Category: Humour

You were going to the Warehouse Project, not Nando’s! Blagger tries to get into Manchester club using “lifetime pass” at the weekend – read on to see how owner Sacha Lord responded to the trick…

The world of Sacha Lord is a curious one. It’s a world where he thinks people should stay hydrated on a night out, yet he charges them £2.50 a time for water. It’s a world where doctors should be ordered to apologise for their predictions over Covid. And it’s a world where he condemns plague raves yet rewards DJs who played them during the pandemic.

So when someone turned up at the doors of Manchester’s Warehouse Project, which Lord owns, with a so-called lifetime pass, it caused much scratching of heads at the venue. The black card states “This pass grants the holder lifetime access to Warehouse Project events and Parklife” – which is Lord’s big festival that takes place each year.

There was just one problem. No one working at the door had seen one of these cards before. Much like the Nando’s High Five black cards, no one knew for many years whether they even existed. Lifetime passes to Warehouse Project, on the other hand, do exist – they gave two away in a competition last year.

Lord’s tweet does not elaborate on whether he actually got into the venue, except to describe the attempt as “impressive”. And he confirms in another tweet that he contacted the person in question later to give them lifetime access for real.

Here’s hoping his staff can correctly identify the genuine passes. Otherwise, it’s going to be the equivalent of using a rake to get rid of water…

Some people really need more things to do! Oakland Toy Lab discovered some years ago you could play vinyl records using two pencils and your teeth…

This blog believes that there are a lot of people in the world who simply haven’t got enough things to do with their time. Maybe it’s because I’m one of those people who likes being busy or maybe because my diagnosis is actually correct. I’ll let you be the judge of that one…

One set of people who evidently didn’t have enough to do on one particular day some years ago was The Oakland Toy Lab. Because they managed to come up with the most pointless idea since someone at Colgate in the 1980s said “I know, let’s introduce a ready meals range, with meals like Colgate Lasagne”.

They created the tooth phonograph.

Yep. It’s exactly what it says on the tin.  You get two pencils and use one to spin the vinyl record and another to listen to what’s on the record. And if you think I’m joking, here’s a full set of instructions on how you could do it yourself. Although I’d honestly worry about the sanity of anyone who willingly wanted to.

It all reminds me of the last episode of British comedy Blackadder. It’s the first world war, and they’ve been told they’re leaving the trenches tomorrow – going over the top to a near certain death at the hands of enemy gunfire. Blackadder recalls how men would previously try to get out of the war by sticking a pair of underpants on their heads and two pencils up their nose to convince everyone they’d gone mad.

These tooth phonograph people are well and truly up at that level of bonkers…

See you next Tuesday? Why Mr C’s latest plan to boost a Facebook post simply featuring his favourite four-lettered obscenity is unlikely to have the affect he (and secretly the rest of us) all hope for…

In an age of anodyne social media pages which are clearly run by social media managers who know everything about an algorithm but nothing about how to create posts which are actually interesting or engaging, Mr C’s Facebook page is a real breath of fresh air. He’s one of few people who I’d actively recommend following on the site – things go from very serious debates about important matters to, well, more inane stuff.

Mr C, real name Richard West, was apparently in one of his sillier moods on Monday. He simply posted, ahem, a four-lettered swear word. It’s the word Boris Johnson was repeatedly referred to as in this song. And after a few people had some fun in the comments – mostly about the obscenity itself – he came up with the idea of boosting the post.

West now claims he’s sent in the request to Facebook HQ – but at the time of publishing, there’s no word on whether the ad has been accepted or not. Facebook’s own rules do have a potential loophole within them – they say “profane language, including profanity that is partially obscured by asteriks or symbols” aren’t permitted.

But they don’t say anything about plain old presses of the space bar between letters…

After DJ Mag plug their video of David Guetta re-editing one of his own tracks to make it even more crap, Dave Clarke gives a caustic take in the comments…

Sometimes, there’s no need for a big blurb before I get to the point of an article. This is one of those times. On Friday, DJ Mag published this on their Facebook page. It wasn’t long before Dave Clarke came along to have his say…

Nothing to add here…

And people accuse me of publishing any old rubbish! Mixmag run an article on Nile Rodgers being a fan of a Liverpool canal – so what could they decide to print next?

So what was the most important news story of the week? Was it Nicki Minaj saying the Covid jab gave her cousin a bad case of swollen testicles? The authorities in Trinidad and Tobago went through their files and sure enough, it turned out the story was a load of balls.

No, it has to be this belter from Mixmag magazine. Admittedly, it’s not quite up there with their recent scoop about Priti Patel using dodgy numbers to justify Covid restrictions, but it’s still a good one – it’s about how Nile Rodgers has fallen in love with a canal in Liverpool. And people accuse me of writing any old rubbish…

Perhaps next week, we could have an article where Low Steppa takes some Mixmag journalist around the streets of Birmingham to show us his favourite drains? Maybe we can have an extended piece all about Defected boss Simon Dunmore’s favourite steak restaurants in London – we already know he likes his meat!

The following week, how about a feature where Posthuman shows us his favourite shopping trolleys and reveals what he does when he encounters one with a squeaky wheel? Or maybe we could have a read about Judge Jules and his favourite pie shop in Wigan?

The series could even go Stateside. Sterling Void could show us his favourite crack dens. DJ Sneak could tell us about how he’s fallen in love with a tree whilst over in Detroit, Terrence Parker could tell us about the time he accidentally deleted his piano preset on his computer.

