So wednesday’s Prince gig was great.

It was so good being with so many people that I didn’t know but with whom I had all these shared memories and, as much as you don’t want it just to be about nostalgia, it’s the past that draws you and the the past that will always be Prince’s worst enemy. I guess it’s a good problem to have, a peerless back catalogue, the greatest live act around for the best part of a decade, how do you compete with that ?

Well you don’t really and that’s just gonna have to be fine.

When I was growing up Prince was barely even human. He was this other being, someone to whom the normal rules didn’t apply- the man who feel to earth. He didn’t do interviews, he put freaky record out after freaky record all sounding like nothing you’d ever heard, all drawn from a magical place, Paisley Park, that no-one else could go, like sly stone and willy wonka had some secret love child.

And maybe sly stone is a good a reference point as any, there is something unforgiving about music-the nowness of things seem so massively important.

So he played some hits, he did his thing in a way that, even now, no-one else could dream. It helped us remember all the good times (and bad) to which his songs have provided the soundtrack and, more importantly, it was obvious to us all that he is entirely human, (the guitar solos whilst performing spilts/ the crazy dance moves are long gone) and, strangely, that was a relief. That I could let go of this semi-religious awe and enjoy him for what he is-a supremely talented individual.

Prince-Climax (Ulysses82 redub)

Hustles of Culture-Flipjack

This track could also be a 3rd floor classic-it’s got the heavy drums, the upbeat jazzy break, the early 90’s vintage.It reminds me of a time when I could listen to tracks without instantly trying to pigeonhole them (probably because it didn’t know enough about music to be able to). We used check out a night called ‘funkin pussy’, when we were just getting into clubbing-they played all the classic funk stuff and would occasionally drop in tracks like this-it was a little on the obvious side, but nights would always really kick off. Soul2Soul used to play it as well as some of the more edgier house deejays and all the jazzheads finally had a jazzdance track for people who couldn’t dance to records in weird time signatures!.

I pulled it out the crates for last saturday’s basilika which turned out to be an a) an absolute stormer b)a bit of a kelly -classic selection (my bro and some mates were in the house, so it all got a little self indulgent)

I am learning that the less I deejay the more I enjoy it, especially if it means being able to regularly drop tunes this heavy.

Have a great weekend.

If I could sum-up the definitive ‘third floor classic’ sound, in two words, those words would be ‘jazzy breaks’. Of course there was a broad spectrum of styles that rocked our world back then, but it was that house tempo/ break driven sound that we really made our own.

The excellent ‘Another night on Earth‘ posted ‘Blacker‘ by the (Eccentric Afros vs) Ballistic Brothers, earlier this week, which is a good example of the style I’m talking about. (might have to put the marden hill version up here later in the series). It’s got that soulful, break influenced sound of hiphop but it’s tweaked upbeat for extra dancefloor pressure.
This track is a tune called ‘Le Voyage’ by Mighty Bop-it’s from the second of their eps (the green one) and was recommended by pete and simon , when they worked in the basement of the mighty ‘rockin sarah’ in soho and were primary taste makers for my nascient record collecting.

It’s quite a simple tune really-spacey keys, a jazzy vocal sample, nice breakdowns, all underpinned with this enormous drum break (and lets face it that’s key ingredient). It’s one of those records that sort of defies easy labeling and maybe that’s why we love it so much-it just sounds golden.

Mighty Bop-Le Voyage

When I got to art college I was lucky enough to fall in with some like minded muso dudes. ‘Stevie B’ Bruno, Joe ‘Baron Samedi’ Lashbrook, Farooq ‘Faz’ Khan and I formed a heavy beats and smokes ‘collective named ‘Voodoo’, spending days and weeks planning our schemes for world domination. Cut off from the entire cultural world in leafy surrey we obsessed endlessly over gilles & norman’s radio shows and over music mags like Straight no Chaser, rigorously compiling epic ‘want’ lists. Such was the power of our nascent musical fervour that we would literally be running to Universal Sounds/Mr Bongos/the basement of Daddy Kool on our monthly record buying visits.Of course none of the records we wanted were available- all floating seductively out of reach in the ether of exclusive promoes and cdrs.

One of these unreachable tracks was the by a guy called dj shadow. Leaking from the jazz pages, hype about a track called influx had started to penetrate more traditional music press. It was nowhere to be found (of course) but this track was. Predating the influx 12″ by a few months and trickling to London on import I picked it up in blackmarket or somewhere similarly off the beaten path for mowax beat junkies.
Coming back home to the Third Floor in the holidays I would be armed with stacks of vinyl goodness (and eventually my own 1210s), like this. Of course I had no idea that DJ shadow would eventually be a big deal. Listening to it with my bro. all we could muster by way of critical appraisal was ‘damn those drums sound amazing !’DJ Shadow and the Groove Robbers-Entropy (parts C/D/E).mp3

They were good days.

ribena/chocolate slices/and the first beginnings of a lifetime love of music.

third floor classics are a collection of tracks from those halcyon days-not all of them have aged that well, but all retain some element of what it is that really excites me about music-in this case a decending acoustic jazz bass loop.

Jon Hassell-Personals(organized konfusion mix)
ps check out the amazing another night on earth-most blogs I check out I only really like about 40-50% of the music they post,with this guy it’s more like 90/95% !!!

It’s like having a musical doppelganger on the otherside of the world.

[audio:jon%20hassell-personals%20(organized%20konfusion).mp3]