Balearic Breakfast | Episode 177 | Balearic Mike & Kelvin Andrews

Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy broadcast the 177th episode of Balearic Breakfast on her Mixcloud and Twitch TV socials on May 28th 2024.

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About this episode. – For obvious reasons, and I let you find them (laughs!), I could have entitled this very post "The Double Trouble Sessions"! But since I'm here to facilitate your navigation through the musical ocean that is Balearic Breakfast, I'll respect the naming system I set up on the blog!

After playing at the Good Room in Brooklyn last week, meeting her friends Paul Raffaele and Barbie Bertisch for another incredible musical experience (their first commune Cosmodelica party was held some 10 years ago "in the Bad Room", time flies! – and, should I add, Paul and Barbie are awaiting a Baby, so heartfelt congratulation to them!!), Colleen returned home and streamed this 176th episode of our beloved show, sharing great news about the Balearic Musical scene with the release of another splendid compilation!

As Colleen shared on her socials: "This morning’s Balearic Breakfast is now archived on my Mixcloud for your listening back pleasure and please give me a follow while you’re over there – trying to smash that 10K ceiling! On this show I’m joined by cratediggers @djkelvinandrews and @balearicmike who each contribute an exclusive one hour mix which will have you heading to Discogs. They also chat about their new compilation Down to the Sea and Back – Volume Tres: The Continuing Journey of the Balearic Beat which is coming out this Friday on @musicfordreams"

Listen back to the 177th episode of Balearic Breakfast:

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PLAYLIST

Balearic Mike Mix:

(2010) The San Sebastian Strings – Gypsy Camp (Danny Mekanik Edit)

(2013) Josete Ordonez – Objetos Perdidos

(Dagobert Böhm's Las Estrellas Y El Interminable Sonido Del Mar Remix)

(1971) Amancio D'Silva – What Maria Sees

(2021) Mario Rui Silva – Dembita

(2022) Greg Foat – Tropical Love

(1975) Thijs Van Leer – Street Rondo

(1970) Airto – The Tunnel

(1978) Robert Williams – I Believe You’re The One

(2020) Lady Blackbird – Collage (Greg Foat Remix)

(2023) Steve Cobby – Everything Is Moved By Time

(1996) Sade – Somalia (DJ Duke remix of “Pearls”)

(2013) Heikki Sarmanto & Jeanine Otis – Magic Song

(Ashley Beedle's Heavy Disco Joint)

(2019) Larry Manteca – Hanuman

Kelvin Andrews Mix:

(2023) Habitat Ensemble – Rounded Edges

(2016) Steaua De Mare – Babadag (Khidja Remix)

(2021) Marten Yorgantz – Ammenain Serdov (De Tout Coeur) (Fundido Edit)

(2024) Alex Kassian  – E2E4 (Mad Professor Qantas Crazy Remix Beats 2024)

(2021) The Slits – So Tough (Party Nails Don’t Be So Serious Dub Version)

(2021) Sal Asrula – Poor Boy (Dub Mix)

(2022) Wham – Where Did Your Heart Go? (CJ Giovanni Edit)

(2023) Creep Show – Bungalow

(2016) Atom TM – Magic Sofa

(2020) Anak Anak Abu – Korkap Mestap

(1983) Car Crash Set – Fall From Grace

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THE INTERVIEW

[Colleen]

Good morning, Balearicans. I'm Colleen Cosmo Murphy, hosting your weekly Balearic Breakfast on my MixCloud Live until high noon. And greetings to all over there on the chat groups. Always great to see you. Today, we have a special takeover by a dynamic duo of esteemed crate diggers and purveyors of that obscure, elusive, hard-to-pin sound that we like to call Balearic. They've been rightly described as chroniclers of a scene assembling lost gems and unheard marvels into Balearic mythology.

Today, I'm with Kelvin Andrews and Balearic Mike in advance of their new down-to-the-sea-and-back volume Tres, the continuing journey of the Balearic Beat compilation, and it's coming out on Music for Dreams. And I'm overjoyed that they've both given us an exclusive mix because they're fabulous DJs. Hello, Kelvin. Hello, Mike.

[Balearic Mike]

Hi.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Hi, Colleen.

[Colleen]

How are you doing?

[Kelvin Andrews]

Fine.

[Colleen]

Good. Good to see you. Thank you so much for joining me.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Absolute pleasure. Thank you.

[Balearic Mike]

Thanks for asking us.

[Colleen]

I love the compilation. I wanted to first just talk a little bit about the history of this compilation, and then we'll kind of take a deeper dive into your backgrounds and also what's coming up. Now, this is volume Tres. Tell us first a little bit about volumes one and two and how they came about.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Mike and I kind of, I think we met around 1993, four, did we?

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, 92, 93. It was early 90s, wasn't it?

[Kelvin Andrews]

We actually met playing in a five-a-side tournament between clubs at Keele University, which was quite an interesting way to meet. And I think the first thing I said to Mike was, nice shorts.

[Balearic Mike]

No, you said shorts of the tournament.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Oh, shorts of the tournament, yeah.

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, I had these big kind of like boxing-style black shorts with big white stars all over them from the boys' shop in London. Because, yeah, at the time I didn't have any football hits or anything like that. So, yeah, as I was walking off the pitch after a hard-fought game against Golden, Kelvin said to me, yeah, shorts of the tournament, they are, mate.

