Feel my Bicep

Cooking up some more classic disco this time its Booker T Jones, with more funky leads and soulful lyrics.

The first Booker T I heard of was that wrestler (six-time world heavyweight champion I may add) with the dreadlocks that noone likes, much prefer his namesake….However further reading of his Wikipedia made me chuckle; (BTW Huffman is Booker T the wrestler)

“Huffman was a convicted felon who spent nineteen months in prison after pleading guilty to armed robberies at Wendy’s restaurants in Houston. Huffman and his partners wore Wendy’s uniforms during the holdups since they had been working there for 2-1/2 years. Because of the gunman’s uniforms and familiarity with the fast food chain’s operations, police suspected the robberies were inside jobs—and it didn’t take long before Huffman and three other men were found. Huffman plead guilty in December 1987 to two aggravated robbery counts and was sentenced to five years in prison. He was released after serving about one-third of that term, and was placed on parole until April 1992.” FAIL

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Continue reading ‘Booker T – Don’t Stop Your Love (12″ Remix)’

Bicep are stompin into a monday moring to this perfect theme tune. The crossover italo / house/ disco ‘M.B.O. Theme’ sounds like the dirty work of a clone between Morodor and Mr Fingers. Funky bassline that would shake anyfloor!

listen now for the handclaps!

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Continue reading ‘Klein & M.B.O. – M.B.O. Theme’

Out on Blood records in 82′, as the title suggests its a dark affair on the italo underground. A track that get almost too much play on the Bicep player, anything that has a dark analoge disco vibe and lyrics that dont make any sense to us is pretty much ok…. Not to mention synth solos, how I miss them.

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Continue reading ‘Bob Salton – Starknight’

Support the 6Music campaign and the latest Disco recruit, Chris Tubbs for getting music people NEED to listen to out there! Only up for 4 more days so switch across to 6Muisc HERE to have a listen.

New Zealand born DJ Christopher Tubbs takes over the BBC 6 Mix to bring you ‘Heads Down Radio‘; two hours of dance music from all over the globe. One half of the remix team Atlantic Conveyor, Chris was a DJ in his native Wellington before relocating to London to pursue his love of music. A founder member of Breaks Co-Op with Radio 1’s Zane Lowe, Chris crosses dance music genres from disco to dub via post punk and future jazz and joins the dots between thirty years of experimental music.

Keep 6Music alive!

Icy cool Balearic disco gem from Ray Mang out recently on as a B side to his Bullet Proof vinyl on DFA records, This chuggs along in a beautifully sparse manor and is not to be missed I tellsk ye!

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Finally our plastic homage to Detroit has hit the shelves. BUY BUY BUY. Have a listen, we hope you like it. Instead of describe the track for you we thought it may be better to give you an insight into the production.

Bicep – 313

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‘313’ was basically a melody I recorded of my laptop, my neighbour was getting his Jazz on, so I stuck the mic up to the wall and clicked record. **Note: he will have no credits on the sleeve- His dog shits all over my steps**. We knew the claps were a fundamental part of the track so to add some realism, we set off to Dalston market- inspired by stories of Marshall Jefferson hiring 15 people for the claps on his tunes when he played live. Instead of forming an alliance with the common people we stocked up on meat and what a fine selection there was on offer. On returning to the studio we took turns recording and slapping each other with various types of beef and fish- finally we layered these sounds to give this ‘Real‘ meat thing in action. The chatting you can hear around the start was recorded of my phone while in the waiting room of a very lively brothel, all I can say is that the recording got a little messy towards the end.

Bicep – Winter

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‘Winter’ was just a demo song on our DAW, cant believe people didn’t pick up on this one ;)

Hope this gave you a brief insight into the lengths we take in the strive for perfection! And perfection it is.

Buy the vinyl over at Phonica

HERE

Buy it digitally at Traxsource.com

HERE

Morgan Geist of Metro Area and founder of Environ Records dropped into town this weekend. We caught up with the man himself to ask a couple of questions about his dusty vinyl he doesn’t let the public see too often….Thanks again Morgan!

First track you remember got you hooked on Disco?

“Another One Bites The Dust” when I was a kid, and maybe “Disco Circus” when I got back into it through techno.

Queen – another one bites the dust

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Martin Circus – Disco Circus

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Is there a track you rely on to jack the party?

No. All parties are different. I must say Carl Craig’s remix of my own track “Detroit” seems quite reliable. Watching crowds react to it makes me really respect his understanding of dancefloor psychology.

Morgan Geist – Detroit (c2 Remix 1)

A track you love but has a habit of clearing a dance-floor?

