Released: May 1980

UK chart position: #5

From the album: Dumb Waiters

I only found out a few weeks back that “I’m Free”, The Soup Dragons’ mid-1990-defining slice of baggy mediocrity, was actually a cover of a Rolling Stones song. This may be a common blindspot for anyone who was between the ages of, say, five and 12 in 1990, where “love me, hold me, love me, hold me…” doesn’t signify a wild and shirtless young Jagger, but rather four Mary Whitehouse Experience lookin’ boys with curtain fringes lipsynching on Going Live.

And maybe the same generation had, for a while, the same problem with “Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometimes”. Maybe it’s just me, maybe the time I slowly became aware of music from before my generation (say, 1997), this song’s 2:33pm playings on local radio were accompanied by “Wait, I don’t remember the chick from Baby D having that deep a voice” solely as a result of my ignorance and weren’t indicative of any greater concerns. Who knows?

What’s always struck me about this song is how polite it is. “Got To” rather than” Gotta”, for a song that was released when punk and new wave were perfectly acceptable chart concerns, always seemed to be the sign of a band who really wanted to mark themselves out as mature.

We’ve gone over the need for maturity and a rejection of the values of youth in Mondeo Pop before, but it may be worth reiterating with regards to The Korgis: the frontman and guitarist of whom were both formerly members of Stackridge, a band who peddled that most maligned of adult genres: prog. It’s not too hard to imagine that, when they split Stackridge in 1977, bloodied and battered from the assaults of punk and disco, they decided to pay the mortgage off with something that would have no real appeal to the flared and bondage trousered massifs. The Korgis even come from a time before you could wear jeans with a shirt to work.

It’s hard to imagine a greater lowbeat track than this though, mournful and dour and with very little hope. And if you want very little hope, you can always try and hunt down covers of this song by the following artists: Beck, Zucchero, Ginger from The Wildhearts, Glasvegas. What a gang.

Dag 2 op Pukkelpop begon voor ons opnieuw rond de klok van 15u. Ter plekke afgesproken met Annick. De tent bij Bombay Bicycle Club zit te vol en Puppetmastaz hebben een net iets te groot Muppetgehalte, zodat we ons maar eventjes bij Eagles of Death Metal posteren. Niet voor lang echter, want we trekken snel door richting dance hall waar Buraka Som Sistema een uitstekende interpretatie geeft van ‘chillen met de billen’. Het publiek heeft er duidelijk zin in, maar ik vond het na verloop van tijd wat eentonig klinken. Vooral dat korte intermezzo met de weinig benijdenswaardige catch phrase ‘I’m serious as cancer, rhythm is a dancer’ van Snap was er gewoon over.

In de Marquee wacht ons vervolgens Glasvegas, een groep waar ik vooraf veel van verwachtte en hun optreden was gelukkig uitstekend. ‘Geraldine’, ‘Daddy’s gone’, ‘Please come back home’ en zelfs een cover van Korgis erbovenop: ‘Everybody’s gotta learn sometimes’. Puik concertje! Vervolgens hebben we even tijd om aan de main stage wat stoom af te laten bij Ting Tings, ideale achtergrondmuziek bij een fris pintje. Dat zeker wel, maar ik heb de grote ‘hype’ een beetje gemist vermoed ik dus mij doet het persoonlijk vrij weinig. Het Franse dj-collectief Birdy Nam Nam, dat eerder dit jaar al brokken maakte op Polsslag, deed dat nog eens dunnetjes over in de dance hall. Het publiek brak het kot bijna af, ‘collectieve waanzin’ m.a.w. We komen straks overigens nog eens terug op het begrip ‘collectieve waanzin’.

Na de dance gaan we iets eten en we zetten vervolgens onze weg door richting Club voor Blackbox Revelation. Onderweg horen we al dat Snow Patrol uitstekend op dreef is. De tent voor BBR zit in een mum van tijd stampvol, met veelal jonge mensen (of wat hadden jullie gedacht). Als Jan Paternoster en Dries Van Dijck hun entrée maken is het lawaai gewoon oorverdovend. Nog geen concurrentie voor My Bloody Valentine, maar daar wordt naarstig aan gewerkt. Het wordt één groot feestje! ‘I think I like you’, ‘Set your head on fire’ en ‘Gravity blues’ blijven gewoon kleppers. Ze zijn nog jong, dus we kunnen in de toekomst nog veel meer van hen verwachten. Daarna heb ik me weer even buiten geplaceerd met mijn gezicht richting main stage. Placebo speelt daar en ik vind het nog verbazend strak om eerlijk te zijn. Een fan zal ik wel nooit worden, maar ach … we zijn niet spontaan op de vlucht geslagen. Even later vluchten we om andere redenen richting Marquee voor dEUS. Klonk vrij aardig moet ik zeggen. ‘Slow’, ‘Favourite game’ en ‘Pocket revolution’ hoor ik voorbij komen.

Omdat ik graag een leuk plekje wil hebben tijdens Kraftwerk haast ik me halfweg in de set van dEUS richting main stage. De trip door het electronicalandschap is te omschrijven in twee woorden: ‘pure magie’. De grondleggers van de dancemuziek zoals we die nu kennen maakten er een fantastisch schouwspel van voor ogen én oren. Ze openden met ‘Man machine’. Kippenvel! ‘Schaufensterpuppen’, ‘Das Model’ (in Duitse versie jawohl!), ‘Autobahn’, ‘Tour de France’, ‘The Robots’, ‘Aérodynamik’, ‘Radioactivity’, ‘Vitamin’, ‘Trans Europe Express’ en in de bisronde ‘Music non stop’. Ideale afsluiter voor dag 2 wat mij betreft.

