The second of today’s Manchester mixes comes from the renowned producer-dj-cartoonist and Ninja Tunes artist Mr Scruff. It’s called the “92 Hip-Hop mix”, and as the title suggests this dates back almost 20 years. It features over 80 tracks of golden age hip-hop and was recorded using two turntables, a mixer, and a cassette deck (with a pause button for edits). Originally sold at the Future Banana record shop in a limited run of 20 tapes, Scruff is still trying to piece together the tracklist from his memory, which is a pretty mammoth task. Could you be of any help with this?
 

 
1. Quincy Jones ‘Back On The Block’
2. Showbiz & AG ‘Still Diggin’
3. Showbiz & AG ‘Diggin In The Crates’
4. KRS ONE ‘We In Here’
5. Digital Underground ‘No Nose Job’
6. JVC Force ‘Big Tracks’
7. Roxanne Shante ‘Big Mama’
8. Stezo ‘It’s My Turn’
9. The Jaz ‘The Originators’
10. ATCQ ‘We Got The Jazz’
11. Stetsasonic ‘Talkin’ All That Jazz’
12. Main Source ‘Lookin At The Front Door’
13. ATCQ ‘Footprints’
14. DJ Cheese & Word Of Mouth ‘Coast To Coast’
15. MC Lyte ‘Stop, Look, Listen’
 
Read more of the tracklist after the jump…

 
Here are two posts in a row featuring mixes by Manchester acts to brighten up your Monday morning. The first is by the city’s long running Chips With Everything club night, whose music policy is as Catholic as their choice of side dish is conventional. This covers psyche-rock, bliss-pop, rays of West Coast sunshine, and various different shades of the kosmiche spectrum. It’s lurrrvley.
 

 
10cc - Worst Band in the World
Giorgio - Tears
David Earle Johnson / Jan Hammer - Juice Harp
Top Drawer - Song of a Sinner
Emperor Machine - Bodilizer Bodilizer
Pearl Harbor - Luv Goon
Eternity’s Children - Mr Bluebird
Dusty Springfield - I Just Can’t Wait to See my baby’s face
ELO - Showdown
The Time and Space Machine - River Theme
Rotary Connection - Amen
The Trees Community - Psalm 46
Von Spar - Collecting Natural Antimatter
Delphine - La Fermeture éclair
Rita Monico - Thrilling (Main Theme)

 
Kraftwerk’s Minimum Maximum recorded during the group’s 2004 world tour.

Part 1

01. Meine Damen Und Herren
02. The Man-Machine
03. Planet of Visions
04. Tour De France 03
05. Vitamin
06. Tour De France
07. Autobahn
08. The Model
09. Neon Lights
10. Radioactivity
11. Trans Europe Express

Part 2

01. Numbers
02. Computer World
03. Home Computer
04. Pocket Calculator / Dentaku
05. The Robots
06. Elektro Kardiogramm
07. Aero Dynamik
08. Music Non Stop
09. Aero Dynamik / MTV
 

 
Previously on DM

 
‘Minimum Maximum’ part 2, after the jump…
 

 
Derek Jarman’s collaboration with Psychic TV Pirate Tape: A Portrait of William Burroughs, from 1982. This experimental film shows William Burroughs in London, cut to a loop of his voice. For copyright reasons, this clip tends to disappear quickly, so watch it while you can.
 

 
Bonus clip, Derek Jarman and Psychic TV’s ‘Force the Hand of Chance’ plus ‘Catalan’, after the jump…
 

 
Here’s a 1989 documentary/ impressionistic portrait of DM patron saint Brian Eno that I’d never seen previously entitled Imaginary Landscapes: A Meditative Portrait. Featuring some great in-studio interviews and lots of er, imagery to go along with the ambient soundscapes and charmingly wobbly VHS artifacts, this has some nice moments. Besides, previously unseen/ unheard Eno documents are always welcome here.
 

 
Courtesy once more of Network Awesome

 
And speaking of Terry Riley’s Rainbow in Curved Air, it’s where nearly forgotten 70s British prog/folk/rock group, Curved Air got their name. Led by gorgeous (and sometimes scantily-clad) vocalist/songwriter Sonja Kristina (formerly in The Strawbs and the West End production of Hair), Curved Air was known for their innovative use of the violin and Moog synthesizer. The group had an ever-changing cast of characters including Eddie Jobson (Roxy Music, Frank Zappa), Stewart Copeland, latter of the Police and 801‘s Francis Monkman). Copeland was originally the band’s roadie and was married to Kristina from 1982 to 1991.

Sonja Kristina later became active in London’s “acid folk” scene and has reformed Curved Air for live performances from time to time. A 2011 reunion tour with key members of the group has been announced on the Curved Air website.