Oddly, “Candy Man” by Mary Jane Girls. Usually this leaves me feeling the audience I’m playing for are completely and utterly dead inside.

Mary Jane Girls – Candy Man (12in Remix)

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Have you got a Guilty Pleasure track?

I’m not guilty about my pleasures – at least not the musical ones.

Finally can you think of a severely underrated tune, you think deserves more credit?

God. There are too many to list. Not as many as tracks that are overrated and deserve less credit, but still a lot.

Continue reading ‘Back of the box session with Morgan Geist’

To this day I think ‘Silent introduction’ is up definitely one of my most cherished albums. Much like Omar-s’ Fabric CD,  it contained music previously released on underground labels- then introduced to the masses years later on an albeit slightly less underground label. Mostly this is a KDJ, the early years collection. Add the blunted rants, musings and wisdom of Mr Dixon as in between banter and you’re left with a beautiful collection of deepest house that you wish you could play at work but are really scared to, because of these syrupy voiced proclamations. M-Traxx is a modern day masterpiece, the vinyl is so deep, dig it out if you can- pure bliss.

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Continue reading ‘Moodymann – M-Traxx’

Any kids born in the eighties will have remembered this Sega Mega Drive classic as a seriously tough guy beat em up. Streets of Rage, or as its known in Japan, “Bare Knuckle: Furious Iron Fist” was released in 1991. Recently I was playing this and realised that long ago I used to love the rolling street beats, without even knowing they were techno, electro disco and freak funk chuggers. The music is so driving while playing it, super urban. Produced by game music hero, Yuzo Koshiro.

Below are a few (there will be more to come and I feel an few edits may be coming out of some of this material). They sound like when speeded up oldschool deep house crashes into synth disco. ‘Boss’ sounds like 90s rave then breaks into some pretty crazy tech synth pump. Interesting.

City Street

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Beachfront

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Boss

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Continue reading ‘Streets of Rage!’

For those feeling lonely on Valentines Day have no fear Horse Meat Disco is here!In a form of a mix, the guys over at The New York City (NYC) Downlow Radio hit us up with this meat filled treat.

For those seeking an uninterrupted online streaming musical paradise, The Downlow Radio is serving up a special selection of love-themed shows by an array of best DJs from the global homo-soul-funk underground to ge…ge…get your juices flowing in time for Valentine’s Day. They also have an amazing selection of House, Funk, Soul and Disco for your aural pleasure.

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Continue reading ‘Valentines Day with Horse Meat Disco’

The funk line and pop-in bass in this tune is so ace….actually the whole tune is amazing. One of my favourite of the disco classics, this got to number 1 back in 1980 its sad to think amazing tunes like this will realistically never top the charts again.

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Continue reading ‘The Whispers – The beat goes on’

Massive Garage anthem which has been and will continue to rock the NYC disco scene for years.

Walter Anthony Murphy, Jr. is a pianist, composer, and arranger who had a massive hit with the instrumental, “A Fifth of Beethoven“, a disco adaptation of some passages of the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, in 1976,  managing to top the top 100 and was subsequently featured on the best-selling soundtrack to “Saturday Night Fever”.

It was also a big underground hit for Soulwax on the As heard on Series, bringing this track to a new generation.

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Continue reading ‘Walter Murphy – A Fifth of Beethoven’

Some old school jack courtesy of Ian Pooley, cuttin and sampling done the old way. Fans of Daft Punk will be into this disco heavy, house groove. Even tho this was out in 97′ it still gets turned by the likes of DJ Sneak to get a party started.

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Continue reading ‘Ian Pooley – Higgledy Piggledy’

This was a huge track with the clubbing community in New York back in 85, although it remained fairly off the radar throughout europe! Great acid bassline with contrasting balearic keys and strings make this a cheesy elevator classic…..! Enjoy. 

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Continue reading ‘Northend – Tee’s Happy’

Here’s some of our signature sleaze served up, swimming in a pool of grease with extra sauce. On the chop is none other than the Terje with Baris K performing salad duties. Todd’s edit of Fizheuer Zieheuer stick far closer to the original, adding some cheeky rolling drums. Baris does his usual shit, digging up slabs of Turkish folk and giving them a floor friendly makeover. 

Kamuran Akkor – Ikimiz Bir Fidanis (Baris K Edit)

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Blehorkestar Bakija Bakic - Fizheuer Zieheuer (Terje edit)

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Baris Manco – Aheste (Baris K edit)

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Continue reading ‘Döner kebab disco please, extra sauce.’