Reggae Roots in Techno?

phil.

Well-known member
I impulse bought Vol. 2 of that Soul Jazz Acid House comp. Thankfully the 2nd disc is excellent, because that comic that comes with it is so godawful it's hilarious. I might scan and upload it later but man is it bad. There's really no reason to buy either comp, 'cause Tim Lawrence posted those great liners for Vol. 1 on his website.
Anyways here's Alan Oldham.
I went thru a Mod and Ska phase; I was a 2-Tone rude boy. Me and my friends dressed in long coats, pork-pie hats, penny loafers and skinny ties!
 

version

Well-known member
It's after the fact, but John T. Gast's someone who very consciously combines reggae and techno.



This feels like an earlier incarnation of his sort of thing too.

 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Not an expert at all but strikes me there's probably some crossover between digi-dub (the kind of stuff Shaka plays) and techno. Small runs, white labels, independent distribution, non commercial, for the dancefloor, often anonymous etc
 

qwerty south

no use for a witticism
now that we're making up alternative narratives I'll assert pretend that dub techno was really invented circa 1980 in the UK


The Detonators - Lift Off ( 1980 )

rumoured to be a "The Specials" side project

doom laden outer space themed intro leads into spacey synth trills, almost four to the floor kick drum, gated delay that would do rhythm & sound proud
Lift Off's producer John Collins went on to produce The Specials' legendary 'Ghost Town' single https://testpressing.org/review/the-detonators-lift-off
 

phil.

Well-known member
We have a winner!
and from the world of pop reggae:


Eddy Grant - Time Warp ( 1981 )

pop / disco / reggae / electro crossover ( in retrospect this one was far ahead of its time... although apparently it was played at the Paradise Garage so could have influenced people in Detroit via NYC )

Robert Hood
There was also an artist by the name of Eddy Grant and he did a kind of reggae-electronic stuff. I would say people like Derrick May, Eddy Grant, Telex made me think: 'This is what I want to do, I really want to do this music.'
 

william_kent

Well-known member
We have a winner!


Robert Hood

and more proof:

Kevin Saunderson: We all had the same music-- stuff like Kraftwerk, B-52s, New Order, Depeche Mode, Alexander Robotnik, some Funkadelic, even some Prince, some disco records, Eddy Grant

Kevin Saunderson again:

Who though personally for you where the music artists you grew up listening to?
[KS} : “Yo Dan, nice to hook p with DMC. Well back in the day, the greats – Super Major, Kraftwerk, Chaka Khan, Eddy Grant… just people with amazing lyrics and voices… true inspirations to me from day one.”

i've also seen assertions that the original 1977 vocal version of what ended as the 1981 version of Time Warp was a favourite of canceled disgraced alleged sex pest / alleged r*pist techno pioneer Derrick May but I can't find any proof of this other than maybe a tracklist of a dj set he did in april 2006 where he closed with Eddy Grant's "Living On The Frontline"


Eddy Grant - Nobody's Go(t Time ( 1977 )

1677984263422.png
^ from this website

although "jonathan" on discogs alleges it was "time warp":

1677984340505.png



it may just be me but the original 1977 version of "Nobody's Got Time" reminds me of this Peter Tosh disco reggae crossover tune ( proto piano house approx 5 mins in ? ) that came out the same year and which I feel bears certain similarities due to the female backing vocals


Peter Tosh - Dubbing In Buk-In-Hamm ( 1977 )\

edit: my default reaction when I see someone on a unicycle, and it's invariably a man ( I've never seen a woman on one, why is that? ), is "wanker!" but in this case it is Peter Tosh and I feel like I can make an exception
 

william_kent

Well-known member
because I love this shit, and because I can't be bothered digging out my copy of the Shaun Ryder ghostwritten "autobiography" and then laboriously typing it out here is a paraphrased version of when "Anthony H" Wilson mistakenly sent The Happy Mondays to record their ill received disastrous final album at Eddy Grant's studio in Barbados and then they proceeded to sell the entire contents in order to "rock up"

The Happy Mondays arrived at Eddy Grant’s Blue Wave studio in Barbados with all the right intentions. Late Factory Records manager Tony Wilson felt assured by the optimism going into the recording, only to be informed that within 48 hours of their arrival, that Ryder had started racking up 50 rocks of crack in a day.

