The Opinionated Diner

A Hunting we will go...... I think there is something odd in my need to buy copies of records that I already own when I see them second hand. I did it again last week, I saw a copy of the Unit 46's "Swing It" and Sound Of One's "As I Am" in the Real Groovy one dollar bin, and thought "killer singles, wicked, only a buck", then I did it half an hour later with The House Sound of Chicago, Vol 2 (of which, more later) for a fiver, which is slightly more justifiable as, although I own every track on it on 12", I've never had this comp...so that's alright then, isn't it.

There is also a thought that at my grand old age I should be sitting at the bach with my feet up over summer, rather than scouring dirty old record shops looking for that lost not-so-classic tune that I don't need..As Brigid says though, if you are going to have an obsessive habit, being swamped with vinyl isn't a bad one (and it only applies to vinyl...I mean, CDs, unless otherwise avoidable are for burning stuff for the car, and record company promos...nasty little things that I rarely use at home). Of course the gold is always in the cheapie bins too. Always.... So trad Chicago House circa 84-89..this weeks obsession (along with the Beach Boys, but that's more a case of trying to get the sun to come out and wondering if I could get away with playing "Breakaway" on George this week)....actually that's not really true, its never really gone away (and it makes a change from the early Carl Craig, then the German techno obsessions of recent weeks which were fast turning me into a social outcast). I remember handing Roger Perry a copy of "Love Can't Turn Around" at the Asylum and asking him to play it. The response was electric and immediate. Roger disliked it (he really didn't get house until quite a few years later, but if anyone had the nouse and the skills to mix house back then it was RP), the hairdressers screamed "this is amazing", and the South Auckland posse asked "what is this shit". As far as I know it was the first time a house record had been played in a club in NZ and the long standing house-hip hop / soul divide that continues to plague AK started at that moment. But twenty years on, Fingers, Adonis, Silk, Bam Bam, Tyree (Cooper, the producer, awesome, supa dupa trooper....sorry couldn't help it), Marshall, Farley, Knuckles etc still sound as raw, sexy and as vital as they did when they tried to fuel the black gay clubs of Illinois with machine created disco way back when. It was, along with the Detroit & NYC take on the same thing, the bridge between then and now, probably the last major revolution in pop (everything since has been either technological or (grunge) America catching up to what happened to the rest of the world a decade earlier) and those crucial moments in popular musical history, be they the beginnings of hip-hop, early punk, classic ska or Sun country / r'n'b fusions, will always sound completely timeless to me. Essentially every major theme in house or techno that exists today was developed by about 12 people over a five year period in Chicago, New York or Detroit. The odd thing is watching it (the house that is) all come back around again (which makes me more comfortable thrashing it as if I really cared), the sounds, the tension and the minimal dirty groove is evident in so many records right now...but..getting misty eyed now, can anything come close to that first time you heard those Salsoul pinched opening notes to "Jack Your Body"