Don Ray - Midnight Madness

A fiendishly good night was had by all at our 'Keep The Dead Alive' bash at East Village. The lyrics of this classic from Don Ray provide a fitting summary of the night's activities and you can check out more pics on our Facebook page here.

Have a Sexy Halloween!

Keep Love Alive believes October 31st doesn't need to be about ghouls and gremlins. Here's the beautiful Spanish actress, Soledad Miranda, star of 'Vampyros Lesbos' amongst many other cult horror films...



Salma Hayek in 'Dusk Till Dawn'...



The late Aaaliyah in 'Queen of The Damned'...



Naughty but nice.

Keep Love Alive Halloween Party - East Village, October 31st

We'll be raising hell to raise money for a good cause, Positive Futures (www.positive-futures.net). Email keeplovealive@splendidcomms.com for the £5 charity guest list. See you there glittery ghouls!

Ketty Lester - Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid

Anonymous Dad Dancer, we salute you! Check out the talc on the kitchen floor and a great tune too!

Judy Street - What

A few more northern soul posts, this time with musings on one of my favourite topics, Dad Dancing. The essence of Dad Dancing is to remain convinced that you are busting brilliant dance moves when even a 2-year old would recognise a creaky old duffer prancing around in some kind of jerky, breathless, fantasy state. Northern soul is great for Dad Dancing. Everybody thinks they can do that northern soul backward-stepping dance move but only proper northern soul dancers can. I am not a proper northern soul dancer, I'm a Dad Dancer, and I've always been inspired by the clip above from Wigan Casino as it appeared on Granada TV's This England documentary. Marvel at the high energy precision of those dancers and wonder where are they now or, more importantly, are they dads?



An example of good northern soul dancing of the kind that even a Dad Dancer could aspire to. This guy was apparently captured mucking about at work so someone has edited the video adding Judy Sreet as the backing track. Genius!



Try this at home.

Lorraine Silver - Lost Summer Love

Wow! Last post was August with a summer soul mix and now all of a sudden it's winter, how did that happen? Here is Lorraine Silver capturing that end of summer feeling perfectly with 'Lost Summer Love' which she recorded at the tender age of 13 in 1965. Thanks to Mod Generation for a fantastic video.

Keep Love Alive Mix - Summer Soul Special

Phew what a scorcher. A selection of stylish 6Ts and 7Ts soul sides for sun lovers, straight from the 7" Box of Love. x

Tracklist:

1. The Drifter - Ray Pollard
2. On Main Street - The Magnificents
3. Don't Pity Me - Joanie Sommers
4. I'd Think It Over - Sam Fletcher
5. That Other Place - Wade Flemons
6. Magic Touch - Melba Moore
7. As Long As I Have You - Garnet Mimms
8. My World Is Empty Without You - Diana Ross & The Supremes
9. Girls Are Out To Get You - The Fascinations
10. Our Love Will Grow - The Showmen
11. You Just Foolin Me - Terry Callier
12. Think It Over - The Harvey Averne Dozen
13. Better Use Your Head - Little Anthony and The Imperials
14. That Girl Belongs To Yesterday - Gene Pitney
15. Three Cool Cats - The Coasters
16. Lonely Lover - Marvin Gaye
17. Ask The Lonely - The Four Tops
18. Where Is That Girl - Detroit Spinners
19. Just Say Goodbye - Esther Phillips
20. Only The Strong Survive - Jerry Butler
21. I'll Hold You - Frankie And Johnny
22. Overdose of Joy - Eugene Record
23. That's What You Get For Being Polite - The Jacksons
24. Trying To Love Two - Barbara Lynn
25. It Happens When I Look At You - Aretha Franklin
26. Work To Do - The Main Ingredient
27. Casanova - Loleatta Holloway
28. Everything Man - Main Ingredient

Zachary - In Control

Wow, great new house music alert, 'Evolution Pro' on side A feels like a candidate for tune of the year! Buy one here, limited edition and vinyl only, apparently.

The Carstairs - It Really Hurts Me Girl

Fascinating thread over there at the DJ history forum discussing the legendary Blackpool Mecca, centred on the memories of Ian Dewhirst and other DJs. Well worth a read, especially Ian's tales of digging in America in the early 70s. If only ...

