Solid Steel - Jan 04.

Solid Steel in association with Serato (4th January).

It's 2013 and we're celebrating 25 years of 'The Broadest Beats' on Solid Steel. But first we take a look at where it all began, before Solid Steel even started.
On the pirate station Kiss FM in the mid to late eighties Matt Black and Jon More both had separate shows, we hear clips from both and then as they joined forces in 1988 prior to Kiss shutting down whilst applying for legal status at the end of the year.

To start with we scan the airwaves through various London Pirate Stations of the time, landing at Kiss 94 FM to hear Matt Black's Mastermix Dance Party dropping exclusive Coldcut tracks for the first time and music from the emerging House scene. Jon More takes over with the Meltdown Party playing 'new' releases from The Beastie Boys, Eric B & Rakim and Adrian Sherwood plus the original version of 'The Only Way Is Up' that they later covered with Yazz and took to the top of the charts.

Then we hear them together for their last show on the Pirate Kiss 94 FM whilst waiting for a licence. Music comes from Kraftwerk plus a Todd Terry workout and, as they say goodbye, we hear a farewell from Kiss founder Gordon Mac and the announcement of a new commercial station for London...



In hour 2 we step forward to 1990 and a legalised Kiss 100 FM with Solid Steel on a Friday night. House music has evolved and mutated and we hear a Coldcut Mastermix featuring C'hantel, Pink Noise, LFO and the first Ninja Tune release by Zen Bones. Coldcut keep it funky with Matata and Ju-Par Universal Orchestra, plus hard Latin from Dom Um Romao and the first spin from Major Force, before dropping another Mastermix.
We then move to Saturday night for the second half and tracks from Rebel MC and Demon Boyz pave the way for the Jungle scene. The next Mastermix features De La Soul, Prince, DJ Food and Maze and we finish with tracks touching on rave, IDM and breakbeat territory with The Black Dog, Doc Scott and DJ PC.