... // the 1984 first meeting in new york between adrian sherwood and keith leblanc was one of the most important events in the history and direction of On-U sound. it saw the birth of radical collaboration between the british producer and three american musicians that continues to this today. tackhead is the vanishing point, the vortex, at the end of many years of formative, experimental collaborations between the innovative british producer and mixologist extraordinaire adrian sherwood and the american trio of musicians: guitarist skip mcdonald, bassist doug wimbish and drummer keith leblanc. wimbish and mcdonald, whose partnership goes back to the mid-70's disco boom first met up with keith in 1979 on the newly-formed sugarhill records.they soon became the label's house band, providing backing for the ground-breaking sugarhill gang (rapper's delight), grandmaster flash (the message) and melle mel (white lines), helping to launch the onslaught of 80's rap. after the demise of sugarhill and drawn-out legal wranglings, the three musicians continued to work on various projects. described by the new york times as, "one of today's most extraordinary rhythm sections", they included recordings for tom silverman's tommy boy label. bop bop 12 inch was fats comet's first release. moving on from the early 80's rap explosion, keith leblanc already released some solo work on tommy boy (maneuvers and uh! on the 1985 masters of the beat compilation; mixing the (now legendary) DMX drumbeats with his own special drum sound). no sell out featured the cut-up raps of civil rights activist malcolm X pitched against the infamous DMX drumbeat, now acknowledged as the first ever sampling record. ahead of its time no sell out, brought him to the attention of london's dub-meister extraordinare and On-U Sound label owner adrian sherwood.
in 1984, while working on a remix of akabu's watch yourself for tommy boy, he met keith leblanc. after a productive meeting, mcdonald and wimbish later joined them in london to begin work on a new project which they christened, fats comet. leblanc's beat, pitched with sherwood's dub methodology, taken it to the limit created a unique media where the heavily distorted sound of mcdonald´s guitar and wimbish's funky bass made things complete. as leblanc summed up: "we started fats comet as a studio experiment. the stuff we considered being "non-commercial" got stuck on adrian sherwood's label and doug wimbish came up with the name tackhead; which is new jersey slang for homeboy."
after releasing a number of 12 inches, including science fiction dancehall classics mind at the end of tether (ON-U DP15) and what's my mission now? (ON-U DP13) tackhead had gained a lot of credits and popularity, especially among those who tied up to the industrial virus. a forthcoming album was inevitable and tackhead released tape time (ON-U LP46), including the newly unearthed talents of gary clail, was bound to be a classic from the day of release. in the meantime, they also found the time to back former pop group main man mark stewart as the maffia; a collaboration which resulted in probably some of the most deranged hip-mutant-funk-metal-dub-hop records ever to be made.
tackhead in the area! became the common chant after the the game 12 inch (ON-U DP17) which featured TV commentator brian moore. the band also started touring, which resulted in the in concert live album, quickly withdrawn soon after release. the friendly as a hand grenade (ON-U LP41) album marked a new direction. they were now joined by fellow american and ex-peech boys vocalist bernard fowler, giving a soulful edge to their beats and making them more accessible to a wider audience. bernard's introduction to the band came through mick jagger who was himself a big tackhead fan. tackhead, now signed to EMI subsidiary SBK, released in 1990 the strange things album which, despite some good tracks turned out to be the band's major malfunction. they were dropped by EMI and the use of the name to promote new material largely dried up. though tackhead as a name has slipped out of use, collaboration between various of its former members continues to this day - such as releases by the strange parcels ("a tackhead re-duction"), the barmy barmy and probably most notably, the acclaimed skip mcdonald-fronted dub-blues releases of little axe.
besides the previously mentioned activities it cannot be forgotten that tackhead's members also continue to play, produce and remix for a wide range of well known artists: e.g. james brown, africa bambaataa, george clinton, seal, bb king, robbie robertson, annie lennox, mick jagger, R.E.M., tina turner, depeche mode, bomb the bass, robert palmer, neneh cherry, malcolm mclaren, ABC - and then we're not even mentioning the numerous releases and formidable productions for the whole On-U Sound posse; dub syndicate, gary clail, bim sherman, jesse rae ... ! tackhead are a vast monumental influence on the music of the eighties and nineties, charming visionaries and story tellers about life, love and lust.
