THE REPORT: 9/19/25
UK WEEK
A few weeks ago, surrounded by 80,000 Californians in bucket hats and soccer jerseys, I watched fireworks go off while Oasis played "Champagne Supernova.” Then I almost immediately got back onto an airplane and flew across the country. My body is not what it once was. My brain is barely hanging on. I often feel like a stranger to myself. Welcome to UK Week on The Report, presented by John’s Music Blog.
Fracture & Tim Reaper “Dancing Toms”
I don’t think we’ve checked in with contempo-jungle hero Tim Reaper all year. For shame! Thank god it’s UK Week. 14 days ago, Reaper and the UK bass producer Fracture came together and dropped a stonking tune that makes me feel like I’m ascending inside of a hot air balloon while wearing one of those propeller hats. Are the toms actually dancing here? I think so. They do a little jig.
YT “Prada or Celine (Martyn Bootyspoon Remix)”
Here is something I missed from a few months ago: a remix of a British rap track whose original was on the blog last November. Bootyspoon wisely keeps the chorus intact, ups the BPM, and slips in a gurning acid bassline for maximum disco destruction. What I am about to say is unrelated to anything other than the fact that it is UK Week on the blog, but here is a quick memory from the first time I toured England: I was in Nottingham; I selling merch after playing a set at a small festival; I turned my back to my stuff for about five minutes to have a conversation; I turned around and all my shirts and records were stolen. Real Robin Hood hours!
Worldpeace DMT, The Femcels “Lollipop”
Two of England’s damaged pop hopes come together for a loose Lil Wayne cover, released straight to YouTube, as it should be. Pure throwaway magic that might remind “readers of a certain age” of a different moment online. Keeping in mind roughly how old I assume everyone involved is, the track reads like a tribute to an era of the internet that they barely remember. An era that might feel a little more simple.
The fifth and final UK choon on the blog has a beat from the Big Apple. The great Tony Seltzer is behind the DAW. Though I miss his signature producer drop—“Hey Tony!” yelled with full Sopranos gusto—the track is still good. The perc sounds like an elf tiptoeing around shards of glass. It’s not a bad bed for jawnino to get into some slick East London noir talk.
Well, I’m exhausted. UK Week has broken me. Time to take it back to the other side of the pond; specifically, to the Midwest in the early 2000s. Back then, the noise was flowing like a keg of Milwaukee’s Best. This is an incredible document of the kind of no-rules energy that was breaking my brain back when I was just an impressionable idiot in high school. It’s not like I’ve matured much since then, to be fair. Anyway: It’s a nice sampler platter, and it all goes down in an alley behind an art gallery in Ohio. Pod Blotz’s costumed madness stands out, as does Hair Police’s full search-and-destroy mission. Stick around to the end to see the most legendary of them all: Friends Forever, the band that played in their van, shot off fireworks, and blasted Casios through distortion pedals.