Five Hours Of The Flightpath Estate At The Golden Lion (And Six Hours Of Sean Johnston)

Last Saturday afternoon and evening three of The Flightpath Estate DJ team played some tunes at The Golden Lion in Todmorden, warming up on what was already a very hot day before Sean Johnston took over for A Love From Outer Space. ALFOS at The Golden Lion is always a special occasion, the pub being one of its spiritual home, much loved by Mr Weatherall and Mr Johnston, and always draws a beautiful crowd of enthusiastic dancers and revellers. 

Martin went on first, then me and then Dan. Martin played some dub, some leftfield stuff, some disco edits and some electronica. I went in a Balearic/ indie/ dub direction. Dan went full Balearica. After that we switched to playing three songs each in rotation and then a quick burst of one each, back to back, before handing over to Lion resident Matt Hum who played an hour ahead of Sean. Lion regular Tommo took a picture of us outside the pub. Apologies for the unexpected appearance of our knees (left to right, Martin, me, Dan). 

We’ve spent this week trying to recreate out sets- they weren’t recorded live from the booth so these have been done afterwards. The entire thing, our individual three hours in the afternoon and then another two hours of us playing back to back, is at Mixcloud here. 

Martin

• John Grant: Day Is Done
• Kevin Morby: Bittersweet
• Horace Andy backed by The Welders: Straight To Hell
• B:Dum B: Dum Sound: There Is No Question
• King Tubby: We Rule
• Om Unit + TM404: Praha
• Marshall Watson: High Desert
• Puerto Montt City Orchestra: Our Patagonian Friends (Balearic Ultras Brooking Bass Remix)
• The Rolling Stones: Rain Fall Down (Ashley Beedle’s Heavy Disco Vocal Re- edit)
• Diskjokke: Panatup
• Flamingods: Dreams (On The Strip)
• Curses: This Is The Day

Adam

• Kate Bush: Nocturn Coyote Dub Edit
• Manic Street Preachers: If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next (David Holmes Remix)
• Peaking Lights: Beautiful Dub
• Verve: One Way To Go (10:40s So High It Hurts Edit)
• Julian Cope: They Were All On Hard Drugs
• The Charlatans: Opportunity 3
• Marshall Watson and Cole Odin: Just A Daydream Away (Space Flight Mix)
• Jazxing: Fala
• Matt Gunn: Lost In The Drohn (Rude Audio Remix)* 

Dan

• Say She She: Prism
• A Certain Ratio: Tombo In M3
• Bugatti and Musker: Fate Demo
• HF International: I Can’t Go For That Disco Dub
• Donald: A Ver A Ver (Ric Piccolo Edit)
• Marcel King: Reach For Love
• Manolo: Amalfi Drive
• Alex Kassian: Strings Of Eden
• Fila Brazillia: A Zed And To Ls
• Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright: Heroes (Merry Prankster Dub)

Martin

• Gates Of Light: Embrace The Night
• Bozart: The Dark The Light
• Black Bones: Keep Dancin’

Adam

• Cabaret Voltaire: Yashar (John Robie Remix)
• New Order: Everything’s Gone Green
• Yargo: Marimba

Dan

• Sworn Virgins: RWA
• X- press 2: Muse
• Dolle Jolle: Balearic Incarnation (Tod Terje Extra Doll Mix)

Martin

• Depeche Mode: Enjoy The Silence (Rich Lane A&E Cotton Dub)
• Heavy Disco: Running Up That Hill (Heavy Disco Edit)
• Black Bones: B.E.E.F.

Adam 

• The Vendetta Suite: Purple Haze Yellow Sunrise (David Holmes Remix)
• Jo Sims: Bass- The Final Frontier (David Holmes Remix)
• Dirt Bogarde: Heavy Blotter

Dan

• Roberto Rodriguez: Mustat Varjot
• Round: Glass
• Bodika: Over Not Over

Martin

• The Twilight Sad: Videograms (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

For an idea of what ALFOS was like last Saturday night, this six hour set of Sean playing at Phonox, Brixton, came online this week, the first Stream From The Booth in a series from Phonox. Sean is in imperious form, a slowly, insistently building set that is impossible not to want to move to, utterly compelling dancefloor action. Sean says that ALFOS is about ‘charting journeys that pay off gradually but powerfully… an antidote to our culture of instant gratification’. It’s evident in this six hour mix and it was there too at The Lion last Saturday night- and then some. Worth giving up some time too and then enjoying time and time again. 

