This went down well when I posted it on social media yesterday, a CD insert that did the rounds in the mid 90s by Charles Uzzell-Edwards (otherwise now known as Pure Evil), it was inserted into some Fax releases and also printed in XLR8R magazine. Some things never change it seems.
The Spun Out Of Control label – purveyors of limited cassettes featuring synth-heavy soundtracks to real and imaginary films – has started releasing vinyl. The first is a reissue of Steve Nolan‘s ‘Sodium Party’ soundtrack, originally the third release from the label in 2016 and the second, a new outing by Correlations, ‘Aftermath’, a sort of follow up to his previous ‘Night Acquisitions’ album of last summer. This release features a few names familiar to readers of this blog, Simon James (The Simonsound / Akiha Den Den) and Pablo Clements (The Psychonauts / Toydrum) both contribute on certain tracks and the whole album is mastered by the busiest man in electronic music, Jon Brooks.
Musically the label leans towards synths and dark ambience in the Carpenter/Howarth, Vangelis, Tangerine Dream vein without sounding completely retro. With over 20 releases in under three years, usually limited to 100 copies, the label is just testing the water with vinyl. Their latest tape arrives this weekend for Cassette Store Day in the shape of Stefan Bachmeier‘s ‘The Infernal Machine’. Hiding behind a back story of an author who wrote soundtracks to accompany his books and then disappeared leaving his tapes to Stephen Buckley (Polypores), this is the second of Bachmeier’s archive excavations, with a beautiful clockwork skull in pink and green cover.
If you’re looking at the Bandcamp page and wondering where to start I can recommend the Correlations and Bachmeier releases obviously, the Jan Borré and Turquoise Moon too, ‘WASP’ by Bryce Miller, Steve Nolan and the Repeated Viewing releases have some great moments too and that’s about as far as I’ve dug in so far. The design for the label is spot on too (yes, that’s a real obi strip, not printed on the sleeve), provided by Eric Adrian Lee who has the whole Mondo / Deathwaltz horror genre down pat with his beautiful work. Check more of it here.
There’s a lot of great music coming out at the moment so I thought I’d stick it all in one post.
Above is Trunk’s reissue of David Shire‘s ‘The Conversation’, a minimal piano-led score available on vinyl for the first time. Initial ‘transparent overcoat’ copies are already scarce and completely sold out at the label but some shops may have them, otherwise it’s standard black vinyl only, no download on this one.
One of my favourite artist discoveries of the year so far is Regal Worm aka Jarrod from I Monster / Cobalt Chapel. His new album, ‘Pig Views’ is a contemporary prog masterpiece as is its forerunner, ‘Use & Ornament’ – check out his Bandcamp page and dive into the world of Regal Worm.
After buying the initial yellow CD version of ‘System’ from Trevor Jackson at the Indie Label Market earlier this year I’ve been playing it non-stop at home. I’m glad he didn’t leave it to languish as just a limited edition CD because the reworked white design must be contender for one of the best-looking releases of the year and musically it’s too good to only be heard by the few. Some of the most sublime techno you’ll hear this year, I think the 2nd edition CD is sold out but there are still some cassettes left.
Markey Funk‘s Delights label releases its tenth serving in two weeks time and this one’s from a mystery artist, Nicola Spiromarino, with two slices of giallo soundtrack electronica and beats, a top notch release, both tracks killer, let’s hope there’s more to come. Pre-order here
A new release from Dinked Records sees Run DMC‘s Hair-sampling, Pete Rock & CL Smooth-featuring ‘Down With The King’ paired with an instrumental in a beautiful gatefold sleeve (perfect for storing doubles if that’s your thing). Pre order now
Buried Treasure come up trumps with a comp of Amphonic & Soundstage library music, ‘Moodsetters’, featuring Keith Mansfield, Alan Parker, Paddy Kingsland, Jim Lawless and the Art of Noise‘s Anne Dudley among others. Library seems to be the word at the moment with the recent KPM Allstars gig, the release of the Library Music Film that Shawn Lee’s been making for years + forthcoming complimentary compilation as well as a companion disc to the recent ‘Unknown Sounds’ book about to hit.
Finders Keepers, always with one foot in the opposite direction, release the excellent ‘Popera Cosmic ‘Les Esclaves’ French musical concept album from 1970 and adds a no-stone-unturned account of its genesis and demise, penned as ever by that fount of all leftfield musical knowledge, Andy Votel.
