Ever decreasing memories of lifted bosoms and a DJ Shadow dump

Edit: no wonder this post was so nostalgic. I've just realised (a month later) this was my 200th blog post. Hurrah! Light a candle or summink!

Ten years ago I flipped my first disc onto a spindle in public. I was rocking big beat in a rough bar. I broke the decks. I bombed.

But Fat Roland (yes, that's me pictured) was born unto the world, and the rest - as they allegedly say - is hysterical.

My head is seeping with memories as I think back through my decade of DJing. Little snapshots.

Electrical tape, perfectly parallel, pretending to be Tron lines on a floor. Long, smooth, edgy drum 'n' bass mixes and my DJ mates nodding in appreciation. Deciding to dump the beatmixing for John Peel-style weird track choices. My mate Fil signing the letter T when I play something he liked.

Sweating in a hooded top as I played the 'cool DJ' role with a bunch of energetic South Africans at Manchester Apollo. My wedding DJing phase, oh my wedding DJing phase. Lifting someone's ample bosom, two handed, from the needle-knocking danger zone. Lending my decks to LTJ Bukem's former musical partner and learning to mix jungle just by watching.

Some record label guys thrusting a pure white, unlabelled 12" at me - and my joy when I realised it wasn't crap. The sunshine last August and the couple dancing near the front. Beat-mixing at a skate park five gruelling hours a day over ten days, which included putting on a long DJ Shadow track while I had a poo. Being chased from Rusholme with said chum Fil, covered in wallpaper paste and flyposters.

I have slowed down, like an 80-year-old driver. Work is my steering wheel, and I just can't get enough cushions of spare time to rise me high enough to drive (by drive I mean DJ) safely (by safely I mean often). I'm tempted to delete that last sentence, but no, I'll just keep typing. Be damned.

I now find myself working three doors away from my first ever gig, and Facebook has put me back in touch with some of my pals from that time.

It all comes full circle. Like a record. Although not in ever decreasing circles, like what a record actually does. That would be depressing.

DEEPER FRIED FAT: MAGIC CARPET, BIG DOG

A hundred blinking goths, Jabba goes J-Ho, and sodden notes drying on radiators

There are many things I should have resisted.

An invitation to Ara, Manchester's leading goth night. I arrive dressed in white. A hundred six-foot black and purple people, some of them dressed as crows, don sunglasses.

A record company showcase featuring a nascent All Saints. The room is full of Manchester celebrities. I spill MC Tunes' pint. His response didn't rhyme, but it certainly had bite.

Buying the Kooks' album. What was I thinking? It makes me sick to even think of it. I gave the CD away in a tombola at my 33-and-a-third birthday bash.

Getting my ears pierced in a strange attempt to cure a throbbing hangover. I looked like Jabba The Hut trying to be Lindsay Lohan. I decided that getting things pierced somehow doesn't cure hangovers.

Sledging with £1,300 in my back pockets.

There are many things I should have resisted. However, there is one thing I have resisted, but should have given in to quite some time ago.

Yes. I am finally on Last FM. Be the first to find me here.

DEEPER FRIED FAT: µ FACES

Confusion in our eyes that says it all - we've lost Control (well, almost)

Oh plop tarts. I was busy enjoying a bit of summery pop courtesy of King Of All The Animals, and I surf onto a site that tells me Sound Control have been silenced.

The most joyous moment of my life was discovering the blue, mottled knob-laiden monster that is the Roland JP-8000 in Sound Control's Salford store.

I spent half an hour in acid nirvana as I took that synthesiser to buttock-wobbling depths and combover-raising zeniths. As I slapped the cash on the counter, I made my best purchase ever and the "Roland" part of my DJ name was born.

Yes, I named myself after a bloody keyboard.

The staff at the Salford branch would always take time out to teach dimwits like me the finer points of sound modules and weird samplers, even if was a Saturday afternoon and the shop was full of greasy teenagers in pseudo-army shirts playing Wish You Were Here.

I was even allowed into their store room to peruse their nuts.

A great aspect of Sound Control is they give a damn about maintaining your gear. Now everyone who owns anything musical will see their beloved Stratocaster / digital drum kit / electronic zither (delete as appropriate) crumble before their weeping eyes.

The Salford branch remains open while administrators tout the business for all the rupees they can get. But the Manchester branch closed a few days ago, along with nine other Sound Control and Turnkey stores from Southampton to Glasgow.

