Dom's Rambles

IP, You P, We All P For IP.

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:55:00 +0000

If you go to this site it will tell you your IP address. Using a combination of logic, lateral thinking, the voices inside my head and the information provided by my web stats I've been able to identify a good number of my regular visitors (194.176.105.54 being perfectly obvious - and per-lease sweetie, show me the respect of capitalising the initial letters of my name when Googling it).

This one though, 86.6.53.63, is a little baffling. I was certain I knew who it was but when they logged on at the same time as I was talking to them in the pub I realised I must have been mistaken.

An Interview With Allister Whitehead Plus A Review Of The Same Event I Wrote For The People At WWW.ILOVEOLDSKOOLHOUSE.COM

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:16:00 +0000

I went to my first house club in Sheffield and way back in the summer of 1995 - the now legendary Wonderland which ran at Kiki’s on a Saturday night. Within half an hour of passing through the door I’d managed to (ahem) get myself into the appropriate frame of mind and come chucking out time had to be peeled off the ceiling.
I would never look at my social life in quite the same way again.
Shortly afterwards, and by an incredible stroke of good luck, I found myself sharing a flat with a guy we’ll call Ali who worked at - and was the emergency stand-in DJ for - one of the big clubs in the city at the time. Thanks to his innumerable contacts, Ali was able to get me and a gang of mates guest listed for practically any do we wanted to go to. On Friday and Saturday nights we would go swaggering to the head of gargantuan queues, skip the body search and save a small fortune in door tax. In fact for all the time we shared that flat I don’t think I paid in a club more than a dozen times. Even though Ali and I parted under a cloud, and on considerably less than friendly terms, I’ll always owe him an immeasurable debt of gratitude for providing me with so many opportunities to wallow in the dionysian bacchanalia of what was undoubtedly the house scene’s golden age.
But parties, as a great philosopher once wrote, aren’t meant to last and eventually it all comes to an end. For me the curtain fell in the autumn of 1999 shortly after I read an article in the local paper concerning that year’s student intake and their perceptions of Sheffield as a place to live. When asked about the city’s nightlife one of these bright young things had commented,
“It’s really good, well, apart from all the last chance swingers you get in the clubs.”
I spent a minute or so digesting this before asking myself, ‘Last chance swingers - is he talking about me?’
I was a couple of years older than the crew I went clubbing with and they were all a couple of years older than most of the other clubbers - which was something I always had been uncomfortably aware of. After reading this article I became so neurotic about it that I couldn’t even going boozing on West Street for fear of doing something unbecoming a person of my years. And on Millennium Eve, instead of going to Gatecrasher at the Don Valley Arena, as I was planning to, I opted to attend an old pal’s house party.
Even so, I was determined that before I hung my dancing trousers up for good I would have one last wild and loved-up house night and to hell with what anyone thought of me – but as the months became years and the years became a decade that opportunity never seemed to present itself.
Not until the last Sunday of 2009 when those good folks at iloveoldskoolhouse.com threw their Sheffield Reunion event.
Some things were noticeably different from back in the day; the DJs arrived carrying laptops rather than flight cases of 12” singles for a start. The crowd, not surprisingly, was noticeably older too (the one exception being Allister Whitehead who, for some inexplicable reason, looks younger now than he does in a photo I took of him in 1996), consequently I didn’t feel at all self conscious about my age and was able to relax and get into it. Indeed, by the time the esteemed Mr Whitehead had dropped the third tune it was like I’d never been away.
The best night out of my entire life, which I will go misty eyed to recall until the end of my days, was the Boxing Day 1995 Love to be… bash at the Music Factory (as was) in Sheffield. At around half three in the morning I was in the middle of the packed dance floor, with that indescribable rush of orgasmic electricity surging through my veins, when one of the guys I’d gone out with had leaned over and yelled in my ear,
“Do you realise, that apart from going to refill our water bottles, we’ve been on the floor for five hours?”
As I looked around at my 1,200 or so like minded peers and struggled to take in the sheer awesomeness of it all I caught some lad’s eye who gurned back at me and gave the thumbs up sign. The tears of joy came streaming down my face and I was convinced that if the euphoria got any more intense then I’d turn into a fucking supernova. ‘I never want to leave this dance floor’, I thought to myself. ‘I want to stay here forever!’
I felt that same magic 14 years later.
Oh my God how I felt it.
And you know what? I want to feel it again.