/ adapted from echo beach's tackhead biography found at echobeach.de
... // a brief biography of the drummer responsible for fats comet's tackhead beat via keithleblanc.org: keith leblanc started out as a session drummer with sugarhill records, early 1980’s. he formed the sugarhill house band with fellow americans doug wimbish (bass) and skip ‘little axe’ mcdonald (guitar), working with leading rap artists as the sugarhill gang (rapper’s delight) and grandmaster flash and melle mel on "the message" and "freedom". from his own no sell out, the first ever sampling record, on tommy boy records (1983) to his involvement in creating the sound of funk noise giants tackhead with wimbish, mcdonald and british dub producer adrian sherwood, he has gained recognition as one of the top and most innovative drummers / programmers around.
his landmark album major malfunction (WR005) (considered to be the first tackhead recording, although credited to leblanc solo) was of great influence to a whole generation of musicians. the album, a reaction to the 1986 disaster with space shuttle challenger, started off a whole new genre of industrial music. apart from his work as member of the legendary On-U Sound posse, keith leblanc has continued to experiment with new sounds using his own blanc records as a base from which to release pioneering albums and push musical boundaries even further. apart from that he made a series of sampling CDs for the advanced media group with loads of drum samples and sound effects, free for anyone to use. his writing and production skills have attracted the likes of living colour, peter gabriel, the cure, ministry, and nine inch nails. as a drummer / programmer he has worked with everyone from james brown to trevor horn, seal to R.E.M., the rolling stones, jalal (last poets), the stone roses, robert palmer and bomb the bass. he also produced charles & eddie’s hit record would i lie to you, along with tim simenon of bomb the bass. more recent work includes sessions for Annie Lennox, Tina Turner, Brian Ferry, Sunscreem, Babylon Zoo, Sussan Deyhim, Depeche Mode, Sinéad O’Connor and of course Adrian Sherwood's solo project never trust a hippy?. "KLB" is currently exploring the boundaries of jazz (an early love) with manu ventura's band noah ground.
african head charge's master percussionist bonjo iyabinghi noah is one of On-U Sound's longest-serving musicians and maker of ground-breaking records. steve barker (with additional content from the editor of skysaw) takes a look into his back catalogue: it always seemed that adrian sherwood's future-proof labelling of his early eighties On-U Sound albums, as for example - "another 1992 On-U Sound production", was an affectation at best and mild megalomania at worst. listening back to that work now the at the time young producer's artistic licence can be acknowledged as precociously well founded, especially when applied to the work of the unit known as african head charge.
this virtual band coalesced around the percussion talents of bonjo iyabinghi noah, bonjo to you and me, subsequent to the demise of creation rebel, a real time band who had been subject to the rigours, disciplines and boredom that recording, rehearsing, touring and playing inevitably bring. on the streets in late 1981 my life in a hole in the ground (ON-U LP 13) paid direct, if somewhat disrespectful, tribute to the groundbreaking my life in the bush of ghosts, the collaboration by brian eno and talking head david byrne which had emerged earlier in the year on e.g. records, home of early second-wave ambience. on the one hand eno's "vision of a psychedelic africa" was an elevating concept at the time, but putting it into practice my life in a hole in the ground was to provide the challenge to bonjo and adrian. the "hole in the ground" referred to berry street studios in the city of london, an establishment accessed off-street and down a flight of stairs.
the studios were in possession of particular ambiences and resonances popular with the producer at the time, but also the basic rest and recreational facilities offered little for the late night worker. the my life in a hole in the ground album can now be viewed as an experimental work in that it was a search for a fresh musical template for the then virtual band african head charge. at the time it was made, and certainly more prosaic than the grander sounding term "experimental", it was a case of "what next?", "how about trying this?" or "will this work?". studio time was precious and samplers, even in their most rudimentary form, had not yet arrived in commercial studios. the introduction of pre-captured sound had to be managed by the use of precious channels or the mind-numbingly tedious process of multi-edits. so we find adrian, bonjo and the usual On-U suspects of the time playing with fairly free-form rhythm creation based on the tenets of reggae - drum and bass makes the space.