* The last track in my afternoon section was actually a different one, a Bedford Falls Players remix of Matt Gunn which I was sent a few weeks ago and have been playing loads, but it’s currently unreleased so I’ve replaced it here with a different Matt Gunn track and remix which I had in my bag. My hour is here if you’d like it as a single download. 

AW60: Saturday’s Angels

Picture by photographer Scott Gouldsbrough

A week ago at The Golden Lion in Todmorden a very special event took place, the stars aligning and everything coming together just so, creating two days that will live long in the memory (or at least, the bits that I can remember- my recall of some of late on Saturday night is sketchy in places). AW60 has been pulled together by Lizzie, Andrew’s partner, and Ian, his brother, over four venues that had big connections to Andrew. The fourth and final leg of the month was also due in no small part to the ever generous hosts of The Golden Lion, Richard and Gig, who run what can only be described as The Best Pub In The World. There are lots of other pubs, you may know them, that are brilliant, great places to go to drink, to eat, to socialise, to sit on your own or with friends, to chill out and have fun and that feel like homes from home. But The Golden Lion is something else,- a pub in a town in the West Yorkshire hills, that combines a proper pub vibe with a gig venue, nightclub, and Thai restaurant (plus a record label)- and also much more. AW60 pulled together a crowd of fans, friends and family of Andrew and threw a birthday party for him. I was lucky enough to be part of the DJ line up for the Saturday, the five man Flightpath Estate DJ team playing from 1pm through until Justin Robertson taking over at 10pm. We took an hour each in the afternoon and then took it turns to play three tracks each, rotating back to back after 7pm, a nine hour DJ set that flew by in the blink of an eye. 

Upstairs a raffle, merch stall and exhibition were in full swing. Later on upstairs Timothy J. Fairplay played, an hour of synths and thundering drum machines that finished with Tim performing some of the songs he wrote with Andrew as The Asphodells, songs never played live before- Late Flowering Dub, We Are The Axis and One Minute’s Silence. Over the road there were DJ sets by Dave Beer and Bernie Connor, both long standing friends of Lord Sabre. 

Sunday saw Andrew’s old friends Sherman and Curley take the reins at the DJ booth, playing some tremendous, earth shaking dub. In the evening Chris Rotter, the guitarist on Andrew’s solo album A Pox On The Pioneers, played a set of songs from that album with Ride/ Glok’s Andy Bell accompanying him on guitar. These songs have never been played live before either, Chris reworking them, singing and playing them pared down and full of emotion. It was quite a moment. Sunday night began to raise the tempo and temperature again as Heidi and Lovefingers DJed. 

The atmosphere on the Saturday afternoon and evening were something else, with people arriving from all over- Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, London- and filling the pub. Our sets weren’t recorded but we have spent part of this week recreating them. They may not be 100% accurate but they are there or thereabouts, versions of our hours, inspired by Andrew’s own music, the music he played on the radio and at gigs and shows, and music in the spirit of his never ending quest to unearth more.  

Me and Baz arrived at the Lion first, welcomed by Richard and then given the run of the DJ booth. Once we’d located the On button and got set up, Baz opened, an hour of songs beginning with Selective Walking, the instrumental that Andrew used to open some of his radio shows with. From there there’s Two Lone Swordsmen, OMD, The Jesus And Mary Chain, New Order’s Your Silent Face, a song that came and went throughout the two days in various forms, almost the weekend’s theme tune, and plenty more.

Baz’s AW60 Set At The Golden Lion

Martin took over from Baz. His set is at Mixcloud. It kicks off with some ambient Weatherall/ Tenniswood and includes Coyote, Chris and Cosey, Ananda Shankar, Gene Vincent, The Pistoleers cover of The Clash’s Bankrobber, The Summerisle Trio, Sabres Of Paradise and Section 25.

I took over from Martin and played a set that went something like this…

Adam’s AW 60 Set at The Golden Lion

• Andy Bell: The Sky Without You (David Holmes Radical Mycology Remix)
• Sabres Of Paradise: Jacob Street 7AM
• The Liminanas: Garden Of Love (Lundi Mouille Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Alex Kassian: Spirit Of Eden
• The Vendetta Suite: Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise (David Holmes Remix)
• Durutti Column: For Belgian Friends
• Andrew Weatherall: The Confidence Man
• A Certain Ratio: House In Motion (Demo Version 1)
• The Clash: The Street Parade
• Madness: Death Of A Rude Boy (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
• Meatraffle: Meatraffle On The Moon

This may not be completely correct because I’m sure I also played this in my afternoon set (unless I overran a bit which is entirely possible or maybe I played it later, memory fails me slightly here). Habbanera is a gorgeous slice of Italian prog remixed by Balearic stalwarts Leo Mas and Fabrice. 