At Last, A Politician With Some Balls!

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:05:00 +0000

Snapped this afternoon by Mr Chris Oxley ('Danny' in D&OiS&L), our man in Texas.

Another House Mix.

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:25:00 +0000

I seem to be in the grip of some kind of obsessive compulsive urge to knock these out at the moment. Here's the latest CD length house mix (right click and select 'Save Target As...').

Makes Me Feel Like Singing - Tak Tix
Armed & Extremely Dangerous - First Choice
The Lover That You Are - Pulse
the Word - Dope Smugglaz
Move Your Body - Xpansions
Eighteen Strings - Tinman
The Bomb - Bucketheads
I Believe - Happy Clappers
Feel the Same - Triple X
Right & Exact - Chrissie Ward
I Believe In Miracles - Trickster
Are You Gonna Be There? - Up Yer Ronson
I Get Lifted - Barbara Tucker
Baby Baby - Joy & Joyce
Movin' - Mone
Higher & Higher - Oval Emotion

A Couple Of Musical Diversions While I'm Waiting For My Writing Mojo To Return.

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:09:00 +0000

This video is pretty groovy - and is it just me or does the guitarist look alarmingly like Nick Griffin in a wig?
In other musical news here's another CD length house mix I did at the weekend. As ever this is an attempt to capture something of the sheer joy and exuberance of those loved-up nights during the mid 90s. Again it's a fairly hefty size (178Mb) so be aware that it might take a while to download.

Holding Back - Disco Tex
Must Be The Music - Joey Negro
Want Love? Hysteric Ego
(You've Got Me) Burning Up - Cevin Fisher
Give Me Rhythm - Black Connection
All Over The World (98 Remix) - FPI Project
Stand Up - Lovetribe
Let The Music Lift You Up - Loveland
Theme From S-Express (95 Remix) - S-Express
Love Can't Turn Around - Heavyweather
Yeke Yeke - Mory Kante
Freedom - Black Magic
So In Love With You - Duke
Smoke - Natalie Imbruglia
Your Love - Inner City
Never Let Go - Hyper Go Go

Guess What Arrived Today?

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:30:00 +0000

There are still a couple of holes that need drilling (i.e. the ones to mount the locking nut) that I don't trust myself to do and the bridge pegs need whipping out and replacing with the ones from the new tremolo - which really requires someone who knows what they're doing.

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today...

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 23:18:00 +0000

...that your gracious host first arrived in Sheffield and at this exact time I'd have been on my third pint at the legendary Limit club's Wednesday alternative night. I know I said I'd have the last chapter uploaded today but I've also had a number of distractions that have prevented me from getting it completed.

It is tantilisingly close to the finish line though.

A Little Self-Indulgence.

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:20:00 +0000

Still buzzing from the events of the previous post I did a mix CD last weekend (the first I've done for more than eight years). You can download an MP3 file of it here (right click and select the 'Save Target As...' option). The songs are all main room, hands in the air anthems that take me back to flappin' my dancin' trousers and shakin' my groove booty at Love to be... in Sheffield back in 1996.

Trainspotters may also notice that I duplicated a certain mix from Allister Whitehead's disc on the classic Fantazia House Collection Volume 3 CD.

The thing is 80 minutes long and weighs in at 180Mb so it may take a while to download.

T-Empo - Saturday Night Sunday Morning
Shakedown - At Night
Alison Limerick - Where Love Lives
Adeva - I Thank You
Full Intention - America
Community feat. Fonda Rae - Over Like A Fat Rat
Rainbow Connection - Keep Singing It
Tori Amos - Professional Widow
Cerrone - Mercy
Judy Cheeks - As Long As You're Good To Me
First Choice - Let No Man Put Asunder
Sarah Washington - Heaven
Mai Tai - History
Todd Terry - Keep On Jumpin'

One Foot In The Rave.

