‘Re-rewind, when the crowd say Bo Selecta’. That’s how it went, and up went the cry in every bar room, in every club and in every city in every town at the back end of the nineties. What did it mean? I have no idea. Never did, and because I didn’t it, it means I had no real right to know. But that’s the beauty of tracks like this, they alienate as many people as they involve – which is the only way any self-respecting slut should behave in my book. And thought the fact that I had no idea what it went was something of a knockback in my opinion, it didn’t stop me from enjoying it on my own terms – just as any self-respecting w*nker should. I didn’t even know they said ‘rewind’. Up until today I was under the impression that Mr Bo and Mr David were shouting ‘EC1’. I thought it was a London thing. I thought these slick new UK Garage sorts were holed up somewhere between Finsbury and Shoreditch for the best part of a decade. Was UK Garage 2-Step? Didn’t have a clue. Still don’t. And furthermore, I really didn’t give a sh*t. The only thing I did know is that it roughly comprised the nasally drill of some smoothy MC, some shuffly beats, some dominant sub-bass and some jungly, crisp tunes. It was upbeat, short and syncopated with a shamelessly positive vibe and for the most part is was the happiest accident ever to have befallen the UK charts, a sunny, feelgood counterpoint to the whinging, psycho nonsense chucked up by Eminem and his terminal Slim Shady franchise. These dudes also had some of the most gratuitous names in dance: the Artful Dodger, the Cleptomaniacs, DJ Pied Piper and the Masters of Ceremonies, Shanks and Bigfoot, Ladt Ragga Fire and the Wideboys, Oxide and Neutrino, Dollay and Ed Case. It was funky, it was proud, it was then, it was now.
Released on 31st March the crowd grab a second chance to ‘rewind’ and go ‘Bo Selecta’. Or, should any nerds like myself be in the audience, the chance to scream, ‘Yes, that’s an excellent choice record, Mr DJ’. Remixed and re-presented by one the UK’ most in demand (on demand) remixers, The Wideboys (Rhinna, Sugbabes), ‘Garage Classics’ offers a fairly exhaustive retrospective of The Land That Grime Forgot with hits like ‘Sweet Like Chocolate’, ‘Do You Really Like It?’, ‘Flowers’, ‘You Got The Love’, ‘Straight From The Heart’, ‘It’s A London Thing’, plus sh*tloads of additional New Skool and some deeply Northern 4×4 classics.
CLASSIC GARAGE – MIXED BY THE WIDEBOYS – RELEASED 31.03.08