Amsterdam Gay Pride is almost upon us (July 28 – August 5) and if you’re in town, why not drop by at The Winston Kingdom club on Wednesday,  August 1 for “VarieGay On The Move” , an evening of “International soulmoving top-and-bottom entertainment: variety, fun, cabaret, magic, song and dance. Coco Coquette and her dazzling divas will move you through the best of Eurovision and more. An evening to remember!” Showtime between 20:30 and 22:30 and after that, you can hit the floor as Matt Pop spins an uplifing blend of  pop, dance, disco and cheese, with probably a few of Matt’s own mixes and mash-ups thrown in for good measure! Tickets pre-sale 12,50 euro, or 15,00 euro at the door. Tickets are already selling so don’t wait too long! VarieGay On The Move, Winston Kingdom, Warmoesstraat 129, Amsterdam. Wednesday August 1, 20:30 – 01:00 hrs. Pre-sale tickets at Gays & Gadgets, Spuistraat 44, Amsterdam  http://www.winston.nl/ 

Teresa Marie is one of Pumpin Uk‘s most enduringly popular acts, and the label is celebrating her succes with a wonderful “Best Of” collection, called “A Decade Of Dance”.  There are 22 tracks on it, and three of those are Matt Pop mixes: Walk Of Life, Love In The First Degree and They Say It’s Gonna Rain. These are the radio edits, so you’ll get nothing but the good bits, crammed into just under 4 minutes. Available from i-Tunes, CD Baby and www.pumpinukrecords.com.

Just released: Mad About The Boy 20, a collection of banging club mixes of some of your favourite dance tracks. There are two Matt Pop mixes on it: Obsession by Zoe versus Massive Ego (the Animotion classic from the 80’s) and Walk Of Life by the very talented Teresa Marie. Unfortunately, the previews on i-Tunes / Amazon don’t give you the best bits, so check out the teasers on http://www.youtube.com/user/MattPopOfficial . Mad About The Boy 20 is available from most digital download platforms and as a 2-disc cd.

Well, my three day tour of swinging London is over, and it has a big, gaping hole in the middle where Hit Factory Live should have been.

“They Say It’s Gonna Rain” and rain it did. So, the Hyde Park venue was declared  too wet and too dangerous to put on a show, and that was that. Luckily, there was the Energise Records night on Tuesday, where Peter Wilson, Sammy Paul and Nicki French all performed their hits and mingled with friends and fans, some of whom had travelled a long way to be there (I spoke to people from Hong Kong, Sweden, France, Ireland, USA, Holland, and Austria). It was quite heart-warming to have people come up to me saying how much they enjoy my music. Now I know that you all actually exist and are not just login names on YouTube 🙂 This was also the first time Matt Pop and Peter Wilson ever met in person, despite having worked together for over 4 years. Ah, the wonders of the Internet…. And Andy, who runs the Matt Pop Fan Page on Facebook, was also there and we had a lovely lunch together on Wednesday. He presented me with a very interesting list of questions, all sent in by members of the  Facebook group. So I will be brooding on my answers this weekend. Expect to see the results on the Matt Pop fan page very soon!

Being one of the world’s biggest PWL fans, Peter was naturally heartbroken about the Hyde Park show cancellation, but he put on a brave face and gave us an exclusive performance of the unreleased Peter Wilson – Kylie Minogue mash-up of Take Me As I Am. (And some of you lucky people even got to take home the not-available-anywhere-else promo cd of it!) Coming back to Hit Factory Live: those of you who attended the packed PWL pity-parties across town on Wednesday will agree that you can’t keep a good tune down, and dancing our heads off to Stock, Aitken & Waterman’s biggest hits was a great form of therapy. My heart does go out to everyone at PWL who have been working like mad for many months to organise this show, and to the artists that were supposed to perform, who must be as disappointed as you and I. But who knows – It’s Never Too Late…