Month: August 2015

Hong Kong Beat mobile disco tributes 90s rock played back then by Filpino cover bands at Dusk Till Dawn bar

One of the great things about the Hong Kong night life scene is the number of bars offering live music by locally based and often part-time musicians, from folksie-blues rock and rollers at pub venues around Wanchai and LKF/SoHo, like The Wanch and Backstage, to local indie hip-hoppers, usually in almost “underground” or, at least, limited exposure venues hidden among the higher floors of commercial and residential buildings of Mongkok and other former industrial areas of Kowloon, providing a mix of their own music or remakes of old classics.

The jazz scene in particular is of a very high standard with traditional, Dixie and smooth jazz being offered by rolling acts at The Fringe and Grappa’s Cellar, and some very well known international acts love the scene in Hong Kong because it is so intimate. If you haven’t rubbed shoulders over a pint with Georgie Fame in between sets in a Hong Kong jazz bar, you must be living in a monastery!

In many of the more commercial bars though you will find many cover bands made up from highly accomplished Filipino musicians and singers, who often sound as good, if not better, than the originals, and covering everything from Black Eyed Peas to Nirvana in terms of commercial and style spread.

During the 90s, a group of friends and myself used to frequently hang out at Hong Kong’s Dusk Till Dawn bar, which had a rotation of two or three bands a night and was one of the best venues for these cover bands, especially with a happy-hour two-for-one deal from 6 to 10 pm, then again from 1am until closing, all with great live music throughout the night.

I put this 90s alternative rock and grunge set together as a tribute by the real acts to the wild nights in Dusk Till Dawn and the great music played by those cover bands.

For more info on Hong Kong’s great live music scene, pick up a copy of HK Magazine for free at any coffee shop or most bars/pubs, or go to their website.

For now, sit back and enjoy a little rock and rolling, 90s style, for Sunday Selection 🙂

90s rock set inspired by live music at Hong Kong's Dusk Till Dawn bar by Hong Kong Beat on Mixcloud

Hong Kong Beat mobile disco skating and backdropping, again, with northern soul

As the resident DJ at the Swindon’s Bird Nest club sometime back in 1975, I started spinning northern soul tracks on a Wednesday night for a few months, for a bunch of lads that came in from Newbury, Oxford, Salisbury, Reading and eventually further afield as news spread, until the manager took a dislike to their style of, as he called it, “poofter dancing” because they didn’t dance with girls, or in fact anybody but the music. Troglodyte, although that isn’t what I called him at the time.

For a while at least, it was a little piece of the northern soul scene in the south …

This mix set is fairly representative of the tracks I played back then, though I’ve added a few I didn’t know at the time, like the brilliant John Leach ‘put that woman down’, but would have been regular floor fillers if I’d had them back then.

The quality of some tracks is not great as they are 40-50 year old vinyl!

Keep the Faith.

Northern soul, as played at the Swindon Bird Nest, circa 1975 by Hong Kong Beat on Mixcloud

Hong Kong Beat mobile disco grabs some old skool funk for Funky Friday

Going back to the funky vinyl days and grabbing a few tunes from the front of the ‘sorted by artist’ crate.

Funky Friday brought to you by the letters A and B 🙂

Old skool funk from the front of the funky crate by Hong Kong Beat on Mixcloud

Hong Kong Beat mobile disco shakes the hips with Latin pop and pop salsa for Thumping Thursday

There’s nothing like some thumping Latin dance tunes to get the feet moving, hips shaking, and put the heart into overdrive.

This is a 30ish minute set from a party in 2014 and, boy oh boy, did the ladies shake it 🙂

Aye caramba!

Thumping Latin pop and pop salsa set for the heart and the soul by Hong Kong Beat on Mixcloud

Hong Kong Beat mobile disco bangs its head with heavy metal and rap metal for Wild Wednesday

Not the most requested of music genres for a mobile disco, but when a school grad party organising committee asked “can you play something for the head bangers?”, this is the set I put together. 

Heads were indeed banged.

Heavy metal and rap-metal head bashing tunes 🙂 by Hong Kong Beat on Mixcloud

Hong Kong Beat mobile disco puts on some 90s alternative rock for Tuesday Chill-out

The 90s were looked on at the time as a decade that you either hated or loved the different directions that music was developing in.

