For extra points, listen to Wilmslow Road on Wilmslow Road

Things are a bit hectic this week, so pouring words down this blog drain may be more difficult than usual.

In lieu of quality written content, enjoy this old track by Lionrock.

I'm posting this because I mentioned Justin Robertson's Lionrock to someone the other day and they had never heard of him. We were stood a stone's throw from Wilmslow Road, Manchester. As in the Wilmslow Road featured in the Lionrock track Wilmslow Road.

Tssch. Sometimes I doubt people's commitment to geographically-themed records.

So here is Wilmslow Road, from Lionrock's debut album An Instinct For Detection (1996).

BPA's album is a trouser-fiddling mess of buffalo proportions

Bless my Aunt Fanny's hairy knees: what has Fatboy Slim done?

I Think We're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat is the first album by BPA, otherwise known as Brighton Port Authority, otherwise known as Norman 'Pizzaman' Cook (pictured) and his trusty engineer Simon. And it is a total disaster of buffalo-sized proportions.

The album is a vom bucket of ska-dance-funk trouser-fiddling dressed up in a tweedy construct about a rediscovered 1970s rock band. Which is funny, because I wish I'd never discovered this godforsaken record at all.

David Byrne seems out on a (be-suited) limb set against the chirpy horns and childhood rapping of Dizzee Rascal on Toe Jam. Think of Musical Youth copyists back in the 80s. Think of the Mavericks meet Boney M. Think of Dizzee's disastrous turn on that Band Aid single.

Seattle is a track that wouldn't be out of place on Woodstock's smoke-hazed fields. But this isn't Woodstock. Nor is it Seattle. It's meant to be bloody Brighton.

He's Frank (Slight Return) is more than a slight return. It is a wholesale Tardis ride to 90s Fatboy, although tragically more Brimful Of Asha B-side than Rockafeller Skank A-list. Island with Justin Robertson offers some cozy Vienna-style spaciousness, and it's a blessed relief to my punished ears - except Norm and Si insist on hammering on a clumsy chorus. With bent nails.

Cook can't remember recording all of the tracks according to this Rolling Stone interview [link broken]. Sounds like denial to me. Like a werewolf who tears and gouges his way through a village, then pretends not to remember it over melba toast the following brunch.

BPA give a bad name to DJs beginning with 'Fat'. Oh dear me. I'm off to douse my ears in battery acid.

A ticket to ride: bumbling into MC Tunes and putting the green suit away

She bounces up to me like Tigger on catnip and starts squatting on the dancefloor. Her bum is pointing in all directions at once and, with alarm bells clanging in my head, I scan the room for a precautionary mop.

She says to me, "You need to dance with your hips. Like this."

For a scruffy haired loser who shuffled around in a painful green suit and wine red tie, a dancefloor was very much like a barbeque is to a penguin; it was a new thing to me and the heat was causing chafing.

It's the Herbal Tea Party in mid-90s Manchester and I'm being taught to dance by an enthusiastic stranger. I must have looked as stiff as a door if I needed a punter to dive in and rescue me from complete humiliation.

The Tea Party stands now as a monster club night in darkest Hulme that has never enjoyed the continuing exaltation of its bigger counterpart, Manchester's Megadog. It's a shame, especially for HTP's very own Dr Frankensteins, co-creators Ian and Rob Fletcher.

Thanks to them, electronic music bowled me clean over, especially when:

(a) I bought Orbital's brown album purely based on an amusing review in the NME;

(b) as a hack, first interviewing one of the Fletchers (I forget which one) but being drawn by a One Dove record playing in the background. I'd never heard proper, creative dance music before, barring the KLF, The Orb and assorted chart rave bands.

There isn't much about the Tea Party on the internet near me. A few forum mentions, but then this gem of a photograph (above).

It's a ticket, posted by Armcurl. It shows (then) South Manchester's finest DJ Justin Robertson lined up beside Charlie Hall and his Drum Club. And there they are. Resident Rob Fletcher plus Inner Sphere Space which, if I remember rightly, was his brother Ian.

Okay it's just a ticket, but this photo represents my bumpy (and grindy) ride into the clubbing world.

I never really became 'cool'. I was frightened by the owner of Birmingham's Beyond club once because he offered me a beer. And I once bumbled into MC Tunes, who threatened my very life just by casting me what he thought was a casual glance.

And I never got into tea either, despite the best efforts of Mr Scruff to make it the tipple of choice for Manchester clubbers.

But I did learn to dance a bit, and the Herbal Tea Party turned a scruffy haired loser into a shaven-haired loser with a penchant for Higher Intelligence Agency, Drum Club and Sabres Of Paradise. Thank goodness I never needed the mop.