50 Pound Note

Past>Forward Vol. 1 – The 50 Pound Note Retro Mix
(Original upload date 28 March 2007)

DOWNLOAD (81.8 MB, 192kbps, 59:29)

Big Strong Man (Wild Boys Remix) by Tanz Waffen
Cccan’t You See (Razormaid! Mix) by Vicious Pink
Always On My Mind (Razormaid! Mix) by Pet Shop Boys
You Think You’re A Man (12″ Mix) by Divine
Homosapein II (Icon Mix) by Pete Shelley
Give (Dance Mix) by Missing Persons
Knocking On Your Door (Mark Saunders Remix) by Erasure
Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat
Rush Hour (7th Heaven Remix) by Jane Wiedlin
Keep In Touch by Re-Flex

“Well keep in touch, won’t you?”

After spending several years doing a dance music show on my college radio station, in 1995 I switched over to an early Saturday morning shift and began Past>Forward which explored the history of electronic music. Beginning with Edgard Varese who is considered the godfather, I sought not to explore just dance but all forms of electronic music. Did you know that in 1967 The Monkees were the first band to use a commercial synthesizer on a pop record? With the success of Wendy Carlos, Gershon Kingley’s successful single Popcorn and Kraftwerk’s Autobahn the listening public gradually became aware of synthesizers but the watershed moment (for me) would have to be Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, created by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte in 1977. The melding of affordable synthesizers and sequencers with disco rhythms would give birth to an explosion of danceable pop bands all through the ’80s, which brings me to this new series.

Based on our mutual adoration of Vicious Pink’s Cccan’t You See, my friend Denny asked me to put together a retro mix for him to listen to at the gym. I thought this would be a good excuse to bring back the Past>Forward name and create a mix series that pays tribute to the music that made me want to be a DJ in the first place. While there may at times be some crossover between this series and Kiss The Future the bulk of Past>Forward will be songs released between 1980-1990. I’ve also considered doing an all-disco mix (pre-1980), and I’ll have a chance to focus on specific labels like San Francisco’s Megatone Records which raised the bar for high energy dance music.

Most of you will be familiar with all the artists in this first mix. Re-Flex is the same band that did The Politics Of Dancing, and their only LP (sharing the same title, released in 1983) was a strong early influence on me. Keep In Touch was the last song on the album. The one artist here that almost no one knows is Tanz Waffen. The name is German and translates as “dance weapon” but the band was actually a male/female duo from Austin, Texas. Big Strong Man was their only official single (although other songs were released by the Razormaid! remix service).

I liberally borrowed “past forward/passed forward” as a name and concept from a Die Krupps singles compilation released in 1991.