PMJ104

www.pmj104.com/

My blog // blogging104

My flickr sets

My You Tube's

Yahoo! Fantasy Football // the "Why do we bother?" league

About me

I'm 6"2' (ish) from Lostock, Bolton in the UK. Although, I've just bought a house with my girlfriend on the edge of Westhoughton, Bolton. It was a new build house and it took just over a year to complete! Finally, we've actually got the house and embarked on an epic journey of painting and DIY!

I support Bolton Wanderers Football Club and have done from a very early age. So, I've seen them through some tough times and am now enjoying the Renaissance brought on by "Big" Sam Allardyce. - Despite the best efforts by the Bash Bolton Corporation (BBC) I have yet to see or read any real evidence that either he or the club are dodgy or involved in the illicit side of profesional football commonly referred to as "taking bungs".

I enjoy listening to House "dance" music; and have amassed a decent selection of tunes over the past few years. I've done a spot of mixing but, don't often record it. I do have one or two mixes online here. There is a more of a rant in my musical tastes and background at below.

I usually drink Tetley Smoothflow Bitter. Although, I am a fan of the Bank Top Brewery bitters too.

I enjoy travelling, although I don't get to do as much as i would like. There are photos from my travels in my flickr sets. These include my visits to Sydney and Broadbeach (Brisbane) in Austrailia; and would love to go back. I've also been to the US several times, including New York City (NYC), Chicaco, Washington DC and Florida where, we have some family friends. Similarily, Helen and I visited her sister in Toronto, Canada.

Other than photos from my travels, flickr includes a lot of photos from various parties, gatherings and trips made with my friends. There is also a set of random photos and pictures that i may find from time-to-time.

Hobbies at the moment are playing second-fiddle to sorting the house out. I play 5-a-side football in Manchester on Saturday mornings. I've really got out of the once (sometimes even twice) a day habit of going to the gym. So much so that I've quit David Lloyd! I'd like to get back into but, i will find a gym that is cheaper and treats you like a member and not a direct debit. I'll probably join up to Bolton Arena.

Still sport related (kind of) I enjoy playing Pro-Evo (Football) on the PS2 and occasionally GT4. I tend to stick to the PC for the traditional Quake and Halflife shoot 'em ups and the essentially addictive Championship Manager / Football Manager.

Still on the geekier side of things, I like to surf around the web to keep up-to-date on sport, music, technology and to find weird and wonderful websites.

Television wise, I've got into Stargate SG1 and Atlantis. But, they're about the only Sci-Fi that I watch. Instead, programming is mainly restricted to the slighty "cooler" shows such as Lost and 24! Naturally I tend to catch a few of the soaps during the week...Hollyoaks, Emmerdale, Corri and Eastenders!

A little bit of history...

I first went to school at Lostock County Primary and progressed to senior education at Bolton School Boy's Division. From there I moved on to the University of York.

It was at University where I took up the t'internet name of "PMJ104" (it was actually my e-mail address). At York, I was a member of Wentworth college. When I wasn't easting chip-barms in Wentie Bar, I studied ITBML - Information Technology and Business Management with language. That gave me the opportunity for a one year placement at Xerox in Welwyn Garden City. On graduation I returned to Xerox for 2 years before moving on to UBS Warburg at Liverpool Street in the centre of the City of London.

I left there around 2003 and returned home to Bolton to work in the family business, Valetime Group, where I'm still working - which, involves regular visits to Ukraine. I've also just finished a part-time Masters course in International Business at UCLAN - University of Central Lancashire in Preston - that i passed with Merit! Unfortunately, due to a rather large misunderstanding on my part, I don't actually qualify as a Jedi Master with mastery of the binding and ubiquitous powers of the Force. Although that being said, I do have the strangest feeling, I sense something; a presence I've not felt since...

I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I met you I was but the learner. Now, *I* am the master.

M u s i c

I generally listen to house music. I have been collecting house records since the age of 17, getting my first set of decks at 18. My first exposure to "dance" music in general was by listening to the radio, in particular Stu Allen on Manchester's KEY 103 - his House hour mixes where made up of tunes that have now become "Old School" [albums] anthems from the labels such as XL and Suburban Base Records. Stu Allen also had a regular Hard House section with a tougher music selection. This goes some way toward my appreciation of records released through and remixed by Tidy Trax and the Sharp boys - who have just done a brilliant remix of Stonebridge's "Put 'em High" [cd single][12" single][album] on

Hed Kandi.