The excitement at playing, the nerves dissipating, the songs coming out of the sound system- I don’t want to get too carried away and too breathless but it was incredible, the sort of thing that made you pinch yourself occasionally to check it all was actually happening. 

Dan went next. His hour is also at Mixcloud. Dan’s set flows beautifully, taking in a lovely Bob Marley/ Bill Laswell remix, Dominik von Seger and Montezumas Rache, Peter Gordon and Daniel Avery’s tribute to Andrew Lone Swordsman, Dan’s mixing absolutely spot on. 

Mark picked up the headphones next and played for ninety minutes (being stuck on the decks while the rest of us got fed). The first half of his set is recreated at Soundcloud and features a forthcoming remix by his own Rude Audio (a little self promotion never goes amiss), Boy George and Spatial Awareness, David Harrow, Neil Young, Sabo, Acid Arab and James Rod (again remixed by Rude Audio). By this point we were heading into the evening, the pub was filling, excitement and anticipation growing, Mark’s dubby dance keeping it building. 

As the energy levels rose and the atmosphere with it, we went back to back, three songs each, and it all turned into a blur- at some point I played Mark Lanegan’s Ode To Sad Disco, Roisin’s All My Dreams, Bjork’s Violently Happy (remixed by Fluke), the Soulwax remix of A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C., the Tribal mix of Pete Wylie’s Sinful and Sub- culture by New Order (the Lowlife version). What everyone else was playing in their three song sets is lost to me right now- Martin played Wilmot at one point in an attempt to pull the tempos back a bit. Photographer Scott took this shot of me as I scanned the display, about to cue something up…

And these pictures show four of the five of us at work/ play… (smiling obviously something that was beyond most of us when the shutter was clicked). Baz was elsewhere. 

At around 9.45 we had fifteen minutes until Justin Robertson took over from us. I had two of Justin’s remixes in my bag which I decided we should play in advance of him playing. I’m not sure this was the coolest idea anyone’s ever had but once I’d committed myself to it there was no going back. First up was his 1991 remix of Caravan by Inspiral Carpets, a chunky, dancefloor filler with a vocal sample intoning, ‘you play consciousness expanding material’, and some cracking pianos….

Caravan (No Windscreen Mix)

I followed it with Justin’s Most Excellent remix of Saturday’s Angels by If?, uptempo, progressive indie- dance/ house from 1992. By this point Justin was in the booth next to me, pulling the pitch control down slightly to cue this up with his first track (which turned out to be Andrew’s remix of Soon by My Bloody Valentine which caused something close to mayhem).

Justin then played three hours of perfectly pitched dance music to a room of friendly, smiling faces, pausing briefly while sixty candles were distributed and happy birthday sung to an absent friend. The music kicked back in with Don’t Fight It, Feel It. After that, well, after that my memories are mainly of dancing and being lost in it all. The tracklist Justin posted up midweek shows a mixture of music, old and new, by Andrew and others climaxing with Smokebelch, St. Anthony and Come Together. 

It was quite the day and night. I was pretty nervous in the week leading up to it and needn’t have been, everyone was friendly and there to enjoy themselves. I don’t think anyone really noticed (or cared) if a mix or cue was slightly off. Someone said a day or two afterwards, we had the best time with the best people in the best pub with the best hosts, and that does sum it up. This picture, taken in the early hours and for some of us, in a state of some dishevelment, captures it too. The whole thing, from start to finish and top to bottom was, to borrow a phrase from the lovely Mr. Robertson, most excellent. 

Left to right- Dave Beer, Justin Robertson, Tim Fairplay, Baz, Gig, me, Bernie Connor, Martin, Dan, Richard (Mark missing, somewhere in the Golden Lion).

AW60 The Golden Lion

Today is the final leg of the AW60 events, the month of celebrations of what would have been Andrew Weatherall’s 60^th birthday. Following nights in London, Glasgow and Belfast the fourth event is at The Golden Lion in Todmorden. The Golden Lion is a special place, ‘a portal’, as a man standing at the bar told me last time I was there, ‘outside it’s Tod, in here it’s another world’. The Golden Lion is a pub in the hills, on the Lancashire/ West Yorkshire border that hosts gigs, events and DJ nights, hosted by Richard and Gig. Andrew played there regularly. In 2018 he hosted a weekend of events in West Yorkshire, Weatherall in the Calder Valley, playing a gig in Hebden Bridge with A Certain Ratio and DJ events at the Lion. His travelling cosmic disco, A Love From Outer Space, with Sean Johnston often appeared at the Lion.