[Colleen]

Who won?

[Balearic Mike]

Neither of us. Yeah, we were absolutely awful. We'd all been in back-to-basics the night before and come straight there or something. Yeah, it was not very high standard of soccer.

[Kelvin Andrews]

I believe the cream team won because they had loads of Liverpool football players playing for them.

[Colleen]

Oh, that's cheating. That's absolutely cheating, isn't it?

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah.

[Colleen]

And how did you end up coming to DJ together? Did you start doing parties together first before you did your first compilation?

[Balearic Mike]

Well, I was kind of DJing with a group of guys in Manchester called Love Dot and Kelvin was obviously already resident at Golden and was like really quite huge, or he was, you know, him and Danny were, she was pure and they were remixing everyone and stuff. Yeah, so I let Kelvin tell you what Golden was.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah, Golden was a party started by one guy who was in my art class at school, a guy called John Hill and a couple of his friends. And they were coming along to a regular Saturday night thing called the Freetown and they approached the DJ booth and said, we're starting a new club. We want you and the other guy, Pete Bromley, to be residents. Are you interested? And we said, yes. And they just caught a wave really that the whole, the super club era was about to come in, and papers like MixMag were just starting to have this national hold on the clubbing public. And this wave swept in and within a year we were collecting Club of the Year at the Royal Albert Hall. It was quite mad really. It kind of took off very, very quickly.

My first paid DJ gig was a 17 year old in 1982. So, and it wasn't very hip when I started DJing at all, especially in the UK. People were like, what are you doing? I said, I like it. I didn't know why I liked it. I just love sharing music. And so I was in the right place at the right time really. And I got, you know, I'd been DJing a few years when that happened. And when the club thing really took off, I was just sort of there and ready. And that's how I met Mike because he was involved with a crew in Manchester and we sort of got chatting.

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, we liked partying very hard and Kelvin and I were both really, really, really, really obsessed about records. And so after the club's finished, because you know, back then in the UK things still finished at sort of two, maybe four. So the after party was very important. And Kelvin and I would invariably just end up honished over the deck, like ignoring everyone else, going, have you heard this? And then Kelvin would go, that's great. Have you heard this? And we did that a lot, like every weekend when we'd meet up after DJing at various places. And then one day I think Kelvin said, we should do a compilation of some of these records, shouldn't we?

[Colleen]

Let's talk a little bit as well about what you were doing at the time because you were working in a record shop in Manchester and you were also part of the Loved Up crew. If you could tell us a little bit about what it was like at that time.

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, so I was just really lucky. I kind of bulged up my fine art degree in Brighton by going out clubbing all the time and buying too many records and not really painting any pictures, which is what they were expecting me to do there really. And yeah, I'd been living in the Northwest of England. So I went to Manchester quite a lot. My mum was living in Warrington in the Northwest and I was in Manchester shopping one day and suddenly a job in vinyl exchange and applied and was lucky enough to blag my way into that. And yeah, again, it was sort of right place, right time. It was really early 1991 and it was a really good record shop but it had only been open a couple of years and it was just starting to get its head around the fact that people really wanted house music and dance music. And so I was brought in to sort of help. There was one guy who kind of knew about house music who was Adrian Loved Up and they just said, right, we need more people who can buy this stuff because it's obviously really taken off.

And so, yeah, I got the job and yeah. I mean, I was already kind of really immersed in music and clubbing and kind of, I DJ'd a bit when I was back at school and I DJ'd a bit when I was away at art college in Brighton and stuff. But yeah, I was just mainly just dancing and buying lots and lots of records, and the dancing and buying lots and lots of records kind of went into overdrive really when I got a job in a record shop because yeah, I mean, you think you know a lot about music when you start working in a record shop and then within about a day, you realize that you know absolutely nothing.

[Colleen]

This is what I always say. I say the same thing because I was so full of myself. I wasn't really full of myself, but I was 16 and I got it when I started first working in a shop. And then I realized I will never be able to even crack the tiniest bit of all the music in the world and it's great. I was just on the phone with François before this interview. We're turning each other onto records the whole time. He's 70, you know, and it's just this kind of passion never really stops, does it? There's just limitless music and working in a record shop certainly does kind of, wet that appetite and feed it and it's sort of a bad way too. Do you two remember any of the early records that you turned each other onto?

[Balearic Mike]

Well, you know, it's weird because the one of them is on Dancy in Back Volume 2, it's Jago, isn't it? Jago was the one that I think when I played it to Kelvin, he went, you know, we should do a compilation with these records.

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Summer 1989, and the clubs and raves are filled with this new, dreamy lighter sound: the sound of Italian house music. It was one of the longest, hottest summers in memory, and my first living away from home. After the grim Northern wastes of Warrington, Brighton in the sunshine seemed, to this young gun, like the Italian Riviera.

The Zap Club had been closed for most of the winter, undergoing a major refurbishment and extension, which took it from two rather small arches into four, encompassing a huge, cathedral-like dance floor. I went as often as I could. The week after it opened I remember Soul II Soul DJing there, which was amazing, but all summer long they had a terrific roster of regular nights, with Harvey & Choci’s Tonka Soundsystem on a Monday (I think it was?), an insane new gay midweek night which I can’t remember the name of, and of course Chris Coco’s Coco Club every Saturday night. I heard this record at all of them. I can’t remember exactly how I found out what it was called or who it was by. If I asked a DJ it must have been at a Tonka night. The Zap Club’s DJ booth was high on a balcony above the bar, overlooking the main dance floor, and so it was a pain to get to, but at Tonka, Harvey and co set up the decks on the stage, right in the middle of the dance floor, so you were literally dancing around them. Much easier to pester them.

