James Murphy & Pat Mahoney - FABRICLIVE 36

Pat Mahoney - brought up on an intriguing diet of folk music and, funnily enough, in the white suburbs of Ithaca, New York, reggae - developed an insatiable appetite for music and rhythm from the very start. When he turned 13, he traded in his saxophone for a PA and a mic, becoming lead singer of his first punk band, Distorted View. Three years of basements, garages, coffee houses, and his first manager ("It was fucking fun. We had a manager who was like 17 and had a car; he would take us to shows. He had a car that had no foot floor, it was just the street running by underneath it"), and eventually Distorted View made a turn for goth. Unhappy with this musical direction, Pat instead taped a pair of drum sticks to his hands and picked up a white Pearl Export drum kit for an onslaught of basement punk shows with his second band, The Five Deadly Diseases (each of the five members named after a disease - Chris Syphilis, for example). A few years and an art school education later, Pat was recording for his next band, Les Savy Sav and found himself a good friend in their sound engineer, the indie/punk home-studio recording guru James Murphy. Raised in the equally sheltered streets of Princeton Junction, New Jersey, James Murphy had garnered himself a reputation as a live and studio engineer ("recording bands on my 4-track for sandwiches") after a lifetime of starring in various bands himself. Subsequent to his first band at the age of 12, The Mystery Meats, the band names flew in over the years - The Extremes, ? ("We were just a question mark for a while, pre-Prince, just the symbol, I mean, not pre-Prince existence, but pre-Prince being the symbol. And pre-!!!"), Pony, Speedking - but James always found time to balance producing, recording, engineering and performing. Humble but foretelling beginnings for someone that, a decade later, is now heralded as a hugely important figure in electronic music; the "disco infiltrator" that's considered largely responsible for fusing dance and punk music. As the leading man and lyricist of his musical project LCD Soundsystem, the quintet has celebrated two Grammy nominations (for their self-titled debut LP "LCD Soundsytem" and the classic "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House") and received fantastic critical acclaim for their second album released earlier this year, "Sound of Silver." Throughout it all, his best mate Pat Mahoney keeps time on drums and keeps his company on tour for LCD Soundsystem, and the two now have the divine opportunity to explore the globe with the band's relentless schedule. But flashing back to the fateful day Pat first came into James' studio, precisely at the point that dissatisfaction with noise bands and indie rock had reached a halting climax for both of them, their introduction to each other and to dance music was an ecstatic one.

"We're pretty excited. We find doing mix CDs horrifying to a certain degree because there's nobody there, so it's just like, "What are we doing?!" It's like you're just yelling into the air. We bought an old Bozak for this - the first DJ mixer ever built, hand-built. It sounds incredible. Everything sounds nicer and bigger and smoother and beautiful. The mix itself will have a little bit of stuff that isn't necessarily what we'd play in a club. But we'd like it to be fun. So we'll just do it a bunch of times live. Do it until you like it, that's actually our motto." James Murphy & Pat Mahoney

James Murphy and Pat Mahoney delve into their New York roots for FABRICLIVE 36, a hot sweaty blend of seminal disco, deep rare grooves and edgy tech-infused funk from influential artists such as Donald Byrd & 125th St, Chic, Lenny Williams, Junior Byron and Love of Life Orchestra. A delightful nod to their future, past and present (including LCD Soundsystem's own "Hippe Priest Bumout"), this mix is unashamed hand-clapping fun, full of upfront rhythms, obscure treats and heart warming guilty pleasures.

Tracklist
01 Peter Gordon and Love Of Life Orchestra - Beginning of The Heartbreak [Lust/Unlust]
02 Baby Oliver – Primetime (Uptown Express) [Environ]
03 Donald Byrd and 125th St, NYC – Love Has Come Around [Elektra]
04 Instant Funk – I Got My Mind Made Up [Salsoul]
05 Chic – I Feel Your Love Comin’ On [Atlantic]
06 Was (Not Was) – Tell Me That I’m Dreaming [ZE]
07 GQ – Lies [GQ]
08 Mudd – Adventures In Bickett Wood (Layne’s Head Stash Re-roll) [Rong]
09 Elektrik Dred – Butter Up (Gimme Some Bread) [Sounds Of Florida]
10 Lenny Williams – You Got Me Running [Geffen]
11 Daniel Wang – Like Some Dream (I Can’t Stop Dreaming) [Daniel Wang]
12 Gichy Dan – Cowboys and Gangsters [ZE]
13 Still Going – Still Going Theme [DFA]
14 City Of Women – Tablakone [Sähkö]
15 Babytalk – Keep On Move [Stickydisc]
16 Love Committee – Just As Long As I’ve Got You [Salsoul]
17 Mouzon’s Electric Band – Everybody Get Down [Mouzon]
18 Punkin’ Machine – I Need You Tonight [JC Records]
19 LCD Soundsystem – Hippie Priest Bum-out [DFA/EMI]
20 Junior Bryon – Dance To The Music (Dub) [Vanguard]
21 JT – I Love Music [Vanguard]
22 Jackson Jones – I Feel Good Put Your Pants On [Jackson Jones]
23 NYC Peech Boys – Life Is Something Special [Island Def Jam]
24 Peter Gordon and Love Of Life Orchestra – Don’t Don’t [Lust/Unlust]