The turn of events that has led to me and four friends actually being part of the celebrations and DJing in the Lion today, from 1pm through until Justin Robertson taking over as headliner at 10pm is as baffling to me as it is to others. We started out administering the Flightpath Estate Facebook group (a place for Andrew’s fans to share music and news). It grew slowly and then when Andrew died in February 2020 became a place for people to be, to share stories and enjoy the music. At some point Richard asked us if we’d like to DJ at the Lion and in what I can only describe as a sudden escalation of events, towards the end of last year we were asked to be part of AW60. Much of this is due to the internet and the way it has brought people together, made connections and turned online friendships into real life ones. My involvement comes ultimately because of this blog, the hundreds of posts I’ve written about Andrew and his music and the connections made through it, something I started back in 2010 with no real idea what I was doing and ending up here. 

Today’s celebrations have us playing in turn and back-to-back throughout the afternoon and evening, handing over to Justin Robertson around 10. At 9, in the upstairs room Timothy J. Fairplay will play live with a battery of synths and drum machines. Across the road old friends of Andrew’s Dave Beer and Bernie Connor will play records. Tomorrow, Andrew’s friends Curley and Sherman are both DJing at the Golden Lion (admission is free if you’re in the area) with a live set by Chris Rotter and Andy bell in the evening where they will play the songs Chris played guitar on and helped create on Andrew’s Pox On The Pioneers solo album. Later on, as bank holiday Monday beckons, Heidi Lawden and Lovefingers will be on.

Back in October we were invited to play with David Holmes, warming up for him. The afternoon was fairly quiet and were more or less playing songs for ourselves and each other plus a few afternoon drinkers. As the evening drew on the pub filled up a little and then in a way that still causes me to pinch myself, I was in the booth at 8.45 as David Holmes turned up, said hello and told me to keep playing. A few records later I handed over to him, the sort of thing that I never really expected to happen- why would I end up DJing with David Holmes? I can’t even mix very well. Today we have a long slot, will be taking it in turns with an hour each and then as the pub turns to a ticketed (and sold out) event, we’ll switch on and off with each other, three tracks each back to back, no doubt with someone putting on a record that is unfollowable or unmixable, with a knowing smile. I have become more nervous about this gig as the week has gone on, playing a DJ set in a pub filled with Andrew Weatherall’s friends, family and fans. I’ve woken up every morning fretting about track selection, technical details, general performance anxiety. And I’ve told myself too to relax and enjoy it- the room will be full of lovely people who just want to socialise, hear good music and have a good time.

‘Just what is it that you want to do?’

‘We want to be free to do what we wanna do… and we wanna get loaded and we wanna have a good time.’

What Andrew would have made of all of this, I have no idea. A chuckle, a shake of the head, a grimace at a messed up transition between one record and the next as his fans try to emulate him. 

Andrew and Justin remixed each other several times. In 2013 Andrew along with Timothy J. Fairplay as The Asphodells remixed Justin’s Deadstock 33s track The Circular Path- crunchy sci fi electronic house music for the future. 
The Circular Path (Asphodells Remix)
Three years later Justin remixed The Confidence Man, a song from Andrew’s solo album Convenanza (the original version I plan to play at some point today). Justin’s remix goes full on with the squelchy bass and slo- mo space action.
The Confidence Man (Justin Robertson’s Deadstock 33s Remix)
Anyway, wish us luck, we’re going in. 

Six Hours At Blossom Street

Last Sunday three fifths of the Flightpath Estate DJ team (myself, Dan and Martin) played a six hour, vinyl only set at Blossom Street Social, a bar in Ancoats. We had a great time, a few people came down and seemed to enjoy the tunes. The idea was to celebrate the music and influences of Andrew Weatherall, so his music and remixes was obviously going to feature heavily. The technical set up in the bar is first class- a pair of Technics 1210 turntables and a beautiful rotary mixer. The set was recorded live from the mixer and went up on Mixcloud yesterday. You can listen to it here. 

