Travelling early in the morning so we could arrive in the big smoke at a reasonable time for some record shopping and general mischief, it was on our second excursion that it occured to me that Mr. Weatherall's Sabres Of Paradise / Emissions office was on Dean Street above a strip joint.
Having always been a bit of a blagger, I thought I'd give the door a knock to see if they'd let me come and buy some vinyl at a cheaper price than my local record emporium (knowing I was gonna spunk all my other dough at Blood Sugar later on).
Greeted by the larger than life Curly who ran the office for Mr. Weatherall, I couldn't believe it when he responded with a polite yes.
After buying some bits and pieces over our next few visits and bumping into Curly and Co at Blood Sugar, we became regulars at the office on the first Friday of every month in the hope we'd get some white labels or something special.
A couple of visits down the line, we got it in the form of Mr Weatherall popping out from the sliding doors that seperated the office from whatever it was going on behind them, and saying 'Alright fellas? Curly - can we give these away?'
In his hands where two cassette tapes. One was an advanced copy of Blue's excellent Mexican Church album (which I later realised had completely different tracks on to the release), the other was a just-finished mix which I believe was to promote Mr. Weatherall's Cut The Crap mix which was forthcoming on Back To Basics.
Suffice to say - I almost burst when Curly responded with a 'Yeah, sure we can,' and offered them to us.
In years of collecting and hunting down Andrew Weatherall mixes, I've never come across this mix anywhere and I'm not really sure how many people got hold of it. All I know is that it's a gorgeous excursion into ambient, dub, hip-hop and electronica as only Mr. Weatherall know's how.
I hope you enjoy this mix as much as I have for the past 17 years and apologies for any loss of quality, but this has been hammered over the course of those years.
