Merry Kristmaus!

Wonderful.

Teutonic Tones mix by Mustapha Dance

Teutonic Tones comprises a few mots doux to an earlier time, Bowie had arrived and left Kreuzberg, the Wall was still standing (just) and analogue synthesizers and New Wave were fusing to create the Neue Deutsche Welle.

Düsseldorf's favourite sons, Kraftwerk, are not present on this mix - but not through a lack of love. Although the shadow of their oeuvre looms large, the idea of the mix was to segue some less well known exponents of NDW and their European contemporaries with modern acts who have been influenced by this era.

Here are the Liebesgeflüstern

Teutonic Tones by adamsrob

If you like this you can find more at www.soundcloud.com/adamsrob.

Track-listing available on request.

Rob Adams

Atta-Girl! mix by John Napier

Bringing a bit of well-needed variety to Birmingham's night life is Island Bar's Atta Girl! club night. Held roughly once a month the Atta-Girl DJs spin a mixture of Indie, Post Punk and the occassional slice of Disco with a heavy bias towards female vocalists.

Women in music are always grossly under-represented and under-rated and since I'll be DJing there in the new year the opportunity to do my own mix of some of my favourite female-led groups seemed too good an opportunity to miss. So here it is, my Atta Girl mix, featuring the likes of Patti Smith, The B-52's, Tom Tom Club and a few surprises thrown in there too:

Atta Girl Mix (Part 1) by John Napier by Jugend Klub

Track-listing available on request.

John Napier

Paost Punk 78-86

FACT Magazine continue their excellent features with Built On Sand, an essay and mix on Birmingham's nascent post punk scene between '78 and '86 by Karl O'Connor AKA Regis.

It features some of the region's finest, such as Solihull's Swell Maps, Bearwood's Au Pairs and Handsworth's Steel Pulse as well as some criminally under-rated acts.

In additon to the fine mix - Anthony Burnham's sleevenotes profile each band and considers the Brum Problem, how a foggy cultural identity created 'a bermuda triangle' of music culture that John Peel was keen to shed a light on.

Read the article at FACT Magazine

Rob Adams

"The Seduction Of Ingmar Bergman" - A new musical from Sparks.

If you're into your new wave and left-field 80s pop you will no doubt have heard of the unique and brilliant duo, Sparks. Famous for camp and often operatic hits such as their debut "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us", it was perhaps not a total surprise to hear that their newest project is a Musical with a typically eccentric concept: An imaginary event in the life of Swedish director par excellence Ingmar Bergman.

The subject matter is perhaps not to everyone's tastes (it hardly screams chart success!) but it was really encouraging to see some pop veterans try something new, and even more encouraging that it should be supported by national radio, which is something that Sparks were very keen to remark upon in the question and answer session that immediately followed the playing of the piece. When asked why they had not plumped for the traditional pop album format, frontman Russel Mael (the younger of the two Sparks brothers) explained that he believed the whole approach to pop music was "broken" and that there no longer seemed to be any way of surprising people with the verse-chorus-verse-chorus, ten-songs-on-an-album format that people have become so used to.

So were Sparks themselves able to surprise an audience? In many ways the music was what we have come to expect from this enigmatic duo, but this is hardly something to bemoan. There was plenty of melodrama to it - staying just the right side of camp - and a vast musical palette, veering from the lushly orchestral to the electronic with some occasional hard rock thrown in for good measure.

"The Seduction Of Ingmar Bergman" shows Sparks on top form. Still taking risks and showing new ways forward in pop music. Like Bergman in their own musical, Sparks, it seems, are no sell-outs.

The opening track from the musical can be heard on their myspace.

John Napier

First night at the Vic!

On Friday we held our first Jugend Klub at our new venue, The Victoria in Birmingham city centre, and it was a triumph! Right up until the moment the band stopped playing and everyone went to get a cigarette and didn't come back. The band in question were Fuck Your Haircut. Perhaps not an obvious choice to bring in the punters (their music has a somewhat "polarising" effect on the audience, in fact about a quarter of the room left after their first song) but, inspired by the spirit of Factory Records, we decided to put them on anyway.

Fuck Your Haircut are a punk/thrash outfit who play 30 second odes to WWF era wrestlers and Star Wars characters and verbally abuse the audience between songs with the most peverse language imaginable, so perhaps it was to be expected that they wouldn't be to everyone's tastes. However, for those who liked it enough to stick around, and the fans they brought with them, it was an energetic, unconceited, tastless yet endearing and occasionally hilarious performance. To hear them yourself follow the link below:

Fuck Your Haircut myspace page.

John Napier

Jugend Klub on ESP radio

Last Thursday (8th November) one-half of Die Disko Damen and myself went down to the Rhubarb Radio studio to record a Jugend Klub special with Regular presenters ESP. We played some of our favourite new wave, post-punk and synth tunes, talked a little about the night and I did some very questionable Michael Parkinson impressions... To hear what that sounds like you can listen again below:

Also, check out the ESP bogs for more great music and culture:
ESP blog
ESP Radio blog

John Napier

Funky Nassau: The Compass Point Story 1980-1986 (Compilation)

I almost didn't pick this CD up when I found it in my local library. The cover design was pretty lazy and the title ("Funky Nassau: The Compass Point Story") initially made me think it would just be another tired old funk compilation featuring tunes I've heard at least a million times each (like the Beginning Of The End track they've used as the title of this compilation). Had I not turned it over I wouldn't have discovered the treasure chest of tropical disco and laid-back spaced-out reggae-funk that defined much of the output of Island Records' Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas. Along with key tunes by Talking Heads, Grace Jones and Ian Dury there were a few surprises, like this track "Adventures In Success" made by Will Powers (a pseudonym for celebrity photographer, Lynn Goldsmith, whose photograph of Marianne Faithfull and Grace Jones tops this post):

WillPowers_AdventuresInSuccess(Dub Copy) by Jugend Klub

John Napier

A real Golden-Woldie

Harry Chapin: You probably don't know that you know this guy already. He's behind 70's hits such as "Cat's In The Cradle" (anyone remember Ugly Kid Joe doing this in the 90's?) and "Taxi"; the kind of 'good-old-boys' American rock you imagine all US truck drivers listen to.

Chapin was also a committed philanthropist, donating an estimated third of his paid concerts to charitable causes. One quote from his wife reads "Harry was supporting 17 relatives, 14 associations, seven foundations and 82 charities. Harry wasn't interested in saving money. He always said, 'Money is for people,' so he gave it away."

In 1987 Chapin was posthumously given the Congretional Gold Medal for his humanitarian work.

A delicious slice of 70's AM rock from a thoroughly descent bloke. Grab yourself a cold Miller and enjoy.

John Napier

harry chapin songs
free mp3s | free songs

How the French invented hip-hop...

Most people are under the erroneous impression that hip-hop was formed somewhere in New York in the late seventies. Quite how this ludicrous myth managed to become fact over the years is beyond me. As the following two tunes will attest, hip-hop was clearly first created by gallic stereotype Serge Gainsbourg in the late sixties and later updated by fellow countryman and electro-ponce Jean Michael Jarre:

SergeGainsbourg_RequiemPourUnCon by Jugend Klub

JeanMichaelJarre_Zoolook by Jugend Klub

Copies of my new book "How The French Invented Hip-Hop" can be found in all good supermarkets, photocopied during my lunch-break and then stuffed into boxes of tea-bags and slipped between slices of bread.

John Napier