UK Jazz-funkers, Freeez, split in 1984, following a stay in NYC and global success with their Arthur Baker-produced single, I.O.U., and album, Gonna Get You. Founding member, John Rocca, continued solo, and returned to New York, and Baker. The first fruit of the these new sessions was  I Want It To Be Real. The track, written by John in his Caledonian Road council flat, in North London, features a signature sequenced Pro One Bass line, which, according to John, sounded “absolutely MASSIVE” on the Paradise Garage system. The song’s lyrics were inspired by stories of covert CIA inference in South America. The record was rinsed on local radio, and  reached #1 on The Billboard Hot Dance Club Chart. John travelled from party to party in a private stretch limo as a result.

In 1987 the I Want It To Be Real was remixed at Baker’s Shakedown Sound Studios by Farley “Jackmaster” Funk. When I interviewed John, a few years back, he admitted to me that, at the time, he didn’t know who Farley was. As part of WBMX’s Hot Mix 5, Farley had been responsible for making another of John’s tracks, Move, a Chicago club hit. He now turned I Want It To Be Real into a genuine piano anthem. Almost unrecognizable from its 1983 incarnation, it’s those keys that grab your attention. In the end, they might the thing that you remember, but Farley’s arrangement is actually pretty musical  – using percussive fragments of John’s vocals, and delicate but frantic rhythm guitar. The piano itself starts as big, blocked, chords, but in between that, the jam comes across as totally improvised. Whoever’s manning those keys – John, Farley, John’s long-term collaborator Andy Stennet – has got some serious skills. Snare rolls attempt to keep pace with the pianist’s prowess. John said that the last time he saw Farley, the pioneering DJ / producer had borrowed his Walkman and was leaving Shakedown. 

Something like a decade ago I gave a file of Farley’s Hot House Piano Mix to Max Essa. Max was due to spin at a cool camp / festival in California. He told me that when he’d dropped the track, Heidi and Lovefingers had run up to ask what it was. Which was super nice.* South Street have now repressed this dance-floor essential, flipped with a radical Late Night Tuff Guy rework.** 

The South Street repress of Farley “Jackmaster” Funk’s Hot House Piano Mix of John Rocca’s I Want This To Be Real can be purchased from all discerning records shops, including online institution, Juno.

Notes

*And kinda weird, `cos I’m pretty sure that I went looking for a copy after hearing Harvey play it. Heidi is Harvey’s ex, and still his manager. 

**In 1992 Farley`s Hot House Piano Mix was famously edited, for personal use only, by Detroit innovators, Carl Craig and Derrick May, and bootlegged by some unscrupulous person under the alias Incogdo. May, in response, has reportedly never handed out an edit since.