Julius Vanderbilt has so far (to my knowledge) only cropped up as a footnote on the LP by The Dandelion Set, ‘A Thousand Strands’ (seriously – grab a copy of this, there are a handful left, it’s the ‘Dr Z’ of 30 years time plus it’s great!). Julius may or may not be closely related to a member of the Set and he’s released a cassette and CD of library (it’s that word again) cues in a beautiful little package called ‘Action Catalyst’. Purchase herewith.
And last but not least (because I’ve devoted a whole other post to the label but you might not see that) Spun Out of Control, the limited edition cassette label specializing in real and imagined soundtracks, has started pressing vinyl!
This is a bit special – Howlround’s ‘A Creak In Time’ soundtrack to Steven McInerney‘s film of the same name – remixed both aurally and visually. The third release on Steven’s Psyché Tropes label, it features exclusive new tracks by Howlround, Dan Hayhurst, Tom White, Merkaba Macabre and Ian Helliwell. 180g Toxic Yellow LP, available now in a limited edition of 275.
The film component has been reworked from 16mm film reels that didn’t make the final cut, resulting in a zero waste film project. The album features two exclusive Howlround tracks, one brand new composition and one outtake from the original sessions.
Our friend Markey Funk stopped off with us for a few days mid September in the middle of his annual Delights tour and played three sets in London – two of which were recorded and posted here for your perusal. His opening set at Further will have to remain in the the memory of those who were there but the next day he graced the decks at the Book & Record Bar for WNBC‘s Out Of The Wood radio show. Made up of tunes from his set vs tunes he’d picked up along the way, it’s 2 hours of treats and he left a bunch of his Delights releases with the shop if you want to pick them up in London.
After a quick dig through the shop and some late lunch we headed to Kings Cross and Spiritland for a 4.5 hr set stretching into the evening. Monday saw us outside Rat Records in Camberwell at opening time and then back off to West Norwood for a proper dig at the BARB, opened specially for Markey on Michael’s day off.
After lunch it was into Soho for a look in Reckless and coffee with Shindig magazine’s Paul Osborne and then back to mine for a breather after the whirlwind three days. It was great to catch up, show him some London spots and play host, our whole reason for doing Further that weekend centered around the fact that Markey was coming to the UK and looking for a London gig.
It’s my turn again to provide a guest mix for the 45 Live radio show, hosted by Greg Belson and featuring only music played from 7″ vinyl. As usual I wanted to stray from the path and have been digging hard to find rare or obscure acid house singles that either I or 45 Live co-founder, Pete Isaac, haven’t played before on our 303-heavy mixes. Pete and I have been collecting acid 45s alongside one another for the last few years now and a healthy competition has developed between us in finding tunes from this tiny niche. But it’s a microscopic playing field, even counting today’s modern acid scene, and only numbers in the hundreds of releases on the 7″ format. It’s heartening to see current labels like BBE and Get On Down finally putting some classic house and acid gems on 45 in recent months to add to this finite corner of the digging world.
My first all-7″ acid mix was for the I Love Acid radio show a couple of years ago, the second for 45 Live last year and for this third outing I’ve spent months finding euro oddities from the 80s to give an authentic period mix – the one exception being the lead track, Mr. Fingers’ ‘Washing Machine’, which was first released in 1986 but not issued on 7″ until 2018. All other tracks featured were released in ’87, ’88 or ’89 with one lone 1990 release (ACR’s ‘Good Together’ which first appeared on a stamped pink label 12″ in ’89). At times I’ve felt like I’m scraping the barrel but there’s always an unexpected gem to be found where you least expect it.
Here’s a few things I’ve learned whilst digging for acid 45s over the years:
Most of them originate in the UK or Europe, there weren’t many US 7″s pressed as it was the longer running 12″ that was the most ideal format. Because the music charted heavily in the UK, record labels pressed 7″s with edited versions of many releases into the early 90s when they were eventually replaced by CD singles around ’92/’93. You can also find a limited supply of rave 45s fairly easily but by the time jungle happened they were a dead format for dance music save for the odd magazine freebie.
In Belgium, Spain, Italy and Germany there was a small industry in copycat cash-in singles feeding off the MARRS ‘Pump Up The Volume’ / Bomb The Bass ‘Beat Dis’ / Coldcut ‘Doctorin’ The House’ / S-express style of cut-up house, often using whatever synths they could find to emulate the Roland TB-303 acid sound. All these singles are peppered with ‘enjoy this trip’ radio announcer-style samples, Run DMC ‘ah yeah’s’ or ‘check this out’s’ and cries of ‘acieeeeeed’ if they were released in ’88. They must have all been sampling from the same sources and, with only a few exceptions, these records are universally awful, have smiley’s on their sleeves and have dated horrendously.
