Best Promos: Frankie Howerd

Here’s a clever, faux-ignorant start to this week’s Best Promos that will DEFINITELY make you smirk: How about that Paul McCartney, eh? Macca banging on about not having much money in Can’t Buy Me Love is a MASSIVE two fingers up to all of the hard-up Beatles fans in the Cost of Living Credit Crunch Crisis who are still buying his records to make him even richer! LOL. That kind of hilarious comment crops up all the time on Twitter by people like me who are desperate to be noticed.

Anyway, I genuinely did think that would be a good Tweet as Can’t Buy Me Love blasted through the speakers at Best Promos HQ whilst I was busy writing this week’s Best Promos. Smooth FM is brilliant for writing about dance music to. No joke.

I’ve been in the offices of many hip and happening media hubs during my time as managing director of the W**kly Re**ew of Da**e Mu**c and I always used to walk away wondering how the bloody hell any work got done. I was delivering chocolate fingers to the Ran$om Note office one July afternoon in 2015 and they were all sat there, tapping away at their Macs with a constant BOOF DOOF BOOF DOOF coming out of a Funktion One rig next to the photocopier. It’s part of the reason I’m glad that I never got employed by a proper website or magazine; I’m a perfectionist writer. I need my Zen. I need a bit of easy listening to get my lit-groove on. Boiler Room, Mixmag, Ran$om Note, Pitchfork, Billboard and Thump can all GET STUFFED if they think I’m going to accept a fixed-term contract from ANY of them as a staff journalist. Ever. I’m staying in Eastcote to listen to Smooth FM, Jazz FM, Chill FM and the sound of the deadbeat twerps next door screaming and shouting at each other when their kids are at school.

No, sorry. That was when I lived in Northolt, my neighbours in Ruislip are nice.

I’ve done nothing else this week other than think about how I really fancy eating an Easter egg. It’s probably been about a year since I last ate one so I went down to Eastcote High Street and asked the man in Sainsbury's if he had any Easter Eggs in stock. He laughed his head off and told me turn around and open my eyes. I turned around, opened my eyes and literally LOL’d out loud. Easter eggs were absolutely everywhere! Chocolate ones, dark chocolate ones, white chocolate ones and normal chocolate ones in all sorts of flavours; Crunchie, Yorkie, Twirl, Double Decker, Buttons and Cream Egg. It was brilliant. I bought one of everything, went back to Best Promos HQ and scoffed the lot like what Chubby Funster out of Mixmag probably does every day of the year.

Does he still work there? I think he's moved on now, like we all should.

Speaking of Easter, this Friday sees Man Power (real name, Powerful Man) playing all of his records at The Social on Good Friday, this Friday, on Friday night at The Social in London on Friday.

Is it going to be good? Hell yes it's going to be good. Just have a look at the line-up:

As well as Man Power, you've got your Syd Minskys and your Matt Hums and your Heavenly Jukeboxes. It's going to be 10/10 brilliant, and if I wasn't off the pop for Lent, and if I didn't have a family thing on the Saturday I had to attend, I'd have definitely have gone to this because I want to have a pint with M.P. and talk about Viz. And Gazza songs.

The music being played by the DJs will be some, not all, of the dance music genre. Expect kick drums, claps, snares, loads of closed hi-hats, bass lines, synth pads, synth keys, those little disco tom sound effects, some vocals, and as the night goes on expect Man Power to start playing faster records that contain closed hi-hats AND hi-hats that are as open as Prince William's arsehole.

All that and it's only the price of a pint in Mayfair to get in. No excuses.

Buy tickets here: thesocial/nrg/

Follow Man Power on Twitter and on Instagram

Follow Syd Minsky on Twitter and on Instagram

Follow Matt Hum on Twitter and on Instagram

Follow Heavenly Jukebox on Twitter and on Instagram

Follow The Social on Twitter and on Instagram

I'm a bit knackered after all that linking. Time for a cup of tea. Hang on.

Back!

When I'm not watching Alien Vs. Predator or listening to Smooth FM, I like to listen to Irish dance music, and there is no better Irish dance music than the dance music coming out of Irishman Tr One's record label, Intrinsic Rhythm, lately. I don't know if the dance music on the latest release is actually by Irish people, to be honest; they're all remixes, but it's definitely on Intrinsic Rhythm, which is definitely Irish. Not that any of this matters, it's just great music. It's called Remixes Of. Have a listen to this one off of it:

Makes me feel ready for the summer, that one. Lovely stuff.

That track is one of a five track release of remixes on the most Irish label in the world. I phoned Tr One up and asked him to very briefly summarise every track on it. Here's the transcript of our conversation:

Some people have said before that I look like Rodney Trotter, but I prefer it when they say I look like Damon Albarn.

* * bring bring - bring bring - click * *

Hello, Tr One?

Yes, to be sure.

Hi, it's Kevin here at Best Promos, how are you?

Catch yourself on, now, are we going to do this thing or what?

Ok, Tr One, can you very briefly summarise every track on your new release, Remixes Of, please?

An Italo/electro tinged remix of The Swim Meet by Italian Irish man Lerosa.

A ten minute deep acid tinged journey of I'm Dreaming Again by Detroit house luminary Scott Ferguson.

A brilliant melodic driven electro crossover of Stay Offline by Irish electronic pioneers Dechord.

A Chicago influenced deep house remix of Pitchshift by Westcoast Goddess.

A brilliant instrument led downtempo remix of Minimal Nelson by Toby Kaar.

Great. Thanks Tr One, bye.

Bye, so it is.

* * beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep * *

Was that racist? I don't think so. No. It was alright, I think. I'll leave it all in. Should be fine. It was affectionate more than anything else, and I was doing Jim McDonald in my head. Is that even worse? Hmm.

Anyway, Remixes Of gets a TIPPERARY TOP OF THE MORNING 10/10 from everyone here at Best Promos.

Buy it here: Remixes Of

Follow Tr One on Twitter and on Instagram

And finally, I asked ChatGPT to tell me a joke about dance music, but the results were so poor that I can't be bothered to even screen shot it for this.

Have a lovely Easter, everyone, I'll be back on the demon drink on Easter Sunday and back on here next week with a MASSIVE hangover. I can't wait!

Email me: BestPromos4Eva@gmail.com

Tweet me: @BestPromos4Eva

Instagram me: /bestpromos4eva/