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Question. Where on earth are you going to find a place where
the delectable Miss Kittin becomes a natural bedfellow of
skeletal acoustic maestro Bonnie Prince Billy? Or where Elton
John rubs up next to Dubtribe Soundsystem?
Answer? Nowhere on earth. However, if you
flick your dial across the FM spectrum, and land it in the
place where Friday night bleeds into Saturday morning, you
might well find yourself in the topsy-turvy place to be, The
Blue Room on Radio 1.
The Blue Room started in January 2002 as
a three hour segue of music. It was a nice idea, but tricky
to execute. So BBC spies started looking into the nooks and
crannies of Britain's small, musically sentient clubs and
discovered a pair of nightworld individuals who could make
the Blue Room their own. They found Rob da Bank in the corner
of his Sunday Best club, and lassoed Chris Coco away from
his excellent productions and compilations. The result? Perfectly
pitched horizontal chaos that has played out live from Sonar
and Glastonbury and continually flags up the best in strangedays
sounds.
"It's not really a chill-out show at
all," says Coco, whose real name is Chris Mellor, and
who ran legendary 90's Brighton event, The Coco Club. "Because
if you just play chill-out you send people to sleep and that's
not ideal. We can play music that sounds quite weird but seems
right at five o'clock in the morning." "The Blue
Room ethos is that we play music across all genres,' says
Robby (real name lost in the mists of time). "We're the
link between John Peel, Gilles Peterson, Mary Ann Hobbs and
Pete Tong. It's… (long pause punctuated by addled grin)
a pot pourri."
The Blue Room looks set to reach a whole new slice of listeners.
Aside from taking the show out of the studio and into the
world's best music festivals - the Blue Room boys have transferred
their nocturnal ramblings onto a compilation. "On the
radio," says Coco, "we put our records together
in a way that makes sense. It's like chess but not as difficult."
"We piece things together, say between Aphex Twin banging
acid techno and a mellow folky thing. We're still linking
all these unconnected pieces of music, and hopefully people'll
recognise that it's the Blue Room - of course it's all over
the place."
Chris Coco and Rob da Bank share The Blue
Room, and naturally, they share space on the compilation.
Musically they're as widescreen as each other, showcasing
The Cure's deadpan 'Lullaby', The Flaming Lips' delirious,
brilliant 'All We Have Now', cut-up merchants Cassette Boy
with 'Bring Back Cloaks' and - hailing from BR's favourite
sonic country, Norway - Ralph Myerz and The Jack Herren Band
and 'You Never come Closer'. "If you listen, it's all
quite accessible and easy to understand. We'll guide you through
the music we like without being patronising, just because
we're so enthusiastic about it. I actually think that Robby
and I have quite commercial tastes. These are left-field tunes
but given the exposure, they could easily be hits."
It's a typically anarchistic take for a
show that is essentially meant to be a post-club chill-out
zone. "You're talking to a whole other world, separated
from the world that wakes up at 7am," says Coco. "A
lot of people work at that time in the morning, watering golf
courses and picking peas". "Midwives and milkmen'
adds Robby. "You get the clubbers but you get a whole
load of other people too. We had one woman texting in to say
that her contractions had just started and could be play some
records and send out some love? It's really intimate and special.
My 87-year-old Grandpa listens to it every week. He sets his
alarm clock, makes a cup of tea and sits in bed listening
to the whole show, then dozes back off. Which other show is
bringing pensioners and kids together?" "Yeah,"
says Chris Coco, continuing the familial connection. "My
mum really liked some of the skits we did for Glastonbury.
She was like, 'I really likes those ones you did about peace
and harmony'". "So that's where you get your hippy
side from," says Robby with a glint.
If the Blue Room does have a hippy side,
it's one that is tempered by the punk philosophy which is
shot through the whole show - and their debut compilation
as bona fide Radio 1 DJs. Although it's the kind of punk that
might make you woozily clatter through an alley-full of dustbins
rather than the kind that makes you gob at people. "We
are a bit unorthodox" claims Robby. "It's been a
bit of an experiment, but the listening figures are good.
It was a bit of a gamble, but it's paying off."
It was a gamble, but not as much of a gamble
as Glastonbury 2002 when the pair were scheduled to play their
set live - directly after 'boy-he's-banging-drum-&- bass-don',
Grooverider. "Wicked!" deadpans Robby. "We
were there in front of three thousand screaming kids who'd
just come out of a set of massive drum & bass anthems.
Me and Chris were standing there in the freezing cold going
'err, riiiight.' By the end there were two blokes sitting
there in bacofoil listening to us.' This year they transmitted
from a studio. And like this year's Live From Sonar set, it
was a huge success.
So the Blue Room is jam-packed with exciting
new projects and a blinding compilation CD. But what about
our erstwhile presenters and their multitude of side projects?
Chris Coco is putting together an 'arty, accessible' classical
music-meets-electronica compilation ('"It'll rock the
classical world,") and when he's not fulfilling DJ dates
ranging from providing music for smart young author's book
readings, he's working on a new Chris Coco artist album. Rob
da Bank is kept ludicrously busy with his Sunday Best club
and label and is taking over Ibiza with four Sunday Best parties
which are guaranteed to send even the tidiest person into
a happily messy spin. "My summer is end to end,"
he says, "but it's all good."
Just like the Blue Room- both as they rock
the FM waves into a wonky kind of paradise, and as they pour
their unique musical touchstones onto CD: All good.
Tracklisting:
The Blue Room CD1 Mixed by Chris Coco
1. The Orb - Blue Room (CocoDaBank Remix)
2. Ulrich Schnauss - Crazy For You
3. cane141 - Sugarfoot
4. Ralph Myerz & The Jack Herren Band - You Never Come
Closer
5. Calexico - Not Even Stevie Nicks
6. Ikon - The Dove
7. Static - Inside Your Heaven
8. The Polyphonic Spree - Light And Day/Reach For The Sun
(The Bees Remix)
9. Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions - On The Low
10. Moly - Me And Lucifer
11. My Morning Jacket - Phone Went West
12. Ja-Man Allstars - West Man Skank
13. Chris Coco - Revolution
14. Ultrafox - Cloakroom Girl
15. Ladytron - Cracked LCD
16. Erlend Oye - Ghost Trains
17. Cassetteboy - Bring Back Cloaks
18. Mark Thibideau - Distance Between
19. The Flaming Lips - All We Have Is Now
The Blue Room CD2 Mixed by Rob da Bank
1. Hubtone - Seeing Things
2. Chungking - Making Music
3. Harpers Bizarre - Witchi Tai To
4. Psychonauts - Hips For Scotland
5. Peven Everett - They So Cold
6. Impossible Beings - Dois Pólos
7. DJ DSL - Happy Bear
8. Lazyboy feat. Lee "Scratch" Perry - Penguin Rock
(Manasseh Meets the Upsetter Remix)
9. Annie - I Will Get On
10. Kraak en Smaak - Money In The Bag
11. Putsch '79 - Steam Engine
12. Uusi Fantasia - Lattialla Taas
13. Rise Ashen - Second Wind
14. Plej - Lay Of The Land
15. Spiller - Cry Baby (Röyksopp's Målselves Memorabilia
Mix)
16. Blu Mar Ten - The Feeling
17. The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
18. The Cure - Lullaby
19. The Orb - Blue Room (CocodaBank Remix)
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