four times to either play warm up for Sasha or gig in my own right.
Ahh America. I may miss the summertime thwack of leather on willow, lazy bumblebees droning around hazy rose gardens near sleepy churchyards4 but what America lacks in dry wit and warm beer it more than makes up for in enthusiasm and ice cubes. You just can't get away from the stuff; in fact the endless ice cubes are dispensed with such relentless enthusiasm it's almost too much.
Added to this the need for permanent shades due to being dazzled by the ultra brite smiles that are standard issue everywhere you go, I had moments where I wanted to start shouting “CANT! CAAANT! CAAAAANT!” eye popping vein bulging, Ray Winstone style just to inject a bit of old fashioned English anger in the proceedings. But I never did. I just smiled with my inferior English teeth and said thankyou.
Another good aspect of America from an Englishman's point of view is the rumour that if you talk with a British accent this automatically makes you more interesting to women. It's good because I'm pleased to report it's true. Well, at least if you're partial to girls who work in Pizza Hut. My greatest peak was scaled in this fine dining establishment's Commonwealth Avenue branch in Boston, picking up a takeaway.
The girl dishing out my heart attack in a heat retaining cardboard box said, “Oh you're British” (well done) Hey do you want to take my number? Are you in town for a while? Oh you're DJing here? Reaaaaaallly? I just like listening to your voice! You sound so sexy!”
Hmmm. Yeah, whatever love. Sex appeal resolutely ended with my voice. The poor girl was clearly blind; ignoring the steaming cold I had picked up, the Fundacion perma-bags under my eyes, the sloping DJ shoulders and the general air of malaise I had been carrying about since Philadelphia two weeks previously. It's amazing what a rounded vowel or two can do.5
America always throws up a few situations that are deliciously ridiculous. Take for example the end of my most recent set of gigs there in October. Picture the scene; I'm stood in the middle of a darkened rock clearing at the end of a long Halloween night (although it's now 5am on Tuesday morning) near Waikiki in Hawaii with a group of newly acquired friends. No one says a word; the only break in the silence is the rolling waves crashing against the rocky beach below and rather more disturbingly, the faint yet distinct sound of spectral babies wailing in the windy night.
Jessica, or Sejika as she prefers to call herself is my lovely chaperone and instigator of this trip. She had decided I had to hear them for myself. Apparently, the site where we are standing is an ancient Hawaiian ritual burial ground, its macabre nature compounded by the fact that it was also used as an early 20th century abortion clinic. And there's no doubt about it - we can all hear the ghastly, ghostly wains howling at the moon.
Not quite how I imagined my latest tour of America would end up. And of course, they weren't dead babies at all… just a nesting site for a local species of bird (Jessica told me their name but I can't remember it). They are protected by law as they are very very very rare. Really fucking scarce. Ducks dentures. Thin on the ground matey. The 'babies' are simply the younguns squawking away in their nests, complaining about the food, or whatever.
Earlier that evening and about 10 miles down the road in Waikiki we'd had a great party at the Living Room. This was the last stop on an 8 date October tour of the States, arranged by the super enthusiastic Ramyt, who is fast developing a reputation for putting Honolulu on the map as a stop off for touring DJs (albeit one that's off the beaten track).
Hawaii may be the 50th state, but physically it's almost as near to Japan as it is to mainland America. Its over 5 hours out to sea by plane from Los Angeles and its remoteness is part of the attraction - and also part of the charm of the clubbing scene here… there's a fresh enthusiasm that is really rather infectious. However being remote (and highly contagious) doesn't mean they don't know their musical chops. Jessica and her friend Tara were quick to reel off a list of Djs, tracks, mixes and labels they were rating along with a fairly comprehensive dissection of what I'd been up to this year. All this while wearing grass skirts and peacock feathers, which by happy coincidence is my own preferred dress code when discussing my creative output.
And the party itself? I managed to blow the sound system once (hurray) but otherwise it was a rocking end to a great tour. My only regret is my fairly insane schedule for the rest of the year dictated I could spend no more than 1 and half days here… I was so tired come 6am and my beach head encounter with the dead babies – I got to my hotel and slept solidly for the next 12 hours… before you know it you're back in the airport again.
That's pretty much how it goes for most gigs. Being British, I moan about these things. If you click somewhere to your left6 and access the much more regular column of Hernan's (I'm told he's so regular you can set your watch by his bathroom habits) you'll see him blithely list about ten different cities / time zones / 20,000 capacity clubs he's played every month without a second thought. I'm not as hardened as the South American rock idol to all this business. Besides as a race we like to have a grumble.
