Editor's Idea: March 1997
ISSUE 157, March 1997
Editor: Tony Herrington
Prompted by the experiences of a colleague who has accepted the (as it transpires) thankless task of putting together a compilation which traces the passage of electric funk from its origins in South Bronx block parties to its current manifestation in the music of groups such as The Jedi Knights, I have been revisiting some of my own favourite cuts from the early days of R&B robotics: Davy DMX's "One For The Treble (Fresh)", Tyrone Brunson's "The Smurf", Aleem's "Release Yourself", "Mirda Rock" by Reggie Griffin & Technofunk, Planet Patrol's "Play At Your Own Risk", Hashim's witheringly-titled "Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)", and, of course, "Planet Rock", the unedited 12" mix performed by Afrika Bambaataa and Soul Sonic Force.
In the early 80s, at the time these tracks were originally released, I was living in the North West of England, trying, but mostly failing, to come to terms with strange, perplexing records by the likes of Anthony Braxton and Günter Christmann, which I would purchase out of curiosity after reading equally unfathomable articles written by Richard Cook and Graham Lock for NME. So I can't pretend that listening to Electro now induces the kind of nostalgia for all-day vid-game sessions or suburban bodypopping contests evident on The Jedi Knights' New Skool Science LP.
The emotional investment might be minimal, but despite the intervening years, and the presence of Electro tropes in any number of subsequent dance music microgenres, from Acid House to New Jack Swing, these cuts, squirrelled away in my case on ancient, dusty C60s or residing in the dog-eared, matt-black 12" single sleeves of the Tommy Boy label, can still sound like emissions from the automated pleasure pavilions of Alpha Centauri.
While I can enjoy The Jedi Knights' contemporary Electro on the level of retro-kitsch, ultimately the music feels cliched and calcified, locked into a contemporary vision of Electro as a reductive mix of synth-squelch, vocoder madness and drum-machine dementia. By comparison, a track such as "One For The Treble" is a vortex of open-ended hyperactivity, defined not so much by the now-familiar jackhammer beats but by elements which would eventually be obliterated from the Electro mix: an insistent, flanged bassline that wouldn't sound out of place on a contemporaneous record by A Certain Ratio; a clipped rhythm guitar part that recalls The Blackbyrds' 1978 track "Rock Creek Park".
Ridiculed at the time as a suitably inane soundtrack for directionless inner city black youth, it's sobering to discover the number of early Electro tracks that were made by R&B veterans. Tyrone Brunson was a jazz funk session musician, and "The Smurf" was a dance craze novelty firmly in the tradition of Rufus Thomas. Reggie Griffin was a nephew of the star-crossed jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown, a member of minor league 70s soul group Manchild, and an arranger for the Sugarhill label before he made "Mirda Rock". "Planet Rock" co-producer John Robie worked for the Disconet organization, providing exclusive mixes of R&B hits to clubland DJs; while the Aleem brothers, Tunde-Ra and Taharqa, had played percussion on some of Alan Douglas's posthumous Jimi Hendrix productions: their "Release Yourself" was a particularly bug-eyed combination of dub mixing and gospel catharsis courtesy of vocalist Leroy Burgess.
By the same unlikely token, many Electro classics owed their existence to the kind of seize-the-moment, street-corner hucksterism that had defined the circumstances in which black music in America would develop since the days of minstrelsy, tent-shows, Charlie Patton and Buddy Bolden. Jerry Calliste used to sweep up in the office of the Tommy Boy label until he renamed himself Hashim, grabbed some spare studio time, and armed with one keyboard and a drum machine cut "Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)", the record which would come to define Electro in the 90s. "Play At Your Own Risk", meanwhile, was a tribute to Norman Whitfield's mid-70s psychedelic soul productions for The Temptations, recorded on the hoof by producers Arthur Baker and John Robie using the studio mixing desk tracks left over after they had finished making "Planet Rock".
Such seemingly banal local details are usually sidelined in the rush to proclaim Electro as the sound of tribal Africa, Bambaataa's Zulu Nation, teleported into the cyborg future. But for me, they bring the music to life, contextualize its innovations, open channels through which it can engage with its own deep history. Such knowledge, unfortunately, won't make it any easier for my beleagured colleague to get that compilation finished on time.
