Basement Crates: The "Pot Roast" Year(s)

Gravediggaz: Diary Of A Madman (Gee Street, 1994)
My very good friend Billy and I used to DJ as Pot Roast. I know, but it was a long time ago. Our reasoning was, we played the sort of music that sounded quite good if you'd inhaled and our regular gig was at The Albany on a Sunday night (what a night...). Anyway, I found a few of our most beloved tunes while looking for some cutlery the other day. I actually felt a little choked up as I pulled out what young people used to refer to as "the jizz-ams". So, The Gravediggaz were a huge hit with us, I remember seeing them play an amazing showcase at a club in Ladbroke Grove, and this tune was always somewhere near the front of "the box" (you see how I remember the lingo?).

Pressure Drop: Back 2 Back (Main and Dub mixes) (Big World Records, 1990)
I used to play this record so much that it actually haunted my dreams. It had everything I wanted from music in 1990, ie, it was a bit hip hop, a bit funk, a bit abstract and a bit weirdly ambient. The lyrics sort of make your eyes water now (although I like the way the guy says, "ray-shism"), but this is nearly 20 years old now - let's cut ourselves some slack, eh? Pressure Drop got signed up in the great post Coldcut / Massive Attack goldrush of 1990, but it never happened for them (that makes a nice change for Landcroft House, doesn't it?) This is the sort of record that (and here's another popular DJ phrase from the time) really "turns around" loud (ie, it has a walloping big bassline which sounds good if, perchance, you have inhaled / ingested and hear it on huge speakers). I've included both mixes because, frankly, they're both incredibly good.

E-Z Rollers: Believe (Foul Play remix) (Moving Shadow, 1994)
There was a school of drum and bass in the early to mid-90s that wasn't exactly "intelligent" and wasn't exactly whatever the other thing was (whither, "jump up") and this E-Z Rollers tune sort of typified that sound. Foul Play's drum programming is ludicrously tight and there's this full-on, proper head-spinning dance-floor diva vocal (to this day, Billy and I will sing, "Be-Leee-Eeeave" to each other for no clear reason and we have a combined age of 82) to "boot".


Bob Andy: Dubbing Home (I-Anka Records, 1989)
This is the one we used to play when we were, well, going home. A deed that, in itself, used to raise a few cheers. If there's a record in the world that makes you want to raise your lighter to the sky and sway slowly and drunkenly more than this one (bearing in mind you're not allowed to raise your lighter to the sky in clubs anymore), then I, for one, have never heard it. Fantastic record. Happy days!