R.I.P The Soul Godfather 03/04/33 - 25/12/06

A sad day for music heads everywhere. The Originator, the soul power, sex machine, funky drummer is gone to the great gig in the sky.

Time for thanks for one of the greatest musical legacies and uncompromising musical influences the world has ever seen. He's black and he 's proud in Belfast N.I as much as in Brooklyn NYC.
Respect from all the hip hop samplers, funk soul bruddas, Drum n' Bass heads and every DJ that spinned his tight ass soul tunes to a dance hungry crowd.
Respect J.B
Sofa Kid
26/12/06

Space between

Just been away for short break to Vienna, emphasise the short here; Left Fri night, returned Sunday night. Somewhere in between 'we', (Boopy doo and I) found enough time to explore some groovy boheme clothe shops, have a wee trawl through BLACKMARKET RECORDS - a treasure trove of German house/funk/deepsoul/beats delights where I disappeared for several hours & experience the 'real christmas market' - with hot mulled wine and charcoal cooked wedges. Forget City Hall christmas market guys, these are the people that invented it! Apart from that we lazed in supercool austro-germanic cafes and watched the wooly attired pensive Austrians swan by..

Heard 'Pepe Bradocks - Deep burnt' epic deep house tune in one of these and spent the rest of weekend with it in my head.I memorised the sound and didn't find out what it was till I got home.

Was a press trip for Boops, so while she gathered some info all I had to do was take the odd photo and stay in a 4 star hotel ( shucks someones got to do it, Definitely a place worth more exploration, would like to have uncovered some real life Hundertwasser and checked out some vienna nightlife of the Kruder & Dorfmeister variety. Save that for next time.
By the way they have some of the best transport systems in Europe, for example you can check in your bags at the railway station and you don't have to lift them again till you step off the plane back in Belfast. Comon Ulsterbus!!!!

A TIME FOR...

There was a time, when there was time for, blogs, books, walks in the rain, long lost photography trips on a sunday afternoons, late evenings looking for something to do.

Things have changed around pretty fast, funny I didn't even notice. Some tiny part of me laments it but thats quite ridiclous cause I hated it. Not going to go into details but life may never be the same again and its a freeing yet daunting thought.
The challenge now is to live life as it happens. Makes me think of one of my favourite quotes from HAGAKURE - Book of the Samurai (the narrative basis of the brillant 'GHOSTDOG' by JIM JARMUSCH)

"There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing left to pursue."

'Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai' by Tsunetomo Yamamoto

I mean we should celebrate the cold, hard, empty times as much as the dreamy fulfilled good times right?

No Apologies

Sorry but!!

Really sick of Weather presenters on T.V apologising for cold nasty bad weather, it is the winter isn't it?!

Sandinos on the decks

Just had the best DJing experience ever, up in Sandinos - Derry city last weekend.Was spinning some tunes with DJ Brasilia, Liam Q and the mighty Kwame.
Got the invite the other week to Join Liam who runs Belfast Soul Club in the Pavillion to head up and play in the downstairs bar at Sandinos. Been wanting to play in this place ever since I dropped into to it for a pint about a year ago. Its a totally original place with an atmosphere you just can't get in Belfast.
The music promotion is run by this supercool black guy: Kwame, who's built a reputation for the place from a monthly session behind the decks in the bar to a 3 floor 500 capacity music night in 9 yrs!The vibe was great, totally about the tunes, not the money grabbing,conservative music attitude I've been used to in Belfast.Kwame seriously has something unique going on that you'd only expect to find in the bigger London/Manchester scenes.
Me and the 'Soulkid' packed out the bar with some heavy soul,funk,hiphop,bippity bop and odditys while Dj Brasilia spun some Latin house with Mr Kwame upstairs to a packed house.


Big tunes of the night were:
CUT CHEMIST - The garden,
WHITE ENEMY - 7 Nation army/Bring the noise (mash up)
IAN DURY - Hit Me With Your Rythmm Stick!(oldies r the best!)
WE'LL BE BACK!!!!!!SOULFINGA!!!

destinationdub.com website up

O.k its not officially launched yet, but the Destination Dub site is already up.
If you want a sneak preview, log onto www.destinationdub.com,(or follow link opposite).
Proper launch and new exhibition to be mailed out on 6th November 2006.

Common Collective DJ set at AmPm

Yes yes yes its all happening. After 3 yrs of duff venues, grumpy venue managers and solid walls to bounce heads on. We have arrived! Just landed a wee DJ residency with me old mates The Common Collective. We will be in AmPm a small but cool citycentre bar/resturaunt on Upper Arthur St every friday & saturday night for the forseeable future.We'll playing a mix of bip bop, brasilia, nu soul, latin, n future jazz beats.
Bring it on
www.myspace.com/commoncollective
www.myspace.com/djsofakid