Beats + Pieces Column

Hotpress scribe Barry Redsetta and your Beats & Pieces host are among the judges of Corona Extra’s third annual global mixing championship. The V1 Niteclub at The Vaults – located in the IFSC in Dublin city centre – host the Irish heats and finals for the 2004 Corona Movida International DJ Competition on Thursday October 7th and Friday October 8th. Budding DJs should send a fifteen minute mix with a short personal profile and photograph to PO Box 9893, Dublin 1 before September 23rd. The prizes the Irish champion will receive are a Corona-branded Suzuki moped, a set of KORG Turntables and a DJ mixer. The winner will also go on to represent Ireland at the Corona Movida World Championships, which are being held in London later this year …
Fergie, whose first album in two years, Mixmag Live, is out this fortnight, has tipped fellow Northerner Gleave Dobbin as the Irish DJ most likely to follow in his footsteps and crack the UK. Gleave was a recent Mixmag ‘Future Hero’, and his next single ‘Hardcore Mother F***er’ is tipped to firmly establish the former Coast To Coast member as a solo producer. Meanwhile, Gleave the DJ has just been signed up by Serious Management, the hugely successful clubland company owned by another BBC1FM superstar, Judge Jules. As for Fergie, he’s enjoying a new boom in popularity since his recent switch to a prime time slot on Saturday nights …
Dublin vocalist Nat Leonard has told Beats & Pieces she has already recorded the follow-up to Group Therapy’s infectious debut single ‘My Own Worst Enemy’, out this fortnight on Dave Seaman’s Audio Therapy label. (Dave, of course, has produced albums for Kylie and Take That, and remixed chart hits for Pet Shop Boys, Michael Jackson, David Bowie, New Order, Sting, Janet Jackson and Blur). Former law student Nat (25) is currently juggling work on Group Therapy’s debut album with her nine-to-five at Dublin City Council. She told Beats & Pieces: “I’ve been very lucky to get a chance to work with such talented and established people. It’s very flattering that they have the confidence in me to be the face of their project when they could have any top name in the industry. It’s a great opportunity.” …
As ‘summer’ (ahem) ends and Christmas looms ever larger on the horizon, record labels are stepping up a gear as the glut of great new releases this month testifies. Funky Brooklyn punks Radio 4 release album number two Stealing Of A Nation (City Slang), with Max Heyes (who has worked with Primal Scream and Doves) at the helm, a superb set that is the B&P favourite, closely followed by Slam’s finest hour (on Soma naturally), the delightful Year Zero, in which we got to wear our eighties gear and skateboard around the garden whooping with delight: “yes, neighbours, this really is the dark and moody Scottish techno duo”…
Also worth shelling out a few euro for are Rennie Pilgrem’s Pilgremage (infectious breakbeat rave on TCR), Sly & Robbie’s Version Born (loads of guest vocalists but the dubs are best, on Palm Pictures), Dizzee Rascal’s Showtime (more of the same, only with added pop sensibilities, just like Mike Skinner’s second album) and Abdominal & DJ Fase’s Flowtation Device (a reissue of the album that prompted DJ Format to hire Abdominal, but with three new jams) … On the homegrown singles front, Dublin DJs John Kerrigan and Karl Davis promise to keep the Irish hard dance flag flying with their new label Hard Sounds, which launches in October with Karl Davis & DMF’s savage and pounding single ‘Power’ …
Hailed by arguably the best music radio station in Europe, BBC6 as “the hottest thing in the Emerald Isle”, Dublin band Mainline are playing The Village in Dublin on September 18th, and they will be supported by punky funk DJs Johnny Moy, Arveene, Nic and Eno. It’s a six-hour show, which opens at 8.30pm. The next Boogaloo at Black Box in Galway is on September 25th. DJs are, as ever, Cian O Ciabhain, Aran MacMahon and Cyril Briscoe. Cian has apologised for unintentionally echoing a certain asshole Governor of California in his most recent 110th Street press release, which insisted, “I’ll be back”. Any Hollywood star who endorses George Bush is a f***ing dangerous asshole, and you should burn all Arnie’s DVDs in protest, just to remind him about the ‘Christian’ zealots he now represents… THE BEAT GOES ON!