Na dag 2 ben ik geneigd om te zeggen dat ik me geweldig heb geamuseerd tijdens Glasvegas, Birdy Nam Nam, Blackbox Revelation en Kraftwerk. En hoewel ik me toen net niet voor het hoofdpodium had geparkeerd klonk ook Snow Patrol heel erg goed. 2 days down, still one to go!

Like the sunshine

Colonna sonora: The Field, “Love vs. distance”

Chart Position: 18

• Written by James Warren
• Lead vocals: James Warren
• Korgis are from the U.K.
• This is Korgis’ only U.S. Top 40 hit single
• Beck’s version was included in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Later recorded by Dream Academy (1987), Yazz (1991), Gregorian (2001), Beck (2004), Laurent Voulzy (2006), Erasure (2003), Krezip (2007), Army of Lovers (1996), Kings Singers (2004), Zucchero featuring Vanessa Carlton (2005) and Sunshiners (2006)

Today I bring you two tracks that are new, and one that is about a year old I would say  -

Josh Wink – What Used To Be Called Used To Be (Original Mix) Tech House. Really good song! Its like ten minutes long, it has this progressive, electronic funk sound and breaks at 5.oo, to drop into a big melody!

The Glitz – Trumpets Saved My Life (Original Mix) Techno. More of a calm song. Has a string section running through the song until it stands alone in the break. Anyways, good track, give it a listen!

And here for the slightly more older track -

Korgis – Need Your Lovin (Laidback Luke Remix) Electro House. Why im posting this is because I still find this song so good. Its bouncy, has the vocals and that characteristic Laidback Luke melody. Go get!

And now for something else, just pure gossip from WMC actually. Apparently there has been some scuffling between Steve Angello and Paris Hilton at Steve Angellos showcase in Miami.

According to various media and blogs, Paris Hilton had requested hip hop music or pop or something at Steve Angellos set, claiming that his techno music was just bad and gave her a migrane. Angello is said to have politely denied her request, whereby Paris boyfriend had slapped Angello and then this lead to a fight between Angello and Paris entourage.

I honestly dont know the full story since you should not blindly depend on media, especially when it comes to gossip. Therefore I will give you some various links telling of the story, and you can decide for yourself -

Beatportal

Paris Hiltons Blog

Miami New Times

Radar Online

Have a nice Saturday!

Cheers / T

Justice Live in Dublin

Dance phenomenon JUSTICE have confirmed a very special Dublin date this October. The French duo will play Dublin as part of a mini world tour entitled Across the Universe where they play 15 dates across the globe including: Tokyo, Berlin London Montreal, Toronto NYC L.A and Amsterdam!

JUSTCE play the Amabassador on October 26th tickets priced €28.00 including booking fee are on sale this Saturday at 9.00 am.

As per the MCD website. This hasn’t exactly been receiving a lot of attention or publicity. Possibly because the above statement is very misleading, this is in fact a DJ set.

One of my favourite Justice pieces is their rejected Fabric live mix. It started floating around the internet earlier this year. A lot of people that I’ve mentioned the mix to say that they aren’t too fond of it. I, on the other hand, can’t get enough of it and listen to it at least once a week. I don’t know why Fabric rejected it, I always thought the whole idea of the mixes they released was to be progressive, like Simian Mobile Disco included Moon Dog on their recent mix! If they play a load of french disco tracks at the Ambassador Dj set, it’ll be great. I can just imagine all the jaws of the neon clad skinny jeaned kids dropping as Justice play  Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometimes by Korgis.

Remember when that track was on that godawful Road safety ad a few years back? It completely sullied the tune for me but Justice have revived it in their Fabric Mix and given it a new lease of life for me. Another thing about this mix is that includes an incredible track, ‘Next of Kin’ by Parisian teenage dj prodigy Surkin. It’s clearly an ableton assisted electro ditty but it has a distinct early 90s house vibe. Fingers crossed that he’ll be gracing our shores soon, I can only guess that promoters are battling it out right now to book him.

Justice – rejected fabric mix mp3

Tracklist (yoinked from pitchfork):

01 Sparks: “Tryouts for the Human Race”
02 Rondo Veneziano: “La Serenissima”
03 Goblin: “Tenebrae”
04 Daft Punk: “Ouverture”
05 Surkin: “Next of Kin”
06 Symbolone: “Love Juice”
07 Korgis: “Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometimes”
08 Midnight Juggernauts: “Ending of an Era”
09 The Paradise: “In Love With You [ft. Romauld]“
10 Justice: “TTHHEE PPAARRTTYY (Acapella)”
11 Chic: “Everybody Dance”
12 Frankie Valli: “Who Loves You”
13 Das Pop: “Underground”
14 Julien Clerc: “Quand Je Joue”
15 Daniel Balavoine: “Vivre Ou Survivre”
16 Richard Sanderson: “Reality”
17 Zoot Woman: “Grey Day”
18 Fucking Champs: “Thor Is Like Immortal”
19 The Rave: “Mother”
20 Fancy: “You Never Know”
21 Frank Stallone: “Far From Over”
22 Sheila: “Misery”
23 Todd Rundgren: “International Feel”

Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime
The Korgis