Whoever’s Got A Fiesta Parked Inside The Market, You Best Move It Or You’re Walking Home
Cars, Music and this weeks new releases. Everything you need to read.
Think of Rock N’ Roll and other than a cherry red Stratocaster the other image that pops into your head will likely be a ’57 Chevy or an Elvis-esque pink Cadillac. Think of Hip-Hop and you might see a Lowrider on hydraulic suspension bouncing up and down Hollywood Boulevard, or a black Mercedes saloon on chrome wheels outside a large mansion.
The car has always been intertwined with music culture, especially in the USA, but the role of it in the UK is less obvious. Maybe we just give less of a shit about cars than those over the Atlantic? Of course, there’s a famous image of UK Hip-Hop crew Demon Boyz (above) with their Sierra Sapphire Cosworth that comes to mind immediately, no car being more emblematic of inner city UK streets in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s than the often stolen Ford.
In more mainstream culture, you also had the Cosmic Girl video where Jay Kay and friends are driving a purple Lamborghini and two Ferrari’s around the Spanish countryside. Almost a decade ago Meridian Dan, Big H & JME released German Whip, a Top 15 hit, before that D Double E had recorded a freestyle running through as many car brands as he could.
More up to date, Central Cee raps about the Maybach truck in his latest dreadful track BAND4BAND, as I’m sure lots of current UK rappers do. But for me, there’s one UK genre that’s synonymous with a certain type of car: UK Garage. Mike Skinner rapped about a “SR Nova, driving like a joyrider” in the first Streets single, but that was just the tip of it.
For many people UK Garage conjures up flash lads in designer labels and glamorous women drinking Champagne in the VIP room of a West End nightclub. The reality - outside of London at least - was very different, at least for me and my friends. Our formative exposure to UKG came not from a nightclub soundsystem but from two 10” subwoofers in the boot of a Seat Ibiza in a suburban B&Q car park. Expensive garms and Gucci loafers were out - Football shirts, Adidas tracksuits and Air Max 95’s were in. No hats, no hoods? No thanks, mate.
As soon as I turned 17 I got myself a Ford Fiesta, 1100cc engine, sunroof and bright red paint. I quickly added a set of alloy wheels from a Fiesta RS Turbo, and followed that with a Pioneer CD player, amplifier and 6-disc changer in the boot. I then took an electric saw to the parcel shelf and cut two holes in it in order to run a set of more powerful 6x9” speakers, with a smaller 5” set in the front doors. The car might have struggled to reach 100mph downhill with a wind behind it, but at least me and my mates could listen to good tunes whilst we sat in a supermarket car park, working our way through the CDs we had, and local dance music station Vibe FM 106.4. To top it all off I stuck a massive Pioneer sticker across the back window (how it didn’t get broken in to I don’t know). This little hatchback was our gateway to getting out of town, to clubs and raves further afield, and bought us to music in an area not known for pirate radio. We had to seek it out, and that 1.1 Fiesta was our way of doing so.
Eventually the Fiesta got written off (not my fault, honest), and was replaced by another, which I then replaced with my then dream car: a G-reg Escort XR3i convertible. This was a beauty: Mercury Grey, RS Turbo 15” wheels, 90’ spec RS Turbo bodykit, twin headlights, a vented bonnet, full Recaro interior, K&N Air Filter, Magnex Exhaust and of course a big old stereo. This time Sony provided the head unit - a flip down one with a full black screen display that showed fancy (for 2001) graphics on it.
The Escort convertible had a much smaller boot than the hatchback version, but I still managed to shoehorn in two subwoofers in a see-through enclosure, plus an amplifier to run it all, but there was no room left in the boot for a toothbrush, let alone a CD changer. In the back seats I built custom pods for the Infinity 6x9” speakers either side of the passengers. Now I had a car that looked the part as well as sounded the part we could start to go to local cruises, or take longer trips down to Southend seafront.
A bit like a rave, a car cruise was shadowy, illicitly organised by mobile phone (you’d phone a number to get the location to meet before driving onto another place) and often shut down by police. Music was an important part too, with the cars or vans with bigger soundsystems playing a variety of Garage, Hardcore or DnB, occasionally Hard House or Trance, often at ear-splitting volume. That’s if you could hear it at all over the revving of engines or the whoosh of dump valves on the more powerful turbocharged Cosworths or Subarus. Some cars would have a set of CDJ’s installed into the back, allowing the owner to soundtrack the meet live, but more often than not it was just a mix CD in the loudest car that did the job. Some of these cars would feature 10-20 speakers on top of 3-4 subwoofers and numerous amps to do the job, and Max Power magazine would often give away “Bass Test” CD’s with low-end frequencies meant to show off the power of the soundsystem. My own car soundsystem was feeble in comparison, but the subwoofers in the boot could still make the numberplate vibrate against the bodywork in a dissonant rattle.
