We Play House Recordings

Any decent lover of house and techno has got to go to Detroit one day. The reasonable approach would be to go during the annual electronic music festival on Memorial Day, but you should really go there when nothing is happening to get the true vibe of this very special city. But this is about record shops and not politics, so let's cut straight to the chase: Detroit is a veritable heaven for second hand shopping! BEWARE: you NEED a car in Detroit...

Melodies & Memories, Gratiot Avenue 23000 something (in Eastpointe): the Dance Zone is closed but opened up on simple request, and a true treasury for all things house and techno. Sealed copies of things that go for too much money on Discogs, multiple copies of Detroit underground classics, white labels, etc, etc. Prices ranging from 4 USD to 10 USD at most for 12" ...

People's Records, Woodward Avenue, 3000 something: an orderly selection of funk, soul & disco, and a decent amount of house, techno & more 12"s. Check the state of the records, because they can be a bit overpriced. But the people running it are cool and will cut you a good deal. True diggin' style is needed here, but well worth the time.

S.I.D. store (Somewhere In Detroit), www.submerge.com You have to make an appointment with this institute of Detroit underground music, but you cannot love techno without having been at the Underground Resistance HQ. Limited stock because they focus on their own products, but almost all of their releases are well worth having, and most are plain and simple essential. Low prices and be sure to get one of the UR t-shirts too. Bridgette who is running the store is the nicest of ladies and it just feels good supporting people that are - for lack of a better word - real.

Detroit Threads, Joseph Campau 10000 something in Hamtramck (a Polish neighbourhood to the east of Highland Park): another paradise for house and techno lovers. Too many good records for your bank account... Sealed copies of classic Detroit labels, racks upon racks of used vinyl, at very good prices, and a serious collection of Detroit t-shirts. Mike is the nicest of shopkeepers and a true legend among Detroit vinyl heads.

We didn't get to do Hello Records (on Bagley & Trumbull) and The Record Graveyard (on Caniff and Joseph Campau in Hamtramck), but apparently these would not look bad in the list we did do. 

Detroit, vinyl and WPH: one love!

RD

After - dare we say it - superb label nights with Steffi and Prosumer, and after the bomb edition with 'locals' Lady Linn, Gustaph and Saxman in January, WPH is back at Decadance on Saturday 31st March.

Main guest for the night will be Move D, who should need no introduction at all if you are even vaguely into what we are doing...

Support from Decadance main man Jensen, and as always San Soda and myself won't be able to resist playing a couple of tunes :-)

RD

The follow-up to 'Vocals For Everyone E.P.' is here, and it's called 'More Vocals For Everyone E.P.', we don't really think hard about our track and E.P. names :-p

Featuring Lady Linn, 'Used To Be' is doing the round with lovers of smooth and sexy vocal house, while 'Back' on the b-side is more vintage FCL rawness. Topping it off is the Arto Mwambe remix of 'Back'.

Get it at Music Mania in Belgium on vinyl, or via Juno, Decks, Hardwax and all the other fine vinyl shops in the world. Digital via Junodownload, Beatport and all the other portals I myself never visit... But hey, just get it officially and we'll be happy!

RD

If you are in Amsterdam and feeling a bit peckish and you do not want to indulge in the local tradition of ATM-style food...

Envy on Prinsengracht 381 is your answer! Tipped by Bib Gourmand since years on end, this place is a veritable treasury of tastes you have never experienced before. Kinda like a DJ set by San Soda or Red D :-p

The concept is simple: tapas, but highest class gastronomy only! Top service as well, so just go for it, and don't forget to thank us for the tip :-)

RD 

Feeling a bit peckish and you don't wanna go Mickey D's/KFC or any of the thousands of cheap but very suspicious-looking restaurants in London? You like good food and brilliant service juxtaposed with a complete disaster of an interior? Look no further: La Forchetta on 426 Bethnal Green Road is your answer!

