Posts by Russell Brown
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Interesting - Authority refuses approval for six psychoactive products:
The Psychoactive Substances Regulatory Authority has refused applications for six products seeking interim approvals under the new Psychoactive Substances Act.
The products refused approval are the psychoactive product G-13, three Kronic brand products (Kronic Skunk, Kronic Tropical Explosion and Kronic Pineapple Express) and two Kryptonite branded products (Kryptonite Green and Kryptonite Red).
The manager of the Psychoactive Substances Regulatory Authority, Dr Donald Hannah, says the six products were all assessed to pose more than a low risk of harm.
"The applicants cannot now import, manufacture, wholesale or retail these six products. The product that is out there must be recalled."
Dr Hannah says the Authority has reviewed reports of adverse reactions from a range of sources including the National Poisons Centre and hospital emergency departments.
"Such adverse effects are being monitored on an on-going basis and the Authority will also act to remove any currently approved interim products should there be concern."
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Story, in reply to Tom Beard,
Yes, Arthur Baker/New Order was one collaboration that I was going to mention in that respect. But I think it’s the phrase “the context in which we see dance music” that marks the difference between our two perspectives: I came to dance music via electronic music, but it seems like you came to electronic music via dance music. Would that be correct?
But we are talking about contemporary dance music, and while it clearly had many influences (the Chicago house DJs were known to drop Kraftwerk and YMO), what we recognise as "dance music" came from those inner city scenes -- which, of course, had to be brought to Britain to become mainstream popular culture.
Hell yeah, Acid Tracks! But I don’t think that he was the first to see that a bass synthesiser didn’t have to sound like a bass guitar: Giorgio and his modular Moog might have something to say about that :-)
Yeah .... but creating genius with a Moog wasn't quite the same thing as totally and permanently perverting the 303, which was literally sold as a device for the use of cover bands in bars. It's that thing about the street finding its uses for technology.
Anyway -- Acid Tracks!
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Story, in reply to Tom Beard,
I think that there a few geeky white guys in Düsseldorf, Manchester, Munich and Basildon who had a fair bit to do with it too.
Of course -- and the way Afrika Bambaataa et al paid attention to Kraftwerk is one of popular music's great synergies. But Arthur Baker was already working in the studio where New Order came and had the brilliant intuition of 'Blue Monday', and I think the context in which we see dance music was really created in the lofts and warehouses of American inner cities. DJ Pierre discovering that a bass synthesiser didn't have to sound like a lame bass guitar but could instead be made to sound like nothing on earth was a pretty big moment.
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Story, in reply to Tom Beard,
Crystal Method etc
Was it Gordon Campbell who called them "the Bachman-Turner Overdrive of dance music"? That was gold.
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Story, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Basically, dance music has evolved along various paths from the initial prototypes of disco, early house and electronic music pioneers such as Kraftwerk and New Order.
And the Chicago house pioneers , Derrick Carter et al in Detroit, Larry Levan et al in New York. They arguably invented it, and then started having Top 10 hits in Britain.
In the last few years, the commercial music industry in the US has finally cottoned on to the dance-music-not-rap thing as something the kids might like. Also, MDMA. They’ve given this the new name of EDM, but basically, it’s the same music than in 2005 would just have been a form of ’ouse.
I think Tom's closer linking it to big beat. There's the brostep element too. And it's in stadiums, and the DJs feel no compunction about turning up and pressing play on their pre-recorded sets. The booze thing too. I dunno, I just dislike most of what I hear with the "EDM" label on it.
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Speaker: The act of not eating doesn't…, in reply to Live Below the Line .,
Thanks for this blog post.
And thanks for coming by and responding in good faith.
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Hard News: A Public Address public appeal, in reply to Clarke,
Here’s the thing: I don’t actually want anything more for my money.
Good on you. And that's absolutely the idea. Subscriber radio.
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Hard News: A Public Address public appeal, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
I’m very excited about foody posts. I’ve been doing a lot of cooking in the past year or so (when previously I did not cook) so I’m well into it as a topic of interest. Hurry up and get that food blog happening!
Oh, I'm keen as too. Got plenty of ideas.
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I thought immediately of this astonishing press release about a Live Below the Line venture.
However much it might read like dark, Charlie Brookeresque satire ... it's real.
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Hard News: Being Jim, in reply to Bart Janssen,
That’s the one. It does seem a long time ago but still very strong in the memory. The auction was great and in the end it seemed like you could have auctioned off anything :).
And The Clean played! The money raised was technically for full-time tutoring for Leo, who we'd had to take out of school, but he was in no state for that at the time, so we spent it more gradually on both boys' development. There's still a little left in the pot, and it pays for Dr Matthew Dentith to come every Monday and spend four hours (plus an hour of unpaid "chum time") talking to Leo about ideas. They cover anything Leo wants to talk about. This week, it was morality, another week might focus on a certain period of history. It's been an extraordinary thing. Ashley Hinton also spent a year doing catch-up maths, which was very valuable too.
And yes, bravely showing us all what you felt, so very eloquently, was a good call.
Funny thing about that: by the time I'd done that speech, I was done, But everyone was so moved that people started pouring out their hearts to Fiona and I. I wound up so overwhelmed that I had to hide out in the courtyard with my homies for a while:-).
One more thing about that night. The whole thing was the idea of Deborah Pead, who threw a bunch of her own company's resources into making it happen. Deborah catches a bit of flak in the course of her business, but our family will always be grateful to her.