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:41:00 +0000

Fuck me I needed that! After thirteen and a half years I'd forgotten the sheer - well, escstasy - of when the pill hits, and it all comes together to make for the best time it has ever been possible for people to have in all of human history! A big thanks to Tim Neale and Tommy Lee for putting it on.
Right then, let's get back to finishing Down & Out... before I go back to work next week.
Laters.

Probably The Last Opportunity I'll Ever Get To Wear Designer Shades Indoors & In The Middle Of The Night!

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 03:09:00 +0000

It was exactly 14 years ago that I was in the middle of the best night out of my entire life. Love to be... @ The Music Factory in Sheffield, Boxing Day 1995.

Here's hoping tonight will be as good!

It's about time I took loads of drugs and went on a panty raid!

Phwoooooor!

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:40:00 +0000

I was going through some photos tonight when I came across this shot of the young Nastassja Kinski. Ms Kinski occupies a special place in the hearts of men of my generation and she is, as far as I'm concerned, possessed of an elfin, otherworldly beauty which is totally and utterly unparallelled. I really cannot imagine a more perfect example of womanhood.

A Couple More Work In Progress Shots.

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:05:00 +0000

Every Single Sopranos Death In Chronological Order..

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:37:00 +0000

Not only do some people have way too much time on their hands, they also appear to have disturbingly morbid preoccupations - like the guy who put this montage together.

All Kinds Of Stuff.

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:34:00 +0000

Okay, I knew I said that the next blog post would be announcing the upload of the last chapter but we’ve had a number of unforeseen delays.
Firstly, when I took a week off work to get the thing finished I turned my PC on to discover it had picked up a fucking viral infection which locked me out for the next three days until it occurred to me to boot up in safe mode and disable the evil little bastard in the msconfig menu and then run my anti-virus software to kill it.
Then Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 dropped through the letterbox and by the time I’d worked my way to the end of that it was Thursday night.
Just before I got down to a serious writing session I called one of the guys from back in the day to confirm a couple of things about the character I called Twiggy. During the course of our conversation it became clear that I’d got a lot of stuff wrapped around my neck which meant I had to delete and rewrite a good 3,000 word section. That took me the rest of the time I had left off work - and then some.
Then, just as I had a long weekend coming up, my ear started throbbing and after paying a visit to the doctor it looks like I’m going to have to have the operation which knackered my hearing up so badly that it scuppered any realistic chance of me turning my home recording studio (which I’d spent the previous two years working twelve hour shifts, six days a week to equip) into a paying concern, redone.
This is a major fucking hassle and a not inconsiderable distraction. Regardless of the fact that it’s by no means a safe procedure, it also involves going over to Sheffield and being bed-ridden for the best part of a week. Yes, I could have the operation done in Lincoln but there are two reasons why I won’t.
Firstly, I’m not going to let the incompetents at Lincoln County Hospital anywhere near me. They spent over twenty years unsuccessfully trying to figure out why I kept having recurring ear infections when it took a consultant at Sheffield’s Hallamshire Hospital all of five minutes.
The second reason, although this is a much lesser concern, is that I don’t want a certain person to spot me on the hospital grounds and thereby fuel her deluded conviction that I'm stalking her.

Right then, on to Friday night’s rather splendid Paramore gig, which I took my twelve year old niece and her friend to.
Just before I left Lincoln I forgot where I’d put the tickets and spent half an hour going frantic, throwing stuff about, kicking other things all over the place, screaming and swearing at the top of my voice and generally trashing the flat until I remembered that I’d used the envelope containing the tickets as my bookmark the previous night (Under The Dome by Stephen King in case you’re wondering).
Then I realised I’d left the Sat Nav at work and had to negotiate the rush hour traffic across town to fetch the fucking thing - which meant I got to Nottingham to pick the girls up over an hour later than I was supposed to.
We hit the traffic jam from hell on the approach to Birmingham city centre which took us longer to get through than the rest of the journey up to that point (tip for folks driving in Birmingham: the secret is not to show fear). Parking was even more stressful and whoever designed and/or manages the NIA car park deserves a sustained and merciless hoofing in the genitals.
And all the time I was worried sick that I was going to look like some dodgy ebophilic pervert who had turned up solely to frot against teenage emo chicks (I needn’t have worried about that as it happened, there were plenty of older people in the audience who were quite obviously chaperoning youngsters).
But for all the fuss and bother it was more than worth it just to see the look of awestruck excitement on those girls' faces when the band hit the stage - even if poor uncle Dominic had to spend the entire night holding an armful of jackets, scarves, jumpers etc while the girls hot-footed it down to the front rows to emerge an hour and a half later gasping for breath, drenched in sweat and both sporting huge beaming grins!
Some things really are beyond priceless.
In other news I just got sent some work in progress shots of my custom Firebird guitar which is currently drying having just been given its Olympic White paint job and will, I’m assured, be ready for dispatch/collection early this coming week.