For a short period of time in the late 80s it seemed that any old pop act got an acid makeover – Bros, Bananarama, Yazz, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Army of Lovers, even Sam Fox got into the act (‘Love House’ – the ‘Sulphuric Mix’ is actually passable). There are all sorts of acid mixes hidng on the B-sides of British pop artists, by some of the greats of the house genre – Bam Bam, Adonis, DJ Pierre, Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley and Kevin Saunderson all have some of their earliest major label remixes hidden away on singles by the most unlikely artists. Some of Saunderson’s first remixes were for the Wee Papa Girl Rappers (‘Heat It Up’, ‘We Know It’ and ‘Blow The House Down’ alongside Adonis) and he also serviced Neneh Cherry, Paula Abdul, Sam Fox and Loose Ends.
Bam Bam – of acid classics ‘Where’s Your Child and ‘Give It To Me’ – had his fingers in many pies remixing Coldcut, Yazz, The Shamen (years before their 90s pop success) and most bizarrely, Brass Construction.
Ex-Frankie Goes To Hollywood backing singer, Paul Rutherford, had some of the best acid makeovers for his debut single, ‘Get Real’, produced not by natives of Detroit or Chicago but by Martin Fry and Mark White aka Sheffield’s ABC! Of the three 12″ versions of the single out there the rare nine minute ‘Hardcore’ mix is the best but hardest to find as it was pressed with the ‘Sinister’ mix label and cover and you can only tell a copy by checking the matrix number on the run out groove. I’m betting Hardlfoor heard this mix before writing their huge ‘Acperience’ track years later.
But we’re straying from the subject of the 7″ – typically, few of these remixes made it to the 45 version but occasionally one would turn up on a foreign pressing. There’s an acid version of a worldwide late 80’s hit that exists only on one of two different french pressings that’s so far alluded me, the differences between the versions being so minescule that most sellers simply list the wrong version when it comes up for sale. By 1990 things had died down as the fad had passed in the fast-moving world of dance music and Hip House and the Italo sound replaced the unfashionable acid squiggle and smiley. But it had made its mark, the Madchester scene, Deee-lite and Screamadelica were all products of acid house and the Dutch and Germans sped up the tempo and pushed it into new forms of techno throughout the 90s. I already have nearly enough 45s for a 90s-00s acid mix but this new one is possibly my last word in 80s era cuts save for a handful of singles that I’ve yet to find.
The 45 Live Radio show airs twice a month on a Friday night from dublab in LA but you can catch up from their Mixcloud page or subscribe through iTunes. Much love to DJ Greg Belson for hosting and curating it over the last three years and Pete and Scott for steering the 45 live ship.
Back in May I bought the yellow/orange version of this album direct from Trevor at the Indie Label Market from an edition of 150 copies, now he’s released it fully in a revised edition (the music is the same, just the packaging is new) and it’s debatable which is nicer. The cool, clean white / clear of the new edition nearly had me buying the CD again but I went for the cassette instead. This is the last release on his Pre_ label of archive music solely made by himself over the last 15 odd years and this one is excellent. As of writing there are only 10 copies of the CD left on Bandcamp – be quick
It’s less than a week until the next Further at the Portico Gallery, and i’ve has put a special preview together of the acts playing for the Out Of The Wood radio show on WNBC.London.
The first hour consists of a primer for special guests The Karminsky Experience Inc. and Markey Funk followed by a selection of Boards of Canada – the subject matter for my ‘O Is For Orange’ audio visual performance. Finishing with the kind of eclectic set co-host Pete Williams will be spinning in the last half hour, you get the gist of the sounds going down this Saturday 15th in West Norwood.
Add copious amounts of retina-singeing visuals, the Karminsky’s giving away copies of their new VR glasses (see above) and tasty local food on sale via the Pimento ’62 people (see menu below) and you get the idea about what to expect. Final batch of tickets for Sept 15th available here.
I know I post about Sculpture a lot but I just cannot get my head round how they do some of their stuff – this video has so much work in it that my brain hurts. The comic of the album gets the animated treatment with a couple of tracks from the album including ‘Nite Flight’, my favourite. Listen and buy a copy on cassette or DL here as well as this free remix
We’re really excited to be hosting The Karminsky Experience Inc. for a DJ set at Further on Sept 15th but got even more excited when they revealed that they’d be giving away some of these VR viewers to punters at the gig too. This pair of Cardboard VR glasses, beautifully illustrated by Dry British, lets you view their new 360 degree film to go with ‘See Inside’ from their last LP, ‘Beat’ which they should also have copies of on sale. I’m told this will be the first time you’ll be able to get your hands on these beauties but numbers will be limited.
