B-Music are now big enough to warrant your own stage at D:Percussion. How did that happen?
 | | Andy Votel |
"B-Music's profile has been raised over the last couple of years by exciting, big-name DJs agreeing to come and play our humble Cornerhouse residency. We were approached by Marc Rowlands to co-ordinate the Barca stage; he thought this would be a good time to let the B-Music jamboree loose on the public. People are generally quite receptive to different styles of music at D:Percussion, you get the opportunity to bombard them with music they'd never come across otherwise, which is ideal for us. I'd like to think that our tripped-out mish-mash of psychedelic-world-movie music will appeal to hip-hop/house heads as much as it will to hardened psych/folk enthusiasts." What do you think of D:Percussion?
"It's always a top day out, sonically and culturally diverse. The reason it was conceived (as Re:Percussion) resonates now more than ever. I'll always remember the year we played with Twisted Nerve and Badly Drawn Boy played in the rain, it was one of our best gigs in Manchester. It's also acceptable to start drinking at eleven in the morning too, which is cool." It's quite a B-Music family now. Who are the mum and dad of the clan?
 | | Dom and Andy test some vinyl! |
"B-Music is a collective of like-minded DJs, but myself and Andy organise everything. It's always been up to us to get the ball rolling and tie the loose ends together. When we put on events out of Manchester, we try and work with our mates in their relevant home towns. So in Belfast, David will help, in Cardiff, Gruff will look out for a venue and so forth. It's really interesting tapping into a slightly different crowd at each gig. We're currently in the process of setting up nights in all the major cities in England and planning some international dates at the moment. We're also setting up some live gigs under a different banner, Burn Your Books, the first of which will be at Night and Day after D:Percussion, featuring Graham Massey's first band Biting Tongues, plus new Twisted Nerve signing Voice Of The Seven Woods." B-Music has always been all about the records. Who's got the best vinyl collection amongst you all? | "It's always a top day out, sonically and culturally diverse. The reason it was conceived resonates now more than ever." | | Dom Thomas on D:Percussion |
"That's a tough one, everyone has their own strengths. Cherrystones would have to be up there for his vast knowledge and selection; he's got the knack of uncovering the real big ones for next to nothing and takes a lot of risks on records that could turn out to be rubbish. Andy's is the closest to mine in taste, I'd find it hard to choose between those two, to be honest. Chris McBride's been turning up some really amazing tracks recently, keep your eyes peeled for his latest 45 Kings compilation." Is there ever any temptation to nick a rare piece of vinyl from one of the others' bags while they're not looking? "No." If you were to do such a thing, which bag would you rifle through and what would you pinch? "Probably Andy's, we have a rule not to buy the same records as each other, so this way I could get some of those gems I've missed out on."
B-Music now plays regularly across the country. Where's best? "Manchester obviously, it's our home. The gig we did with David Holmes in Belfast was amazing, a real psych-out. I'm really looking forward to the Cardiff date and The Green Man Festival this summer." With such eclectic tastes, it's hard to know what will come next from B-Music, but if you had to choose just one genre to play for an entire night, what would it be?
 | | The pair take a well-earned breather |
"Psychedelic, that pretty much allows you to play anything with effects on, which covers most of my records. I'd really like to put on a Turkish Anadolu Pop night at some point, we've just put together a compilation called Anatolian Invasion featuring the best Turkish protest/psych music from the 70s. It's probably my favourite genre at the moment; it's very similar to Tropicalia - musically and politically. We put on themed nights quite regularly at B-Music; we've done French, Italian, Spanish plus movie tie-in nights playing Morricone and Komeda only. On Valentines Day, we played strictly Serge Gainsbourg all night for five hours, I haven't listened to one of his records since!" B-Music has also spawned re-issue label Finders Keepers. Is there one lost gem that you would give your right arm to re-issue on the world? "Jean-Claude Vannier would have been my first choice (Finders Keepers’ first release). Our next release, Chris Harwood's Nice To Meet Miss Christine has been our holy-grail for the past few years. Luckily we've managed to track her down and acquire some bonus tracks, we're going to release it as it was originally intended." | 
