The fabulous J’Danna:

J’DANNA – Winter in America (Gil Scott-Heron Tribute) by 2morrows Victory Records

The talented Joey:
JOEY – Revolution (Gil Scott-Heron Tribute) by 2morrows Victory Records

Please check out the whole article about them on the Brownswood website, they deserve all the praise they can get! So spread the tunes, spread the word and share the love!

Gilles Peterson at the Worldwide Awards 2012

It was the first year I wasn’t working during the awards so I wasn’t sure what to expect…

The line-up looked very varied – from electronic music to jazz to folky soul to you name it. Despite knowing how brilliant all the individual acts/DJs are, the line-up looked like it had the potential of being a massive hit or a massive miss, all depending on how the entire show was executed, but also on how the crowd would be handle the mixture of upbeat, quirky, soulful, spaced out and so on music.

Wordwide Awards 2012 Line-up

However, despite my worries it has to be said that Gilles and the Brownswood / worldwide crew really pulled it off this year! They really went above and beyond, with extra gold stars sprinkled on top!

Before I go any further I have to give massive props to the amazing Peggy who I know works so hard on these events, and Saturday night was proof of her excellence, but also of how much she’s grown and developed and become super-duper good at her job! I can without a shadow of a doubt say that it was the best worldwide awards show I have been to so far!

So massive props to this insanely talented and driven lady, as well as the rest of the crew who made the night happen – Ems, Simon, Alex, Fawaz and the rest of the Brownswood crew plus all other people who I probably don’t know but who made the night a reality.

As for the music and the performances… I think I cried 3 times during the evening because it was so overwhelming. I don’t even know where to begin since all of it was so good, but I guess some of the many many many highlights were:

The absolutely amazing and mind-blowing Pyramids

Michael Kiwanuka and band - they stole my heart <3

The incredibly cool Thundercat who did an awesome performance

The very talented Matthew Halsall who won Best Jazz LP

Another memorable moment was the Gil Scott Heron tribute with the two young and amazingly talented artists, Joey and J’Danna, from south London. They took my breath away – it was an incredible feeling seeing two stars being born on stage like that.

Hmmmm… what else? I guess my favourite DJs of the night were Hudmo, Kutmah and Lefto. Not because the others were bad, but probably because I am biased, because I was too drunk when the others were on to appreciate them, and also because I look up to these three gentlemen – especially Lefto who is like a slightly cooler version of superman (trust!). He even made this video below… Does he ever rest!?

Apart from the music side of things it was fantastic to meet so many new people, as well as seeing a lot of old friends who I haven’t seen for ages – Emanative, Thristian, KATE (!!), Dayo, Alex P, the Wah Wah 45s crew and so so many more.

I know a lot of people diss Gilles from time to time – haters gonna hate and all that, but honestly speaking – I don’t think a lot of people would have been able to pull off what he and the crew did on Saturday.

It really was a magical night (and no I am not just saying that because I used to work for him, if the night was shit I probably wouldn’t bother sharing it with you). I have so much respect for that man, the fact that he is still going from strength to strength, that he is taking chances when so many people in music like to play it safe, that he has big visions and he tries to make them happen with the help of great people and so on – it is very inspirational and if I can ever achieve a tiny bit of what he has in my own career I will be very happy.

So much love and respect to you Gilles! You keep pushing those boundaries and even if I don’t personally like all the music you play, I still very much appreciate what you do for people like me who represent and love independent and niche music.

I FUCKING LOVE THIS!!!
Been on repeat in my head for the past 48 hours!
Big up Trust In Dust for letting me know who made this version!

The latest Little Miss Sunshiine show is now up for your listening pleasure :)

Got some great music including 4 exclusive tracks from Jazzman Records!

Hope you enjoy it. x

Blackclassical: Lament for John Coltrane (@rndqd) by Doctrine on Mixcloud

It is with great sadness that I have learnt that my friend Black Classical will be leaving Space Invader Radio in the new year, the 12th of February to be exact. However, he sure is planning on going out with a big BANG!

Above is a little teaser mix to his epic last show that will be 12 hours long (but potentially longer if I know him well!) and it will only include fantastic Spiritual Jazz!!

So make a nice cup of coffee or tea, stick the mix on and be prepared to not only be educated, but also be taken on a very magical and special musical ride!

I am back from one of the most interesting & shortest trips I’ve had in a very long time.

For those who don’t know, I went to Budapest with my lovely boss Jazzman on a business trip. Luckily, business trips in our industry usually involves music in one way or another, so this business trip meant that we went to Budapest for a bit less than 48 hours to dig for records. And oh boy did we dig…!