R&B had gone down the road into hip hop and rap, inspired in turn by social dissatisfaction and gang culture; pop and disco had evolved into europop, house music and the rave culture inspired by new age thinking and, well, drugs; while rock music had gone dark and grungy, inspired by whatever demons rested in the minds of the musicians.

In the rock World however, there was still something of a melodic vein, and sometimes more ambient chilled sound coming from the indie/garage and alternative rockers, often fusing sounds of urban music, with folk, pop and hard rock to create new, fresh sounds.

Hong Kong Beat takes a listen to some of these tunes for a 90s alt rock chill-out.

90s alternative rock on Tuesday Chill-out by Hong Kong Beat on Mixcloud

Hong Kong Beat mobile disco getting spooky for Monday Moods

Halloween is creeping up on us again, so if you’re organising a party, whether for kids or adults, you need good music.

Add to that lighting and effects that Hong Kong Beat can provide set to enhance the mood, you have a spooky party to make things go bump, shake, rattle and roll, all night.

There’s nothing like a kids Halloween party for having fun with the song choices.

This is part of a Halloween kids party from 2014, dropping in some cartoon tracks, with more classic Halloween tunes, some scary sound FX and a little bit of mashed up classical music 🙂

Spooky…

Halloween tunes for children's parties by Hong Kong Beat on Mixcloud

Hong Kong Beat mobile disco listens to sounds of Africa for Sunday Selection

From the edges of the Saharan desert, to the cliffs of The Cape, and from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean, Africa has produced music for thousands of years, and has influenced popular music around the World, especially contemporary music from Cuban and Latin beats, to blues, soul, and rock.

Enjoying some songs from different countries of the Continent for this Sunday Selection. 

Kadi Kadi by Ali Farka Toure  (Mali)
Nzaji by Mario Rui Silva (Angola)
Dança Ma Mi Criola by Tito Paris (Cape Verde)
La Milonga de Ricardo en cha-cha-cha by Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loca (Congo)
Lekela Muadi by Tshala Muana (Congo)
Abiani by Dobet Gnahore (Ivory Coast)
Kothbiro by Ayub Ogada (Kenya)
Avelo by Tarika (Madagascar)
Sawale by Kotoja (Nigeria)
Masakhane by Miriam Makeba (South Africa)
Mfan Omncane by Dorothy Masuka (Zimbabwe)
Wasuze Otya? by Samite (Uganda)
Wake Up by Oliver Mtukudzi (Seneg

Listening to the sounds of Africa for Sunday Selection by Hong Kong Beat on Mixcloud

Hong Kong Beat mobile disco presents the New Soul Men

Many people regard the 60s and 70s as the era of the great soul men – Wilson Pickett, the Reverend Al Green, Barry White, Marvin Gaye… And certainly it seemed that during the next couple of decades, R&B moved away from soulful tunes and voices in the main, although the advent of neo soul kept an undercurrent alive.

However the past 10 years or so has seen a resurgence in the popularity of great soul music with some new neo soul male artists, notably D’Angelo and of course John Legend, who’s voice seems to be popping up everywhere from his own albums, to Tarantino movies, to dance tunes, to hip-hop. But they are not alone in reviving the feeling that only a silky tenor or baritone can bring to a set of heart grabbing soulful lyrics.

So for Soulful Saturday this week, Hong Kong Beat presents a selection of some of the New Soul Men in the Millennium.

What’s going on, indeed.

The new soul men – resurgence of the great male soul voices for Soulful Saturday by Hong Kong Beat on Mixcloud

Hong Kong Beat mobile disco funkin’ it with 90s R&B for Funky Friday

The 90s brought a lot of change in music, in part due to the availability of electronic means of making music and, in a big part, the ability to sample old tracks. This was especially true in dance and R&B, where sampling older funk tracks in the 80s gave musical life to the street poetry of rappers.

R&B by the 90s had developed into several streams (rather than genres I would say), hip-hop/rap, new jack swing, neosoul, jazz-funk/soul-funk being what I would call the main streams.

Underlying all of these streams though were the funky rhythms and bass licks that the 90s R&B artists had grown up listening to with their parent’s music.

Here’s a little selection of funk infused 90s R&B tracks for Funky Friday.

90s funk and swing for Funky Friday by Hong Kong Beat on Mixcloud