After extracting and assembling the glasses, you scan the QR code on the side with your phone or find the video on YouTube via the URL they provide – adjust the settings accordingly, press play and pop the phone into the viewer. From then on you’re taken into a Karminsky world whilst the music plays and you look around. Obviously it’s impossible to convey in writing, you really have to experience it first hand. Come along and maybe you can have a Karminsky Experience of your own.
Tickets for Sept 15th w. The Karminsky’s, Markey Funk (Delights), Pete WIlliams and myself are available here.
Seeing as I never got round to posting these at the time (I moved house the week after) and with a new event upon us in a month’s time, here’s a quick look back at the last Further at the Portico Gallery, November 2017 with guests Sculpture and Simon James (The Simonsound). Photos by Martin LeSanto-Smith and myself
Simon James at the Buchla 200e Electric Music Box
Here’s a film of Simon’s performance by his brother, Curtis James
Simon James Buchla 200e performance at Further from Simon James on Vimeo.
The record and merch stall was kindly provided by Michael and Dorian from the local Book & Record Bar
Sculpture at soundcheck and during their performance
Tickets for the next one – Sept 15th, 2018 with myself, Pete WIlliams, The Karminsky Experience Inc. and Markey Funk (Delights) are available here.
This is last week’s news now but I finally found myself in Elephant & Castle underground station this week and went in search of the Aphex Twin adverts that had appeared the previous Monday. Nestling in a corridor near the lifts below the shopping centre end of the station are the two op-art-esque logos, seemingly tiled into the wall although closer inspection reveals a carefully designed paste on advert like any other, just with special attention made to the scale of the tiles being rendered.
It really is a great example of advertising assimilated into its environment and having all the more impact for it, it’s beautifully done, even if whoever pasted it up couldn’t quite be bothered to line the tiles up on the right hand side (see above). Other, similar designs also started popping up in other countries too, follow #3 aka Paul Nicholson, the original logo designer, for pictures and locations.
By now we know that this was advance warning of a new release, the ‘Collapse’ EP, scheduled for release on Warp mid September on vinyl, CD, cassette and limited foil-covered 12″ which intrigues me the most because the French company who used to produce those foil sheets you sometimes see on old record sleeves went out of business about a decade ago. Someone must have found a way to make them again and it’s a custom Aphex logo design rather than a pattern, very interesting…
Anyway – there’s a new video by Weirdcore that references the design above and the various formats can be pre-ordered here. (Beware – really awful website design alert – probably intentional)
With odd timing I’m pulling my Selected Aphex Works AV set out of retirement this weekend for an outing at the Space Theatre in Bangor, N. Ireland so I’m including the new video in the mix and then also playing a bonus club set at The Hop House nearby afterwards.
Further returns to its spiritual home at the Portico Gallery for another night of Light, Sound & Design.
Markey Funk flys in from Jerusalem to present his take on the heavy fuzz and psych sounds coming from his Delights label.
I’ll be bringing my AV ode to Boards of Canada – O Is For Orange – to the big screens with exclusive visual extras.
The Karminsky Experience Inc. grace the decks with their selection of swinging library, soundtrack and beatnik grooves.
And just when you think you’ve heard it all, Pete WIlliams pulls out those special audio treats he’s been hoarding for just this occasion, all accompanied by the sensory overload of the Further slide, oil and video projections.
Delicious food will be available from Pimento ’62 Catering and a fully licensed bar.
Fantastic artwork by Nick Taylor on the new Tomorrow Syndicate album and promo poster. You can get both from the band’s Bandcamp page – the poster is A2 and in the merch section but the album is only available in digital form frustratingly. Much as I love the music Polytechnic Youth are putting out, they don’t make it easy to actually buy it. Small runs are sold via pre-order from their Facebook page with no audio previews and few represses, you have to be quick and, as the label gains popularity, if you’re not on the web when pre-orders go up then you have to chance your luck with mail order from the likes of Monorail or Norman Records. Still, it makes it all the more fun and precious when you do manage to get one. The album’s great and takes in most of their previously released tracks (two 7″s and a VHS) with nods to La Dusseldorf krautrock and Radiophonic Workshop spacey synth madness.