I’m not a massive digger myself, not because I don’t want to be, but whenever I get around to do it, I either feel very stupid in the shop or I never seem to find what Im after. I don’t really know the little tricks when it comes to what to look for when digging for records beyond artist/musician names & labels. So I feel very blessed to have gotten this great opportunity to go on a real digging trip with Jazzman because he shared some of his own tips & tricks.

We started the trip not knowing where this place would be. We had an address and Jazzman had sent an email to the guy notifying him we were coming, but that was about it. So we didn’t know what to expect AT ALL.

We ended up taking a tram to the very outskirts of Budapest to a place that looked like a small village out in nowhere. Since I am too tight to use my 3G network abroad, I had saved google maps description for how to walk to the place from the tram stop. So we literally climbed a small mountain, I had to improvise with the directions because they were leading us in a circle, but I managed to get on the right path and after 20 minutes we reached our destination that looked like this:

Where on earth are we?

Jazzman got slightly worried when he realised that this might not be a shop or a warehouse at all and that we probably were heading to somebody’s house. And he was right. All we knew was that the man was called Attila, so we when we reached the closed gate to the house, we picked a random doorbell and pressed it. An old Hungarian man walked out and I politely said that we were visitors from London who were looking for Attila. The old man said we had pressed the wrong bell but that he would get him, so he started shouting his name and knocking on all the windows on the house. After a few minutes Attila appeared, so I did the same polite explanation and he let us in.

What could be hidden behind these doors?

We walked through the doors and in the front room he had prepared boxes of Jazz records for us to go through. All Jazzman was saying was
“Oh my god – I can’t believe we’re in this blokes house!!”.

His wife and his wife’s mother were there too and they all greeted us and offered to make us some tea and coffee. Of course, Jazzman didn’t really care about any of that, all he wanted was to get started with the digging, so Attila went through the boxes he had prepared and Jazzman took out his portable vinyl player so we could listen to the records. As soon as Attila saw the player, his face went pale and he started to swear in Hungarian. I asked what was up and he explained to me that he had had a French DJ visiting a few weeks ago who also had a similar device, and he had scratched/destroyed 4 very expensive records, so he didn’t want us to do the same. I tried to explain to him in a very diplomatic fashion that Jazzman was a professional – that he had been doing this for longer than I had been alive and that Attila was more than welcome to stand next to Jazzman to ensure he wasn’t doing anything that Attila didn’t approve of. I also assured him that we would pay for any records we might damage in the process. First he wasn’t sure, but I smiled and insisted and in the end he said it was fine. So the real adventure began!

The front room

We came up with a system where Jazzman selected & took out the records, and I very carefully put them pack in their sleeves. I was plugged in with my headphones to the player as well, so once we had selected the stuff that looked interesting, we sat down to decide what was good and what was shit.

A little pile of records we liked

I ended up talking a lot to Attila’s wife Kata and her mother. Kata makes hand-made jewellery and she had recently started making hand-made clutches out of very fine Japanese silk. They were very busy because she was meant to go to Milan for a big Christmas fair, so they were busy making the final touches to all the clutches in the other room. They asked me if Jazzman was my husband and if it was me who decided what records to buy, I laughed and said no to both. They asked me a lot of questions about how it was living in London & “the west” – I told them that it was hard and that I had been very lucky but they didn’t seem too convinced. As the day went on they brought out snacks for us to much on whilst we were continuing our quest to find some decent records.

Snacking & Digging

It took us about 6½ hours to go through all the records in the front room plus a big box of 45s when Attila said that he had some more in the back but that they were in a specific order so Jazzman would have to go in there and listen if he was interested. Safe to say he was, so he headed in whilst I decided to stay with Kata & her mother because it was a bit too narrow in the other room for us both to try to dig & listen.

The back room

As darkness fell outside they made us some pogácsa to munch on & offered us some Hungarian beer. Jazzman declined because he didn’t want the alcohol to affect his judgement of the music. I, of course, decided to go for it. As a Hungarian myself I know that the worst thing you can do is to decline food & drink in a Hungarian home, especially alcoholic drinks. So whilst Jazzman continued to dig, we talked about my life in London, how much I earn, what I do, Jazzman’s history, what he does etc.

Pogácsa!

Hungarian Wheat Beer!

Jazzman digging in the back room

After about 8 hours of digging, our stomachs were very hungry (despite the snacks & beer!). It was cold & dark outside, so we decided to head back into town to have some food and a pint. I ended up buying 4 records and Jazzman walked away with about 20 (he said he’d be happy if he found 3, so I think it was a rather successful digging session!). Lots of Polish, Russian, Czechoslovakian, Bulgarian and not so many Hungarian records, or at least not as many as we thought we would find. But still – lots of fun and overall an amazing trip.

