Bedmo Disco

UFO - at Dojo's in Bristol, Friday 22nd Jan 2010

This Friday (January 22nd) sees top Bristol night UFO return to Dojo Lounge for a boogie-licious bass assault with an interplanetary flavour. Here at Bedmo Disco we’re huge fans of the monthly party, which always keeps an open mind and boasts some of the freshest and most imaginative line-ups in our fair city. The residents, The Kelly Twins, are amongst the best DJs in our fair city, with a fine record collection that sees dusty old electro, P-funk and electrofunk nestling side by side with Italo, acid house, dubstep, aquacrunk, UKG, funky, techno and more besides.

Our own Sell By Dave is a big part of the UFO family, being a resident of sorts (he plays three of four times a year, usually). For this Friday’s party – headlined by West London producer Funkineven – he’ll be teaming up with good friend and crate digger extraordinaire Andy ‘Payback’ Clarkson for a 90-minute excursion into boogie, electro, P-funk and early garage territory. To celebrate the fact – and UFO’s forthcoming first birthday at Dojo in Feb – the man we call Sell By has crafted some extra-special edits for the occasion.

Since we’re pretty generous chaps, we’ve decided to let you have ‘em, too – as 320 MP3s, no less – so you can play ‘em out loud. We’re rather generous, wouldn’t you say?

So, what’s on offer then? Click on the track titles to listen and download…

Daniel Paul: Outta Space [Sell By Dave's UFO Edit]
This squelchy, soul-flecked piano groover dropped back in 2000/2001 on Mermaid, an offshoot of the then just born Sonar Kollektiv label. The Meitz remix has always been a fave of ours, ever since we heard Joe 90 drop it at Level back in the Seen days.  Sell By says: “Volker Meitz’s version of ‘Outta Space’ is top notch, but it fannies around a lot. I’ve been working on this re-cut on and off for about a month. Feel the pianos!“

David McPherson – You Can’t Stop! [Sell By Dave's UFO Edit]
Originally released by SAM Records in 1982, David McPherson’s ‘You Can’t Stop!’ is a fine example of that style of US boogie that sits somewhere between jazz-funk and dubbed-out synth disco. The original flits between a number of percussive styles, with DJ-friendly breaks aplenty. About his edit, Sell By says: “With this, I tried to keep the vibe of the original, extending some of the dubbier sections, cutting out some of the vocals, and extending other parts to come up with a dub that gets stripped down but never dull. There are also a few Shep Pettibone style edit touches. See if you can spot ‘em!“

Wuf Ticket – Ya Mama [Sell By Dave's UFO Edit]
Some fondly remember Wuf Ticket’s ‘Ya Mama’, a thoroughly idiotic – but charming – trip into electro/hip-hop territory from 1982. It was released on Prelude Records, most famous for the chunky synth disco of D Train, Sharon Redd and many early Francois Kevorkian rubs. Over to Sell By: “Ya Mama is an ace record – a proper early hip-hop diss record with a slick sheen that shows up its Prelude roots. The original goes on forever though, and to be honest some of the rap is a bit silly – especially the bit where Wuf Ticket are telling all the kids to love their mums. So, I stripped it down to the groove and teased in the call-and response pay-off at the end.“

2010 is going to be a big year for Bedmo Disco, with more releases (at last!), gigs round the world and all manner of fun and games. We start the year, though, in our home town of Bristol with a six-hour session at The Big Chill Bar.

Here’s the details:

BEDMO DISCO at THE BIG CHILL BAR – FRIDAY JANUARY 8th 2009
Small St, Bristol, BS1
9pm-3am, FREE entry

Expect solo sets from Sell By Dave and Five Stylez, plus some proper back to back Bedmo Disco/Thumbs Aloft action. It should be good fun!

If you can’t make it down to the Big Chill Bar (snowed in, car won’t start, can’t be bothered, live the other side of the world etc) then you can listen live online (to all six hours!) by clicking here >> The show starts at 21.00 GMT.

Well tickle me with an oversized kazoo and call me Brenda! Thumbs Aloft have only gone and done a mixtape! I know, I know – it’s taken us a while, but hold your fire – it’s here at last and you can download it here >>

It’s called ‘The Sound Of Bedmo’ and was recorded in the autumn of 2008, following our well-received Bedmo Disco Soundsystem show at Bloom Festival. We more or less finished it off but planned to add more bits and pieces from our mic man, Coherent, as well as an exclusive new cut-up disco track at the end. Then Sell By Dave lost his job and buggered off to Australia for a month. When he came back we’d already forgotten about the mix, so it sat on Five-Stylez hard drive for nearly 12 months. After bouncing down the backing track for our new Bedmo Disco Soundsystem CD, ‘North St Sound’ (coming your way in the new year), we rediscovered the mix (in two parts, bizarrely) and decided we may as well slap it out. So, we stitched the two bits of the mixtape together, tidied up the sound levels and uploaded it.