Editor: Tony Herrington
Prompted by the experiences of a colleague who has accepted the (as it transpires) thankless task of putting together a compilation which traces the passage of electric funk from its origins in South Bronx block parties to its current manifestation in the music of groups such as The Jedi Knights, I have been revisiting some of my own favourite cuts from the early days of R&B robotics: Davy DMX's "One For The Treble (Fresh)", Tyrone Brunson's "The Smurf", Aleem's "Release Yourself", "Mirda Rock" by Reggie Griffin & Technofunk, Planet Patrol's "Play At Your Own Risk", Hashim's witheringly-titled "Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)", and, of course, "Planet Rock", the unedited 12" mix performed by Afrika Bambaataa and Soul Sonic Force.
In the early 80s, at the time these tracks were originally released, I was living in the North West of England, trying, but mostly failing, to come to terms with strange, perplexing records by the likes of Anthony Braxton and Günter Christmann, which I would purchase out of curiosity after reading equally unfathomable articles written by Richard Cook and Graham Lock for NME. So I can't pretend that listening to Electro now induces the kind of nostalgia for all-day vid-game sessions or suburban bodypopping contests evident on The Jedi Knights' New Skool Science LP.
The emotional investment might be minimal, but despite the intervening years, and the presence of Electro tropes in any number of subsequent dance music microgenres, from Acid House to New Jack Swing, these cuts, squirrelled away in my case on ancient, dusty C60s or residing in the dog-eared, matt-black 12" single sleeves of the Tommy Boy label, can still sound like emissions from the automated pleasure pavilions of Alpha Centauri.
While I can enjoy The Jedi Knights' contemporary Electro on the level of retro-kitsch, ultimately the music feels cliched and calcified, locked into a contemporary vision of Electro as a reductive mix of synth-squelch, vocoder madness and drum-machine dementia. By comparison, a track such as "One For The Treble" is a vortex of open-ended hyperactivity, defined not so much by the now-familiar jackhammer beats but by elements which would eventually be obliterated from the Electro mix: an insistent, flanged bassline that wouldn't sound out of place on a contemporaneous record by A Certain Ratio; a clipped rhythm guitar part that recalls The Blackbyrds' 1978 track "Rock Creek Park".
Ridiculed at the time as a suitably inane soundtrack for directionless inner city black youth, it's sobering to discover the number of early Electro tracks that were made by R&B veterans. Tyrone Brunson was a jazz funk session musician, and "The Smurf" was a dance craze novelty firmly in the tradition of Rufus Thomas. Reggie Griffin was a nephew of the star-crossed jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown, a member of minor league 70s soul group Manchild, and an arranger for the Sugarhill label before he made "Mirda Rock". "Planet Rock" co-producer John Robie worked for the Disconet organization, providing exclusive mixes of R&B hits to clubland DJs; while the Aleem brothers, Tunde-Ra and Taharqa, had played percussion on some of Alan Douglas's posthumous Jimi Hendrix productions: their "Release Yourself" was a particularly bug-eyed combination of dub mixing and gospel catharsis courtesy of vocalist Leroy Burgess.
By the same unlikely token, many Electro classics owed their existence to the kind of seize-the-moment, street-corner hucksterism that had defined the circumstances in which black music in America would develop since the days of minstrelsy, tent-shows, Charlie Patton and Buddy Bolden. Jerry Calliste used to sweep up in the office of the Tommy Boy label until he renamed himself Hashim, grabbed some spare studio time, and armed with one keyboard and a drum machine cut "Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)", the record which would come to define Electro in the 90s. "Play At Your Own Risk", meanwhile, was a tribute to Norman Whitfield's mid-70s psychedelic soul productions for The Temptations, recorded on the hoof by producers Arthur Baker and John Robie using the studio mixing desk tracks left over after they had finished making "Planet Rock".
Such seemingly banal local details are usually sidelined in the rush to proclaim Electro as the sound of tribal Africa, Bambaataa's Zulu Nation, teleported into the cyborg future. But for me, they bring the music to life, contextualize its innovations, open channels through which it can engage with its own deep history. Such knowledge, unfortunately, won't make it any easier for my beleagured colleague to get that compilation finished on time.