The session, which in Weatherall style/ homage we dubbed The First Mission, was six hours of unrehearsed live performance. It is therefore filled with moments of idiosyncratic charm. One person’s idiosyncratic charm is of course another person’s mistake (or total fucking mess) but if we were to do it again there are a few things we’d want to iron out. The second track in, my second record, Richard Norris’ remix of Mark Peters’ Sundowning is a 33rpm record which I played at 45. I might have got away with this if Dot Allison’s vocals two thirds of the way into the song weren’t clearly too fast and too high. Embarrassingly I followed this with my next record, the ambient mix of Miranda Sex Garden’s Gush Forth My Tears (by The Orb’s Thrash) at 33 when it is a 45. Less noticeable but still, amateurish stuff. In my defence, I couldn’t get the headphones working at this point and was busy sorting records out. Fortunately, the next tune, Malcolm McLaren’s Madame Butterfly is played at the correct speed, as are the next four, at which point I handed over to Dan. Here I am pictured wondering what this knob does….

More pictures- from the top Andrew Weatherall’s remix of Galliano’s Skunk Funk spinning, part of a dubby section I played three hours in. It was during this section that, with the headphones now working, I managed to put on the Leo Mas and Fabrice remix 291out’s Hannabera at 33rpm, switch it up to 45 and then change it back to the correct speed of 33. Below that Dan at the decks, shortly before being told off for playing customer frightening electro slightly too loud for a Sunday afternoon and then below that Dana and Martin, one of them possibly about to catch the needle off the surface of the record with a loud scratching clunk noise. The full tracklist is at the bottom. The mixing, rpm issues, stylus being bounced off by shirt sleeves and general incompetence are all our own work. The music is impeccable. 

{Adam} [0:00] Andy Bell – The Sky Without You (David Holmes Radical Mycology Remix)

[6:00] Mark Peters- Sundowning (Richard Norris Remix) * wrong speed

[11:00] Miranda Sex Garden- Gush Forth My Tears (Ambient Remix) * wrong speed

[18:00] Sunsonic- Innocent Man

[23:00] Peace Together – Be Still (Sabres Of Paradise Remix)

[34:00] Malcolm McLaren – Madam Butterfly

[40:00] AMOR – Unravel

[46:00] Scott Fraser – A Life Of Silence

[53:00] Beth Orton – Galaxy Of Emptiness

[57:00] IWDG – In A Lonely Place (David Holmes Remix)

{Dan}

[1:01:00] Spiritualized – Come Together (Two Lone Swordsmen Mix)

[1:11:00] Sabres Of Paradise – Edge 6 [1:16:00] Creation Rebel & New Age Steppers – Chemical Specialist

[1:20:00] Tackhead – Now What?

[1:27:00] Solar Bears – Separate From The Arc (Andrew Weatherall Mix 1)

{1:28:00} {Dan twats stylus}

[1:31:00] Sabres Of Paradise – Ballad Of Nicky McGuire

[1:39:00] Eyes Of Others – Once, Twice, Thrice

[1:42:00] Pleasure Pool – Modern Nature

[1:46:00] Scott Fraser – Together More

[1:55:00] Phil Kieran – Find Love (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

{Martin}

[2:02:00] Chris & Cosey – October (Love Song)

[2:05:00] Two Lone Swordsmen – Get Out Of My Kingdom

[2:12:00] Pete Molinari – Hang My Head In Shame

[2:16:00] Johnny Bond – All I Can Do Is Cry

[2:17:00] Buddy Greco – They Took John Away

[2:20:00] Billy Fury – Don’t Jump

[2:23:00] Two Lone Swordsmen – No Girl In My Plan

[2:29:00] David Holmes – I Heard Wonders (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

[2:35:00] Summerisle Trio – Willow’s Song {2:35:30}

{Martin twats stylus}

[2:40:00] Skylab – Seashell

[2:46:00] Love T.K.O. – For What It’s Worth

[2:52:00] Two Lone Swordsmen – Brother Foster Through The Phones

[2:55:00] New Order – Regret (Sabres Slow N Lo)

{Adam}

[3:02:00] St. Etienne – Only Love Can Break Your Heart (A Mix Of Two Halves)

[3:06:00] Meatraffle – Meatraffle On The Moon (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

[3:13:00] The Liminanas – Garden Of Love (Lundi Mouille Mix)

[3:16:00] Richard Sen – Songs Of Pressure (Asphodells Remix)

[3:19:00] The Sexual Objects- Sometimes (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

[3:22:00] Galliano- Skunk Funk (The Soldiers Mix)

[3:27:00] The Clash – Street Parade

[3:30:00] Baris K – 200 (Asphodells Remix)

{3:33:00} {Adam plays with the 33/45 selector}

[3:34:00] 291out- Hannabera (Leo Mas and Fabrice Remix)