Hopefully you’ll enjoy it. We’re actually quite pleased with it, and while it does sound like it was recorded a year ago (i.e not tracks from this year) there’s still plenty to get exited about. There’s funk, soul, disco and old skool hip-hop aplenty, plus a couple of unreleased cuts and exclusive Thumbs Aloft tracks. Oh, and some sneaky re-edits we did especially for the mix. The whole thing is loosely based on our show at Bloom, which rocked hard, so think funtime Saturday afternoon party vibes.

So, what are you waiting for? Download it here >>

If you want to stream it, check out the all-new Bedmo Disco Mixcloud page >>

For a full tracklist, check out our Bedmo Disco Mixes page >>

Soft Rocks play The Big Chill Bar, Bristol, on Sat Nov 28th

We’re pretty excited here at Bedmo Disco HQ. We normally are, to be fair, but we’ve got something extra special to get all hot and sweaty about – this Saturday’s forthcoming Bedmo Disco session at The Big Chill Bar in Bristol with very special guests Soft Rocks!

We first came across the Soft Rockers a few years ago. Being geekish, record-collecting nerds, we’d picked up a few of their high sought after edits and reworks on their own Soft Rocks Recordings imprint. These were very special – both musically and stylistically. We were impressed.

Somehow, thanks to the power of the internet, we were introduced to Soft Rocker Piers Harrison some time in early 2008. We chatted, exchanged banter about disco records and discussed Bristol – the city where Piers was born and raised (and, of course, our hometown). We talked about getting him down to play at one of our parties but we never quite got it together.

Then, in August 2008, we had two brushes with the Soft Rocks crew in a matter of weeks. First, Sell By Dave met Piers at The Big Chill Festival, when our bearded disco bore played after him at the Havana Club Bar on Sunday night. A week or so later, we met the rest of the lads, as they took over from us in the Funk Tent at the Bloom Festival. We’d just finished a Bedmo Disco Soundsystem show with Coherent and had partied it up hard. The Soft Rockers (minus Piers, who was at home having done the Chill the week before) and disco chanteuse Kathy Diamond took our party baton and ran with it, treating the crowd to an excellent selection of disco, deep house and the like.

When the Big Chill Bar, Bristol, asked us to nominate a guest for our first Bedmo Disco session at the venue, we said ‘Soft Rocks!’ without any hesitation. Luckily the guys were up for it and have agreed to come and play a three-hour set from 12midnight on Saturday night. It should be a belting occasion. Originally we’d asked Piers to do it, but he’s moving to New York with his young family. So, Chris stepped into the breach. Then, rather unexpectedly, Piers asked if he could tag along and play some records as his move had been put back, he was due to be in Bristol visiting his dad and, well, it’s his birthday. We, of course, said yes please!

The action takes place this Saturday at the Big Chill. We’ll be on the decks from 9pm, with Five-Stylez dropping some funk and Sell By Dave digging deep in the boogie/disco/Balearic/nudisco crates before the Soft Rocks crew take to the stage. It’s free all night, so come down and party with us. As it’s Piers’ birthday, it should be a blast!

SOFT ROCKS & BEDMO DISCO

SATURDAY 28th NOVEMBER @ THE BIG CHILL BAR, BRISTOL

9pm-3am, FREE ENTRY

The latest addition to the Big Chill’s ever-expanding empire of venues opens this weekend in our hometown, Bristol. What’s more, we’ve been asked along to make sure that the opening party goes with a bang. Excited? You bet!

The launch of the Big Chill Bristol has been an open secret for a while now, with Big Chill bods filling significant space in this year’s festival programme to ads promoting the launch. It’s a joint venture between the Big Chill chiefs and our old friends James Savage and Dave Smeaton, owners of the previous venue on the same site, Native, and The Spotted Cow pub in Bedminster – our ‘home from home’ where we spin tunes most Saturdays. We were naturally delighted when Dave asked us to play at the opening party alongside other future BC Bristol stalwarts Western Soul (Dave, his DJ partner Neil and local beatmaking legend Ben Dubbison) and Futureboogie. We’ll be bringing the party to the last two hours from 1am. Expect the usual feel good selection of grooves to make the party go with a bang!

Entry to The Big Chill Bristol will always be free, so you can head down for some recession-proof boogieing whenever you fancy it. There’ll be offering food during the day, and some art trail stuff in true BC tradition. It should be a fantastic addition to the Bristol scene, which is severely lacking decent bars playing quality music.

