27 March 2009
“No jokes, no messin’, we’ll teach you a lesson, a state of confusion to keep you all guessin’!”
Wholesome family entertainers Ant (PJ) and Dec (Duncan) have come a long way since that terrible (but thankfully fictional) Tyneside paintballing accident in 1992, where Debbie and Amanda ganged up on the boys as revenge for two-timing them but PJ had taken his protective goggles off for a split second and got paint in his retinas. Whoops! “Geoff! He cannae see man! Spuggy’s done a sick! Nyooaaoorhhhhhhhhh!“. more »
katstevens in FT • 1 Comment
24 February 2009
Last night saw the first episode of Law & Order:UK, a British version of a US television programme! I couldn’t remember this sort of cross-ocean event ever having happened before in the history of entertainment so your intrepid telly reporter here thought she’d give it a whirl. Plus it had Martha from Doctor Who in it. more »
katstevens in FT • 5 Comments
29 January 2009
24. The Orb – Blue Room
It was a dark day when my tape of Rave’92 broke. Repeated rewinding and pausing had caused a hole to develop in the tape, and my rubbish cassette player refused to play it unless I wound it back manually and flipped it over to the other side. I ended up too scared to play the tape at all in case the whole thing spontaneously combusted.
Missing out on Praga Kahn was bad enough, but I was devastated at the loss of ‘Blue Room’. No more mesmerising dance routines incorporating several jumps off the ladder of my bunk bed. I had dreamed up accompanying visuals (just as I had done for ‘Assassin’): an underwater vista filled with shooting stars and bubbles, flicking montages of news channels and snippets of black and white films. I allowed myself to be completely absorbed into the music, to escape the harrowing pressures of… being eleven years old? Er, what? more »
katstevens in FT • 8 Comments
12 January 2009
23. Ambassadors of Funk ft MC Mario – Supermarioland
It was an unspoken agreement that you were only allowed to play the shorter ‘B’ game of Tetris in the playground, as everyone had got so good at the (indefinitely long) ‘A’ game that they would hog it the entire breaktime and the complex priority system* would dissolve into chaos. Despite this suprisingly democratic arrangement, the days when D4v1d Ell1s0n remembered to bring in Super Mario Land were immensely preferable: the percentage of people who could get past the big seahorse at the end of world 2 (i.e. those who had their own Gameboy to practice on) was low enough that I often got a quick go. I was a RUBBISH GIRL at it though – whilst my friend Em did our gender proud by regularly getting enough coins to earn an extra life, I kept falling down a gap where there was CLEARLY a platform there a second ago. Stupid Mario. more »
katstevens in FT • 14 Comments
7 January 2009
22. Blue Pearl – (Can You) Feel The Passion
If Rage’s ‘Run To You’ was filled with tame but uncomfortable references to knobbing within a loving relationship, then Blue Pearl’s contribution to Rave ’92 is a steaming pile of mortification, the heavy-breathing being explicit enough to send good little Christian Kat scrambling for the fast-forward button. more »
katstevens in FT • 3 Comments
16 December 2008
21. Opus III – It’s A Fine Day
Whilst I might not have experienced the (ahem) primary effects of rave culture aged 11, I definitely succumbed to the vast swathe of hippy b0ll0cks that seemed to permeate the early nineties. Commune with nature! Tap mystical leylines to enhance your psychic powers! Own a minimum of three crystals and ensure that one of them is purple! Be ready to welcome our new alien overlords now they can safely invade Earth through the hole in the ozone layer! Draw all over your Girl’s World head in biro labelling the different bits of brain! And why not save the humpbacked whale while you’re at it? more »
katstevens in FT • 3 Comments
12 December 2008
20. Praga Khan – Injected With A Poison
Like ‘The Magic Friend‘ earlier on, I found this a bit too intense on the first listen – acid squelching, whooping vocals courtesy of Jade 4U, and a scary man singing about poison. And piano breaks. And an underwater electric whisk. And one of those duck-calling kazoo things. Crikey! more »
katstevens in FT • 3 Comments
7 December 2008
19. Shut Up And Dance – I’m Ravin’ I’m Ravin’
How many times has a melody stalled on the tip of your tongue? Na-nur-na-nur NAH-ah NAAA. Dammit, what is it? Where on earth is that from? Na-nur-nah wee-woo-WEEEE-urr-wooo. You can’t remember what comes next, but if someone could *just* give you the first bit of the chorus you’d surely be able to hum the whole thing, even though you don’t know what the song’s called. Or who it’s by. more »
katstevens in FT • 4 Comments
30 November 2008
“Am I allowed to swear?” Estelle is back in London after a European tour, and the deafening Indigo2 soundsystem is determined to help her mark out her territory from the off. She is decked out in an eye-watering sequinned dress (which worryingly seems to form a picture of Sinead O’Connor) and two-tone high heels, and proceeds to gleefully say ‘shit’ every other word, knowing full well that her entire family are in the audience. I’m sure she will wash her mouth out as soon as the gig is over.
more »
katstevens in FT • 2 Comments
3 October 2008
18. 2 Unlimited – The Twilight Zone
The last couple of tracks on Rave ’92 have been grounded in everyday settings – mild frustration over misplacing small items, feeling a bit dizzy, epic clubbing fail, slumping in front of kids’ telly when you get home at 5am. Songs that paint a daft picture of the things frazzled clubbers must deal with on a day to day basis. It’s all very British: muddling through life and attempting to make the best of it with good humour.
Then suddenly AWOOGA AWOOGA the warning sirens blare out and we’re blasted off into space! more »
katstevens in FT • 3 Comments
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