hal | The Young Punx FM Podcast | Dance music and entertainment. Beats, banter and basslines since 2007.

ep37. SPACE GHETTOS

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:06:53 — 428.4MB)

Christmas at the Old Hit Factory means champagne, Brussels sprout crisps and an increasingly deranged attempt to make ‘Space Ghettos’ sound like ‘Spice Girls’ in a Scottish accent. Hal, Ali Jamieson, Stunt Simon and Chenai deliver breaks, drum & bass, house and an accidental UK garage revival, plus a guest mix from Budapest’s Simon Iddol. Hal recounts a Soho rooftop hot-tub encounter and how a daft remix of the 118 118 advert somehow ended up with 25-to-1 odds for Christmas No. 1, despite never being released. There’s also an unreleased Cassius remix of The Tribe of Good’s Siren Song, before a disco after-party that refuses to end.

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ep36. CAVIAR MONSTER MUNCH

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:54:49 — 264.1MB)

Caviar on pickled onion Monster Munch. The Young Punx FM returns after seven years, and clearly standards have risen. Hal recruits a ‘stunt Simon’, Ali Jamieson and Canadian singer Kaylee Johnston, right on the cusp of reinventing herself as BOBBI, who performs two songs live. There’s drum & bass, house, disco and rap, a poisonous frog ceremony with deeply unfortunate digestive consequences, a Stranger Things club remix, the first taste of The Tribe of Good, and a quiz where made-up DJs prove almost indistinguishable from the actual DJ Mag Top 100. Plus new music from Phonat, Cassius, Duke Dumont and KNOWER. High culture meets low culture. Mostly in a crisp.

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ep35. SCONE!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:57:46 — 182.4MB)

An improvised opera about scones, jam and cream interrupts two hours of house, nu-disco, breaks and drum & bass. Of course it does. Inspired by the Royal Wedding, Hal, Nathan and Betto attempt a traditional British cream tea, argue over how to pronounce ‘scone’ and whether the jam or cream goes first, then inexplicably start singing about it. Guest Ben Braund drops in for a nostalgic trip through London’s mid-2000s breakbeat scene, Nathan demonstrates his spectacularly dodgy pirate radio DJ skills, and a listener poll to find the show’s sexiest radio voice is won by Frank the Dog. A deserved victory.

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ep34. FORT BETTO / SPRING SPECIAL

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:58:55 — 145.7MB)

A Canadian fan builds a giant snow fort with a 13-foot slide and names it Fort Betto. The highest honour, surely. Meanwhile, Nathan has lost his voice and the studio equipment is falling apart, so two DJ shows recorded a month apart become one podcast. Winter’s electro and disco suddenly give way to springtime French house, nu-disco, UK garage and drum & bass, with Phonat, Fantastic Plastic Machine, Fred Falke, Metronomy and Redlight. There’s new Young Punx music too, including Dope Ass Sound. Nathan makes a miraculous recovery halfway through. It’s amazing what a month’s rest can do.

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ep33. MEGABASS VIOLENCE

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:56:18 — 107.6MB)

A remote-control helicopter refuses to fly, an out-of-date cottage pie goes airborne, and a Finnish snack review turns into Man vs Herring. Hal, Betto and Nathan somehow keep the heavy disco, fidget house, electro and drum & bass coming, with Polymath’s gloriously mangled grooves described as ‘Sesame Street on ketamine’. There’s Grum, Cassius and Phonat among the tunes, while the studio tackles pickled herring, smoked fish roe squeezed from a tube and increasingly hopeless attempts at indoor aviation. The seafood proves a considerably tougher challenge than the DJing. Although the helicopter might disagree.

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ep32. SNOWBOARDING IN BERLIN

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:04:02 — 116.4MB)

Chart-topping superstar Example drops into The Young Punx studio for an exclusive live acoustic performance of Kickstarts and a cover of The Big Pink’s Dominoes! With Nathan absent, Hal and Betto recruit drummer Craig Hendry, whom they’ve barely met, for two hours of drum & bass, grime, house, disco and general nonsense. Hal demonstrates how to make dubstep basslines, an IKEA glass meets its maker, and a snack review involves mint jelly and gingerbread skeletons. There’s new music from Phonat, Gotye and Everything Everything, while Betto battles eBay for a torn snowboard bag, leading his bewildered mother to question his plans to go snowboarding in Berlin.

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ep31. THONG!

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The one where Betto presents wearing nothing but a gold thong. Meanwhile, Hal and Nathan attempt to maintain some dignity with electro house, nu-disco, mashups and drum & bass, including a brand-new Young Punx demo and an unofficial album of fan-made mashups. Tales from Japan include DJing with Fantastic Plastic Machine and a baked potato of almost spiritual significance. There’s also backstage gossip from performing with Dizzee Rascal on Jonathan Ross, where Hal manages to insult a male model in front of his entire family. Naturally, the thong photographs end up on Facebook.

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ep30. THE DOGCAST

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:05:20 — 115.6MB)

Frank the Dog howls along to a Young Punx remix while Hal, Betto and Nathan serve up drum & bass, electro house, nu-disco, grime and other questionable choices. There are exclusive recordings of Dizzee Rascal rehearsing with The Young Punx live band, plus a gloriously insane mashup of D Double E’s ferocious grime freestyle with the gentle, nostalgic gallery music from children’s TV classic Take Hart. It has absolutely no right to work, but somehow it’s brilliant. Meanwhile, a Scandinavian snack review investigates sweets named Plopp, Spunk and Skumbananer, with Frank providing his own critical perspective. Nathan unveils his ominously named Dark Corner, and an old John Scofield jazz-house bootleg gets an airing. The cultural significance of all this is, naturally, enormous.

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