Tired Of Getting Pushed Around

In 1987, in between the first and second Fine Young Cannibals albums, David Steele and Andy Cox made a house record (Roland Gift was off making Sammy And Rosie Get Laid). The name they used for the record, Two Men A Drum Machine And A Trumpet, is a pretty good description of the sound of the single (except it should also include Robert Mitchum somewhere in there as it is he who provides the vocal sample). It's a decent slice of early house by two men who went from The Beat to FYC, always doing stuff that was interesting and good for dancing to.

Tired Of Getting Pushed Around

This performance from Top Of The Pops in January 1988 is good fun- Andy and David miming guitar and bass, a couple of dancers with nifty footwork, Yazz looking very cool on keytar, a dj/percussionist, a trumpeter (miming badly) and a Humphrey Bogart lookalike (miming badly).

Cold Cuts

I was flicking through the random music TV channel again- you can tell I'm off work- and out of nowhere this came on...



Doctorin' The House features some of the more obvious samples you might associate with Coldcut, squashed into a three minute forty five single, with Yazz singing the refrain and doing the dancing. It was in the top ten for four weeks in 1988. To be honest, this single has its charms but I'm a little ambivalent about it.

Whereas their 1995 double cd Journeys By DJ 70 Minutes Of Madness is brilliant- inventive, audacious, witty and fun. And a dancer. It takes in their own Beats And Pieces and mixes in Red Snapper, Junior Reid, Jedi Knights, Depth Charge, the Dr Who theme, Plastikman, Moody Boys, Photek, Masters At Work, Mantronix and dozens more. Turntablism can disappear up its own backside sometimes but this is peerless.