The 'Out On The Floor' compilation on Inferno was my introduction to this tune as a wee London mod, in 1979.

T-Coy - Carino

I THINK this was the highlight of Todd Terje's set at East Village ... memory is a little hazy. It was a great night with Stuart Patterson and Todd playing deep, high quality house and the Lovebox crew dropping disco in the bar. In any case, here is a ground-breaking British release from 1987 sounding ridiculously basic today but revolutionary at the time and still a fantastic groove. Sorry for the crackles.

Shit Robot - Simple Things (Todd Terje Remix)

Todd Terje riding high with a great remix of Shit Robot, out now on DFA so buy it here. Serge Santiago has turned in his own brilliant take on the same tune, available on a separate 12" here. Wonder what Todd will play tonight at East Village?

Keep Love Alive Top Five Todd Terje Moments:

1. Camino del Sol (remix) - Antena
2. Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes (re-edit) - Paul Simon
3. Another Station (TT mix) - Lindstrom
4. Balearic Incarnaton (remix) - Dolle Jolle (TT remix)
5. Plastik (remix)- Simon Baker

Dennis Parker - Like An Eagle

Todd Terje at East Village, London tomorrow night, woohoo! Here's a favourite of the Norwegian disco dude, 'Like An Eagle' by Dennis Parker. Mr. Parker was apparently a porn star in the 70s (well of course, with that 'tache!) who caught AIDS then blew his brains out with a shotgun. Great video!

Visual - The Music Got Me

Electronic dance music perfection from 1983. A monstrous, murky bassline and fizzing hats support a typically "Garage" sounding vocal. Produced by Boyd Jarvis and Timmy Regisford, both still making great music today, and mixed by Tony Humphries with a mighty dub on the flip. Here is the vocal, a Keep Love Alive spin for, oh dear, more than 20 years now.

Sandy Mercer - Give Me Your Love

Funky boogie track with great drum breaks. Seem to remember the instrumental getting played by people like Trevor 'Madhatters' Nelson and Soul II Soul but the vocal is pretty cool.

Queen Samantha - Give Me Action

Another tip-off from Sean P, cheers mate!

Hydro Featuring Lorna - I'll Make Your Day Tonight

Bad boogie from 1979.

Mr. Fingers - What About This Love

Timeless, mellow music from the legend Larry Heard. Simply beautiful, an end of night favourite.

Toby Tobias - Space Shuffle (remixes)

New vinyl additions to the Keep Love Alive collection are more and more rare these days (mostly downloads now, ssshh) so here is a round up of 2009 so far. Toby Tobias' Space Shuffle was one of the best albums of 2008 and here is a great batch of remixes. While Tensnake are deservedly getting lots of attention right now the winner is Dave Ellesmere's mix of Schoon, a no-nonsense house track for big bassbins. Tough skippy drums with all the right repetitive stab sounds that I'd love to hear played at the little Secret Sundaze wood at Love Box although I'm sadly not going this year, boo. Buy one here and perhaps you too could enjoy a 'head pressed to the speaker stack in the living room' moment soon.

Meanderthals - Andromeda (Idjut Boys mix)

What do you get when you cross the UK's finest proponenets of deep and laid back electronic sounds ...

... with one of Norway's finest proponents of deep and laid back electronic sounds?

You guessed it.

Dan and Conrad team up with Rune (see previous post) for an album as the Meanderthals and what you get is all pretty chilled. This remix is hardly uptempo but there's something about the heavy drums and tribal sounding percussion that reminds me of Soul II Soul at the Africa Centre (circa 1986??) So classic sounding dance music that deserves to be rumbling on a big sound system stack somewhere this summer. Buy it here

Rune Lindbaek - Bonat Synthesiser

Rune is a leading light of the Norwegian nu-balearic-cosmic-call it whatever scene, though apperas to be much less prolific than fellow Scandinavians such as Lindstrom, who is a collaborator here. A collection of brilliantly wonky, wierd, squelchy nu-balearic-cosmic-sounds where even the most 'up' moment on 'Nautilus' is still pretty laid back. Check it here

House of House - Rushing to Paradise

Expensive but worth the investment, these Whatever We Want releases seem to be pressed in limited quantities. This is the best of the bunch so far for me, a steadily building, deep house track that exlodes with a rousing vocal and piano finish. Seems to be sold out from the places I normally shop ...