on this bed bonjo was then free to develop percussion patterns and breaks, whilst contributions from the likes of deadly headley and dr pablo filled in the requirements for colouration. the album environmental studies (ON-U LP 19) was originally released in the UK in september of 1982. apparently the set was so titled because of the producer's vague interest in a school subject of the same name. it was recorded and mixed with the producer being very much influenced by, and wanting to be a part of, that musical avant-garde which was possessed by no country, or even continent, of origin, yet took influences from wherever and whenever it wished. the producer recalls talking to geoff travis of rough trade and david thomas, from the band pere ubu, about water noises and other ambient sounds playing louder than the band. the album's sound could only been have achieved in the studios at berry street. they had an old style reverb plate just waiting to be used and abused - in a king tubby style, a mainly stone-built toilet where adrian stacked big speakers with an auxiliary microphones to obtain the sound of distant drums (sic), and most importantly a bunch of stacked-up free time in which to record some tunes.
the players included benbow on drums, who was in the UK with prince far I after style scott had been seduced by the roots radics, george oban lately of aswad, bruce smith ex-slit and rip rig and panic-er, charlie "eskimo fox", nick plytas previously with roogalator, crucial tony as "fuse", london jazz-player dave wright as "flash", on sax the great deadly headley, and the multi-talented steve beresford who cropped up on so many early On-U affairs particularly with the new age steppers. talking in more recent years to bonjo he had little recollection of the sessions that constituted this and other early AHC albums - none of which he owns in any format. this is not necessarily due to the ingestion of any mind altering substances during that period or since, but more to do with the time that has passed and the music made between then and now.
as bonjo says: "i man just here for the music." the drastic season album (ON-U LP 27) was originally released on vinyl on the 20th of october 1983. like its predecessors it was a largely instrumental affair with little actual dubbing and no detectable vocal samples. however the sound of sherwood's production had become radically different with the move to southern studios, where state of the art digital studio hardware lived in harmony with the hard edged punk ethic of the musicians who inhabited the area by night. the first phase of AHC's development was coming to a logical conclusion, as on their future recorded output we would discover more studio generated ideas and the introduction of more chants and captured vocal and ambient sounds (samples) whilst bonjo conversely emerged as the leader of not only a real band but also a fully-fledged touring outfit. so this set finds head charge very much in mid-stream. bonjo had not yet carved out his niche as the happy-go-lucky king of the ethno-chant so beloved by the festival-goers of UK and europe.
the sound of drastic season is stop-go, at once urgent but searching, wired and speed-fuelled, some would find the listening experience failing to stop short of the psychotic. the band suffered from not conforming to one particular category or another, not reggae or new wave and certainly not new romantic. who would play this on radio? which promoter would take the risk of presenting this stuff in live performance before a crowd of innocent and gullible students? where was this music coming from? the answer was - the mind and fingers of adrian sherwood who regarded the album's studio sessions as ... "... experiments in active frequencies, out of time noises, rhythms within rhythms, and endless tape edits (edits on edits) resulting in the ultimate cut-up and paste job ..." ... which, in retrospect, can be seen as an integral learning experience for the then young producer.
when drastic season was originally released On-U Sound were not in the habit of commissioning sleeve notes for their albums. however, a few sporadic press releases crept out of the On-U bunker, including this one: "a high-tech rhythm mix of human, animal and machine sounds, captured on the southern studios digital rig by the "wackid' mixer adrian sherwood, up in sunny wood green, drastic season features that On-U rugged bass sound. check it if you're a dancer, a listener, a film maker, a computer programmer, a human or an animal. special treats in store for steam locomotive enthusiasts and biologists. you've never heard such sounds in your life (to quote ESP). in the intervening years between the 1986 release of off the beaten track and drastic season, AHC had been moulded into a live blood-pumping band by bonjo, who had truly come out of the shadows where percussion usually resides, fuelled by a righteous desire to occupy that front-of-stage position.