I bought it from Rounder records in Brighton some time that summer - the reissue with the brown label. I remember at the time Mark (I think his name was?) and the other staff in there all thought that it was a new Italian house record and that the Frankye Knuckles (miss-spelt) mention was just a cunning ruse to get people to buy it. None of us had any idea that it was actually an old Italo-Disco track from 1983, or that it really had been remixed in Chicago by the godfather of house three years later. That’s part of the enduring appeal of this record for me. It sounds like it could have been made at any time over the last thirty- plus years, right up until today. Hence no surprise when I relocated to Manchester and found everyone I met here loved it as well. It’s also one of the reasons why it rarely, if ever, leaves my record box.

Back in the early 90s when I first met Kelvin, we were back at an after party in the house in Withington I shared with Adrian LuvDup and Chris Sheep. As usual we were hunched over the decks, deeply involved in a game of musical top trumps. When I played this track we both decided we should release a compilation LP, with this on it. It only took us twenty years to get round to it.

My friend Oscar’s son is named Jago.

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[Kelvin Andrews]

Mike had a habit of playing me things. I saw, you know, when you think you've got a hot record box and this guy comes along and starts pulling things out and you're like, he's like, yeah, this is promo only. And it's a Colombian B-side seven-inch. I'm like, what, who is this guy? You know, so I was immediately hooked and, you know, and we were just like, we were probably quite rude to everyone else because we were just talking to each other about records, you know.

[Balearic Mike]

Ignored the party going on really, didn't we? And yet by putting records on, we're helping facilitate it at the same time, but you know, we're definitely an audience of one rather than everything else in the room.

[Colleen]

Well, believe me, I mean, the music that the both of you play, it really does translate. It's a, don't think, it's not that kind of Trainspotter-ish, Trainspotter-ish kind of situation where some people are just pulling out records that are rare just for the sake of it, but they're actually not very good. We do see quite a bit of that because we've excavated so much already, I suppose. But literally every selection, every selection on this double album is fantastic.

[Balearic Mike]

Well, thank you very much. We're really pleased with that, actually, aren't we? It's like...

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah, very much so. It was kind of like, you know, oh, let's do this, because we talked about doing Volume 3. There's been a bit of a gap, as you may know, but...

[Balearic Mike]

Ten years!

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah. And I don't think it's really the fact that, you know, we don't have the records to put on there. I think licensing slows things up. This time around, in the past, we put it all together ourselves. This time, we've got a label to help us, and that made such a difference. It was so great. You know, we could concentrate on, like, picking things out and then giving it to licensing people to take care of, you know, which is great.

I think when you listen back, you don't know when you're in it, but when you actually listen back to the comp, you think, oh, this is quite good. It's bizarre, isn't it? You know, when you're... I think when you're DJing... When you're DJing, you don't... I'm certainly the same. I'm thinking about the next record.

[Colleen]

Yeah.

[Kelvin Andrews]

And I'm not really listening to the record that's playing. So when I... Particularly when I hear a mix back, I'm like, oh, that's pretty good, that is. That's what gives me my confidence, and it always has done. I think back to, like, the first time I got mixtapes recorded. When I listened back, it made me go, actually, I'm all right, I can do this. I think it's the same with the comp. You know, the choices are... And we don't really consult each other. We just come up with two lists, chuck them together and see when we've licensed it, what we can get, and then we make the comp.

[Colleen]

And then when you do that, do you have one person does one disc, one does the other? Is it back-to-back? How do you sequence it?

[Balearic Mike]

I think we both just like it to flow like as if we were playing together live. You know, it's like when we DJ, we often do sort of two-on, two-off, or three-on, three-off, or something like that. But we wanted it to work like... We'd like all of them to work like a DJ set almost, haven't we, I think, Kelvin?

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Balearic Mike]

Have a kind of beginning, middle, and an end, really. You know, like a flow in a kind of sensible, musical way. And it's really weird, actually, when we were putting the running order together, we both came up with separate running orders, and they were almost identical, I think, weren't they?

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah.

And actually, they've only really changed just to facilitate having the right amount of music on a side of a record and stuff like that. You know, it's the only reason that it had to be moved around, really.

[Colleen]

Yeah, that's one of the kind of bloody awful things about vinyl, right?

[Balearic Mike]

Well, I mean, the worst thing is not being able to get things. I mean...

[Colleen]

That's the worst. And then somebody else gets it.

[Balearic Mike]

Thankfully, that hasn't happened to us yet, that something's come out that we wanted that's on someone else's comp.

[Colleen]

Actually, it's fine. At least it's out there, right? I mean, there's so much great music, and the two of you are proper, proper crate diggers. Why don't we get back into the music for a little bit, and we'll come back and speak some more. Right now, we're listening to a one-hour exclusive mix from Balearic Mike. I should also say he has a radio show on 1BTN, which is really good, so you should check that out, too.

