MMNLS2E4: Weatherall

Utah Saints | Primal Scream | Stereo MC's | Riton | Dharma

5 years. 5 fucking years. I never thought you would go.

I thought you would be there forever, to lead us from the very back, remind us to listen again, or to dig again, or fuck it all off and go to Spain for a week.

Picture courtesy of Liz Walker

Now, more than ever, your legacy is critically important. Embedded in your sailor story slash tattoo "fail we may, sail we must" is a call to Do it anyway, even if you don't succeed. At least take the risk and try. So much of the electronic music scene in 2025 is incredibly risk-averse, and whilst that's a result of clubs shutting and rising costs it’s still weird. It's hard to know what to do when there are no good answers, or options, on the table. But you walked your own path, and we should too in a sense, or try to do the same. Otherwise, we stare bleakly into the face of homogenization and commercialization, and all the risks will be in vain.

Sean Johnson who used to run the “A LOVE FROM OUTER SPACE” night with Andy had this to say about him. “Andrew Weatherall had a way of distilling life into simple, sharp truths. What would Andrew do:

• Be kind, be open-minded, don’t be afraid.

• Not everyone will like what you do, and that’s okay—music’s not for everyone.

• Wear good jeans, sturdy shoes, and don’t be shy with the turn-ups.

• Jah will provide.

• Climbing the greasy pole isn’t worth it.

• Read books, eat biscuits, and never underestimate the power of a proper cup of tea.

• Adrian Sherwood is the boss.

• A good haircut matters.

• Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.

• Keep it under 122 bpm.

• Don’t fear the cheese—fear the cheesemans.

• Avoid the artist dinner unless it’s with people you love.

• Work hard, do your research, then do more.

• Always be prepared.

• Low culture is just as valuable as high culture.

• Laugh at yourself, laugh at everything.

• Always do a sound check.

• Be courteous, but don’t suffer fools gladly.

• You can’t win them all.

• If you’re remixing, keep the five best bits and bin the rest.

• Never let the band in the studio while you’re at it.

• Cake is good.

• And whatever you do, don’t let the grubby little opportunists grind you down.”

If that isn’t a list to live by I don’t know what is

This experimental project will evolve over time. I will try some new tunes and rediscover old albums, too. I may also try some themes and specific vibes, but definitely no requests.

So, I wanted to share a few of my favorite remixes in memory of the great man. One track that seems to exemplify risk-taking and one from the A Love from outer space nights (2021) Album

Utah Saints

Utah Saints
I want you (Sabres 110 or 130)

Now, the Utah Saints were a strange mix of things. On the one hand, they knew exactly what they were doing - sampling Kate Bush, and making cheesy Top of the Pop Music, but if you are from Leeds, you know you can’t do the sell-out thing for very long. There is just something about Yorkshire. They used to get all these really interesting remixes done, and their live sets were unhinged. This mix by Sabres is pretty unrecognizable - but play it loud, light a joint, and see if you can keep your head still. Oh and like all good Sabres mixes they are 9/10/15 minutes long.

Primal Scream
Uptown (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Now we all know Andrew not only made that album what it was, and how it changed music forever, how it brought dance music and acid house into the mainstream, I won’t go on and on about the genius of the production, or the fact that Bobby and the Primal's actually let it all happen. But, even years later there are some incredible deeper cuts that continually go deeper and deeper into the Jah, and I know it has guitars and even a tiny bit of singing - but this is spiritual techno at its best. Move it on.

Stereo mcs

Stereo MC’s
Everything (Everything Grooves Pt1 )

This newsletter is a little story of bands that were good, and only got better with a touch of the sabre.

Stereo MC’s sat between a little trip-hop, some jazz, a lot of Hammond organs, a lot of puff, but were never quite dirty, scratchy, or meaty enough for my taste. Don’t get me wrong I saw them live a few times, and own most of the classics - but this remix takes things exactly to where I needed them to operate. Listen to the keys, a full 4-minute build-up, then the classic stereo Mc beat.

The last two selections are a bit different:

Riton
Hammer of Thor (Roman Fluegal Remix)

The first track is a classic ear melter that Andrew used to play out - audiences didn't know what to do with it. Techno but a hard to listen to. A deep remix, Roman was starting remix tracks in 2008 - how did he have the time to dig and find these let alone the balls to play them in a set.

“Andrew, what is that record?”

“That, dear boy, is the record I play whenever I'm in Berlin and I need to throw the K-heads in a wobble.”

Last one something I heard in a Sean Johnson mix from one of the Love from Outer Space nights.