The Big Chill Bristol – Opening Weekend Party
Friday 9th October 2009
Feat DJs BEDMO DISCO (Thumbs Aloft DJ set), FUTUREBOOGIE and WESTERN SOUL
9pm-3am, Bedmo Disco on from 1am. Big Chill Bristol is at 15 Small St, off Corn St, BS1 (ex Native)

Look out for more Bedmo Disco dates at The Big Chill Bristol in coming months.

Wow. That pretty much sums up our feelings about our Big Chill debut, which took place in the early hours of Monday morning in the Amstel Fringe bar. It was one memorable session.

We were lucky with the timings, in that we’d be scheduled to start (and, of course, finish) after almost all the other entertainment areas had kicked out. It meant that as soon as Five-Stylez scratched in the first tune – the Freestylers’ old classic ‘Feel The Panic’ – the place packed out. Within 30 seconds or so we were greeted by a scene of arm-waving, pogoing carnage, with the stupidly talented dance troupe Bird Gang jumping on stage and leading the breakdancing. It was, we can safely say, mindblowing. Even one of the Cuban Brothers got up and did some breakin’!

For the next hour we cut and mixed up a huge volume of tracks, from funk breaks, classic underground disco and dancefloor hip-hop to kwaito funk, glitch and random rock. Almost every tune was greeted by a cheer and another raise of the arms. Again, wow!

We were particularly pleased with the reaction to Coherernt, our MC. He spat some sick verses as ever, hyped the crowd and excelled on ‘Straight Outta Bedmo’, which we were debuting. It sounded fat over that soundsystem, so Stylez was especially pleased with that (having produced, engineered and mixed the beat).

Thanks to all those who came down and joined in the fun. It was great to see so many smiling faces – some familiar, and some not-so-familiar. It made our weekend, to be honest!

We’ll be sticking up a mix in the next couple of weeks inspired by the show, featuring Coherent and some of the specially-prepared versions of tracks we’d done especially for the set. Hopefully we should have some pics soon, but if anyone has some and wants to send up to us to stick in the gallery, get in touch. Oh, and look out for a free track – the killer, end-of-night edit of a very silly rock record that almost tore the roof off!

Thanks again to all those who made it special, and see you on the dancefloor soon

Thumbs Aloft x

Straight Outta Bedmo slogan design

Over the years we’ve had a lot of positive comments about our t-shirts, with plenty asking where they can get hold of Thumbs Aloft tees. The answer, previously, was that you couldn’t – we got a limited number done for the DJs and that’s it. Well, now we’ve set that record straight and have launched a small range of designs in association with Streetshirts.co.uk.

The all new range, which is only available from the Bedmo Disco Streetshop, features a number of designs and colours, including mens shirts in chocolate brown, yellow and lime green, Straight Outta Bedmo slogan/logo shirts, ladies’ skinnyfit tops and mens tightfit ringer tees. More will be added in future, including hoodies. Each garment is made specially to our designs, so you know you’re getting a one-off! Incidentally, if you have any requests for colours/designs, just let us know.

The t-shirt shop has been launched now ahead of our debut performance at The Big Chill on Sunday August 9th. The Bedmo Disco Soundsystem will be closing the Amstel Fringe – come by and get involved in the party!

Midnight Star’s ‘Midas Touch’ is one of those tunes that’s almost impossible to dislike. Sure, there’s a whiff of fromage about it, but it’s one of those records that almost anyone will dance to. And quite rightly so – it’s a belter!

Messing with such a classic – which has, it should be noted, already been remixed by Ashley Beedle and others, is not necessarily the wisest move, but here at Bedmo Disco Towers we’re not ones to stick to convention. When listening to ‘Midas Touch’ again the other day it struck us that Solar System didn’t include a Dub on the original 12″. All you got was the (excellent) extended original, a slightly naff instrumental and the spaced out ‘acapella’, which combined the original bassline and vocal. We’ve always wanted a Dub that includes some, but not all, of the vocal and 80s synth disco style dubby breakdowns and so on. So, we’ve done one. Here it is, ‘Midas Dub’… enjoy!

Bedmo Disco – Midas Dub

Hey y’all – just a quick update about goings on at North St Sound (AKA “The Attic). Over the weekend Coherent popped by to devote some serious studio time to new beats, tracks and raps ahead of this summer’s festival season. It was a pretty productive weekend, with Five-Stylez and Coherent laying down the basis for our new “Thumbs Aloft anthem” – or as it is going to be known in future, ‘Straight Outta Bedmo’. Look out for it at our shows across the summer… it’s a party-rocking smasher! You’ll all be glad to know we’ve set aside some serious time to work on beats, rhymes, remixes and the like over the next few months so we should have some hot new material to showcase here at some point soon. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for new reworks, edits and, if you’re lucky, the first Thumbs Aloft mixtape. Whoop!
Sell By Dave x x x