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[Colleen]

You're listening to Balearic Breakfast, and with me right now, I have Calvin Andrews and Balearic Mike, and they have a brand new compilation out called Down to the Sea and Back, Volume Trace, the Continuing Journey of the Balearic Beat. In fact, it's not out right now. It's coming out on Music for Dreams on the 31st of May at the end of this month. And right now, we've been listening to Balearic Mike's mix. We have Kelvin Andrews' exclusive one-hour mix coming up afterwards. I just love the way both of these guys play.

We were talking earlier about the methodology of how you created this compilation. I mean, we have two different people. I did a similar thing with Ashley Beedle a long time ago (ed.: on "Dark Star" - Discogs). Now, when did you actually start DJing together?

[Balearic Mike]

It would probably have been sometime in the mid-90s, wouldn't it? I think, did I play at Golden with you, and you played at Loved Up Nights with me?

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah.

 [Balearic Mike]

We played together at things like Wobble and stuff in Birmingham, and then we had a club that we ran together in Stoke called Sound in some 96.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah, 96. So it's like the sort of 94. We were sort of occasionally playing at different clubs. We'd show up at a club on the circuit, and we were playing. When I think back about how we communicated without mobile phones at that point as well, it was quite weird. But we always used to see each other, didn't we?

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, it's mad, isn't it? You see each other like every weekend, and it's like you'd be DJing in Glasgow, and we'd be in London, and we'd meet in Birmingham. It's like, how do you do that without tracking devices and stuff? But yeah, we just did, didn't we?

[Colleen]

Kelvin, what was it about Mike that really struck you as a DJ?

[Kelvin Andrews]

Well, he was playing at a level with the digging, which I wanted to be, because I didn't know many people like that. It was like, this is how I see it, like obsession, detail, and just... And it was always about the music too. You're playing a record, I don't really go with the idea that if it's rare, it's good, like you mentioned before. It's got to be good. It's got to be exciting. On top of that, if it's obscure and rare, even better, because it kind of gives you something to play with, and not everyone's playing it. And if I learn that 20 DJs are playing this record, I kind of shy away from it, because I'll be looking for something else. And this was a guy who was, he always had music that I wanted. Luckily, because he was in a record shop, he would buy me copies of stuff.

[Colleen]

They tried to have.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah, which is really helpful.

[Colleen]

Or not, not on your bank balance, that's for sure!

[Kelvin Andrews]

Well, no, but I did get a discount, generally, so. But we both had the same kind of appetite for records as well. And it was just like, he would make a call to me in an afternoon and go, we've had these tracks in, there's three, do you want me to put one aside for you? I'm like, yeah. I didn't even need to hear it, because I knew I needed it. Because if he was having it, I wanted it as well. It's a bit like that. And I was running a couple of labels as well, Bits and Bobs coming out. I was in the studio doing that side of my thing.

[Colleen]

Why don't we say what that was? Because not everybody knows exactly what you did at the studio, because you did some pretty big things.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Well, I worked with my brother, Danny, and we started off by making some house tracks. I was in bands and stuff. It was a very, quite a musical background. My dad was a musician. So we were all into music. My dad said to us, don't go into the music industry. And all three brothers ignored him. We, and it wasn't by design. We were sort of like, we just fell into it because we were into it. You know, it was just the exciting thing to do. You know, you either formed a band or you played records or you, you know, as I was growing up, my parents were into the music that we played. So in 79, we were obsessed with Earth, Wind and Fire, you know, and I was the eldest. My two younger brothers, they were having it drilled into them. So music was everywhere, really. So making music was the next step.

So first of all, Danny, younger brother, I was working in 86 for Polygram Records. And I got a cassette of the House Sound of London, Chicago house music. And it was a promo cassette. And I play, I play Jack Your Body to Danny. And he had an epiphany right there. He just went, that's it. That's what I'm doing. Within six months, he'd enrolled into the School of Sound in Manchester. And he was programming drums and, you know, using a mixing desk within, you know, when he was 18, he released a record called Ride the Rhythm by This Ain't Chicago, which almost crossed over. It got to number 41, but it was a big club hit. All of a sudden, remixes started to come in. Then I started to get involved with him. He was like, come in the studio. And then brothers, by 92, we were releasing house records on our own label and stuff. Then we blagged a couple of remixes and then the major started knocking and we were doing remixes like weekly for a while. Some good, some bad.

[Colleen]

I just want to say some of the names. I mean, Danny was also in Candy Flip.

[Kelvin Andrews]

That's right, yeah. Danny was a pop star, age 20.

[Colleen]

And then you were doing Sure is Pure. And that is massive. I remember getting those records over in Dance Tracks. Very well-crafted, melodic, lovely arrangements.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah, it was great because we've just put all our love for music in these records. And a lot of the time, we were putting in our love of disco and boogie and those things that we grew up with into these house records that were becoming very popular. And the club I was playing at, Golden, when I was resident, they loved that sound. It was like, we'd go from, I remember what, because I was digging out records from my dancing past and one track that springs to mind was the Fat Bat Band's Backstroking. And that's like, not many people mention that record, but it was an anthem at a super club, at a house club in Stoke.

[Colleen]

WOOW!!

[Kelvin Andrews]

You know, and we had 2,000 people going. So the minute you played that first, that bendy synth riff, hands were in the air. And it was nowhere else either, which was really cool.

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, I'd never heard that record. And like seeing Kelvin play at Golden and 2,000 people go absolutely mental. So it was like, how have I not heard this record before?