I don't want to listen to King Of All The Animals now. I'm need comfort music so I can retreat to my happy place.

Doctor Adamski's Musical Pharmacy it is, then.

Edit: Music Thing wants your help in tracking down all the music equipment shops in the world ever. Go to it!

DEEPER FRIED FAT: NEVER MIND, QUIETLY ROOTING

Speed-freak pilots, equine storm joy and Lord Dan of Deacon's new video mayhem

My trousers are bursting with good music.

There's Portishead's first new album since the stone ages, for a start. You may still have time to listen to it online if you're as speedy as a Concorde-piloting amphetamine addict who's just realised he left the oven on.

Electronica's answer to Wilf the inventor, Tom Bugs, made me happier than a horse in a hay storm with this little demo of frequency freneticism. The clip will only mean something to you if you too have spent hours in Sound Control twiddling to your screaming ears' desire.

Incidentally, Tom Bugs is working on something called a Bug Crusher. Ants are trying to invade my kitchen at the moment, although I suspect the machine is a sound modulator and not an insect murderer.

And thirdly, self-professed "absurdist composer" Dan Deacon (pictured) is back. He is the lust child of Har Mar Superstar, Deee-lite and Timmy Mallett. I advise you to remove your retinas before watching this kalaidoscopic video delight.

DEEPER FRIED FAT: NOW WASH

What's that coming over the hill, apart from a lyrical cliché? Clue: not a monster

What's that coming over the hill, apart from a lyrical cliché? Is it a monster?

Niet. It's a three-headed dog. The Black Dog, in fact, with an album of sparkling ambient techno called Radio Scarecrow.

Amid a cacophony of remixes and rereleases (Book Of Dogma artwork remixed above), I reckon this is their first new material for a while. It lopes over that brow with certain intent: to be nostalgic, to be minimal, to be ever-so-slightly Detroit.

Word on the grapevine says the basslines are so intense, the band had to take scheduled breaks from recording.

Health and safety, you know.

The Black Dog dates way back, before music had invented all the notes, and so does Meat Beat Manifesto.

MBM is headed by arthritic vegan Jack Dangers, and they have thrown another LP of breakbeat-rolling distorto-dub in the shape of Autoimmune.

Dangers is meant to be a magpie when it comes to gathering samples, but it sounds like he's avoided nest nicking for a while considering how old some of these samples sound ("say whaaat" and the like).

Instead, why not befrend Bochum Welt's ROB (Robotic Operating Buddy)? This album is out now on the legendary Rephlex imprint.

Third track Saint (Dmix) is a spit for a New Order track, but don't let its synth-pop tendencies put you off.

ROB is an acidic Atariesque throwback to early Aphex and catchy analogue (kraft)work-outs.

I leave you with an mpSunday, where I slowly give away my music collection. It's a rather low-key single from Black Dog's Radio Scarecrow.

mpSunday: *plop* this mp3 has expired. Click here for the latest mpSunday.

DEEPER FRIED FAT: REPEAT REPEAT, IN SOUTHPORT

Glastonbury's got 99 bands, and Jay Z should be one of them

Which twizzard decided Glastonbury was all about guitars?

Noel Gallagher flicked his dummy out of the pram over Jay Z's headline spot at this year's festival.

He said anyone who wants a rapper at Glasto is a paedophile, and Michael Eavis sleeps with monkeys. Okay, he didn't say that, but he seemed to think the booking was a jolly bad idea.

Emily Eavis has gone on the PR offensive, saying the Smiths would have provoked similar ire in 1984. The year, not the book.

I don't get the comparison. The Smiths weren't already million-selling music moguls with more clout than the Cloverfield monster's boxing glove.

And the Smiths were a guitar band, with guitars and everything. I think Gallagher's original winge was about Glastonbury's guitar heritage and the inappropriateness of a (gosh) non rock 'n' roller in a high profile spot.

Noel is, of course, talking out of his eyebrows. Baroness Lady Dame Shirley Bassey sang her blinged-up boots off last year, while Carl Cox and Basement Jaxx are among bucketloads of dance acts who have rocked Glasto.

Who could forget Orbital redefining dance music forever in 1994?

Surely Noel hasn't fallen for the drip-drip tabloid headlines about rap music being a hive on the nose of humanity? You know the headlines I mean. Just between the stories that say the internet is full of evil and the screamy ads offering you a free pony.

