I for one am pretty bored of hearing Michael Jackson tunes…you couldn’t seem to escape them after he popped his clogs last year.  It’s a shame as some of them were fantastic but lots of them were complete crap (’The Girl is Mine’, anyone?).  I love a good cover version and I love brass bands so what better way to breathe some new life into some well worn tunes by combining the two. Read the rest of this entry »

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As a tribute to Rage Against the Machine releasing Simon Cowell’s stranglehold on the christmas number one (and helping to make a big fat pile of cash for charity in the process) here’s a take on “Killing in the Name of” you may not know of.  “So why haven’t you played it in the podcast?” I hear you ask.  Well it just so happens I’ve given it a spin in the mildly festive Show 50!

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I happened to be walking through Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester on Friday night to find a crowd of people watching this excellent Caribbean steel band playing a bunch of cover versions. As I turned up they were playing an instrumental version of ‘Patience’ by Take That which was actually superb. Anyway I managed to video some bits and bobs of the rest of their set:

Here’s half a minute or so of them covering Jimmy Cliff’s ‘I Can See Clearly Now’. This works so nicely with steel drums!

Next up they did a cheeky version of ‘Tainted Love’ by soft cell:

Their final tune (before the encore) of the evening was their version of Bob Marley’s ‘no Woman No Cry’. I’m really pleased I managed to video the whole tune complete with crowd singalong. Excuse my shakey dancey camera!

But that wasn’t it! For an encore they only went and did a blistering steel version of the Lambada! Again I managed to video the full thing. Wonderful stuff!

I think the band was called Hi-Tech Caribbean Systems (at least that’s what their t-shirts read!). I was chatting to one of the band members afterwards and it seems they don’t have a CD of their tunes or a website! Such a shame as I’d happily play any of their tunes and I bet lots of others would too.

Sort it out guys!

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Bobby “don’t worry be happy” McFerrin gives a demonstration of the strange link between music and our brain by playing the audience like a piano.  Wonderful stuff and well worth 3 minutes of your time.  Incidentally, anyone with even a passing interest in science and music could do much worse than sticking their nose in the book ‘This is your brain on music’.

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So I had the pleasure of playing all evening at Noho Bar in Manchester’s Northern Quarter on Friday.  Was great to spend 6 hours playing a load of my favourite records to a nice chilled out bar.  I thought I would post up one of the standout tunes that got a nice reaction - a cover of the Prodigys ‘Voodoo People’ by local (Burnley, I think?) band 6ix Toys.

I think the 7″ may have sold out but fear not - it’s available for download and looks like they’ve only gone and put an album out too.  Go and check them out via www.firstwordrecords.com!  Enjoy!

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Thought I would post up one of my very favourite tunes for you cast your ears over.  ‘Singalong’ is by local Stockport chap and mate of Mr Scruff, Treva Whateva.  This originally came out on 12″ back in 2001 (how time flies!) on the magnificent Tru Thoughts label and made a reappearance when Trev signed Ninja Tune in 2005 and put out the album ‘Music’s Made of Memories’.

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What happens when you combine Stevie Wonder and The Beatles into one neat little package?  Awesome happens.  Here, Mt. Wonder belts out his rendition of The Beatles’ ‘We Can Work it Out’ in the way that only he can.  It seems that you can pick up this tune on a compilation of Beatles cover versions, which includes the wonderful version of ‘Live and Let Die’ by Dragononnaires which was featured on an earlier podcast.  Pick it up here, or indeed here if you’re more vinyl inclined.

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