[Colleen]

You know, it's interesting. It's these regional, the regional hits, because we won't have this anymore with clubs, you know, because of everything being online and everything is available for everybody. But the regional, there was one club I used to play in Perugia called Red Zone. It was massive. It was a huge club (ed.. They had all the American DJs there. 6,000 people in the suburbs. And they had their own anthems. The first time I went to a Northern Soul night, I was just visiting. And you know, I thought I knew something about soul music. I was already a DJ. I was visiting in the 1990s and I went up to Glasgow. I wanted to go to the sub club, wanted to check it out. And that night was the Goodfoot. And I didn't know a single song. Everybody was singing all the lyrics. And I just love how there's regional hits like that, where people really rally around a certain song and it's their song.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah. It was buying records as a teenager, before sort of I started buying 12 inch singles in 79, 80 with pocket money. And then, you know, just things that I could get hold of. And we'd go to a local discotheque called The Place. And then The Place was The Place basement.

[Colleen]

The Place?! My husband's parents used to go there in the 1960s.

[Kelvin Andrews]

My parents met at The Place.

[Colleen]

Oh my, they probably knew each other then. Because, yeah, that was like the place. Well, it was the place to go.

[Balearic Mike]

The Place was The Place.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Stayed open right through the 70s and the 80s. And then in the, when I was a teenager, they had a teen scene there. And it was like an under-18s thing. But the guy who used to play records on the Saturday nights, in The Place basement, is a guy called Trevor M. Trevor was my DJ mentor. He used to play import, US import, funk, jazz, soul, that kind of vibe. And the jazz-funk fusion-type things. And there was a whole subculture of these working class, mostly black kids, UK kids, getting their sisters to sew up clothes for them so they had their own look. It was like, it was a brilliant thing because they didn't have the money to buy, you know, fashion labels. They would make their own stuff and they, and the music was the best. It really was. I was quite grown up when you're 14, you know, listen to Ronnie Laws and, you know, and Diodato and Al Jarreau, you know, I mean, quite sophisticated when you're 14, really. But I was already tuned to this because my dad was a musician and he had a decent record collection, not a large record collection, but a decent one. And he, when he stopped being a recording artist in the 60s, he then joined tour management and he worked for a company called Danny O'Donovan Enterprise, he's in the mid-70s. And so he, they used to bring over the black American acts to the UK.

So I saw Rufus and Chaka Khan's soundcheck when I was 10. Oh, it was? Right, when you're 10, you don't, all I wanted to do was play the pong machine in the corner. Rufus are playing a soundcheck with Chaka Khan and I'm ignoring it, playing the pong game, you know. I look back, it's like, what were you doing? You know, but that's when you're 10, that's the thing. I was kind of lucky in that sense, but my taste, well, the time we'd been to the basement, we were listening to like grown-up music and that was having an influence on us. Cassette culture was prevalent. We were all sharing cassettes. There was a guy in the basement and there was a guy in town who would, his big brother was buying all the hot imports, putting them onto cassettes and selling them for four quid each in town. So we were-

[Colleen]

The entrepreneur.

[Kelvin Andrews]

We were having the best music, you know, on our little ghetto blaster. And it was like, and you were learning how to dance and, you know, it took a while for me because I was a bit stiff. You know, my other brother, Richard, is a great dancer and I wasn't quite as good as him. So I had to work hard at being a good dancer.

The first time I heard Trevor M play in the basement, I heard Harry Thuman, Underwater, completely blew my mind. Literally, it was just like one of the greatest things I'd ever heard. I heard Slicks, Face Bass. I heard, and just on the first night this was, my head was like, I want to do what that guy does. And I'd already made my mind up that I was going to be a DJ. So he collected records, played a couple of parties and then someone said, I'll pay you so much to come and do a gig. This was in 82. And that's when I started.

[Colleen]

Professional DJ career.

[Kelvin Andrews]

I think I got 15 quid. Yeah.

[Colleen]

Wow!

 [Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah. Which bought you about, bought you three imports if you're looking.

[Colleen]

That's more than I got for some gigs.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Colleen]

I started in 82 as well, but it was on the radio, on a 10-watt radio station. And I wasn't getting paid, so I can't call it professional, in any of these. We've been, we've been chattering quite a bit. Why don't we get back to the music and when we come back, I'll be speaking with you, Mike, about how you, what you thought about Kelvin when you first met him and what kind of DJ he was.

[Colleen]

You're listening to Balearic Mike's mix right now on Balearic Breakfast.

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[Colleen]

And we're back and I'm here with Balearic Mike and with Kelvin Andrews, talking about their new compilation, Down to the Sea Volume Tres. And earlier I asked Kelvin what he felt about you, Mike, as a DJ, when you first started playing together. And now I want to ask you the same about Kelvin. When you two started playing together and you started discovering music with him, what were your thoughts about Kelvin as a DJ and musical selector?

[Kelvin Andrews]

Do I leave the room now?

[Colleen]

Yeah, you bet. Yeah, I think you should.

