Today being the Coates' birthday we joined her for a glug at the safety haven that is the Retro Bar. The added bonus was that tonight was "What's In Your Record Bag?" night wherein the dj booth is open to anyone who wants to play 5 of their own choons or play fewer up to 20 minutes. I had been tempted in the past to go along but it being ooor Dawn's b-day n all was a good opportunity. I hit upon my tracks quite easily last week but then came the putting them into a workable order, putting them on iPod playlist so I could listen to them on the train, working out the exact moment to bring in the next track as the last one fades.... O and enjoy the experience too!

My criteria was simple, tracks I wanted to hear loud on the Retro speakers!
My five were:

• ESTELLE - Dance Bitch
• MADONNA - Superpop
• KIRSTY MacCOLL - London Bridge Is Falling Down
• CHRIS CLARK - Everything's Right, Everything's Wrong
• KANYE WEST - Touch The Sky

Estelle is a British hip-hop singer with a great way with lyrics, the Madonna track was available only through the fan club to celebrate the release of the CONFESSIONS... album, Kirsty's calypso was recorded around the time of MY AFFAIR, Chris Clark's track is one of the many great unreleased tracks she recorded while at Motown and Kanye... well y'all know about him.

I had a whale of a time! I was shocked by my forgetting where all the buttons were on the decks from when I djed the Madonna Pop Quiz but apart from that the tracks all sounded great being played 'bigly' and I was happy with the response.

Then it was time to enjoy the debut of Owen the dj! The boy did good. So thank you to Dawn, Wendy, Rob, Tall Paul, Gerald and Stephen for a very enjoyable night

*scampers off to see what he can play next time*