White Label Wednesday: 9/16/09 Remix Six

All right, so maybe silence wasn’t the best approach to this column. You have to understand that I approached remixes more as a fan of the art of the remix, rather than as a fan of the band. This has left me a bit short when it comes to talking up certan songs or artists, but I think I’ve found a compromise: I’ll do it “Mix Six”-style, offering what tidbits about said song or remix that may still be bouncing around in my booze-addled cranium.

ABC – Be Near Me (Ecstasy Mix)
This was the dub mix, as it were, from the American 12″ single, but in many ways I liked it more than the Munich Disco Mix. The bass licks in the late break, combined with the processed “Ecstasyyyyyyy” vocals, were just too much for my teenaged brain to handle. I knew it was amped-up disco – which was still terribly uncool in late 1985 – but that is what made it so awesome.

Climie Fisher – Love Changes Everything (House Mix)
If I hadn’t been working in a record store when the song was released, I would have thought that this was Rod Stewart too, except that this came out at the same time as Stu’s (awful) Out of Order album. There is no mistaking this mix of the song for Rod the Mod, however, as the songwriting duo of Simon Climie and the late Rob Fisher hands themselves over to Stock, Aitken and Waterman’s remix slave Phil Harding, who proceeds to house the ever-loving shit out of them. Read into that statement however you like.

Hipsway – The Honeythief (Galus Mix)
However right or wrong this may be, I’m giving all credit for this mix’s awesomeness to Gary Langan, because he has done what I consider to be great work (early Art of Noise, Billy Idol’s “Flesh for Fantasy” remix, ABC’s Beauty Stab). The other producer Paul Stavely O’Duffy, however, I have generally written off as a guy that succeeded in spite of the bands that he’s produced, not because of them. Then again, our good friend Mark S. Berry loves Paul, so maybe I’m being too hard on the guy. Whoever was in charge of this mix, I like the occasional forays into crazy.

Kool Moe Dee – Wild Wild West (Extended Mix)
Imagine my surprise when Bryan “Chuck” New, the man that mixed this record, popped up on the remix credits for “Pictures of You” by the Cure. Never saw that coming.

Roxette – The Look (Head Drum Mix)
An import 12″ from the Netherlands, this is amusing in retrospect only because it’s the kind of mix that any of us could probably assemble from home today, but at the time was a cutting-edge piece of work, blending the “Ashley’s Roachclip” drum beat (known as the Milli Vanilli beat to the unenlightened) with the then-ubiquitous “Aww yeah!” vocal sample. I never did find out where that “Aww yeah!” came from. I heard it sampled in a million other records (“Bring Me Edelweiss,” to name but one), but never heard the original. Anyone? Bueller?

Scritti Politti – The Turntable Mix
This is EXTREMELY rare, so if you thought for even a nanosecond about downloading this, do it now, now, now. This was a B-side to the import 12″ mix to “The World Girl,” but not every pressing of “The World Girl” contained this mix, which segues “Hypnotize,” “Wood Beez,” and “Absolute.” Cabaret time, fuckers!