[Balearic Mike]

Well, I mean, we were at very different stages in our career, really, because Kelvin was already a huge star, really. He had a huge residency, he DJed for years. And so I was just a bit in awe of him, really. He had amazing records, you know, I mean, this is what we really bonded over. We had similar tastes, but really, you know, if you can call such eclectic tastes similar, it's basically like anything that's good, anything that will make people dance, anything that's kind of got something original about it and something interesting, something that's different to what everyone else is playing. So we kind of really bonded over that. But I mean, Kelvin was just like light years ahead of me in his DJ journey at that point, you know. He could take an audience of a couple of thousand people and just have them absolutely in the palm of his hand. So I actually, I've learned so much from kind of studying Kelvin.

[Colleen]

So how do you feel the two of you complement one another?

[Balearic Mike]

Well, it's just really strange that we just dig around, we have such similar tastes. And yet when we get together, I mean, we haven't DJed together for a couple of years now, have we? What with COVID and everything that's been going on in the world. And we'll come together and we'll both have completely different bags of records. And yet I'll love everything Kelvin plays and he'll like everything I play, you know. And it was the same when we were putting the comps together, you know, we both came up with lists and there was no duplication at all. It was like, you know, you just think some of us, we're going to suggest some of the same records, but no, it's like, you've just got all these records that, you know, some of them I'd heard because we DJed together and I'd heard Kelvin play them, but some of the things on there that I hadn't heard before. I mean, you just, you realize that it's just never ending, isn't it? You never hear everything, you know. So it's good to have something else, a good pair of ears out there that's putting you on to things all the time.

[Colleen]

Yeah, exactly. A filter basically, a curator.

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, exactly.

[Colleen]

Now, how did you two fall in love with the sounds that are usually associated with the White Isle? Mike, it's in your name, Balearic Mike.

[Balearic Mike]

I mean, I only heard the name, the term Balearic Beats in sort of 88, you know. There was the article in ID and then the compilation came out and I liked that, but I didn't really understand what it was. You know, I'd never really been abroad before. I wasn't in a position where I was going to go on holiday to Ibiza and hear this DJ play in this magical club or anything. But I've always had just really quite varied taste and I've always, I mean, growing up during the 80s, I kind of, I moved into sort of listening to clubs and went into dance to music in the sort of, around about 86 when I was about 15, I suppose. So it was before the sort of behemoth that is house music kind of came and washed everything else away before it.

And in those days, you just heard lots of different kinds of music. On a dance floor, you know, you'd hear kind of hip hop and electro records and you'd hear kind of smoother sort of jazz funk and things like that. And like electronic pop records and all those kinds of things. And that's basically what Balearic Beats is, isn't it? I mean, it's a kind of, it's a great term, but it's really inaccurate, isn't it? Because actually the DJs in New York were doing exactly the same thing with just slightly different records. DJs in Italy were doing the same thing again with just a slightly different, you know, selection of records. DJs in Belgium were doing it with, you know, a slightly different sound.

So, you know, but yeah, so I heard about it then. And I think summer 89 was my first summer kind of living away from home. I was at art college in Brighton. I got a job on the pier selling ice cream all summer and basically went out clubbing every single night to the Zap club in the escape. And again, I heard the term Balearic Beats a lot again that summer because Soul to Soul was such a huge sound. And so, you know, even if you went to hear a DJ who predominantly played house, you'd hear Soul to Soul records and you'd hear De La Soul being played and things like that. And so that kind of, it wasn't just a steady kind of four, four, 120 BPM rhythm that you were hearing all summer. It was all over the place. So there was really unusual records being played. And I went to the Tonka parties at the Zap. I think it was like the first Monday of every month. Yeah, and some of those records were just mad and strange and really interesting. It was like Gaelic Show, Dance Forever and stuff like that. So it'd be strange sort of somewhere between Italo Disco and the Italian house that was just starting to emerge, I suppose. And yeah, and so I've just always liked that kind of stuff that's really hard to categorize. I mean, that's the thing with Balearic, isn't it? It's like you don't know what this is. It's so strange and unusual and it's not really house. It's not soul, it's not funk, it's not a synth pop record. What is it? Oh, I know, it's Balearic.

[Colleen]

Exactly, it's so much easier.

[Balearic Mike]

So yeah.

[Colleen]

If you just have like a record shop, it's just one category.

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, good record.

[Colleen]

Balearic.

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, so... and then when I went to Ibiza....

[Colleen]

But when did you finally go to Ibiza?

[Balearic Mike]

I didn't go to Ibiza until 94, the first time. So I was like 23. Kelvin was out there DJing. A friend, Graham, was out there for the summer DJing for Jose. Because we'd all met Jose. We'd all got, Jose had come over to Manchester and-

[Colleen]

Jose Padilla, everybody. But I'm sure most people listening to this show know that by now, but just-

[Balearic Mike]

We'd all met Jose and he did a good winter residency at the back room of Golden, Kelvin?

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah, yeah.

[Colleen]

Really?!!

[Kelvin Andrews]

He was there as a guest of a few clubs, wasn't he? He had a winter residency.

[Balearic Mike]

They played at like a few parties for Love stuff and he did a residency for Kelvin at Golden. And then he, when he went back for the summer, he took one of our friends, Graham, with him. And Graham became resident at a couple of parties that he was promoting on the island. And so, yeah, Kelvin had gone out to DJ at the clubs Jose was promoting at Passion and Space, wasn't it?