Dharma
Work Over
Lone Romantic (2021)

It is new, 2021 but something in this track has me in a chock hold and it’s been on repeat since I found it. The build-up and length are perfect. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have this week. Feels a little bit like Hayling or something from 2005

For more deeper dig in check out Sean’s compilation album

and then there is the Weatherdrive -

The Weatherdrive is a Google Drive folder containing sub folders that span the length of Weatherall's DJ career, starting in 1988. The first folder, 1988-1994, contains recordings of Weatherall's Sabresonic radio show on a Kiss FM as well as sets from parties held across the UK, including Cream in Liverpool where I was in college at the time and Lakota in Bristol.

The folders covering the 00s contain sets from parties across Europe as well as Weatherall's phenomenal fabric mix, which is regarded as one of the best ever made. The 10s folders include his Music's Not For Everyone show on NTS, the online radio station where he held a residency for over half the decade (see one of his "NTS window" shots above). There's also his suitably titled Masterpiece mix for Ministry Of Sound, which was released across 3 CDs that exemplify his sleazy, euphoric "drug chug" sound.

This mother lode of Weatherall mixes has been presided over Martin Brannagan, a lifelong Weatherall fan and unwitting archivist of the great DJ's mix output.

Martin Brannagan's introduction to the Weatherdrive:

My online journey began in 1994, fresh faced at Warwick Uni when I discovered that we could have our own websites! I set one up dedicated to a myriad of music I was into, one of which was the Sabres Of Paradise and Sabrettes label discographies, which I purloined from Cameron Bowden from the IDM mailing list. Through that a group of like-minded obsessives gathered who were all into all things Weatherall.

This was pre-Discogs, you had to hunt for things or know people to find news. We gleaned info off each other. People craved information so myself and a guy from Hawaii called Robert Feugate set up the Sabreweb, soon to become the Flightpath Estate for the discography of the Guv'nor and all associated acts and labels. Eventually we found a home at hyperreal, where we could set up a proper websiteand the newsletter became the Swordsmen discussion group. Amanda from Haywire was on it feeding us info, selling us the rush of mixtapes the Guv was putting out in those days.

Eventually the Flightpath website became surplus as Discogs rose, the Swordsmen group all grew up and real life got in the way a bit – it went a bit quiet in 2006. Jump Forward to 2008/2009/2010 and the rise of the blog - Acid Ted, Ripped In Glasgow and Bagging Area paved the way for continual analysis and sharing of Weatherall's mixes and tracks and radio shows. When Moggieboy called time on Ripped In Glasgow in 2011 for a couple of years, I felt we didn’t have anywhere to carry on the discussions and sharing. So I set up the Flightpath Estate Facebook group in 2014 and we’ve grown to be a close knit community of Weatherall obsessives.

In the intervening years I’d spotted dubious activities of people selling Weatherall CD-Rs of publicly available but hard-to-find mixes and sets so I set about collecting as much as I could and ripping from my personal collection from years before and anything the Flightpath could offer up. Many hard, part-time years of sorting, splicing, comparing, renaming, verifying came to the realisation in 2019 that I’d never finish the job so I decided to share back to the community and release the Weatherdrive as it was. Some very generous people in the Flightpath group donated a bit of cash so I could get a suitably sized Google Drive. I uploaded everything that I was confident about sharing in August 2019 and here we are.

I constantly scour SoundCloud, Mixcloud and YouTube to try and make sure I don’t miss anything and take rips from the community. We’ve sat up at night ripping from live streams for things that won’t be available again afterwards (Groovetech radio, Lone Swordsmen live streams, Boiler Room sets). We’re now at the stage where the Weatherdrive has over 800 hundred files from 1988 (although that one has dubious provenance) to present day at over 85GB. If you sat and listened to everything it would take you over 900 hours.

The joy and thrill is that I know we’re still far from complete. Andrew was so prolific and his era spanned radio rips onto cassette to mixtapes and CDRs through to early internet streaming radio and present day where all radio is streamed and full soundboards are available days after the gig.

Our Guv'nor, The Chairman, Lord Sabre, Andrew Weatherall has left us. But what a legacy he has left us and I’m proud to have somehow become the internet archivist for such a great, great person but I couldn’t do any of it without the dedication and contributions of everyone on the cloud site and on the Flightpath and ALFOS groups who want to share the works, the joy and the experience of hearing the mastery of Andrew Weatherall.

Check out The Weatherdrive here.

RIP Andrew.

Peace, more soon.