Here’s a shot with the neck in place and an ad hoc tremolo unit and pickup to give an idea of what the end result is going to look like.

The actual hardware I’m using (all Gotoh kit – only the best for Dom!) is in a finish called 'Black Chrome' which doesn't really come across too effectively on a photo (see the machine heads below), but take my word for it, to the naked eye it looks absolutely gorgeous.

The pick up I eventually opted for was the DiMarzio X2N which, I was delighted to discover, is available in white (even if it does cost a tenner more) and which I reckon is well funky.

Finally, here’s a Photoshop sketch of the prototype headstock graphic. I'm still not sure whether calling the guitar the 'DBG (Dom Bescoby Guitars) Dominatrix' is too cheesy – not to say narcissistic - but then it is a none more metal axe so I guess that’s probably acceptable!

Regarding Chapter 10, it is coming together and I think it would be fitting were I to upload in on January 10th 2010, the twentieth anniversary of me first moving to Sheffield.

Dom's New Slow Cooker.

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:33:00 +0000

The first run of the new slow cooker was a resounding success, the ghoulash was divine - and was nicely complimented by a bowl of mashed potatos with a hefty dollop of Dijon mustard bunged in.
Right then, back to work. The next blog post with be announcing the upload of the last chapter of D&OiS&L.
Dom out.

Another Quick Progress Report.

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:27:00 +0000

The final chapter of Down & Out... is now 70% complete; the other 30% is in advanced note form and is being written up slowly but surely. As I still have some holidays to use up before the end of the year I've booked next week off work and intend to shut myself away until the thing is finished.

Later.

Another Favourite Song.

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:38:00 +0000

I absolutely love this song - and I never knew there was a promo video for it until about ten minutes ago!

Thank God For That!

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:09:00 +0000

Given the complete absence of Ragu on supermarket shelves for the past few months I assumed the range had been discontinued - which I found more than a little distressing seeing as how the red wine and herbs variety provided the best compromise between convenience and taste of any available spag bol sauce.
But then lo and behold, in Sainsbury's tonight it was back!
In other news Chapter 10 is coming together nicely, even if uploading Chapter 9 did seem to drain a considerable amount of the motivational pus. I'll be having another hothouse, nose to the grindstone session this coming weekend which should get a substantial chunk polished off - although I do have a lunch date on Saturday where I'll doubtless be hectored none-stop about how all my problems with women stem from my relationship with, and seething hatred of, my mother which will get me so wound up I won't be able to concentrate afterwards.

I'm Still Here!

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:24:00 +0000

If anyone is eagerly awaiting the November 10th release of Under the Dome, Stephen King's latest novel, might I suggest that you first check out James Follett's Silent Vulcan trilogy (The Temple of the Winds, Wicca & The Silent Vulcan)? As far as I can tell it seems to be pretty much the same story!

A Favourite Song.

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:05:00 +0000

As far as I'm concerned this is one of the greatest songs ever written.

The Royal Road To The Unconscious.

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:44:00 +0000

I had another dream about the old flat in Sheffield last night. I have these dreams every couple of months or so and they tend to run to a formula: the flat is always exactly the same as when I left it five and a half years ago (even though I’m somehow aware that the action is taking place in the present), I'm always with someone I know - but who isn’t from my immediate peer group - and while I’m looking around the place I always come across some long lost item. Last night I discovered my old cowboy boots behind a pile of newspapers.

Although it isn’t too difficult to work out what desires and yearnings these dreams are a manifestation of, last night’s episode is troubling me a lot more than usual and I can recall it it in much more detail too. On top of that I seem to be losing my temper with inanimate objects a lot quicker than I normally do when I’m in a similarly hung over state and have already smashed a keyboard up after I kept hitting the E and W key at the same time.