The Doves - Kingdom of Rust (Prins Thomas mix)

More from the bearded Scando-house mafia. A decent Doves outing gets a folky, funky, electronic makeover from Prins Thomas and backed with a great Still Going remix too. Worth tracking down.

Magenta - She's Model

Sigh, the sad loss of another icon. Wanted to grab a tune to commemorate the legendary smile and hairstyle that was Farah Fawcett and this one from 1997 seems to work.

The Jackson 5 - Never Can Say Goodbye

RIP Michael Jackson. My favourite memories of him will always be Jackson 5 ones.

Earth People - Reach Up to Mars

Thank God its Friday and time for another rave classic, this one from Joey Longo in his Earth People guise, released on US Underworld records in 1990.

Nexus 21 - Techno Symphony

More 'rave-era' brilliance, this time from 1989 and the North of England, Stafford to be precise. The first Nexus 21 release was '(Still) Life Keeps Moving', a vocal techno smash. It was followed by an album 'Rhythm of Life' that was strongly influenced by Detroit but with a definite British flavour. Here is one of the standout cuts, 'Techno Symphony'.

Sha-Lor - I'm in Love

In preparation for the DJ Flicks 'Rave' screening on Friday here is an enduring and quite beautiful New York house classic from 1988 that has never left the Keep Love Alive 12" box of love.

DJ Ficks - Rave

DJ FLICKS is a simple idea: watch great dance music documentaries, then dance the night away as legendary DJs recreate the era you’ve just seen on screen.

The first DJ FLICKS night back in April, DISCO, was a roaring success.
Kicking off with a Q&A with veteran producer Arthur Baker, we showed The Godfather of Disco, introduced by its director, Gene Graham. Then, right after watching classic footage from 1970s New York, we recreated the era with blinding sets from London’s original disco king Gareth Marshal and new guns Disco Bloodbath.

Linda di Franco - My Boss

Speaking of Linda Franco, here she is performing 'My Boss' live on Italian television supported by the Invisible Man Band, doing that classic "knock knees" dance from the 80s and delivering the brilliant lyrics "My boss has taken all my heart and now he's tearing it apart..."

Discossession - TV Scene

A rare, new vinyl addition to the Keep Love Alive collection. Here is a version of Linda Di Franco's Balearic fave 'TV Scene' released in Japan by Discossession. Featuring a great Soft Rocks remix (thanks Piers!) and the blissful, floaty 'Celestial Mix'. Copies of the expensive Japanese import seem to have disappeared from the UK stores so buy it online at Jet Set records in Japan.

Manzel - Space Funk / Jump Street

Two great, break-fuelled funky sides.
'Space Funk'

'Jump Street'

Eugene Record - Overdose of Joy

So they find this man, he's collapsed in the middle of the room. Robbery is quickly ruled out as the motive because "... on his arm he wears a watch, on his hand he wears a ring and ..." (the clincher) "... around his neck he wears a costly piece of jewellery". A doctor on the scene, sensing the presence of a lady, quickly announces a diagnosis ... yes, "This man is suffering from an overdose of joy". Pure, soulful genius.

Mach - On and On

A cut 'n' paste classic. Originally released in 1980 on the b-side of a bootleg put together by a Miami DJ it features excerpts from Lipps Inc 'Funky Town', Donna Summers 'Bad Girls', Playback 'Space invaders' and Munich Machine 'Get on the Funk Train'. By the mid-1980's, pioneering house DJs had made this an underground club smash in Chicago.



If you haven't seen this amazing DJ Rahaan youtube clip, watch all the way through to see this track smashing the dancefloor 20 years on. And on (beep beep!).

Keep Love Alive Mix - Far Beyond

For everyone that came to party Above the Clouds with us on Friday and all lovers of spaced-out electronic grooves here is a mix to ease you gently down to earth. Containing recent classics from Joey Negro, Larry Heard and Woolfy as well more distant classics from The Rah Band, Francois K and Slam Mode. Switch to autopilot.

Asha Puthli - Space Walk

Mellow cosmic funk from this 1970s Indian film star and disco chanteuse. Popularised by Gilles Peterson towards the end of the 1980's acid jazz scene at Dingwalls, more on him later.

