Coming events for a lazy chilled out vibe in Paris in August :

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ENTERTAINMENT
Thursday 4th August
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A mid week special at the ever sunny Favela Chic. I will at last be able to welcome Jase Nguyen from The beats Saigon to play a two hour set with me. Jase is one of Vietnam’s most active djs and runs wicked nights and sound systems in Saigon playing dubstep, dancehall, drum & bass, hip hop and reggae. Also billed on the night : Gringo da Parada, Digikid 84, Coni, Lazy Flow. Read more

We’ve got a special Chicago connection coming to town this month for mona. All house heads know that Chicago is the official birth place of house music, even if I believe it was also spawned simultaneously in New York and Detroit. But I think Chicago was probably the first place to actually make a whole scene based around House and of course the Warehouse club, where Frankie Knuckles made his name, gave the genre the shortened name it has today.

I was a teenager living in Manchester at the time the first House music records were being released on independent labels out of Chicago such as Trax, DJ international and Jack Trax. When house music began to filter out of Chicago one of the first places to embrace it was Manchester. Around 1986 I noticed a new scene quickly developing around this strangely binary yet extremely soulful and emotional from of music, with DJs, dance crews, radio shows and specialist club nights being held in places like the Playpen, the Gallery and then the Hacienda – which later became very famous for it’s role as the hub of the madchester scene right at the end of the 80s. I was too young to attend clubs at the time so the closest I got to experience the house feeling was Stu Allen’s radio show on Sunday nights on Piccadilly radio 261. I still have tapes from those shows at home. This was the first time I ever heard house – aside from top ten chart hits Steve Silk Hurley ‘Jack your body’ and Farley Jack Master Funk’s cover of Issac Haye’s ‘love can’t turn around’. Stu’s shows were actually 3 hours long and split into three equal parts : Souled Out (the latest 80s soul), Buss Diss (Hip Hop which was also an emerging scene, but slightly more developed) and then the house hour – House music always had an evident connection to Soul right from the start, regardless of what old school purists thought at the time – which featured the excellent ‘it’s time for house’ intro.

In the beginning I never used to listen to the house hour as it was late at night and my parents would always make sure I was fresh for school on Monday mornings. But decided to listen through one night and what I heard blew me away, a combination of futuristic deep synth sounds combined with fierce dance beats, a sensation of travelling through a whole new musical space. That was house, something so different from the other forms of dance music I’d heard at the time, something made with machines yet so rich in emotion. I can’t say I liked every single track I heard but it was definitely a completely new dimension and I’ve never looked back since. Needless to say I’m very much looking forward to this Chicago special at mona that will feature one of the original artists and djs from back in the day!

Just to take you back, here’s a bit of one of Stu Allen’s shows. This link is from a great site called Manchester Radio Music. It features one of Stu’s later shows judging from the music I guess it was done in 1989 or 1990 by which time Stu had moved on from Piccadilly to Key 103. I will  record one of my own personal tapes of Stu’s early house shows to put up here one day! Make sure you read more about Stu Allan in Greg Wilson’s excellent electro funk roots web site here

And below is amazing footage shot in Moss Side Manchester around 1986 showing the moves of Foot Patrol the best dance crew in town at the time. Check out the moves, styles, spats and whistles! I really hope the vibe in clubs today will move back to be centered around dancing like it was back in those days.

So a new season begins for mona, the third one now. La Java remains our venue of choice but we’ve made  few changes this year. Firstly, a new light show has been built. The old one kept breaking down and we wanted something more dynamic this year so we decided to invest a little. I really believe a good light show is essential, it’s as important as your sound system. Great lights and the possibility to black them out make a massive difference in a night. Most people don’t realise this, including many promoters and venue owners, which is a shame. When I used to play at Boule Noire for otra Otra we built an amazing light show there, my friend Robert designed it and it was run by Daniel, who also became a friend in the process. We used to get our routines synchronised using sign language to cue ourselves up, believe me we made people go crazy in there. So I’m really looking forward to unveiling and enjoying the effects of our new system on the crowd tomorrow night !

We’ve also changed our art direction a little and made the logo a little more organic and do it yourself. It sort of looks like a home made stamp, that’s how we wanted things to be as we felt our previous graphics didn’t suit the venue and our crowd as much. The rough stamp is more fitting to the edgy faces that show up at mona every month. Many thanks to sundae for his artwork.

My guest tomorrow is a French DJ I’ve always loved since I started going out in Paris. He’s been around a long long time – I used to tape record his radio shows in the early nineties – but he still remains of the most upfront people around, always interested in what’s going on around him, but always keeping close to the music that he’s been playing from day one. Arguably he runs the best boogie and disco nights in Paris and has been doing so for over 10 years. He was one of the first heads to pioneer house music back in the 80s. I think his collection must be one of the world’s best, whenever I go out to listen to him there are always tracks he pulls out that I’ve never ever heard. Never one to compromise he’s always been one of the freshest DJs around. Make sure you check him out tomorrow night or get down to his residency when you find out who it is !

So who came to play in July ? My biggest thanks go out to Clement aswefall who you can see in the picture above. Clement used to run the infamous dagroove (later daphonics) record shop in Paris and is also half of aswefall, French electronic folk group. He’s a big house music head and came down to play exactly that. The first part of his set was a live set up he does on ableton live, more on an electro nuwave tip and totally innovative, great music. I’ll post a recording in a separate post for you to listen to.

If you’re a facebook user you can also check out Brice Smo’s pics of the night here

See you tomorrow hopefully !

mona / la java / sat 19th Sept 2009 23h30 / 105 rue du Fbg du Temple Paris 10e / facebook event