Dance, Jazz-Funk and Electro pioneer Greg Wilson remixes Irvine Welsh’s ‘Men In Love’ album track dropping a slice of pure contemporary dance floor Disco.
Greg Wilson requires little introduction, if there’s any working DJ/producer who knows their disco onions, it’s this guy. He stands as one of the UK’s most prolific DJs, record label owners, and dance music historians, now celebrating his 50th year behind the decks. Renowned as a leading figure in disco, electro-funk, and soul, Greg showcases his unique sound at sell out Festivals and clubs across the world. He has now remixed ‘Damn Straight’ a pure slice of authentic Disco from Irvine Welsh’s new Sci-Fi Soul Orchestra’s album.
After living above his family’s pub as a kid, whose function rooms frequently hosted music events, and being influenced by his older siblings’ soul records, Greg started DJing at the age of 15 after obtaining his own set of decks. It was 1975, and he was perfectly placed to start playing and collecting a sublime succession of Black music records.
Over subsequent years Greg helped pioneer disco, jazz-funk and electro, and in 1983 was the first DJ to mix live on British TV when he appeared on Channel Four youth music programme The Tube. He was an early resident at the Hacienda in Manchester, and taught Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, how to cut and scratch — again, over 40 years ago. After a spell doing music production he came back to DJ soon after the Millennium, and has ploughed a disco re-edit furrow ever since, reworking disco and house songs for contemporary floors while also writing extensively — and authoritatively — about assorted underground dance music heroes.
Greg is now 50 years deep in disco, so who better to remix “Damn Straight,” one of the standout cuts from the Irvine Welsh & The Sci-Fi Soul Orchestra disco album? One of Irvine’s personal favorites from the LP and written about his wife Emma, Greg enlists his son Che’ and between them they utilize the “Baby you’re the one for me” refrain as an uplifting exaltation amidst this low-slung interpretation, complete with a gurgly electro-funk undertow. Is it funky? Damn straight, baby!
Flipping the script, Serge Santiago under his Sound Klash moniker chirps up the bpms for a transcendent synth-house groover, throwing in an Ultramagnetic MCs style vocal line for good measure.
Stream it here.