Jay Z isn't the reason why Glasto ticket sales are down. He fills venues, he doesn't clear them. And the Grey Album was one of the best Beatles / hip hop mash-ups of 2004.

Blame it on the weather. Or the economy. Or a lack of great new bands. Or that everyone's off to Latitude instead.

Can someone please pick that dummy off the floor? Gallagher's gob needs plugging again.

DEEPER FRIED FAT: INS OUTS, BURDEN ME

Shorts and a little helicopter hat - they're this season's essential radio accessory

Edit: This post makes Lee look like my tech monkey while I'm the big presenting ego. This isn't balanced. Lee is a fully fledged second half to my first half, and together we present as one. A bit like a blubbery Ant and Dec.

Every night this week, I have spent two hours blithering into a micromophone like an idiot possessed.

The first five days of the Theatre Of Noise (explained concisely here) have fizzled to a close. Thanks to a clever use of scripting and flaggelating ourselves with cutting self-criticism, the output's been a few notches above our usual fare.

Monday's show, our first since our 2007 podcast, was like an old shed in Venice: stilted and ever-so-slightly rusty.

Thanks to an image of me dressed in shorts and a little helicopter hat (cheers, Lee!), Tuesday's show exploded into merriment. Our production values on this show were probably tighter than anything we had done before.

Wednesday's show was a slow-burner, measured and steady.

Thursday's was a stonker. It trod the wafer-thin line between proper comedy silliness and filling the airwaves with spluttering giggles. It is my co-presenter Lee's job to drive the desk and give me just enough space for my adrenaline-fuelled comedy rants, and to use his charming form of grumpiness to reign me in when the show needs more control. You could say I was "on one", and Lee coped admirably.

We even managed the health and safety nightmare of Friday's Chainsaw Challenge, which saw our resident toolman Fil The Destroyer let rip with a jigsaw on Michael Bolton's 1991 hit single Time Love And Tenderness (results pictured above).

This is how Lee steers our ship:

INT. STUDIO - EVENING

ME: We're two minutes ahead of schedule. What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?

LEE: That's pretty good. Don't worry about it.

ME: WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO?

LEE: It's only two minutes.

I bounce up and down, sweating profusely.

ME: Whaddawegonnadoo, whaddawegonnadoo, whadwegondoowhadwegondoo--

LEE shoots me in the head.

All in all, then, we're pretty relaxed about the whole thing.

On an unconnected note, Portishead are about to drop their first album for 360 years. Here's a startling hymn to rhythm from Beth and co, and like all of my mpSundays, it will only be available until the very next mpSunday. And yes, I know it's Monday.

mpSunday (right click and save as): *plop* this mpSunday has now gone. Click here for the latest mpSunday.

DEEPER FRIED FAT: LITTLE BIT, T SHIRT

Oh to be torn up by wolves and fed, bit by bit, through an old lawnmower

While I'm busy with radio things, there are a few gramophone releases you and I ought to catch up on.

AGF's fourth album Words Are Missing is a dizzying array of shattered sound and industrial ambience. The harmonies come from vocals torn up by wolves and fed through a lawnmower. The fragments that remain are alluring but ever-so-slightly unsettling.

Harmonic 313 is a side project from Mark Pritchard, better known as one half of Global Communication. His EP1 is a triumphal throwback to the early days of techno, when it was all about Detroit. So yes, it sounds all a bit Juan Atkins without the smoothness, but it works for me.

A whole manbag packed full of Thom Yorke remixes have been released in the last couple of months. Meddling with the lazy-eyed Oxford boy's music are Burial (unfairly labelled as a 2step Massive Attack), Four Tet, Christian Vogel and Newport Pagnell's DJ Surgeon.

The utterly ironic thing about electronica remixes of Radiohead's frontman is that, whatever you do, you just end up making it sound more like Radiohead. Which is a good thing, and you should sniff them down in record shops now.

Finally, Clark is breathing fire again on his new offering, Turning Dragon. He has put all niceties to one side, has walked into the Women's Institute (electronica sub-committee) meeting, and machine-gunned everyone to death with bad-tempered percussion and ADD-level techno.

Listening to his album is like trying to nail gun exploding fireworks inside the Crystal Maze dome. It's hyper, blunder-bus propeller-injected fun and is a real treat from start to finish. Have a listen to Volcan Veins from that very album.

DEEPER FRIED FAT: CLARK'S TED