Craig List

Wow, the last post I delivered certainly received a lot of feedback. Much appreciated to all those who replied and gave their two-cents worth. If I had the wherewitall and the time, I’d love to promote a Sunday afternoon gig that would be family-friendly – preferably outdoors in good weather, with a BBQ and a killer soundsystem. My kids love to dance – they’ll dance to bloody anything! Such events are commonplace in other cities, why not Dublin?

Having re-read my last post, I realised that there could be a perception that I was unfairly critical of Carl Craig. It was not my intention to have a go at him – just to show how times have changed and how he has changed with them.  The man is a hero and his contribution to electronic music can’t be understated.

Now, the purpose of this post is just to regale an anectdote about a Craig set I had the pleasure of hearing back in the late ’90s. He was djing in U2’s club, The Kitchen (which has just reopened), at a techno night which was bi-weekly.

He was playing loads of amazing music – some of the Common Factor tracks off his Planet E releases, his re-edit of Talking Heads ‘Once In A Lifetime’ – then he dropped ‘Phylps Track II’ , a track which I don’t think I’d ever heard out before then. Needless to say, it blew my ‘noggin. Into this he brought in his remix of ‘Good Life’, with its Timbaland-style vocals, which came about before Timbaland. I didn’t think it could get much better – he let the vocals ride over the perfect techno dub of BC. But then he messed up, the vocals going out of time  and getting further and further out of sync.

He tried to correct the situation, and failed, so he started the mix all over again. Deadly. Same thing happened again. Still he persevered, failed to correct matters and began the process all over again. Good thing ‘Phylps Track II’ is so long. The mix went awry yet again, but he got through it this time. Although not executed all that well, it is a mix that has stayed in my brain for the last 12 years or so. Of course, myself and my mates immediately tried to immitate this mix as soon as we got home. I think he was a better dj then, because of the music he played, back when his deck skills weren’t so sharp.

Tying into Kenny’s post about pre-planning, for a bit of ISM continuity, I’d say Carl pre-planned this mix – he just couldn’t execute it as well as he’d hoped for. It still stood out for me, beyond a zillion perfect mixes I’ve heard before.