Once I received my first set of decks I began to be influenced by progressive music from the likes of DJs' such as Sasha, Dave Seaman, Blue Amazon, Way Out West, BT and Paul Oakenfold. I still occasionally buy the odd progressive record and am a fan of the Renaissance, Stress, Fuju, Perfecto, Cheeky, Whoop and Hooj Choons. Big progressive tunes for me were Desert “Moods” on Stress/Additive, Brothers in Rhythm present Charvoni “Forever and a Day” also on Stress, Grace “Skin on Skin (Orange)” and BT “Loving You More” on Perfecto, Bullit “Cried to Dream” on :VC: (VC Recordings) and Billy Ray Martin “Imitation of Life”, the Brothers in Rhythm mix on Magnet.

My main musical passion is house music. There is a very good history to house music by Jan Geerinck. Although I tend to buy funky and disco based house vinyl, I enjoy listening to the complete spectrum of house and dance music. If you'd like a good graphical overview of how all the different genres fit together then check out Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music - it's brilliant! As is the House Music 101 for all things Rave.

To sample dance music across the board; you can't go wrong with listening to anything from BBC Radio 1's long running Essential Mix. The Essential Mix started in 1993 and has attracted 2 hour mix sessions from the cream of every genre of dance music. Two "essential" resources for Essential Mix fans are essentialmix.ca and tracklistings.net; both of which have compiled tracklists for the majority of Essential Mixes and other radio shows, such as the John Digweed Kiss 100 mixes. If you are not familiar with these radio shows then head over to the vast archive library of these shows here.

Back to that funk and disco influenced house...Full Intention remixes were the ones that i used to go for. Today I like to listen to anything with a groove or a funky and decent house beat. Anything that makes it on to a Hed Kandi album (feat. the art work of Jason Brooks) is the kind I thing I like. Other labels that make a big part up of my record collection include AM:PM, Defected, CR2, Fluential, Distance, Azuli, Sound of Ministry / Rulin, NRK, Subliminal and Junior / JBO. Favourite remixers include Bob Sinclar, King Unique, Kidstuff, Junior Jack, Erick Morillio, Knee Deep, Kid Crème and David Morales. Most recently I've been impressed with Seamus Haji remixes and he's involved with Big Love Music who are turning out some large tunes, including remixes of the classic Indeep track, "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life". Listen out for the ATFC remix. - Who himself has consistently turned out TUNES! Just as I like remixes by all of the above and many more, I also listen to their DJ sets along with the likes of Yousef and Miguel Migs [Naked Music].

You can’t forget the classics and I’ll buy any of the albums that Mastercuts releases. I particularly like the Bar Social, Bar Funkin’ and Discotheque series.

Some of my favourites classics from out of the box are

K-klass “Rhythm is a Mystery”, The Hed Boys “Girls and Boys”, Alison Limerick “Where Love Lives”, Duke “So In Love With You” and Armand Van Helden “The Funk Phenomena”.

I’m still open to listen to any other sort of dance music. I particularly like the new twisted electro sounds of City Rockers [albums] and the deep grooves of drum and bass on Moving Shadow [albums]. For deep house grooves, I've downloaded a few mixes from Deep Rhythms. On a trancier note, there are some great mixes for download by Reverend Lust. For that sunny summer day check out the smooth grooves, and easy listening sounds that make up the laidback niceness and downtemp fineness that is soulshine. The laidback niceness series and sunday snooze series are excellent cd quality mixes - think Ministry of Sound chillout albums. For a taste of a complete mixture of dance music, listen into the PureDance radio station on SKY Digital TV channel 890 or, listen in on their web site. I'd recommend you tune into the "Back in the Day" session between 3pm and 6pm on Sunday for some great classic and old school tracks!

Thanks to the recent KFC adverts in the UK, 2003/2004, I’ve developed a taste for the old Soul and Funk classics – Etta James [albums], Marlena Shaw [albums], Jackie Wilson [albums], Al Wilson [albums], Bobby Garrett [albums], Herbie Hancock [albums] et al – many of which have been sampled in later life in house music. Josh McDermott had a great radio show called the Soul Spectrum which is on WMBR-Radio, a station based in Cambridge, MA, USA. He features some great soul, funk and jazz tracks. More recently, you've been able to download mp3s of the show.

Finally, it’s not always house and funked soul. I’ve always enjoyed listening to the Manchester band James [best of | albums] and other similar groups, recently listening to Coldplay [albums] and the Sterophonics.

I have developed a some what eclectic collection of music but, "dance" music remains my passion. Representing the state somewhere between dance, funk and mainstream music, I have been listening to the likes of The Go! Team [album], DJ Z-Trip cut 'n paste mixes, RJD2 [albums], the Blue States [albums] and Flunk. All of which, I have discovered through recommendations on the Newstoday Public Voice Network (PVN), Friday Music Time (FMT) sites like this, random file searches on Soulseek or, in the case of

Flunk [albums], by hearing one of their tracks - a cover of New Order's "Blue Monday" [albums], - in the film "Walking Tall" [dvd], staring the Rock!