Carl Cox’s favourite roadsigns is the one I’m really looking forward to, though…

Topless selfies from David Morales, Larry Levan posting Instagram reels from Paradise Garage and Louie Vega being slated for remixing Debbie Gibson – thank goodness social media wasn’t around the 1990s!

I had a discussion with a friend a couple of days ago. It was just what we needed to get through what felt like an incredibly long week. The debate was about social media and how it affects the dance music world – a fascinating topic which I’ll be giving more attention to soon.

The debate became more of a chat after my friend said “thank goodness social media wasn’t around in the 90s”. Which led to a light-hearted attempt to gauge what the stars of dance music would have been posting online had the likes of Instagram been around back then.

We quickly agreed that David Morales would have spent much of the decade posting pictures of himself topless, alongside the star-studded lineup of artists whose tracks he was remixing at the time. Frankie Knuckles, in the meantime, would have been getting slated by people who thought “The Whistle Song” was rubbish.

In the meantime, Larry Levan would have been posting Instagram reels from the Paradise Garage, giving us an insight into what it was like in the club. Steve “Silk” Hurley would face endless criticism on Facebook for using the same piano sound on all his remixes, and E-Smoove would have a troll saying he’s “just a cheap imitation of Steve Hurley”. Only not so polite.

Over in Detroit, Juan Atkins and Derrick May would still be spending their time discussing the origins of techno, getting into arguments with anyone who dared suggest they weren’t telling the whole truth. And Derrick May would have spent much of the early 90s teasing his followers that new music was coming out from his soon – only for that to never happen.

A fresh-faced Louie Vega – though to be fair, he still looks pretty fresh-faced now – would be taking selfies with Kenny Dope in their studio. And occasionally, Vega would reply to a Twitter troll who was convinced that Masters At Work dubs would never catch on – or to someone who says MAW have no credibility because they remixed Debbie Gibson.

Over in the UK, you’d have Simon Dunmore in his then position at Cooltempo Records running their Instagram account, posting pictures of all the artists he met up with, alongside pictures of his dinner. CJ Mackintosh would be getting trolled by someone with 6 followers on Twitter who keeps saying he should stay in England and not come to America, and Mr C would constantly be telling critics of The Shamen where to stick it.

Oh, and Kerri Chandler would always write about his “love, respect and admiration” in every post too. Maybe it’s best it wasn’t around in those days after all…

Never thought I’d say this, but I think I’ve found you a new job, Mayday! The Detroit Historical Society is now hiring – but do they have space in their organisation for Derrick May?

We live in difficult times. A lot of jobs have been lost during the pandemic – some directly because of it, and one in particular because of lots of revelations which have come out during it. That person is, of course, Derrick May – the 58-year old part-time DJ residing at Farmington Hills in Detroit.

Thankfully, jobs are also being created in this economy too. And I happen to know where there are three jobs going at the moment – the Detroit Historical Society. Details of the jobs are here if you fancy reading them for yourselves – but let’s have a quick look at what’s available.

The first position is a Visitor Experience Associate. A long description of duties is provided, but the gist of it is showing guests their way around the premises, taking their money and setting up memberships to the society. The job pays $10 an hour and is for up to 20 hours per week. That’s an extra $800 in your pocket every month, Derrick!

Or you could be a Building Operations Associate. This job is about keeping the place neat and tidy and getting rooms ready for events. Mr May would know what the society was looking for here. His appearance at an event celebrating Detroit techno was cancelled – but I understand he was in the audience anyway. So he’ll know how to lay out chairs for a conference…

And finally, there’s a position as an Associate Event Manager. This one’s a bit more demanding – but to a cut a long story short, you’d be in charge of making sure events run smoothly. And as this one requires working at weekends too – although given Mr May is now free on most of them, I assume this shouldn’t be a problem.

There is, of course, the chance you’ll get rumbled when you turn up for an interview. In that case, call yourself Dërrick May – just like you referred to a certain old friend as Michaël James here in order to get out of paying him any money. And wear a cunning disguise. Such as this…

Go get ’em, Dërrick!

This blog deals with all the important topics! The story of Derrick Carter’s visit to the Trax offices – and just where did he throw his ham sandwich?

On Tuesday, I made your morning just that little bit more rubbish by showing you the latest from the Trax Records stable – a cover of “You Used To Hold Me” as sung by label boss “Screamin” Rachael Cain. However, one or two of you got in touch to ask me what I was talking about in regards to Derrick Carter’s ham sandwich. So I thought I’d explain.

Now, I was hoping to simply be able to bring up the original story, as told by Derrick Carter himself. Unfortunately, several searches online have brought up no results – so I’ll try and narrate the story as best as I remember it.

In the early 90s, Carter paid a visit to the Trax Records headquarters, which also doubled up as a vinyl recycling and pressing plant. He had taken some tapes with him in the hope that then label boss Larry Sherman would be interested and offer him a deal.

Whilst heading up the building into Sherman’s office, he got to see the vinyl plant with his own eyes. The stories about how Trax operated had circulated for years, but little was know about what was true. And he distinctly remembered old vinyl records being broken up, but not particularly precisely – bits of paper were still left stuck onto the vinyl that was put into these large bins.

Anyway, Carter eventually made it up to Sherman’s office. The two reportedly got on pretty well. Sherman did like what Carter played him, but didn’t sign up any of his records. He did, however, tell him to keep producing and to try again in the future.

After leaving the office, Carter was feeling a little hungry and took a ham sandwich out of his pocket. Not being particularly enamoured with the flavour of the sandwich, he chucked a large potion of it inside the aforementioned bins full of vinyl due for recycling.

Hence why I said someone, somewhere, probably has a Trax vinyl out there with the remnants of Derrick Carter’s ham sandwich in it…