At a cruise you’d hear tunes in a context that you wouldn’t at home or in your own car. UK Garage was the most popular locally to me, and some of those UKG tunes seemed tailor made for a car soundsystem, those long rolling basslines reverberating off the glass and soft fabric seats inside. To this day you’ll hear producers say ‘if it sounds good in a car, it sounds good in the club’
I’m not going to lie - the cruise wasn’t exactly a place of high culture or musical discovery. The soundtrack was generally the big hitters of the genre in question or one of the popular commercially available mix compilations CDs (DJ Luck & MC Neat present Kiss Garage, Pure Garage I-IV, Bonkers, Tidy Boys CDs etc). But you’re hearing tunes in a context that fits - as much as a Ben Klock track is at home in Berghain or a Villalobos edit soundtracks a session at Fabric, the boot of a Citroen Saxo VTS was the perfect place to hear Mark Ruff Ryder or Oxide & Neutrino (who’s video for No Good 4 Me featured an E30 BMW doing handbrake turns in an abandoned factory).
My car stereo nowadays is like most others, built in to the dashboard, with a separate screen and remote controller. No longer is it easily removable or upgradable, the plus side being it’s also no longer easily steal-able. It’s a shame in a way, I’d like nothing more then to put a bigger, better soundsystem into my car (although my wife would bemoan the lack of boot space), but I think my days of hanging round car parks playing tunes are long gone.
Turn The Page
On to this weeks new music then, pop this on in your car stereo if you can. It’s Bandcamp Friday today so I’ve shared Bandcamp links where I can, but don’t forget to support record shops too.
KMRU - Natur [Touch]
KMRU & Touch are a perfect match really aren’t they? I often feel like his 2020 Editions Mego record Peel is a Touch record really. This new one from an upcoming album takes inspiration from his time spent in Berlin as well as his home of Nairobi. It has to be heard. Sadly not on streaming yet, but it is on Bandcamp
Francesco Leali - Catatonic Blue [Until Riots]
It’s been a while since we’ve had a new album from Italian composer/producer Francesco Leali - full disclosure, Francesco is a friend of mine since we studied together, I wouldn’t have passed my music composition modules without his help - this new single previews his upcoming album due later this year on his Until Riots imprint. Catatonic Blue sounds like it’s title, dark & atmospheric, strings combine to create something of the night. If I was soundtracking Nosterafu in 2024 I’d be turning to this. Pre-order Let Us Descend on Bandcamp.
The Blisks - Elixa [Efficient Space]
That Searchlight Moonbeam compilation on Efficient Space was one of my albums of the year last year. It was so good I ended up buying a few copies to give to people as presents. What’s this sound like then? Post-pop? Have I just made that up? God knows. It’s a melodic mixture of pop, post-punk, DIY indie, all the ingredients that tend to make something good. Also on Bandcamp.
FKA Boursin - You Just Give In, Giving It All To The Wind [Accidental Meetings]
Blissful dubbed out electronica here - not much more I can really say about it. Two tracks of uncompressed good-times. Put it on and vibe. Bandcamp.
Refreshers - Moving Up Dub (1 Hour Version) [Refreshers]
Proving there’s still a sense of humour in dance music Lukid’s Refreshers project took on board the feedback from one commentor on YouTube and extended his Moving Up in to this hour-long version. 1.6p per minute on Bandcamp.
Windy & Carl - Conciousness [Kranky]
It was my birthday the other day and my sister bought me this book on Kranky Records. I haven’t read it yet, but am looking forward to doing so. Anyway, this has just been reissued and it’s nice. Boomkat link cause shops are important too!
Sprung Aus Den Wolken - 81-West Berlin [Bureau B]
Early German wave/post-punk gear here. Very sparse, very early-80’s Berlin, very good. Did Trabant’s have stereos? Get it from World of Echo and don’t forget to support shops as well as labels!
That’s it from me this week. I hoped you enjoyed reading, even if you think hanging round in car parks listening to garage from the back of a shitty hatchback is a stupid thing to do. That Central Cee track is crap isn’t it? I don’t know why I put it in the playlist. Thanks for reading/subscribing/sharing. There’s over 100 of you now from all sectors of the industry, and I appreciate each and every one of you.