GIMIX- a mixtape by The Avalanches

25-years ago The Avalanches blew my mind with their Since I Left You single and album of the same name. Friends and I went to see them at The Arches. Memories are vague. After all, we ended up in Alaska on Bath Lane until closing. 

I stumbled into work at 11am the following day, with the excuse that I had broken my glasses at a gig and had to get them repaired that morning. My boss just smiled. He knew I'd had a night on it. Thankfully I played fives with him and we had a good relationship. Everything was cool!

I'd woken up that morning to discover I'd bought a mixtape at the merch desk. As I put it on, when I got back from work, memories came back of The Avalanches mixing in Madonna's Holiday, Marvin Gaye's What's Goin' On and Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone early in their set. After that ... I seem to remember a lot of jumping and bouncing on stage and in the crowd. There were a lot of people in The Avalanches live set up. Later that year I went down to see two of them DJ at Sankeys Soap in Manchester. At one point they dropped in Queen's I Want To Break Free. Half the crowd went with it, while the other half paused for a moment to ask ... are they really playing ....?

The mixtape I had bought was entitled GIMIX, essentially a bootleg/alternate universe version of Since I Left You. The Avalanches weren't thinking about a commercial international release for the mix/album they were working on, they weren't documenting the samples (over 3,500) they were using, they were simply having fun and attempting to make the best and coolest music they possibly could. 

So on GIMIX, a promo release in 2000, The Avalanches weren't limited by the sample clearances that eventually stripped back the commercial album. Even they don't have a record of everything they used.

GIMIX was way ahead of its time. A couple of years ahead of As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt II by Too Many DJ's that received a commercial release - albeit like an "official bootleg".

GIMIX begins with Since I Left You, complete with some extra dialogue that didn't make/wasn't cleared for the album. We then head off on the trip of a lifetime as The Avalanches take listeners on a ride through 80's pop, iconic 60's tracks, classic hip hop, The Smiths, Hendrix ... underground house and overground electronic dance by Detroit Grand Pubahs and Fatboy Slim, merging into Hall & Oattes, a dash of Sgt. Peppers - the guitar and then the song speeded up, Deee-lite ...

Flowing as one continuous, chaotic work of art, this mix is utterly magical. Vinyl crackles just add to the whole vibe and magic. The Avalanches skill to not only find and select samples to create new music and mix them all together is spell binding.

We veer back to Holiday by Madonna and some more music by The Avalanches, or samples that became the bedrock of songs on the album. A Different Feeling kicks in with even more euphoria than when it appears on the album. Michael Jackson's Billie Jean cuts like a knife, fleeting, then the groove comes back in. It hits the spot.

Closing with their own gloriously trippy Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life into a fading Holiday by Madonna spliced with Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, you don't want it to end. GIMIX is 45-minutes of genius.

GIMIX is famously difficult to tracklist. However, here are the major landmarks and samples.

Listen to GIMIX on Soundcloud

GIMIX - A mixtape by The Avalanches

1. The Avalanches - Since I Left You

2. Madonna - Holiday

3. Trini Lopez - A-me-ri-ca (Live at PJ's)

4. Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone

5. The Avalanches - Stay Another Season

6. The Avalanches - Two Hearts in 3/4 Time

7. De La Soul - A Roller Skating Jam Named "Saturdays"

8. Blowfly - Rapp Dirty

9. Richard Pryor - Richard Pryor Dialogue (from Car Wash)

10. Ol' Dirty Bastard feat. Kelis - Got Your Money

11. Roy Ayers - Love Will Bring Us Back Together

12. Kid Creole and the Coconuts - Stool Pigeon

13. The Button Down Brass feat. Ray Davies - Quiller

14. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Crosstown Traffic

15. Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Want to Have Fun

16. Thomas Bangalter - Turbo

17. Thee Maddkatt Courtship III - Excerpt: Welcome 2...

18. The Smiths - The Boy with the Thorn in His Side

19. Thomas Bangalter - Extra Dry

20. Men at Work - Down Under

21. De La Soul - Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey) (Party Line Mix)

22. The Avalanches - Electricity

23. A Tribe Called Quest - Electric Relaxation

24. Daft Punk - Oh Yeah

25. Detroit Grand Pubahs - Sandwiches

26. Daryl Hall & John Oates - I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)

27. Fatboy Slim - Fucking in Heaven

28. Unknown - Unknown

29. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

30. Jurassic 5 - Jayou

31. Deee-Lite - Groove Is in the Heart

32. Gonzales - Real Motherfuckin' Music

33. The Avalanches - Little Journey

34. The Avalanches - Diners Only

35. The Avalanches - A Different Feeling

36. The Avalanches - Pablo's Cruise

37. Michael Jackson - Billie Jean

38. Paperclip People - The Climax

39. Instant Funk - I Got My Mind Made Up (You Can Get It Girl)

40. Fela Kuti and Ginger Baker - Ye Ye De Smell

41. Electric Light Orchestra - Livin' Thing

42. Mike Curb Congregation - Mickey Mouse March (from DJ Riz's "Live from Brooklyn, Part 1")

43. Michael Wycoff - Looking Up to You (from DJ Riz's "Live from Brooklyn, Part 1")

44. Os Tres Morais - Freio Aerodinamico

45. Fern Kinney - Together We Are Beautiful

46. The Avalanches - Tonight May Have to Last Me All My Life

47. Fleetwood Mac - Dreams

Fools Gold 9.53

Fools Gold was the sound of Stone Roses at their peak, almost 10-minutes of funk groove via bass, beats, wah-wah guitar, samples and the coolest person in the world at the time on whispered vocals about friends searching for gold and ready to steal it off each other.... oh and the Marquis de Sade.

