CRC Retro Mix #46

Clearance Rack Classics Retro 80s and 90s Dance Mix by DJ Tintin

1. Beat Dis - Bomb The Bass
2. Hello (Honky Tonk Mix) - The Beloved
3. Say It (Disco Citizen Mix) - ABC
4. Good Life (Indulgence Mix) - Inner City
5. Left To My Own Devices (New Toy Mix) - Pet Shop Boys
6. World (World In Action Mix) - New Order
7. Heart - Pet Shop Boys
8. That Way Again - Seven Red Seven
9. World In My Eyes (Sensoria Mix) - Depeche Mode
10. Don't Let My Love - T42
11. Oh L'amour (The Funky Sisters Remix) - Erasure
12. Pleasure Boys (Razormaid! Mix) - Visage
13. Images Of Heaven (Razormaid! Mix) - Peter Godwin
14. In Blue ... DJ (Razormaid! Mix) - Data
15. New Gold Dream (Razormaid! Mix) - Simple Minds
Notes and other random things:
First, apologies to Kon Kan fans. I had fully intended to include a remix of "I Beg Your Pardon" in this episode. But I didn't. Why? Well, I've found that early Sunday mornings are about the most opportune time for me to record podcasts now - really early. And in my half-awake, half-asleep state I cued up the wrong tune. In all my years of DJ-ing/podcasting, I can't ever recall cuing up a song I had no intention of using. It's funny, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out why the beats wouldn't match and it wasn't until 3 or so minutes later that I realized I was cuing up the wrong tune. At that point, I didn't have enough time to switch to a different song, so I just went with it. So, for all you Pet Shop Boys fans out there, you get two PSB tunes in this podcast with only a single song separating them. It works, I suppose, but I generally prefer to use only one song per artist in each 'cast. I guess there's a first time for everything, right?
Speaking of a first time for everything, after 45 episodes, Bomb The Bass finally appears in song form and not in a production or remix vein. I alluded to "Beat Dis" in episode #41 as CRC featured the Bomb The Bass Mix of Depeche Mode's song "Strangelove" as the lead-off track. One of the early dance tracks to incorporate sampling into the mix, "Beat Dis" was the first single from Bomb The Bass (aka Tim Simenon) and had upwards of 72 samples contained within. Along with ground-breaking tracks, "Pump Up the Volume" by MARRS and "Theme from S'Express" by S'Express, "Beat Dis" heralded the arrival of sampling as a viable artform. The track was huge in Europe, reaching #2 on the UK Singles Chart. It also peaked at #1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart for one solitary week, marking the only charted hit for Bomb The Bass in the United States.
I have a real soft spot for the track I'd like to mention next. The band is T42 and the track is "Don't Let My Love". These guys were on the upswing and on the cusp of breaking out in a big way from the Dallas-Ft.Worth market during my time there in the early 90s. Orignally a duo consisting of Jay Gillian and Jimron Goff, vocalist Will Loconto supplanted Goff as the lead singer in 1989. After the release of a cassette EP (remember those?) called Hot On Top, they gained steady airplay on 94.5 The Edge radio station, which was home to all the great alternative bands back in the day. One of my many record store haunts back then, Oak Lawn Records picked up the band for a 12" single of "Don't Let My Love", which did well enough to attract the attention of Columbia Records, who signed the group. They released the full-length album, Intruder, in 1992, which was produced by Paul Robb from Information Society. It's hard not to hear the similarities to Information Society on "Don't Let My Love" and other songs on the album as well. In an ironic twist, Loconto quit the band in 1993, setting out to work with Information Society. While Gillian brought in other musicians to keep the T42 fires burning, the band's star faded and the group melted wistfully into the retro ether. Still, they left behind some tasty pop sugar for our consumption, even doing a very respectable cover of "Let Me Go" by Heaven 17. If you're into upbeat electro-pop, Intruder is definitely worth a listen. And if you're from the DFW area, the album and this song should be a reminder of an excellent time when the DFW local music scene was king.
Taken from his 1982 album of the same name, Peter Godwin's "Images In Heaven" resembles more of a cult classic than a bonafide mega-hit. Formerly a member of the short-lived glam rock band Metro, along with Duncan Browne and Sean Lyons, Godwin is probably best remembered for his solo effort, "Images In Heaven", though you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone outside of devout new wave lovers who are very familiar with the song. David Bowie may argue the "best-remembered" point, as Metro's song "Criminal World" made enough of an impression on Mr. Stardust to induce a cover tune. Still, outside of 1983's Correspondence album and a Best Of compilation released in 1998 on Oglio Records, Godwin's scant musical output has always left new wave junkies wishing for something more.
Something more ... also the sentiment I feel about Seven Red Seven. Chicago natives and band mates, Mitchell Adrian and David Michael, formed the group in the early 90s and had only a couple of releases issued to minor success before going on to production work for other musicians. However, their time together as a band produced one of the more under-rated and under-appreciated synth-pop albums in Shelter, which was released on Speed Records in 1991. The album included the song here, "That Way Again" and "Thinking Of You" (which appeared in remix form in CRC episode #34). Both were issued as singles. However, the rest of the album, much like Intruder by T42, is a synth-pop delight and a must-have for any synth-pop completist, especially for fans of Red Flag, Cause & Effect, Anything Box, Cetu Javu and others. The group would record just one more album, Bass State Coma, in 1994, and an interesting cover of "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder before moving into the production field. Truly a shame their total musical output was not much, much greater. P.S. Go buy Shelter!
The last band I'd like to mention in this episode is the band Data. Fronted by Georg Kajanus, who made waves in the 70s with his band Sailor, Kajanus left Sailor in 1978 to dabble in electronic music. From this, Data was born. The track here, In Blue ... DJ, is a hybrid mix by Razormaid! Records of a couple of tracks from Data's third and final album, Elegant Machinery. Their other releases include 1983's 2-Time and 1981's Opera Electronica. In 1995, Eternity Records released a compilation album called Accumulator containing the second and third albums in their entirety plus the track "Fallout" from the Opera Electronica album.
That's it for this episode. I'll be back soon with another new episode. Thanks for listening!