Wilson had also made the disastrous decision to give them a hefty per diem, thinking it would go towards the record and, seeing as though drugs weren’t a problem in the Caribbean, they’d have a tough time squandering it. However, once he heard about the spiralling crack problem, he chartered a flight straight over and as his plane was coming into land, he witnessed Ryder and Bez wheeling a sofa down to the street apparently to sell for binge funds.

Sofas were the least of Wilson’s worries, he soon found out that the band had begun selling Grant’s recording equipment and had crafted a makeshift crack den out of sun loungers in his swimming pool (the melon twists trying to even imagine what this means). There might have been no heroin on the island, but as Wilson later remarked: “But no one told us it was Crack City!”

Adding: “The day we pulled the recording because it completely collapsed due to crack, a person from the band was stopped at 1am with the backfire doors of the studio open. He was taking two sofas out of Eddy Grant’s studio to town to sell for crack.”

I've heard of "sex for drugs" barters but sofas for drugs is another level
 

william_kent

Well-known member
it's worth remembering ( at least for me ) that in the UK Eddy Grant had no credibility whatsoever

there used to be a record shop on the second level of the Butts Centre in Reading - I can recall being in there and witnessing a Rasta sucking his teeth and angrily removing an Eddy Grant record from the Reggae section and transplanting it to "pop"

#bloodclaat
 

phil.

Well-known member
and more proof:



Kevin Saunderson again:



i've also seen assertions that the original 1977 vocal version of what ended as the 1981 version of Time Warp was a favourite of canceled disgraced alleged sex pest / alleged r*pist techno pioneer Derrick May but I can't find any proof of this other than maybe a tracklist of a dj set he did in april 2006 where he closed with Eddy Grant's "Living On The Frontline"


Eddy Grant - Nobody's Go(t Time ( 1977 )

View attachment 14471
^ from this website

although "jonathan" on discogs alleges it was "time warp":

View attachment 14472



it may just be me but the original 1977 version of "Nobody's Got Time" reminds me of this Peter Tosh disco reggae crossover tune ( proto piano house approx 5 mins in ? ) that came out the same year and which I feel bears certain similarities due to the female backing vocals


Peter Tosh - Dubbing In Buk-In-Hamm ( 1977 )\

edit: my default reaction when I see someone on a unicycle, and it's invariably a man ( I've never seen a woman on one, why is that? ), is "wanker!" but in this case it is Peter Tosh and I feel like I can make an exception
Nice work as always! Quick search seems to show that Eddy Grant was a favorite of Mickey Mixin' Oliver of the Hot Mix 5, which would certainly explain Derrick & Kevin's affinity for him (+ Kevin's Paradise Garage trips). Here's another anecdote to add to the pile:
as for derrick - the last 4 or 5 times I've seen him he's been alright......after i see him I always pull out my old mixes of him from 87-89 on WJLB detroit radio - when he used to work doubles of eddy grant, into doubles of liasons dangereuses and scratch in 'can u feel it', with lil louis 'music takes me away' mixed over the top followed by Harry thurman's disco classic 'underwater' into Todd Terry's 'can u party'

Funny you should mention Twisting My Melon, I was just skimming it last night trying to find more information about The Mondays' Amsterdam ecstasy connection (trying to test a theory that E production in the Netherlands may have been kickstarted by some Project Coast scientists deciding to return home early from South Africa. Though so far the earliest date I've been able to find for South African E production has been 1989, which doesn't quite cut it) and was cracking up over Julian Cope being a dickhead to them:
In August 1986 we supported Julian Cope at the Boardwalk. What an arsehole. He behaved like such a prick that we promised ourselves that when we became a headline act we would always make sure our support bands cont a decent soundcheck and we would never treat them like Julian Cope treated us that night. He said, 'Who do the think they are, the fucking Undertones?' because we all had anoraks and cagoules on. The cheeky bastard. he fannied about with this stupid microphone stand he had that he could climb on and spin round like a performing monkey for about five hours, which meant we got less than five minutes to soundcheck. We were stood there glaring at him, thinking, 'Come on, you prick, fucking more, or we'll move you!' he was really lucky we didn't batter him.
Another win for the Welsh druid! Blow it out your melon.
 
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