San Soda, Gratts & Red D approved ;-)

RD

Well, we want to be both. Because what does a DJ do when he is playing abroad and has time left in a city where he doesn't know that many people? The standard answer to this is probably stay in his ****-hotel and watch porn movies, but we get all the porn we want at home, and so we go out exploring. Records shops, restaurants, bars, anything that really strikes us. 

And so we will share all our discoveries with you through this part of the WPH blog, and make sure that whenever you visit a city...you won't have to stay in and watch porn all day...

RD

What is failhouse? Easy, it's everything we consider to be not done, funny, blatantly foolish and simply not 'house'. Curious? So are we actually...

RD

First a website, then the artwork, and then the music? No way! Since the start of We Play House Recordings the focus was on music, with a neat package. Oh sure, we've had a website since day one, and we were on MySpace and all that, but the music always came first. And it will always come first, but social pressure and the fact that people keep on bugging us for old releases and more info has led to what you are seeing right now: the one and only official We Play House Recordings website. Well hurrah!

All info on our artists and our releases, a webshop where you can find vinyl and goodies, and this blog which will become not only your musical guide, but also your travel guide and bible to what's hot and what's not in our slightly ironic view, this is what our website has to offer.

Enough with the banter, just surf away and enjoy.

RD

PS I cannot be held responsible if your lack of a sense of humour leads you to be offended in any way by the content of this blog. 

Studio footage from Sebastien San @ Bass Park Studio. Behind the screens footage, only reserved for V.I.P.'s :-p

This Friday the legendary Vooruit Balzaal in Ghent will be the scene for the second edition of It's... A party concept by Democrazy in cooperation with WPH & Lany Recordings.

Tickets & info via www.democrazy.be or at Music Mania, Walpoortstraat 3 in Ghent.

Good to know: tickets for the Michael Kiwanuka show (also on 2 December @ 20h, Charlatan, Vlasmarkt in Ghent) also give you entrance to It's and vice versa.

BEWARE: WPH is giving away 5 x 2 free tickets to the first 5 people who send their name to info@weplayhouserecordings.com

RD

The follow-up to 'Vocals For Everyone E.P.' is here, and it's called 'More Vocals For Everyone E.P.', we don't really think hard about our track and E.P. names :-p

Featuring Lady Linn, 'Used To Be' is doing the round with lovers of smooth and sexy vocal house, while 'Back' on the b-side is more vintage FCL rawness. Topping it off is the Arto Mwambe remix of 'Back'.

Get it at Music Mania in Belgium on vinyl, or via Juno, Decks, Hardwax and all the other fine vinyl shops in the world. Digital via Junodownload, Beatport and all the other portals I myself never visit... But hey, just get it officially and we'll be happy!

RD

As mentioned in the intro, the idea of this part of the blog is to give you travel tips from our various trips around the globe. But why not start the other way around and give you some hotspots of our beloved city of Ghent?

Music is a necessity of life, but so is eating, and even more so :-) So here are some of my personal favourites to have a good dinner in Ghent:

Martino, Vlaanderenstraat 125, 9000 Ghent: hotspot of Ghent nightlife, open from 18h till 1h, pure Belgian classics and steaks galore!

Thalia, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 138, 9000 Ghent: specialised in quiche and fajitas and very much good value for your money.

Frituur Bij Sint Jacobs, Bij St Jacobs, 9000 Ghent: wanna try real Belgian fries? This is THE spot! Not really a restaurant, but still :-)

Il Mezzogiorno, Baudelokaai 17, 9000 Ghent: small, intimate and very Sicilian, with offers you cannot refuse...

Smakelijk!

RD

We all know them, the enthusiastic ladies that want a piece of the action, looking for attention and the better part of the DJ's drinks cabinet... 

Although a widespread phenomenon in DJ booths around the world, the booth bird is hard to find on the internet, and so the picture I found may yet provide you with a bit of a false idea...

RD