What else….Fandango. Fandango is the identity that Nic Fanciulli dreamed up for his parties at Turnmills two years ago and while that party sadly comes to a close in January, its also become known for the sets we play together. Nic, a very good friend despite his long standing personal hygiene issues continues to invite me down to play there and we always end up doing it back to back. Rather like a Greek tragedy, this summer had a 3 act Fandango play; beginning and ending with two fantastic parties at Turnmills, with the darker bleak, second act being set in Ibiza for the Radio One Weekend. I say bleak, the weekend was great but unfortunately we were sidelined to the old Space terrace which meant we didn't really play to too many people with first Pete Tong then Laurent Garnier playing the main terrace while we did. We still had a lot of fun, playing all our secret hard house records we play at home while we had the chance, as no one was listening. We recorded both the London parties from May and September and the recordings got a lot of interest from interweb people, house music fans, message board geeks, the MCPS and er, the copyright protection society of America7.
Brushing all this aside we took the back to back shows to Italy, Ibiza (as mentioned), Lush in Northern Ireland and Stealth in Nottingham. The last ever Fandango in its old home of Turnmills back room will be held on January 6th 2006. It's a free party all night so come along and shake a leg as Nic and I will play back to back for the last six hours. The self styled angriest man in dance music; Nick Sneddon will be playing the first set as well, which should exponentially increase the female contingent. The knickers just fly off when Sneds is in the house.
Life in the Mojo studio this year was dominated by my left foot back in July. I'm not talking about a spastic Daniel Day Lewis (although I can if you want me to) no: I refer to my own plate of meat. I expertly used it, while gabbing away on the instant messenger to Lee Burridge (and thus not paying any attention) to hook my external hard drive off a desk. It clattered just a foot or so to the carpeted floor and on initial inspection nothing seemed to be wrong. But it made a very funny noise when plugged in again.
It turned out I'd done about as much damage to a disk drive as you can do and of course, I hadn't backed up a thing. For three months my drive sat dolefully in the disk drive hospital with me calling like an anxious mother every few days to see if there was any progress. Eventually at the very end of September the disk doctors proudly announced they could now fix the drive thanks to a “revolutionary breakthrough” in their procedures. Excited at the thought of my samples, rex files, logic songs, dj sets, tracks and porn8 being returned to me, I agreed. I soon found out the 'revolutionary breakthrough' was clearly in the copius amounts of piss they were able to take, as the invoice revealed a whacking £800 repair bill. Ashen faced, I re-mortgaged my father's house, sold my mother's jewellery and grudgingly paid the bill. To their credit the drive arrived promptly, although not without the magnum of champagne and free whores that kind of price tag should have justified.
I learned my lesson though. I'm currently writing this surrounded by more external hard drives than soft Mick.9 They are actually supposed to be backing each other up but in true to form fashion I've started storing bits and pieces on all of them, no doubt cooking up a recipe for disaster in the future when one goes down. *sigh*
Finally this month I need to give credit to the awesome Dan Deacon and his exploits on NBC. Rather like a car crash, you can't tear your eyes away from this even though you know you shouldn't be looking. I don't really need to add any more to that other than to say you can check it out for yourself here.
Equal praise goes to Michael @ Distrakted Entertainment in Orlando for bringing this to my attention. I had the pleasure of playing Michael's party back in October too. Top bombing fella.
Oh, I can't be arsed anymore, I've used all my drivel up for the moment. I'm sorry for keeping you so long. If I can get it together, I'll post my top twenty of 2005 before the year is over on here. In the meantime in all seriousness… I wish you a very merry Christmas and a peaceful and happy New Year.
Salute.
Paolo
Footnotes:
1 Absolutely fucking massive whopper of a lie. Huge.
2 More fallacy. I only communicate with Nick on the Internet. In fact I don't even know what he looks like.
3 That will be a hat trick of fibs then. I've never met Hernan. I have however, met his hairdo in several nightclubs around the world.
4 This doesn't really happen in England either you know. Only in Inspector Morse. But it's amazing how many Americans you can persuade that it in fact, does.
5 There's no James Bond style ending to this story unfortunately. I mumbled some excuse and wandered off to scoff my pizza in the hotel before flicking through the porn channel. Must work on that.
6 You see what I did there? Not just a pretty face you know.
7 Paolo is only kidding here. (RA Legal Department)
8 This is absolutely true. There was a mound of hardcore grot on the drive as well as the music… that the doctors turned a discreet blind eye to. Or so I presume. Who says the studio can't be fun?
9 Legendary northern English reference. As in 'you've had more of something than Soft Mick'. Who he is or was, is unclear.
WTF??
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