Here they are on a TV show from Belgium in 1972 singing “Melinda (More or Less)”:
 

 
More Curved Air performances after the jump…

 
The music of minimalist composer Terry Riley has always had a special place on my turntable and in my CD player. His 1967 album, A Rainbow in Curved Air is the perfect thing to put on when guests are over—it creates a great mood but never overpowers conversation—and you can bliss out on it like a meditation mantra (the composer’s intent, obviously). You can hear parts of it behind the narration of the original BBC radio broadcast of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe and it’s on the radio station in Grand Theft Auto IV. Chances are that even if you don’t know it by name, you’ve heard it many times.
 

 
In the 1960s Riley used to play all night concerts, with audience members showing up with sleeping bags. He’d use tape loops to accompany himself, letting them run by themselves when he had to take bathroom breaks. His 1964 piece “In C,” where the same series of notes are played over and over and over again by (at least) 35 musicians, with a single anchor melody of a “C” note played at octaves as eighth notes (serving as the metronome or “pulse” and played preferably by “a beautiful girl,” as the music’s notation instructs) is considered the very first minimalist composition. At a recital of “In C” at the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, 124 musicians took part.
 

 
The repetitive synth section that leads off The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” was inspired by Riley’s signature sound and the title is a portmanteau of his name and that of Indian mystic Meher Baba. He also did a collaboration with John Cale—both of them heavily influenced by LaMonte Young—called Church of Anthrax, which is absolutely amazing and deserves a post of its own at a later date.

 
Richard Leacock is best known for his work with D.A. Pennebaker on the documentary Monterey Pop (1968). But prior to that, Leacock had established himself within the film community as a major figure in the “direct cinema” movement, a style of film making that shot scenes as they actually happened without manipulating the content and without narration - an American version of cinema verite.

Born in London, Leacock got his start making films when he was in his teens. He moved to the United States, went to Harvard where he studied physics in order to better understand the technology of filmmaking, became a war photographer, and eventually got a serious start as a film maker working with legendary director Richard Flaherty on The Louisiana Story (1948).

Leacock later went on to work with Albert Maysles filming John F. Kennedy on the campaign trail and as Norman Mailer’s cinematographer on the ill-fated Maidstone. He collaborated with Godard in the early 70s on the unfinished One American Movie, which under Leacock’s direction was completed as One Parallel Movie. The film is a fascinating look at American 60s cultural icons including Eldridge Cleaver and The Jefferson Airplane.

While Leacock’s reputation was high among film makers, it was his partnership with D.A. Pennebaker on the production of Monterey Pop that took him to another level in terms of popular success. MP contains some of the greatest rock and roll scenes ever put on film with epic performances by Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding and The Who. Ironically, Leacock didn’t particularly care for rock music or rock musicians. He later said:

I didn’t appreciate that kind of bullshit.” As for Joplin: “She was always just full of drugs and alcohol. I remember her coming to look at the film afterwards at our place in New York. She was lying there stone drunk, sucking on a bottle of Southern Comfort.”

Mr. Leacock died at the age of 89 on March 23 at his home in France. His memoirs, The Feeling Of Being There, can be pre-ordered here.

One of Leacock’s personal favorites among his many films is also among the simplest: a lovely interview with film goddess Louise Brooks conducted in 1984.
 

 
The Jefferson Airplane shot by Leacock after the jump…

 
It’s been a bad week for disco—first the death of Loleatta Holloway, and now comes the news that Kurt Hauenstein of the German band Supermax has passed on. Supermax were one of the most popular disco bands of their era on continental Europe, managing to seamlessly blend funk, prog rock, sci-fi and sleaze. They had also won over a lot of new fans in the last few years, when the growing interest in revisiting Cosmic and European disco shone the spotlight back in their corner. Their biggest hit was “Love Machine,” which by anyone’s standards is a bone fide classic. Here they are performing it on Dutch TV:

Supermax - “Love Machine”
 

 
With his own particular Lemmy-meets-Kraftwerk style (thanks Richard!) Kurt Hauenstein, originally from Austria, was one seriously cool guy. Supermax were still touring up until last year—unfortunately I never got to see them even though I knew a few promoters who wanted to book them (cost permitting). Well, Kurt is jamming away in that big disco in the sky they call Heaven now. Here’s what taste of what a Supermax show would have been like:

Supermax - “It Ain’t Easy” (Live 1979)
 

 
These guys were great. If you want to know more about this band, you should check out their website. You can buy the Best Of Supermax here.

After the jump, more excellent clips of Kurt Hauenstein and Supermax…

 
If Jane Birkin is sellin’, I’m buyin’.

Directed by Serge Gainsbourg in 1976. And, yes, the voice over is by Serge.

From now on when I think of hand washables, I’ll be in a Birkin state of mind. Wooleet? Mais oui.