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Balearic Mike]

That order. And Graham said, oh yeah, come. He was staying at Jose's flat in San Antonio. And he said, oh yeah, there's a spare bed. You can come out and I'll get you a gig. And so I just grabbed a bag of records and went out as well. So that was my first visit. And I already, I think actually we had a great time, but we went to like KU one night and it wasn't called KU anymore. It was, they changed its name to Privilege or something revolting like that. And I remember thinking, this is over. This is done. This is like nothing that I want to be involved with. Whereas Passion had been brilliant. I mean, I'd got there, we'd got straight off the plane and went straight into Passion. Caught Kelvin just starting his set. And that had been everything I'd hoped Ibiza would be really. But yeah, it was obviously becoming something else at that point, I think.

[Colleen]

Well, I think there's different things that pleases different people. That's a nice way of putting it, at least.

Kelvin, was that about the time that you started playing at Ibiza or had you been to Ibiza before that?

[Kelvin Andrews]

No, I'd just heard this myth about this place and you were hearing about Alfredo and the Balearic Beats Comp came out on FFRR. So, and there was also around that time, just a bit previous to that, 91, around that period. It was like all these little Balearic clubs popping up in England. Cause like, the weather in England isn't Balearic, is it? Far from it. But like, I remember-

[Balearic Mike]

It's kind of Balearic, it's quite Balearic in Brian.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah. Yeah, it is definitely more Balearic than here right now. But I saw that it was something special. So I romanticized about the whole thing. It was like, in my head, this is what I wanted it to be. So when I got the chance to DJ there, it was like, that fed into what I was playing. Funnily enough, one of the records, which is on the new comp, I played that evening. And the very first time I played at Pasha, when Mike came along, that was the pressure drop record. The reaction was the same as I imagined it would be. It was so brilliant, you know? So in my head, I was keeping the Balearic beat alive, somehow. Well, I went into space and tried a similar approach and got booted off the decks. The same time as Andrew Weatherall did as well at Pasha, didn't he? Because he was over there at the same time as us.

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, I miss him being dragged off.

[Kelvin Andrews]

One of my greatest claims to fame was when I was booted off the same day as Andrew.

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, he tried his panel beaters of Prague set at Pasha, didn't he? Yeah.

[Colleen]

Very well. Oh, I can't see that happening. That doesn't seem like a very good mix. Well, why don't we get back to the mix now? And actually, we are listening to Kelvin Andrews' mix right now, his exclusive mix that he's done for us, which is wonderful. And we'll come back in a few minutes. Right now, sit back and enjoy the music on Balearic Breakfast.

---

[Colleen]

And we're back. We've been listening to Kelvin Andrews' exclusive mix for Balearic Breakfast.

And I'm here with both Kelvin and with Balearic Mike because they have a new compilation, if you don't know by now, called Down to the Sea and Back Volume tres. And it's coming out on Music for Dreams at the end of the month. Now, this compilation, as I said earlier, is fantastic. And I didn't know the songs. I knew maybe a couple, but most of them I didn't. I mean, there's all different types of sounds. There's 80s Dutch pop, there's 80s Kiwi, electronic Zymoc sounding band. It sounded just like Zymoc to me. You have kind of Sunshine Jones, who's from Dubtribe sound system, kind of bouncy, kind of ping pong electro house, I like to call that. There's a lot of different sounds, but it flows together really well and the two of you did a great job sequencing. I was just wondering if we could talk about some of the individual records, if there's certain ones that have great discovery stories and maybe I can ask about one of my favorites. Was the Lee Ryder or Lee Rita?

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, Lee Ryda. Yes, that's mine. So in 2014, coincidentally the last, the summer that the last Down to the Sea and Back compilation came out on, I got invited, I think I got a message on Facebook from some guys in Athens. And I've been to a DJ in Athens once before, but it was at some big music festival. I've not done any sort of clubs or anything. They ran a record shop and they seemed like nice guys. And so yeah, I went out to Athens and I think I did a gig on the Friday night outside the city at some sort of coastal bar, which was quite nice, but it wasn't very busy. But then the next night Giannis, the next day Giannis took me into Athens to meet Dimitris who ran the record shop, Cassetta Records. And we spent the whole day in the shop, just like rooting through all his stock, playing records, drinking beers, having a great time.

And then we went to the gig and it was like in this, Athens is an amazing city. It's a bit like Berlin was sort of 20 years ago where basically if a building's empty, people just move in and do things in it. So it was like this empty sort of office block with like big kind of mezzanine floors. And someone just started a bar on one floor and then put sound and lights in the basement. It was just like squatted almost. It was amazing, but yeah, it was fantastic sort of space. And they DJed before me and they warmed up for me. We kind of went, you know, also went on all night till like basically everyone's left basically in the morning. And yeah, so Giannis was warming up and he played it, he played that record while he was warming up for me to go on. And I was just like, what the hell is this? You know, I was stood on the dance floor just going, oh my God, this is incredible. And it's like, and it's a great sign when the people warming up for you are playing music that you think is great and you don't know. You just think, well, if they're getting away with this, I'm gonna get away with murder here, aren't I really?

[Colleen]

And they're also setting it up nicely for you too.

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, I mean, it's just perfect. You just think, wow, this is sort of, if I was playing this warmup set, this is the sort of record I would want to play. And so I immediately ran over and saw what it was and couldn't believe that, yeah, it was a British library record. It's on Bruton and it's like, you see, you know, used to see millions of Bruton library records lying around but not very much. I'd never seen that one before. And yeah, so when I got back, I managed to track what they had on the internet and bought it and kind of hammered it ever since really. It's just an incredible record, isn't it?