I suppose it's a good job I keep a spare otherwise I wouldn’t be able to tell you this!

Wow!

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:22:00 +0000

I think I'd have made a mess in my underwear to have seen this - Slash and Nile Rogers, two of my all time favourite guitarists on stage at the same time!

Another Work In Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 22:01:00 +0000

The next project to be undertaken at Dom Towers is the building of a custom guitar. I've always fancied a Firebird shaped axe but as there isn't a current production model with a tremolo system I've decided to build my own. I've commissioned these people - who, in my dealings with so far, couldn't have been any more helpful and professional - to make the body (rear control rout, to accommodate a single bridge humbucker pickup and Floyd Rose tremolo) which is expected to take around five to six weeks - apparently they're pretty snowed under at the moment.

While we're waiting for that it gives me time to assemble the rest of the bits and pieces. So far I've got the tremolo and locking nut, the machine heads and the neck sorted out. I went for a neck with a 'banana' headstock rather than a pointy, none-more-metal one as I think that shape follows the curved lines of a Firebird shape much more pleasingly.

I'm still making my mind up about what pickup to eventually fit.

Later.

A Repressed Memory That Was Shaken Loose Last Night.

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:29:00 +0000

Between 1982 and 1984 I worked in the stores of a factory in Lincoln and in early 1983 our supervisor got sacked when he mislaid a consignment of goods and was caught fiddling the paperwork to try and disguise the fact. His replacement was an officious ex-RAF warrant officer and I absolutely detested the man. Shortly after being taken on, our new supervisor put in a request for an assistant and a guy called Barry ‘Toucher’ Taylor was duly shipped in from another of the company’s local factories.
Toucher Taylor was in his mid 40s, sported an Alvin Stardust quiff and had the job title ‘key operator’. What this meant, as he would explain at length to anyone who would listen, was that he was a pay grade above the rest of the lads in the stores and had the authority to approve requisitions from the various departments of the factory should a supervisor not be available to do so.
He was one of those people whose mere proximity made you feel queasy. It was never anything you could pin down and it wasn’t like the guy was mean or spiteful or anything like that, but there was just something about him that made your skin crawl. Whenever he talked to you, particularly when he was explaining some work related issue, he was so in your face that you could feel the heat of his breath and he had an alarming habit of subtly brushing his hand across your behind at the same time - which was how he’d come by the nickname.
One day in the autumn of 1983 Toucher came into work and announced that his just turned 16 year old daughter was expecting a baby. She had apparently been impregnated by some lad she’d met on the family’s annual holiday to Skegness but didn’t want anything more to do with him. Toucher could scarcely conceal his delight and for the next nine months would talk about nothing else. When the baby was born he became absolutely insufferable, even bringing the child into work on a couple of occasions. Okay, you might think this was nothing more than the perfectly innocent over enthusiasm of a doting grandparent, but there was something about it which I – and most of my colleagues - found distinctly unsettling.
In September of 1984 I quit the job and went to live in a series of squats and flophouse where I thought that by getting mindlessly stoned and talking nonsense all day long I was somehow helping to bring about ‘a more caring society’.
I never saw Toucher again and had all but forgotten about him until one morning in the summer of 2005, when I was working at a local scrap yard and a familiar face walked into the office.
Pete (as we’ll call him) used to work in the stores with me and had got the sack a couple of months before I left. The last time I’d seen him had been in 1990 when he’d come staggering into Lazers one night after having been thrown out of some towny nightclub for fighting.
At first he didn’t recognise me - my hair was a little more sedate than it had been - but he soon remembered and we chatted about the old days for a while (I seem to remember, I paid him well over the odds for the copper pipe he was weighing in too). As he left he turned around and asked me,
“By the way, did you hear who the father of Touchers grandson turned out to be?”
“No.” I said. “Who was it?”
“Let’s put it this way,” said Pete. “Toucher wasn’t just the grandfather!”
It seemed so obvious that I almost slapped myself on the forehead.
The sick fucking bastard.

Chapter 9: What Sally Did.

noreply@blogger.com (Dom) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:47:00 +0000

It's finally online people, check it out.