Damn, I really am a very lucky girl!

Biggest yawn ever!

Hello my friends!

How’s it going? No intention to moan this time (something different I know) and I didn’t mean to yawn when taking the picture but thought it looked very funny so I decided to share the giggles.

Went up to Birmingham on Monday to attend class for the first time in “real life” and it was awesome! I mean, this MA is wicked in general, but I have to say that I was once again blown away by the fact that I have such amazing lecturers/professors. And no – this is not me sucking up, if I didn’t think that they are genuinely “all that” and a little bit more I probably wouldn’t waste my time writing about them.

Truth is that they are, and even though I’m almost 100% certain that our opinions will clash somewhere down the line on certain issues, I do feel very lucky to have them guiding me and teaching me and sometimes just reassuring me that what I’m thinking isn’t all that bad.

I guess that’s what I love most about this MA so far  - it’s making me think. The only “problem” about thinking is that it’s exhausting. I mean, I’ve only been at it for 7 weeks and it’s literally mind-blowing. Not all the concepts/topics are new, but the way they are presented and the way I am required to look at and analyse them are very different from what I’m used to.

It’s difficult. Especially the idea that we have left the “electronic age” of music and entered the “digital age”, and how this shift is as significant as it was when we went from sheet music and publishers being the dominant/biggest part of music industry to records and labels.

I’ve been brought up with my foot in both worlds. I remember being addicted to my sony walkman and the endless cassette tapes I made with radio rips, of queueing outside a record shop to be one of the first people to buy a new CD album, of owning CD singles, of my dad having lots of vinyl at home, of using mini-discs because I didn’t like portable CD players because they skipped.

But I also remember the first version of Napster and how amazing I thought it was and how the the dial-up connection was slowing me down, how my friend Neil convinced me to get one of the early chunky versions of the iPod, how I used to spend endless nights ripping my CDs and downloading music and making playlists and burning them and so on.

It’s weird. I mean, I work for a company that (barely) makes money from vinyl, a physical format that sells less than CDs, in an era that supposedly has shifted to something completely different.

I’m not trying to desperately hold on to the past, because I actually like all the things that digital brings to the table. But having that said, I still don’t believe in the death of the vinyl, or the CD for that matter.

One thing I do worry about, and this is just something that I have noticed in my own behaviour, is the attention span of people when it comes to stuff online. There is so much music out there. I get bombarded with emails and tweets every day from people trying to promote a release or a band or an event or whatever, and most of the time I ignore it because I just can’t be bothered – it’s just too much.

And I know, there are plenty of recommendation and “discovery” sites out there (or “filters”) and millions ways of sharing music so I can tune in to stuff my friends or people I look up to share or are listening to. I might check that stuff out sometimes, but truth be told, I get much greater satisfaction from simply discovering something on my own. I might be the only person who feels this way, but sadly for me, that is fact.

I don’t want a million emails and tweets telling me to listen to this because of xyz, I don’t want to constantly be force fed all this music from a million directions because not only do I start ignoring it, it makes me fed up with it all. Which obviously sucks, especially when you love music as much as I do.

There is no way of escaping this online unless I change email, shut down my twitter, stop using mixcloud and similar services, stop reading blogs/music websites and so on.

And yes, you could argue that back in good ol’ days, the same thing happened but in a different way. You were fed music by radio and you’d buy the records your favourite DJ/presenter was playing, if you had a regular shop you visited, the people behind the counter would put records away for you and recommend them for you to buy, you’d read specific magazines to see what bands were hot, what records to buy to be cool etc.

I’m not sure where I am going with all this… but I do kind of feel like I have to somehow be able to separate myself from all these personal feelings/thoughts in order to be able to do something useful on this MA course.

Why? Because everything has changed. Like it was pointed out the other week, and like Dubber mentioned in this week’s lecture – Google could buy the entire record industry with it’s “pocket money”. Now if that doesn’t mean anything to you, you are probably still in the frame of mind that things can “go back to the way they used to be”. They can’t and they won’t.

Many people have said this before and I completely agree – at the moment everything is up for grabs because the old rules don’t apply or work in the same way they used to. They belong to the past and we are in the present.

As for the future, I hope I can contribute to the way it will be shaped in one way or another, even if it’s just 0.00001% (or less). And if that means throwing out the old rules completely and starting from scratch then so be it, I am personally all for it because I think it’s needed.

I just need to figure out a way of being able to do that without my brain melting in the process…

Bristol and Space Invader crew – Here I come!!