A Full On Guide to Full On: Eternal's Mind Odyssey and Felix's It Will Make Me Crazy

Next up on Full On: Edition One is Eternal's Mind Odyssey. 

Eternal was Melbourne club promoter Mark James, who set up the Eternal project with uber massive DJ legend and drag racer Carl Cox. 

Mind Odyssey came out on Warp Records in the UK, with a catalogue number WAP 27 which places it at around the same time as Polygon Window's Surfing On Sine Waves. This makes him proper techno royalty.

Pop this in your ears:

This Eternal is not to be confused with 1990s r'n'b popsters Eternal who wanted to "be the only one, the only one". 

Having said that, Mark has his pop side: he was in a band called Bass Culture with his then girlfriend Gina Gardiner, who later had a big Eurovision hit as Gina G with the appalling Ooh Aah... Just a Little Bit. Gosh, is this what it's like to write a gossip column?

Eternal would be the star of this blog post, but next up on the Full On track listing is Felix. 

The track is Felix's second biggest hit It Will Make Me Crazy, remixed by Rollo of Faithless fame. Listen here:

If Mark James is techno royalty, in the world of Euro-flavoured progressive house Felix is even bigger: a huge pulsating techno God larger than the known universe.

That's not to say Felix was more successful: James' career is huge. But the Felix sound summed up the Full On experience for me. Big cheesy chords, big housey vocals, super-sharp snare clicks, moody minor chords, simplicity throughout. 

It has to be said, this did sound a lot like his biggest hit Don't You Want Me, and the album was very samey. But if it was a formula, it was such a satisfying formula, and I got the impression that a lot of people were copying the Felix sound. Including me at the time on my little Korg keyboard.

Stylistically, Felix's sound isn't a hundred miles away from 2 Unlimited, whose career was taking off at the time of Full On. 2 Unlimited were much bouncier and stoopider, and had far less credibility. 

The lyrics are hugely different for a start. Here's the words for It Will Make Me Crazy:

It will make me crazy!
It will make me crazy!
It will make me crazy!
It will make me crazy!

And here are the lyrics to 2 Unlimited's Get Ready For This:

Techno!
Techno!
Techno!
Techno!

See? Totally different. 

Incidentally, and sorry to keep bouncing between the two Felix singles, but Don't You Want Me hit the UK top ten twice, and then charted a third time when it was used in a Tango advert. 

Felix was born in Chelmsford in Essex, as was Squarepusher, Ceephax Acid Crew, Hazell Dean, Sarah from St Etienne, Grayson chuffing Perry, and, er, the drummer from McFly. There's something in the water in Chelmsford.

What does this all say about Full On and its significance for 1990s dance music? I dunno: I stopped paying attention around about Gina G.

Have an advert:

Read the Full On series in, er full.

Read the Full On introduction explaining what the heck this is all about.

Essential Hardcore got me started, ahem, on rave music

When I was a young droog, much of my musical education came from chart rave, and from compilation CDs.

One compilation I had forgotten about, until I tripped over the above image online, is 1991's Essential Hardcore. 

It's image was not original. It had a cherub on the cover, reminding us of New Order's Technique, and the acts listed on the front, a style later copied by terribly-named series The Best... Album in the World...Ever!

What was notable was its track curation. The album never leaves strays too far from the environs of commercial dance music, but there's definitely a change in flavour as it progresses.

At the start are charty bangers like Rozalla's saxophone-fuelled Faith (In The Power Of Love) and 2 Unlimited's ubiquitous Get Ready For This. Not great. The kind of music that clueless people mention when you say you're into techno.

Then we get into classic rave. The likes of Bizarre Inc's Playing With Knives, Altern 8's Activ 8 and Slipmatt & Lime (SL2)'s DJs Take Control, with the London breakbeat's duo's biggest hit On A Ragga Tip still a few months off.

By the end of the album, we're into the slightly harder stuff. Lords of Acid's moody and stomping Take Control. Joey Beltram's The Omen (Psycho Mix). And Dutch duo L.A. Style with their jackhammering James Brown Is Dead. It's a great introduction to rave. 

And the The Shamen's wibbly Possible Worlds was a great way to end the album. Most people only knew them for Move Any Mountain, and this was a gateway drug to their more trippy side.

Please let's not talk about the inclusion of Simply Red's Something Got Me Started, though. Crumbs.

This was actually the fourth in the Hardcore series, previous iterations being Hardcore Uproar, Hardcore Dancefloor and Hardcore Ecstasy. All of them showed the dark and light side of charty dance music. The first one included Betty Boo, and Together's ravetastic top 20 single Hardcore Uproar, from which the series no doubt got its name.

I'm glad I rediscovered this again. Back in the olden days, it was useful to have compilations like this – Essential Hardcore and its sister albums played a key part in young me navigating my music taste. Hear a patchy stream of the album tracks over on YouTube.