[3:39:00] The Vendetta Suite – Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise (David Holmes Remix)

{Dan}

[3:45:00] Stereo MC’s – Everything (Everything Grooves Pt.2)

[3:55:00] LCMDF – Gandhi (Weatherall Remix 2)

[4:01:00] Pleasure Pool – Ask Your Body

[4:07:00] Curses – Ghost Of Arms

[4:11:00] New Order – Your Silent Face

{Martin}

[4:17:00] Mike Garry & Joe Duddell – St Anthony: An Ode to Anthony H Wilson (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

[4:25:00] Sam Roberts Band – We’re All In This Together (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

[4:30:00] Mugwump – Until You’re Worth It (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

[4:35:00] Primal Scream – Come Together (7″ Edit)

{Adam}

[4:39:00] A Certain Ratio – Do The Du

[4:42:00] Crocodiles – Foolin’ Around

[4:45:00] Echo & The Bunnymen – Angels And Devils

[4:49:00] Andrew Weatherall – Kicking The River

[4:52:00] Wooden Shjips – Crossing (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

[4:55:00] Moon Duo – White Rose

[5:01:00] Silver Apples – Edge Of Wonder (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

{Dan}

[5:08:00] Yello- Frautonium (Andrew Weatherall Warehouse Remix)

[5:16:00] Andrew Weatherall- The Moton 5.2 {Martin}

[5:22:00] The Orielles – Sugar Tastes Like Salt (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

[5:25:00] Bocca Juniors – Raise (DJ History 7″ Mix)

[5:30:00] Primal Scream – Don’t Fight It Feel It (Scat Mix) [5:36:00] Sabres Of Paradise – Smokebelch (Beatless)

{Adam}

[5:38:00] Carly Simon – Why

At this point having decided that full on Sunday evening Balearic dance action was the way forward I had the Tribal Remix of Pete Wylie’s Sinful cued up and ready to play, but Dan and Martin had both just departed and my driver arrived outside and that was that, end of session, time to pack up and go home. But I think we will definitely do it again at some point.

The First Mission

It’s a bit late in the day to advertise this but we’ve been a bit tardy with arrangements-amateurish you might say- and it’s always better late than never. The Flightpath Estate is a Facebook group that was formed nine years ago to share news, recordings and information about Andrew Weatherall. It grew fairly slowly and only numbered a couple of hundred members until February 2020 when it grew  suddenly and quickly following Andrew’s death. It now has over two thousand members and has become something more than a Facebook group- it is a genuine community of fans and friends. It is also the front door to the Weatherdrive, an archive of Andrew’s DJ sets and mixes lovingly curated and annotated. To listen to it all would currently involve over 1300 hours of listening time.  The five of us that run and admin the page (me, Martin, Mark, Dan and Barry) were asked to contribute to an article in last Thursday’s Guardian written by Joe Muggs on the occasion of what would have been Andrew’s 60th birthday and two of us, myself and Martin, were quoted in the article. You can read it here. When I started this blog in 2010 and then helped Martin to set up The Flightpath Estate group I didn’t expect that I’d end up being quoted in The Guardian in reference to Andrew Weatherall and his legacy but we are where we are as they say. 

The Flightpath Estate managed to get ourselves a DJ gig at The Golden Lion last October, supporting and warming up for David Holmes. We’re back at the Lion at the end of the month to do the same for Justin Robertson as part of the AW60 celebrations. Again, when I started this blog I really didn’t expect it would lead to this. We’ve been keen to do something for the group in real life and knocked about the idea of doing a Flightpath Estate social, a monthly meet up where we can get together, play records and people from the group can come down and join in. The first Flightpath Estate social is happening this Sunday, 16th April, at Blossom Street Social, a bar in Ancoats. This time around, the first outing (or First Mission in Two Lone Swordsmen terms), the northern members of the admin team- me, Dan and Martin- are on duties. If you’re Manchester/ north west based, fancy a pint and a chinwag and some good music, please feel free to come down and say hello. Entry is free. We’re on from 2pm through til the evening. We’ve managed to choose a date which coincides with the Manchester marathon and the end of the Easter holidays- whether these will affect attendance at our shindig remains to be seen. We may end up playing long Weatherall remixes to a disheveled groups of runners with finisher’s medals round their necks. We may end up playing records for the enjoyment of no- one except ourselves. 