[Colleen]

That's fantastic!

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, I was completely, yeah, unaware of it until 10 years ago when I went to Athens.

[Colleen]

Well, I was straight onto Discogs and then I was like, this is coming out on vinyl anyway, so I'll get it that way. You've done the work for me.

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, that's it, yeah.

[Colleen]

Kelvin, if there's a tune, an obscurity on this album that you picked that has a great story, could you tell us?

[Kelvin Andrews]

The one track which I was like, like, double fingers crossed that we'd get, and that was a car crash set record, the Kiwi Watch.

[Balearic Mike]

I knew he was going to say that one!

[Kelvin Andrews]

I've been obsessed with this record, but this is another recent discovery, really, you know. A friend of mine who used to be a promoter friend who books both me and Mike back in the day from Plymouth, a guy called Dave Green or DJ Verdi, he was on a late night.

[Colleen]

Yes Dave. I've heard of him.

[Kelvin Andrews]

He was on a late night chat. He said, hi, mate, have you ever heard this? And he sent me a YouTube link to this track. And I was just, I put it on and I had, the kettle was on and I was just like, oh my God. So it's a Car Crash Set, Fall From Grace, and it's a private released record that did nothing in New Zealand when it got released. They only ever played it once live, this band, and I've got the recording, because I ended up finding the guy, Nigel, the vocalist. I found him on Facebook, which was amazing. And I contacted him and he was really lovely. And he told me the story about how the track came about.

It was one of the first conversations I've had of a track from 83. And he talked about a 303 being on there and they used the 303 on there. So it's quite a historical track in that sense.

You know, they were using it purely for the fact that they could take it out live with them because it was only small. So it was like, and I'm hearing this track and I'm just going, this is unbelievable. It's like one of the best, it was instantly one of the best things I'd ever heard. So it was just like, it was like a double fingers crossed that we'd get it. And I'm amazed that we did quite easily, you know. And if you look on Discogs, it's pretty rare. The 12 is non-existent. The last one I saw go for was about $300, you know. So that was, that's the, you know, for me the gem in the crown, you know, it's like a, you know, a beautiful thing to have on there. And the many tracks on there that I got excited about, things that we were, we wanted to be on the last compilation we've managed to grab for this one. And some that we, some that I was hoping for didn't make it as well. The Car Crash Set one, the reaction I get, it backs up my enthusiasm for it as well. It's incredible.

[Balearic Mike]

Yeah, I remember the first time we played it, Mark, that I'd heard it was on one of our dancing team boat and backboat parties at Love International in Croatia. And the reaction to it live, I was just like, oh my God, what is this record? I mean, it's from New Zealand. It's like from the other side of the world. And the only, I think the only reason that Dave knows, he lived there for 10 years or something, didn't he?

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Balearic Mike]

So Dave moved out of New Zealand and lived there and he just must have come across a copy of the secondhand shop or a charity shop or something.

[Colleen]

I was just looking at the track list again and I just realized Tri Atma. I just have to take a quick look. I think I saw a Tri Atma record in my collection today. And I'm like, you're looking for something? I've been looking, I found it. Yeah, yeah. This one. Do you know that one?

[Balearic Mike]

No, I haven't got that one.

[Colleen]

This has to be some great stuff on here.

[Balearic Mike]

Well, wait a minute.

[Colleen]

It must be the same Tri Atma, right? Yeah, I think so. The yummy moon long version.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah, the yummy moon from a 12.

[Colleen]

Yeah. Yeah, it says: 'an effervescent fusion of buoyant Eastern rhythms and electronic popular music. Danceable, hummable, enjoyable. Probably some of the happiest music to come from Germany in a hundred years!'

[Balearic Mike]

Wow, that's a review, isn't it?

[Colleen]

That is hilarious. Oh, there's some good stuff on here. Microcosmos is one that I liked.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah, that's the other one. I've got a copy of that.

[Colleen]

Do you?!

[Kelvin Andrews]

Yeah, I found a copy of, I've got a, it's like a radio seven-inch single I found in a junk shop and that's on that, right? Couldn't believe it.

[Colleen]

Really? Wow. I can't recommend this compilation enough. And I know that you said the two of you haven't played together in a while. Will you be playing some more festivals together at all this summer? Is there anywhere else that people can look out for the two of you?

[Kelvin Andrews]

Mike and I are playing together in Brighton on the 14th. And we're also playing-

[Colleen]

14th of June?

[Kelvin Andrews]

14th of June, yeah. That's at the Flower Pot in Brighton on the seafront. And that's gonna be like a release party for the comp. And we're also doing a thing in Newcastle-on-the-Lyme at the Carlton on the 24th with James Holroyd and the pair of us. So yeah, we're making up for lost time, hopefully.

[Colleen]

Yes, well, good luck with it. I mean, honestly, I love the way both of you play. It's great to hear you doing this together. Hopefully I'll be able to catch one of your live sets. But for now, the compilation will have to do. Thank you so much. And thanks for your exclusive mixes for the radio show as well. Your exclusive Balearic Breakfast mixes. I really appreciate it. I know the listeners are loving it right now as well.

[Kelvin Andrews]

Thank you. Thanks for the invite, Colleen.

[Balearic Mike]

Thanks for having us.