Mos Eisley Bar Scene from Star Wars

Chilling out with the Star Wars box set, love this scene ... Obie-Wan Kinobe says "You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy" ... looks like the coolest bar in the galaxy!

David Keaton - Space Control

Keeping it electronic, cosmic and camp this one from David Keaton was released in France in 1983 and in the US on Roulette Records.

The Cosmic Sound Orchestra - Fly Some Funk Up To The Moon

The last in a cosmic disco 'Baia Sound' trilogy this week, this originated from Germany in 1978. Slightly bonkers, trippy in parts and apparently another Baldelli play. Hey it's Friday, lets fly some funk right up to the moon!

John Forde - Stardance

This release on Sidewalk records from 1977 seems to be prized for the tracks 'Woman' and 'Don't You You Know Who Did It?' (which is excellent). Both were apparently played by the 'father of comsic disco' Daniele Baldelli and his fans have payed big bucks for the record since. This is the third track on the EP and a lovely spacey disco groove it is too. Much easier to track down on a 7" and you get the bonus of some quite sexy options on sleeve art depending on which release you go for:

Italian ...


... or French?

Enjoy the music.

Ganymed - It Takes You Higher

Ganymed was an Austrian space disco outfit who took their name from an asteroid that looks suspiciously like a huge disco ball. Like a lot of European disco, their music has an electronic feel with camp tendencies. This one from the album 'Takes You Higher' is no exception but it works for me as I hope it does for you. The asteroid is pretty cool too, check it out.

Travis Biggs - Fly Like An Eagle

The Steve Miller Band original of 'Fly Like An Eagle' is a top tune and needs no improvement, although jazz violinist Travis Biggs here takes it in a more funky, cosmic direction and it is a worthy excursion. If you dig this then check the rest of the album, which has been reissued by Soul Jazz, here . It contains a great version of Stevie Wonder's 'I Wish' and a killer groove called 'Tibetan Sirenity'. With thanks to Chas.

War - Flying Machine

Flute-led, jazz dance goodness from War.

Chris Farlowe - Air Travel

Chris Farlowe with a Brit R&B mod fave extolling the virtues of planes and stuff, presumably because in the sixties they had air stewardesses like the ones pictured above. No "Squeezy Jet" either.

DJ Premier - Above The Clouds (instrumental)

Only 6 sleeps to go till take-off for the Keep Love Alive 'Above the Clouds' party so each day we'll post a tune that deals with the party's theme - air travel, space exploration and cosmic love. First up, a good groove from king of the Big Apple beat makers, DJ Premier

Keep Love Alive Mix - Lost Horizons

Another old mix, this one from 2008 that starts with the "David Mancuso Loft classic" Instant House 'Lost Horizons' and meanders through some more recent deep house and/ or 'cosmic' bits and bobs. Hope you enjoy.

Kellee Patterson - I'm Gonna Love You (Just a Little More)

Sexy, funky soul version of the Barry White classic by the delectable Kellee Patterson from the album 'Kellee'



And for good measure another picture, a promo shot from the film 'Demolition Man' courtesy of The Bodega. "Oh baby, you're outta sight!"

Keep Love Alive - Party Time

Its a private affair so email for guest list

Sound Dimension - Granny Scratch Scratch

Obscure funky reggae tunes were popular on the London boogie and rare groove scene in the mid 1980's and the big find was the monster 'Greedy G' on Studio One instrumentals album 'Better Dub'. Shortly afterwards came the discovery of this from the 'Roots Dub' album, recorded by Studio One house band Sound Dimension. Caned by Westwood, amongst others, on his radio show at the time.

Queen Yahna - Ain't It Time

Excellent, conscious 70's disco-soul courtesy of Peter Brown's P&P label.

Melba Moore - Magic Touch

Brilliant northern soul stomper from a young Melba Moore recorded in 1966 although not at first released. In fact The Bobby Fuller Four released a pop version although this pales in comparison with Melba's version. This is a later release (re-issue?) thanks to Chas!

The JB's - My Brother

For my brother, respect.

The Gospelaires of Dayton, O. - God Helps Those Who Help Themselves

Thanks to Sean P for this one.