In 1996 Two Lone Swordsmen released their first full length album, a triple vinyl, fifteen track opus (or eighteen track monster if you bought it on double CD). The album, The Fifth Mission (Return To The Flightpath Estate), gave our Facebook group its name and gives us our starting point, our first mission. On the album Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood cast a wide net, all manner of slow and mid- paced, downtempo, experimental, electronic music goings on, from the huge bassline and trip hop drums of Big Man Original to the stoned, filtered, distorted guitar of Enemy Haze through to the wonky Kraftwerk- isms of Beacon Block and the double time, two- step, double bass plus electronics of Rico’s Helly, it’s a wigged out journey through the night, experimental but accessible too. The Flightpath Estate of the title is a reference to the studio they worked in, a first floor flat above a dry cleaner’s under the Heathrow flightpath. Weatherall had a knack for taking the ordinary and the mundane and giving it a glamour in song titles and names. On the CD there were three extra tracks. This one, Extended Branch Brothers, sounds like the experience of being dislocated and discombobulated after a night out, in the back of  a mini- cab in the early hours, wanting to be home and in bed but safe too in the warm environs of the taxi as it glides through the suburbs towards the dawn. 

Extended Branch Brothers

A Heavenly Guest Post

Heavenly Recordings have released a compilation celebrating the long standing and extremely productive relationship that existed between the label and its boss Jeff Barratt and Andrew Weatherall. It’s available as either two double vinyl albums (yes, that’s eight sides of vinyl) or one double CD and is a treasure trove of remixes of Heavenly acts by Andrew starting with the very first record Heavenly released, The World According To… by Sly And Lovechild, an electrifying moody progressive house remix sampling the Reverend Jasper Williams. The sixteen remixes across the package then zig- zag across decades and genres: Weatherall remixing Doves into a mutant punk- funk; Flowered Up are taken on a seventeen minute, time- shifting hedonistic joyride; Saint Etienne sent into dub heaven in 1990 and then sent on a urban late night cab ride in 2000; Confidence Man get blasted into the ecstatic joys of coming home at dawn with a late period anthem; Toy pitched into a slowed down, woozy groove as if they were in West Germany in 1972; Espiritu are given the Sabres Of Paradise treatment; Gwenno, LCMDF, Mark Lanegan, audiobooks, The Orielles, Unloved…. The discs are not chronological and they work better for it, the remixes bouncing from the early 90s to the 2010s and all points in between. They show the breadth of talent signed by Jeff Barratt and range of skills of Weatherall as a remixer who brings something new to every artist- a looped vocal here, a stretched out section there, a new rhythm track, a twisting keyboard melody unearthed from within the original mix and put at the fore, a wheezing drum machine or rattling snare. Given that Andrew wasn’t a musician as such, his remixes are so musical too, never just a case of sticking a 4/4 rhythm underneath and lettig the song play on top. The remix of Mark Lanegan’s Beehive is a case in point. Weatherall isolates a line from Lanegan’s vocal- ‘lightning coming out of the speakers/ wanna hear that sound some more’- and constructs a new track around it, whirring sounds and echoes, a thumping kick drum, a spooked melody line, rattling drums, acres of reverb and a stop- start propulsion. There’s nothing new on the compilations, all of it has been released before (although two tracks have never come out on vinyl before), but it’s a stunning set of tracks and a tribute to the man and his work. The 60s Op- Art inspired sleeves are very nice too. 

This being Heavenly, there had to be a party. The launch event was last Saturday at The Social in London with Erol Alkan and David Holmes DJing. You might remember that for several years now I’ve bene the co- admin of a Facebook group called The Flightpath Estate that came together as a place for Andrew Weatherall fans to share news, music and compare lists. The group grew into a small but committed and friendly community and suddenly expanded when Andrew died in February 2020. Some of the Flightpath Estate’s central members, including Martin Brannagan (who first approached me about being co- admin way back in 2014), were making the trip to London to attend the night. Due to my personal circumstances this wasn’t going to be a trip I could make- we were taking Eliza back to university last weekend and at the moment, following Isaac’s death, family definitely comes first. This poster greets people who arrive at the The Social, an advert for the forthcoming new single from David Holmes, a superb new song called It’s Over If We Run Out Of Love. 