A new-ish book – ‘Unusual Sounds’ – subtitled ‘The Hidden History of Library Music’ by David Hollander tells exactly that via a series of interviews and potted histories of numerous European and North American libraries and their major players. It’s a thick paperback clocking in at over 300 pages and illustrated with hundreds of sleeves in colour as well as photos of master tapes, studio shots and catalogues, ending with a gallery of film posters that contain library cues as their soundtracks.
The final section seems a little pointless and I’d have preferred more pages given to showcasing sleeves from some of the libraries featured earlier in the book (Musique Pour L’Image is given two pages and their beautiful 10″ covers are mentioned but not shown for example). There is some crossover with Jonny Trunk’s ‘The Music Library’ book, as you would expect, but this is a worthy addition to any bookshelf. It’s published by Anthology Editions for $55 and check out their catalogue as there are some pretty interesting titles.
UPDATE: And here’s the show!
Simultaneously (because we’ve pre-recorded the show) I’ll be in Bedminster, Bristol at Upfest, the annual street art paintathon, providing music outdoors to soundtrack the art. There will be food, drink, sunshine if this weather keeps up and it should be a great family day out.
Not only does the next release from Sculpture contain Dan Hayhurst‘s trademark scattershot tape manipulations and noise bursts – housed inside a red cassette this time round – it also comes with a graphic novel, illustrated as usual, by Reuben Sutherland as only he knows how. It’s not all microscopic sound exploration though, standout track, ‘Nite Flite’ comes on like a classic late 80’s house meets early 90’s B12 exploration, complete with 4/4 kick and sci-fi synth pads. Preview a track here
Nearest Neighbour: Graphic Novel/C70 Compact Cassette by Sculpture from Sculpture on Vimeo.
Reuben this time pushes the boundaries of what an abstract comic can be whilst still readable as a sequence of events. Imagine one of his undulating zoetrope/phenakistoscope animations spread out across the pages, subtle changes in repetition and zooms pushing the visual narrative forward with each panel. The mind boggles as to how he lays this stuff all out without the joins showing. The 23 track album is released on 11th August on their Tapebox label as a cassette/download/book. Pre-order it here https://plasticinfinite.bandcamp.com/album/nearest-neighbour
Dig magazine is a new mini magazine that will fit in your pocket (perfect to take to the record shop) full of esoteric info and ones to watch for from a selection of fine DJs. Mr Thing, DJ Format, Mr Krum, Si Spex, Susanslegpolicy and more all spill the beans on a curio from their collection including anecdotes, info and cover images and there’s even a URL at the end so that you can preview said tracks in an online mix. It comes in a neat stickered sleeve that makes it look like a milk crate which the (ironically) CD-sized mag slips inside, waiting to be dug into.
Oh yeah, and some chancer called Strictly Kev has a page in it too, you can order it for £3.50 here…
There’s a new, double vinyl repress of the Jerry Goldsmith score to Logan’s Run just out from Waxworks. This is the expanded score that was released on CD by Film Score Monthly in 2002 boosting the track count from the original’s 12 to 23. The beautiful artwork above is by Martin Ansin who has done many a Mondo poster, see his takes of Alien and Prometheus below. Transmission still have copies in the UK.
The original Logan’s Run theatrical poster with another, possibly fan made, example below.
Another anniversary post, this occasion being three decades ago that Public Enemy released their second LP, ‘It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back’. This post isn’t entirely about that though but about their debut London gig as part of the 87 Def Jam Tour, supporting LL Cool J at the Hammersmith Odeon, the November before. Also on the bill were Eric B & Rakim (notice the spelling below – and the upcoming Bad News live show posters) and the whole thing was being recorded by the BBC for their ‘Fresh Start To The Week’ rap show.
Keen-eared listeners will of course know this from the opening lines of the album, MC’d by Fresh Start… host, Dave Pearce, “Hammersmith Odeon are you ready for the Def Jam Tour? Let me hear you make some noise!”. Parts of the gig were interspersed throughout ‘Nations…’ courtesy of The BBC who had already broadcast it by the time the album dropped the next year. Somewhere in among the hollering and whistling were my friends and I as well as many others I would later go on to meet along the way. But first some context:
This was PE’s first trip to the UK, their debut, ‘Yo, Bum Rush The Show’ had been out a while but they’d also released the iconic ‘Rebel Without A Pause’ on the B-side of their last single, ‘You Gonna Get Yours/Mi Uzi Weighs A Ton’. They were supporting LL Cool J on this trip alongside Eric B & Rakim (who were having their own hits like Paid In Full). PE rose up the ranks with incredible speed though. Their first single, ‘Time Bomb/Public Enemy No.1’ was a real oddity, the album dropped in February ’87 and was even weirder but was released on Def Jam so was given perhaps more time than an unknown. When they dropped ‘You Gonna Get Yours’ with the crazed Terminator X Getaway Mix and ‘Rebel…’ on the B side, it was a done deal.
