Riot Riddum part 1

Roland (L), Bobbylon. Photo: Sonoma Message. Published in Planet, 1991

For the next few weeks, I'm going to be posting material from the Deep Grooves label, a crew of like-minded Aucklanders dropping tunes in the early 1990s, many of whom  I knew back in the day. I want to share some of this great music with you - I'm not gonna try and write the definitive history, just share what I recall of that time, and rope in a few other folk too.

Riot Riddum Sound System (2R2S) was based around my old mates Bobbylon and Roland from Hallelujah Picassos, along with guests on the mic such as Termoana Rapley, Paulette Edwards (ex Strawpeople), Pip (Blue Marbles), Tosh (Semi Lemon Kola), Justin and Twitch. Riot Riddum Sound System started out as a side project for them with both DJing and taking turns on the mike, Roland in his gruff style,  and Bobbylon with his melodious 'singjay' style.

This song marks their recording debut, and was recorded and produced as part of a marathon nine days of recording sessions fronted by Mark Tierney at the desk (trivia - Halleujah Picassos recorded a version of this as a B side for a single, with actor Alan Brough taking lead vocals).

Eight songs ended up on the debut 'Deep Grooves' compilation release from the Deepgrooves label, which, when it started, was three partners - sound engineer Mark Tierney, Bill Latimer (owner of The Lab recording studio, where the sessions took place) and Kane Massey, who eventually took over the label when the other two partners left.



Other acts on the debut compilation were Sound Foundation, Straw People, Rhythm and business (Daniel Barnes and George Hubbard), Jules Issa (covering Dangerous Game, featured in a previous post), DLT meets the Projector (aka Mike Hodgson, later of Pitch Black), Nemesis Dub System, and Love and bass featuring Christine Fuemana.

The compilation is a landmark recording for capturing the incredible hiphop/reggae musical collisions going on in clubs and parties across central Auckland at the time, predating the Welly dub scene by at least a decade. It's vitally important music that for the most part hasn't dated in  the least. And it's sadly out of print.

Deepgrooves

"Aotearoa's foremost indie dance label, Deepgrooves is the musical cross pollination of cultures that comes from the world's largest Polynesian city, Auckland. Reggae, dub, ragga, club, and hard beats from the mind and soul of the fresh crew with the new view - Riot Riddum Sound System, Leaders of Style, The Sound Foundation, Jules Issa and the Mighty Asterix, The Projector."

This is how the Deepgrooves label described itself in  promotional material... (from an ad in Billboard Jan 1992, plugging various NZ labels).

It's a good insight into the minds of the folk behind the label, engineer Mark Tierney, Bill Latimer (owner of The Lab Studio) and Kane Massey, and captures something of the spirit in the music. Auckland central had a bubbling club scene that mixed and mashed styles every weekend - the hiphop and reggae heads all went to the same gigs, cos there was only about 200 people in central Auckland into those genres at that time. New Zealand hiphop was a long way from standing the eff up, it was still learning to walk.

Names like Stylee Crew, Native Bass (later Dam Native), DLT, Stinky Jim, Roger Perry, Teremoana, Slowdeck, Dubhead, Slave and Otis, Tuffy Culture and others, were all jumping on stage and having a good time at warehouse parties across the CBD, and in back yards like behind the Blue Tile Lounge on Symond St. That was the scene that gave rise to the Deepgrooves acts. It was a recorded representation of what was going on musically in the clubs in town.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to be profiling a bunch of Deepgrooves artists and posting up the music so you can hear it, starting today with Riot Riddum Sound System. Enjoy.

Caribou

Just came across this clip of Caribou playing live. Tasty.

More lists

More best of 2010 musical selections - this time from the folk at Conch Records. See below.

Tokimonsta - Midnight Menu (Listen Up)
Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Pt. 2 (Motown)
Chico Mann - Analog Drift (Wax Poetics)
Billy Love - Melloghettomental (Sound Signature)
Gappy Ranks - Put the Stereo On (Greensleeves)
Lord Echo - Melodies (Economy)
Darkstar - North (Hyperdub)
Jose James - Blackmagic (Brownswood)
Mount Kimbie - Crooks & Lovers (Hotflush)
Oriol - Night & Day (Planet Mu)
The Roots - How I Got Over (Def Jam)
Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma (Warp)
Scuba - Triangulation (Hot Flush)
Gil Scott Heron - I’m New Here (XL)
Grooveman Spot - Change Situations (Planet Groove)

Also, Oliver Wang weighs in at Soulsides, with his musical faves, including mentioning Lord Echo (Mike Fabulous of Black Seeds/Fly My Pretties) in his list of favourite singles, for Thinking of you (Sister Sledge cover).


