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I heard Ray Frazier's Whose Gonna Get Your Love on one of the stellar Funky Sole compilations yesterday. Nice track. If you want to delve deeper into this roots funk there are some great playlists by djs from all over here.
Ray Munnings is the former singer from the band the Beginning of the End most famous for their song Funky Nassau. I liked that Bahamian roots funk enough to investigate if there were any other good tracks. The best one I found is called Opportunity Knockin' by Ray Munnings. Check it out!
We're very excited our next event will be a private party at the United Nations where we've never performed before. A few people have told me that security is so tight there that you literally have to get there hours in advance to prepare for the time it takes. Completely understandable, expecially in New York City. Given a lot of the type of music we spin and the crowd, this will be a great, interesting location to perform. Stay tuned, hopefully I'll be able to get some decent photos!
I've never been that into house or trance music, except for the occasional hit by bands like Faithless or Gravity. It's the club culture with guys in addidas jumpsuits jogging to drum n' bass tracks that I never could relate to. Partially it's the culture and mostly it's the music. Since we dj-ed the Fashion show in December one of our friends there showed us some great music I hadn't heard before, and for whatever reason I started listening to more electronica/ ambient with a little trance here and there. Part of it is with djing if you have a couple long gigs in a row you just get tired of listening to music, so it's a nice break from some of the stuff we normally spin. Jason Bentley's Metropolis on KCRW is the only show I've found that consistently plays the type of electronic music I like, and this morning he played a great track by Deadmaus5 called Not Exactly.
Since it's a sunny Friday in New York City and we're all waiting for the weekend, here's a sample of an appropriate track, Nice up - The Virgo. You can hear the same sample used in Lily Allen's LDN.
Pulled from the dusty record vaults is this very nice 7" track by the Diplomettes called Plenty Nasty.
Which is just a great name for a song.
This British Trojan Roots Reggae compilation is good. I love the song Morning Son by Al Barry. 
I didn't really get a chance to leave the area we were in to take photos of friends but here are a few more taken with the shaky digicam.
It's the part of the winter in New York City where you want to be anywhere else, particularly Hawaii or the Carribean, until the sun returns in May. Since it's the Dark End of the Winter an appropriate yet underplayed and gorgeous soul song by Percy Sledge callled Dark End of the Street suits the mood. This photo is (from left to right) King Curtis, Percy Sledge and a young Jimi Hendrix.
Here a few photos from the premiere after party we dj-ed at Galway Hooker on Wed. It was more of reception/ bar atmosphere and less of a dance party which is always a blast to dj because it allows you more latitude in terms of what you can play. There were a lot of music aficionados there as well. Here are a few of the key tracks we played:
1. The Whole Of The Moon - Waterboys
2. Bad Town - Operation Ivy
3. A Message To You Rudy - The Specials
4. Light My Fire - Stevie Wonder
5. Alex Chilton - The Replacements
6. Rise - Public Image Limited
7. Ball And Chain - Social Distortion
8. Crash - Primitives
9. Black Metallic - Catherine Wheel
10. Tainted Love - Gloria Jones
Our next event will be at the Galway Hooker for a movie studio in New York holding a premiere. There will be a lot of artists there which are excellent clients to dj for since the musical tastes run the gamut. London and Jamaica ska, rocksteady, bhangra, maybe some gothic/ industrial, newer and older brit pop, punk, funk, and elecronica. Well, it's four hours we'll see how it goes!