also during that time sherwood had volunteered to be fed through the funk-mangle by messrs. (skip) mcdonald, (doug) wimbish and (keith) leblanc, and had come out the other end more disciplined and focused on what fresh sounds might be possibly be created through the blatant use and abuse of state of the art technology. the result of this "great leap forward" was the first "modern", AHC album - off the beaten track (ON-U LP 40) - which sounded like nothing else around at the time, and whose combination of fat beats and ethnic chants was to provide the template which many lesser lights were to attempt to emulate over the ensuing years. compared to previous efforts the "new" AHC rhythms were less abstract and more direct, with continuous and flowing percussion lines and more managed tempo shifts. the application of loops and samples of increased time duration made all the difference when combined with the more fluid and confident approach of the musicians involved in the build of the tracks.
sherwood shows up once more under his by now redundant guise as the prisoner. skip mcdonald makes an early non-funk entry and the reappearance of jah wobble makes clear his creative commitment to his old friends at On-U. but most remarkably, and making his debut as a recording artist, is the twentieth centuries most radical scientist - the super-cool albert einstein, laying down a sweet rap with the most conscious of lyrics in language and mentality. of course, albert was in the studio in spirit only and the exercise, to my knowledge, has never been repeated. the songs of praise albums title off the beaten track was not just an example of a great piece of wordplay but also incredibly apt as the music was not only a departure for On-U Sound but also a landmark album for what was to become the whole new ethno-beat strand within the commercial category of what we now know as "world music".
the track also led, over the following four years, to the eventual creation of AHC's meisterwerk - the 1990 peerless songs of praise (ON-U LP 50) - a set so complete in its realisation that it provided a peak that the band could not scale again, even though the later, and by most standards excellent, 1993's in pursuit of shashamane land (ON-U LP 65) provided some splendid moments. having gained a taste for being AHC's spiritual leader and spurred-on by his more vocal-based work with noah house of dread, bonjo and On-U went their separate artistic ways in 1994 - bonjo finding greater creative freedom in a number of self-produced sets on either Acid Jazz or his own Bonjo I label. a relocation to ghana also took place after he completed a small beach-side housing compound for himself and his ever-increasing family.
ten years later, revived and now very much a father, bonjo and adrian are once again working together on new material and 2005 should see the first On-U AHC album for over a decade, bonjo returning to london specifically for recording purposes. it is fitting that bonjo has made ghana his home, in an act of self-managed repatriation, as the country accords its musicians due respect and status, especially the masters percussion - of which bonjo is certainly one.
given the nature of especially the early On-U Sound releases, basic rhythms were often re-used, sampled, overdubbed and remixed by the same collective of artists under different names and with variant or completely different titles. this has lead to the On-U catalogue being awash with multiple re-works of the same basic track with little way of associating them.
thus the rhythm directory was born. the first version of the rhythm directory was painstakingly researched and compiled by Richard Davies back in 1992 and together with updates by culf in 1993-4 was once available along with his discographies by FTP - but sadly no longer. this re-incarnation maintains richard and culf's original classification system, brings it more or less up to date and adds further new rhythms i have allocated. my corrections and updates are to a july 1994 paper copy of richard and Culf's original with brand new rhythm additions to it comprising all rhythms above 92 and B39. my thanks go to them both for letting me develop their creation further and for doing much of the hard work on which the information within is based. a rhythm in the context of this directory is given a wide definition in the absence of any other suitable term i can think of. it's taken to mean any underlying pattern within a track that is clearly reproduced in more than one recording. this pattern may be one or a combination of lyrics, tune, drum loop or recurring bassline sequence.
while every track therefore consists of elements on which a rhythm can be based, the rhythm directory deals mainly with those rhythms that have been re-used in such a way that a change in track name and / or mix name and / or artist name has occurred that makes the common link between them non-obvious. that said, this directory is not a completely exhaustive list. in the table header of each rhythm is a column marked version. in this context a version is a distinct recording which contains a rhythm in question. i.e. every edit, remix, dub, re-recording etc etc is considered to be a separate version. generally speaking there are at least two versions of each listed rhythm known. the names for versions i have used are purely of my own derivation and are designed to descriptively differentiate them from each other.
in particular, versions called "original" do not necessarily mean "very first recording", but probably more accurately "suspected first recording of those versions listed". perhaps confusingly, from time-to-time, the name of a version is given as 'version'. when used as a name, version is simply taken to mean variation or difference.
/ taken from the official biography appearing on www.keithleblanc.com, via skysaw.org
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