This inspirational tune came beautifully presented in artwork by guitarist John Squire entitled Double Dorsal Doppleganger - everything about this release was perfect.

Although it nearly wasn't; What The World Is Waiting For, a supreme slice of Roses guitar pop was originally intended to be the single, it was then changed to a double-a-side before then to all intents and purposes (and on rerelease) being relegated to the b-side.

The Roses released their legendary eponymous debut album in the spring of 1989, perfect timing for the second summer of love. Prior to this, there was a string of incredible guitar pop singles; Sally Cinnamon, Elephant Stone, Made Of Stone, She Bangs The Drums and Adored with all the glorious b-sides that came with them like Mersey Paradise, Standing Here, Where Angels Play and Going Down - but nothing, not even the album closer I Am The Resurrection, hinted where the Roses were going to go next.

They went off on one, sampling the beat from Bobby Byrd's - Hot Pants (bonus beats) with the bass line from Young MC's Know How, which itself was loosely based around guitar from Isaace Hayes Theme From Shaft.

The bass line is inspired by Young M.C's Know How 

which was a tune we were really vibing off at the time 

Mani

Fools Gold was recorded over the summer of 1989 and released in November of that year. If the Roses album had been the soundtrack to pre and post club parties, Fools Gold became the sound of the party - the real indie dance crossover - if there really is such a thing, the Roses would pour scorn on such statements, they simply made the best music they could.

The beat and bass groove are in from the start, it's fresh, it's funky, it sounds like nothing 4 white boys from Manchester should be creating. But then things were changing dramatically in 1989, particularly in Manchester, a city embracing ecstasy and all kinds of music from Detroit to Ibiza - people wanted to dance and expand their horizons - international, continental.

Brown doesn't take long to come in the gold roads sure a long road, winds on through the hill for fifteen days

Things move up a notch for the I'm standing alone ... section and all the time the beat and bass keep grooving while Squire coaxes majestic sounds from his guitar.

By the time Brown whispers his last Foo-oo-oo-ools Gold we still have over 4-minutes left of this incredible tune and we are treated to the magical delight of Reni, Mani and Squire vibing and riffing off each other. They sound in their element. The sounds Squire generates from his guitar sound other worldly, the best and most original guitar sounds from someone in Manchester since Johnny Marr created How Soon Is Now?

The Roses were a band of their time, but so good that they have stood the test of time. Good songs always do, but it was their look, their hair, clothes, style, appearance and attitude that combined with the songs, artwork and dance culture to elevate them way beyond other bands.

Their Top of the Pops appearance where they mime to Fools Gold was a landmark, with fellow Mancunians Happy Mondays playing Hallelujah on the same show - the times they were a changing.

Brown looks immaculate, his hair is super cool, swagger and confidence apparent and he looks like the coolest person in the world. Mani looks like he is partying on stage, swinging his Jackson Pollock-ed bass, flares on and lost in the music, Squire looks like a guitar god with a Beatles mop top and Reni acts all cool and semi interested in miming.

I can't help but think what if? What if they could have recorded an album of groove based trippy material? Something's Burning was another beauty and although Ian Brown has admitted he was never happy with One Love, you think of the album that they could have been working towards. Instead they became embroiled in legal disputes over management and label contracts, moved to different parts of the country and all started taking different drugs.

Decades down the line, if anyone is researching music in 1989 and wants to see the coolest band in the world at that time, I hope they find this film.

Fast forward to Heaton Park in 2012, the Roses huge homecoming shows. I'm there on the Sunday evening, lost in the music and an atmosphere so off the scale that some Manc scallies attempted to bottle it and sell on eBay!

Fools Gold is stretched to nearly 13-minutes; kicking off with a funky jam that I first heard when I saw them in Amsterdam and wondered it if was a new tune, but then the bass riff and beats kick in and Squire matches Mani. The incredible musical trio of Squire, Mani and Reni completely own this extended live version - from 6-minutes on they take the crowd on a psychedelic funk trip like no other, Brown comes back in with one final vocal, before they go off on one.

There is a breakdown to bass and drums before Squire starts to shred his guitar Hendrix style, his rhythm section is so tight that he has time to fiddle with effects, then tease and show off by dropping in riffs like Daytripper by The Beatles, a dash of Zeppelin and even add in Driving South from the Second Coming. It's outrageous, it is the Stone Roses, it is the sound of a band at their peak.....even now.