Further Fats: Eight oh eight oh eight oh eight oh eight oh eight oh eight oh eight oh eight (2008)

Some dogs are better than others

I hate dogs.

Many breeds of dog are vile and potentially dangerous. I do not understand a world in which it is normal to domesticate creatures that are capable of savaging and killing.

I don't think it's cute when friends post pictures of their dogs on Facebook. Oh look, here's Buster dragging his bum across the baby's face, how cute. Eeeugh. And no, I don't want to say hello to your dog when I meet you neck-deep in the brown stuff on a poo-strewn pavement.

There should be a dog licence which includes training for owners in pack mentalities and dog behaviour. Most of my dog bites - and I've had a few, believe me - have been from mutts that "wouldn't bite". Of course they bite, you silly owner, it's what they do.

You're waiting for the punchline, aren't you? You're waiting for the moment I spin this around and say I meant clogs and sorry for the typo.

There's no punchline. There are two exceptions, though.

Firstly, The Black Dog (pictured) are quite unvile and lovely. Their influential early albums showed me that dance music could be emotive and intelligent: Temple of Transparent Balls and Bytes were a deep and involving antidote to the two-dimension dance smash of the same year, No Limit by 2 Unlimited.

What's great is they're still making amazing music. The Black Dog are a good dog. Here, have a bone.

Secondly, my next-door neighbour's dog Wilf loves me. Even if I am miles off, he goes insane at the sight of me. His tail tells me in impatient semaphore that I am the best thing that has happened to his day. He only does this with me and one other neighbour. He doesn't even show the same level of shuddering, dribbling uber-joy for his actual owners, the duplicitous wee beastie. Wilf is great.

Wilf and The Black Dog are exempt. All other dogs can go to their basket and think about what they have done.

Further Fats: Temple Of Transparent Balls and the black, brooding Book Of Dogma

Chosen Words: G is for GetReadyForThis!

a.k.a. World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Attempts to bring underground electronic music to the mainstream usually ends in disaster.

It is generally better for good musical styles to remain obscure. For example, jazz and funk are popular genres but that doesn't mean that's an excuse for Omar.

When 2 Unlimited brought techno to the charts with Get Ready For This, it nearly killed all music forever. In a later single, their choppy rave chords were accompanied by an annoying new playground phrase "techno, techno, techno, techno", just in case you were unsure which musical style they were debasing.

When proponants of a genre boast of the commercial dominance of their music, that usually means it is awfully obscure. So no, jungle is not massive.

All underground movements become commercial, but it is usually a softer version of the original. Even now, it's difficult to discern Justin Bieber's terrorcore beginnings, while Coldplay's progression from glitch through happy house to mortgage rock is not well documented.

If you created a new underground electronic genre today, you are likely to have a number one hit within five years.

(Actually, this is not true, because you are crap.)

Top five drum 'n' bass crossovers:

- Olive's You're Not Alone
- Pendulum's Watercolour
- Roni Size & Reprazent's Brown Paper Bag
- Shy FX & T Power's Shake Ur Body
- Alexandra Burke's Bad Boys, Dead Horse Rape Nosebleed Mix (can someone please create this? It would definitely be a hit.)

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

His master has spoken

When January 2007 was a mere baby, puking and pooing from either end of its scrawny little body, I pontificated on how HMV would fill their shelves now that chart rules on downloads have been relaxed.

Dearest reader, drink from the potion of guru soothsayer Fat Roland. A mere six days later, HMV announced they would dump the official top 40 from its stores. They will instead fashion their own singles chart from washing-up bottles, old newspapers and dog dirt.

Their PR dude said the decision was "a practical issue. If we used the new download-friendly chart in our stores, there'd be large gaps on our walls." Yes, I KNOW. I flipping TOLD you.

>Nose

Meanwhile, as January ages into long trousers, its hands unclean from nose-picking and football, chart history has been made thanks to the first ever unsigned band to score a top 40 hit.

Koopa are rockers from Essex - nevertheless, their download-only single Blag, Steal & Borrow was loved by fans. It hit the mid-weeks at 17 and made its chart debut at number 31 on Sunday.

>Anus

Of course, they haven't made history at all. Pop Will Eat Itself scored a top ten hit with Get The Girl Kill The Baddies after being dropped by their record label, so technically they were the first. But they were hippy tree-huggers and didn't wash much; maybe they will be forgotten in the anus of history. Yes, anus. It's funnier than 'annals'.

(Brain: "Isn't Koopa the name of Russell Brand's mobile phone?")

>Elbow

As January ages, its once virile body withering into a crinkled stoop, we should get more unknowns elbowing their way into the charts.

It isn't really that amazing, though. No-one buys anything in January ever. January is the month that brought us number one singles from Babylon Zoo, 2 Unlimited, Chaka Demus & Pliers, Clive Dunn, Whitetown and the Rednex.

That alone should tell you everything.

PS - it looks like Music Zone is in trouble [link no longer active]. Yargles!