‘Rebel’ was an instant classic – a summer anthem – and more of the same followed. In the autumn, ‘Bring the Noise’, (from the Less Than Zero soundtrack) proved they could do it again and once ‘Nation’ dropped to unanimous acclaim, they were premiere league. By the time they came back to the UK they were either headlining or co-headlining with Run DMC who were still riding off the back of their world-smashing ‘Raising Hell’ album and easily the biggest rap group in the world apart from the Beastie Boys, who still looked like a novelty at that point. But Run DMC’s star was fading and PE – arguably – replaced them.
Winding back to November ’87, they were still the new kids but they’d put quite a show together to make a good first impression. Before we even entered the venue, the unexpected happened, Chuck and Flav appeared outside – behind a barrier and escorted by S1Ws – and chatted with fans. At first they were hesitant but there was such a clamour that they embraced it for a bit, well, Flav did as you can see below.
That’s me above on the left in the black Kangol hat, what you can’t see is the black body warmer I had on over my leather jacket with a hand-painted Public Enemy stencil logo on the back. This was back before the band even had merch for sale. Chuck was impressed. Below is the concert ticket with a message from Flav scribbled on my train ticket. In hindsight, I think they were perhaps a little overwhelmed at how the UK embraced them on that first tour (remember, ‘Yo, Bum Rush the Show’ was their current record, hence the faded intro on the opening segment on ‘Nation…’). But once the second album dropped, with its BBC recordings and copious thanks to DJs and artists from the UK alongside PE’s US peers, it seems that we made as big an impression as they did.
Public Enemy were on first – the stage was packed, there were air raid sirens and the enormous PE logo. Terminator X flanked by two gun-toting, S1Ws on pedestals either side, Professor Griff stalking in the shadows with Chuck and Flav in bright white, bounding all over the place. It was a full on, high octane experience from start to very quick end (about half an hour I think), a scrappy, stop-start show that didn’t let up, and if it did then the whistle and foghorn posse just filled in the gaps as can be heard on the recording.
Above is the ‘Terminator X!’ moment from ‘Rebel Without A Pause’ which the crowd went absolutely nuts for.
You can see actual footage of the gig on the DVD, ‘The First London Invasion 1987’.
In the middle we had Eric B & Rakim who seemed dwarfed by the huge stage with Eric B largely static, high up on his DJ pedestal and no backdrop graphic, leaving only Rakim to prowl the stage for visual entertainment. I’ve actually cropped more off these photos but wanted to show the enormity of the space they occupied. The sound was poor and Rakim called for more volume a few times.
After this slightly underwhelming middle act it was LL’s turn and at this point he was the bonafide star of the show. At the top of his golden era hip hop peak with his second album, ‘Bigger & Deffer’, out and the forumla-breaking but uneven ‘Walking With a Panther’ yet to come. His intro blew nearly everything before it to pieces. Set in a mocked up Farmer’s Boulevard street scene (his home, referenced on countless numbers of his rhymes), bookended by two DJ booths, a huge, flashing mothership of a boom box descended from the ceiling to the theme tune of ‘2001’ as his DJs, Cut Creator and Bobcat, scratched over the Original Concept’s ‘Can You Feel It’ until the ‘legend in leather’ walked onstage.
Oozing youthful arrogance, you could see why there were a LOT of women in the audience there for him, here was your first young hip hop heartthrob, only just out of his teens. He was in amazing shape too (see bottom photo) and knew exactly how to work the crowd with a choreographed set involving both DJs (Bobcat even played hype man I seem to remember). His one misstep was to do ‘I Need Love’, the soppy, skip-it-please-ballad from the second album, and he was booed mercilessly for it by a large proportion of the crowd from where I was standing, eager to get back to the high-testosterone beats and cuts. At that point, love ballads had no place in hip hop such as this but the joke’s on all of us as LL and Def Jam had seen some sort of future where RnB would slowly blend with rap so as to become one. James Todd Smith can claim to be a pioneer of that scene, for good or bad, (he didn’t do too badly out of it).
