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It's A Shifty Disco Thing
What does the end of January mean to you?
Receiving your credit card bills for your Christmas splurge? Thinking about what
you�re going to treat your beloved to when Feb 14th rears its head?
Maybe. But for anyone connected to Shifty Disco Records something else is on
their mind. January 27th is Shifty�s birthday, and in 2002 the young
label is eager to get out of its nappies and into school � Shifty is 5!
Conceived in �96 with a compilation album
�OXCD�, Shifty Disco Records w as
born in �97 with the first of a monthly singles club release featuring the best
of the Oxford music scene. Each single was a limited edition of 1000,
individually numbered, with the first 500 only available to subscribers.
Although Shifty was concentrating on its hometown musical talent the ethos
behind the label was that it would release anything that sounded good. "Two cats
scrapping in a dustbin if needs be." Fantastic!
The following years saw Shifty releasing
records for bands all over England, and even further. 1998 saw Shifty�s first
album release for the band Dustball with �Quality But Hers�, packaged in a
plastic ball!
And from there it just snowballed. Bands that
are under Shifty�s wing are Dustball, Beulah, Murry The Hump, Whispering Bob (aka
Goldrush, and was given the title �worst single in the world ever� by the NME
with �Don�t Bring Me Down�; Enough reason to buy it!), Frigid Vinegar, Pluto
Monkey, Elf Power, Morbius, eeebleee, AM60, Theremin�..you get the picture!
To celebrate its 5th birthday Shifty have a whole
week of events lined up:
Friday 1st February is the
main event for the week. Being held at Spitz in London's East
End, serving up the delights of one band from each year of the Shifty Disco CD
Singles Club - Black Moses ('00), eeebleee ('01), Dustball
('97), Frigid Vinegar ('99) and The Samurai Seven ('98). Plus
very special guests, straight from New York; the band that brought us THE
single of last summer, �Just A Dream�, AM60.
Wednesday 30th January. LIVE
from BBC's Maida Vale Studios on John Peel's Radio 1 show, AM60
and Dustball (the band which started the Singles Club back in 1997)
will be playing live at Maida Vale. Dustball will be playing the all time Top
5 Shifty Disco Singles Club releases as voted for by both the Club's
subscribers and the general public (online at www.shiftydisco.co.uk).
Monday 28th January. To mark the 5th
birthday of the Singles Club a 5 CD Box Set is being released including
every Single released over the last 5 years. That�s 60 tracks all
neatly folded up into a cross-shaped collectors' box.
Sunday 27th January is the
actual birthday. Where else should be on a Sunday but Twisted AM Lounge
at The Windmill in Brixton with live sets from Theremin
and The Somatics plus Shifty DJs.
Thursday 31st January is
Shifty�s monthly club night, �Songs Of Praise� at The Cellar Bar
in Oxford. For the birthday special there are AM60 plus
the regular Shifty DJs.
Saturday 2nd February. The
final event of the week and the perfect way to wrap things up. It's off to
RoTa at the Notting Hill Arts
 Centre
where Oxford is brought to London for the afternoon with: eeebleee,
Theremin and Meanwhile Back In Communist Russia.
Any if all that has isn�t enough Shiftiness for you then you
can pick up any Shifty Disco back catalogue album from January 28th
'til February 24th for a mere �5. Bargain. This includes albums
by Elf Power, Beulah, Jack Drag, Nought, Pluto Monkey and Unbelievable Truth.
Want to win a goodie bag
jam-packed full of Shifty Disco records? We
have 3 to give away! Just tell us which album was Shifty�s very first album
release (the answers in this article, somewhere!). Answers on a postcard-sized
email to
[email protected] by Friday
Feb 15th 2002. Competition now
closed: Winners were chosen using random
numbers generated by www.random.org.
Winners: Adam Bruderer, Mark Lee and Holly Calder.
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