Martin along with fellow Flightpath Estaters Dan, Mark and Baz all went to the Social. On Sunday they were agog with tales from the night before. Two things then happened. First someone got hold of the CDs that David Holmes had been DJing from, his own source recordings of songs for the night. The evening finished with a packed room and David playing a thirty minute mix combining three different versions of Sabres Of Paradise’s Smokeblech and Primal Scream’s Come Together. Second, I convinced Martin to write an account of the evening for this blog, so here we have an exclusive guest blog by Martin…

The Heavenly Remixes Party 

The last two years have been such a headfuck that February 2020 seems so recent and distant at the same time. When Andrew Weatherall passed away the instant outpouring of love was hugely evident on this site and so many blogs, forums, social media outlets across the internet. Then Covid struck plunging the country into in-and-out lockdowns and restrictions followed so quickly that other than a few informal events and Sean Johnston bravely following up with the pre-booked A Love From Outer Space at Phonox just days after Andrew’s death there has never felt like a time where we’ve been able to truly gather and celebrate, commemorate and remember Andrew’s life and works. Andrew’s curated festival in France, Convenanza, has been scheduled and rescheduled repeatedly, rumours of official memorial concerts have never materialised and with so many people being more at home and internet facing, the internet has naturally been the place to come together. As has been said on this blog before our Facebook group, The Flightpath Estate, originally set up in February 2014 for the few hundred hardcore geeks to discuss, dissect, share Andrew’s musical output, quickly became a focal point. Now on its way to 2000 members Andrew’s closest friends, family and collaborators came onto the group over the past two years to lovingly share photos, stories and memories, to engage, interact and support everyone including ‘the fans’ in a way I would never have envisaged possible. We maintain a sense of balance, decorum, respect and support that is so often lacking in the online world that everyone seems to find it a safe space, something I am truly grateful for and proud of. And so it is with restrictions lifting (again) and to celebrate the release on Heavenly Records of two compilations of Andrew’s finest remixes for the label a night was put on in the 250 capacity Social in Little Portland Street, London. Upstairs DJs from Heavenly and Stranger Than Paradise playing to the bar, downstairs Heavenly head Jeff Barrett along with Erol Alkan and David Holmes playing from 7-1. The buzz leading up to the event suggested this was going to be special and so it proved to be, a true gathering of the clans. The night seemed to be awash with people rekindling old friendships, establishing new ones, or, specific to what we’ve found ourselves going through, making physical contact with previous strongly built virtual friendships. The Flightpath Estate was in strong presence, from the admins, with one huge missed noticeable absence in the form of Adam ‘Bagging Area’, to the hardcore long time members, through to the people who discovered it in the last couple of years. Also strongly present were some of the capital’s great and good and also many musical and business collaborators and conspirators of Andrew, quite a few in assorted states of elevation – Bobby Gillespie, Noel Gallagher, Andy Bell, Iraina Mancini, Heidi Lawdon, Jagz Kooner, Andrew Curley, Chris Mackin, Lee Brackstone, Richard Fearless and IWDG (Ian Weatherall and Duncan Gray) were all spotted, amongst many others no doubt, the majority of whom were more than happy to greet the people they’ve been exchanging Facebook, WhatsApp or Twitter messages with over the last couple of years. The packed out Social was the focal point of everything we’ve all been through. Andrew’s music played an obvious through line, obviously some Heavenly remixes got an airing, but also Erol Alkan picked out Andrew’s remix of Cloud Cover by Glok (Andy Bell) and finished his set with the epic remix of Soon by My Bloody Valentine. David Holmes came with nearly 9 hours of source material for his 3 hour set obviously planning to judge the mood and ambience of the night and ended up taking us on a propulsive journey in only the way him and possibly one other sorely missed DJ could, with Andrew’s remix of Bubblegum by Confidence Man culminating in a pre-edit megamix of Smokebelch by The Sabres Of Paradise. This last track took us on a 20+ minute journey from the Beatless mix through into the album version into David’s own legendary remix and just as it peaked the opening tones of Andrew’s version of Come Together by Primal Scream, the ultimate shout for the best track ever, promised to close the night in a crescendo of celebration the licensing laws kicked in, plunging us into silence and artificial light and confusion. As for the rest of the night itself, I’ve not gone into many details as it was a uniquely personal experience – for some they were enveloped by the compact throbbing throng of the dancefloor for the evening, for some they were enveloped by intoxicants of legal and illegal persuasions, for some they were enveloped by conversation and meeting with friends and family, new, old, physical, virtual. But for everyone in that room we were enveloped by a single focussed love, loss, celebration and appreciation of Andrew. A unique and long awaited experience that will stay in memory for a long long time. David Holmes has lovingly and kindly agreed to share his 27 minute Holmer Megamix of Smokebelch/Come Together which you can download and listen to here….

Smokebelch/ Come Together Mix

Thanks to Martin for this account and for allowing me to live the evening vicariously through his and the rest’s updates and his writing above. It seems we missed quite the party.