Part Deux: We Return To Boogie Wasteland

Damn, has it really been a whole month this your last installment of William Wasteman’s Boogie Wasteland? Yes, yes it has really been a whole month since your last installment of William Wasteman’s Boogie Wasteland. What’s happened in that month? Not a lot really. Well actually, in the last month I’ve reckoned that it was high time to do away with childish things, and have upgraded from the Mcnugget to its more adroit and lithe cousin, the chicken select strip. In the last month I noticed that I’ve patronized McDonald’s so much that now when I go in there my phone automatically logs in to their free WiFi. I’ve probably eaten about 10 double cheeseburgers in the last month, in McDonalds, which you may think is a lot but I mean I usually order two at a time so really that’s like what five trips to the Golden Arches? Not that bad in a whole month, especially when you consider that we had an extra day because of the leap year thing. 

So actually when I think about it, a lot has happened in the last month. Bloody loads. Yes, most of it concerns McDonald’s and my frequent trips to its various efficiently run establishments around north-east London, but so what? Things have happened, regardless of your snobby attitude to dining. Society has been kept afloat by my eating habits. McDonald’s has served less Mcnuggets and more succulent chicken selects. I have probably gained weight. But at least things have happened. At least that much is true my friends; there is at least some solace amongst this fast food insanity. 

Anyway here’s this months top 10 disco and funk tunes for you all, you lovely non-McDonald’s obsessed patrons of my articles:

SHEILA B. DEVOTION – SPACER

Absolute lol @ you for not having listened to this song and imagined yourself being in space but like a 60’s version of space like you’re Roger Moore in Moonraker or something. This song is the perfect soundtrack to what the past imagined the future would be like. 

PINO D’ANGIO – OKAY OKAY

This guy. Fucking hell. 

PINO D’ANGIO – MA QUALE IDEA

This guy. This guy right here. When this guy speaks on record he sounds like he wears bootcut jeans, has thought about a tribal tattoo and always, without fail, leaves a greasy rainbow trail from his finger smeared across your phone screen whenever he borrows it, even for a brief moment. But GODAMN the man knows a bassline or two. You may actually recognise that second bassline as it’s been sampled to great effect by not only “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” but also “Don’t Call Me Baby”, which are both stone cold naughty ones in their own right. By the way this guy’s real name is Giuseppe D. Chierchia and he was born in Pompeii. So your life is scientifically worse than his.

ADVANCE – TAKE ME TO THE TOP

I remember when I went into a club and the guy was playing this and I was so happy that I instantly ran up to him and said “THIS IS TAKE ME TO THE TOP BY ADVANCE ISN’T IT” and then smugly just stood there and then it totally was so he high fived me and then my mates realised everyone was in BDSM gear and we got freaked out and left. True story. 

THE COACHOUSE RHYTHM SECTION – TIMEWARP

This song sounds nothing like a fucking time warp, which if you’ve seen Interstellar you will actually know sounds like emotional sounding organ music and Matthew McConaughey crying and breathing heavily. 

IMAGINATION – JUST AN ILLUSION

I like the way this bassline sounds like it’s kind of doing a bungee jump off a big cliff and then springing back up in the air in this song. It’s so elastic you can almost hear it expand and retract in it’s uniquely floppy and malleable way right in your earlobes. It’s the Flubber of basslines. It’s like Stretch Armstrong playing a riff on a bass guitar made out of jelly. It’s like a really, really bendy ruler, like those ones you used to get at school that never shattered they just kind of flopped about the place which was kind of rubbish because you actually intended to shatter your mates ruler and the limp sagging it did in it’s place was a massive schoolboy anti-climax. That’s what this bassline is like. 

DON BLACKMAN – HEART’S DESIRE

Little history lesson for you here chums. Don Blackman was an absolute G. Lesson over. No, not really. But you should know that this guy has played with the greats: Earth, Wind and Fire, Roy Ayers and Parliament/Funkadelic, which really as a list is like a succession of Greek gods in terms of their musical influence and ability. He also made some cracking tunes himself, which you can check out on his one and only album Don Blackman, by Don Blackman. To be honest if I had a name as sick as Don Blackman I’d just name my album after me as well, so fair play to the lad. 

CARMEN – TIME TO MOVE

IMAGINE BEING IN THE 80's AND ACTUALLY HEARING THIS IN A CLUB THOUGH. YOU'D LOSE YOUR SHIT.

DAVID JOSEPH – YOU CAN'T HIDE YOUR LOVE FROM ME (LARRY LEVAN REMIX) 

After I saw the cracking interview up on our site with Bob Blanks about the late great Larry Levan (which you can read here:) I thought it would be reasonable to include one of my favourite disco mixes the master himself brought to the table. 

BLIND DATE – MY HEART KEEPS BURNING

WALLOP. If you were lucky enough to get a ticket to Bicep's recent Italo disco party at the Colombian then you would've heard this emotional chugger being booted out of the speakers, forcing it's way into your ears through what seemed like 10 tonnes of dry ice and enough strobe lighting to keep a cat entertained for half a century. Seriously there was so much dry ice at one point I couldn't see my own fucking hands, it was wicked. Anyway when they played this it was a true flash your lighter moment. Great stuff.