Grant Smithies in the Sunday Star Times dropped his best of list yesterday. His favourite albums from 2010 were the latest releases from Homebrew, Phoenix Foundation, Naked and Famous, Connan Mockasin, Ruby Suns, Street chant, Surf city, Grayson Gilmour, Die die die, Ali Farke Toure and Toumani Diabete, LCD soundsystem, The Fall, and Tame Impala. His local album of the year was from Robert Scott, which he called "warm, gentle and charming... and equal to anything he's done with his more celebrated bands The Bats and The Clean". Smithies named the latest from Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma - as his album of the year. It's an album that didn't grab me first time out and I need to return to it and spend more time with it.

Another album I enjoyed last year (that I forgot to add to my list - doh) was the latest from Caribou - Swim. I only discovered this outfit when I heard they were on the lineup for Splore City (happening in Aotea Square next month - Splore is back out at the beach for 2012). I asked on Twitter what Caribou songs to start with, and some very helpful folk pointed me in the right direction. It's kinda cool when you discover an act (that's new to you), and then find out they've got a bunch of back catalog to dig through.

Dub letters

I scored a copy of the Nuclear Waste 12-inch from Herbs at Real Groovy today. It's got a fantastic dub version that I've never heard of of French Letter (Letter to France), so here it is, freshly digitised for you folk. Google tells me that when French Letter came out as a single in 1982, the B side was this dub version. The radio announcer's credit is Sharon Graham.

Also got a copy of the compilation "We'll do our best", which features Herbs' labelmates Diatribe. Their tune on the compilation is Contamination Blues, listen below.



Also go have a listen to Dangerous Game by Diatribe - I posted it up here, along with the cover version from Deepgrooves artist Jules Issa. Got a ton more Deepgrooves posts coming soon, starting with Riot Riddim Sound System.

Dub Eno

On your last album, on Bowie’s last few albums, and on Kraftwerk’s last two albums, there’s danceable yet advanced music. Do you think about breaking through to the discos?

Oh yeah, I do. What I would really like to do, if I could have a sort of kingship for a short time and organize the group of my dreams - I would make one group which was a combination of, say, Parliament and Kraftwerk - put those two together and say “Make a record.” Something like that would be an extraordinary combination: the weird physical feeling of Parliament, with this strange, rigid, stiff stuff over the top of it ... What I like about the Parliament/ Funkadelic people is that they really go to extremes. There’s nothing moderate about what they do. It’s very extreme music, quite as extreme in some ways as Kraftwerk is. What I’m interested in doing is getting these two extremes and gluing them together, seeing what you have to do to make them work together.

The other thing I’m interested in doing now is robot reggae. I’d like to get together with some reggae musicians and deliberately try to subtract the feel from what they’re doing so that they play in a kind of really stiff white way.

Dub is a step in that direction. Some of it is quite abstract.

That’s right. Again there’s an incredibly extreme and interesting and sophisticated use of electronics that nobody seems to notice. They don’t notice that it’s electronic music. They always focus on people like me who use synthesizers, right, which are explicitly electronic and therefore obvious. “Ah yes, that’s electronic music.” But they don’t realize that so is this concept of actually taking a piece of extant music and literally re-collaging it, taking chunks out and changing the dynamics and creating new rhythmic structures with echo and all that. That’s real electronic music as far as I’m concerned. I’ve got plans to do a dub album actually..."

From "Eno at the edge of rock" by Glenn O'Brien, Interview magazine, June 1978. Full interview is available online here.

Al Green remixed

Gorgeous tune, spotted via Stink Inc. Go grab it.

George Lenton vs Al Green Simply beautiful by georgelenton

Nona Hendryx - Transformation live

Speaking of Nona... I know I've posted this tune before, but this is from an interview and live jam Nona Hendryx did not too many years ago - she plays Transformation on keys, with a bassist and guitarist to help her out. Still damn funky. She's 63 at the time of this clip.

Eno Eno Eno

I'm currently reading On Some Faraway Beach, a biography of Brian Eno by David Sheppard, and have been checking out various out takes from the sessions Eno did in 1980 with Talking Heads for Remain In Light. Eno had spent a lot of time in New York not long before that, getting involved with the No Wave scene and generally having a good time, which was probably pretty easy to find in late 70s NYC.

Anyways, a bunch of the out takes from Remain In Light turned up on the 2005 reissue of that album, with titles like Fela's Riff, and Double Groove, which features Eno singing with David Byrne and Nona Hendryx  - she'd been drafted in to help with vocals by Taking Heads member Jerry Harrison, who'd produced some demos for her. Harrison told Eno biographer Dave Bowman that he "heard a voice in Brian that I never heard beofre. Eno is very English on his solo records. But he was excited about African music. With Hendryx he was able to be careless - carefree, with a passion that would have been wonderful for him to explore".

Ring The Alarm playlist, BaseFM, Sat Jan 1

Mr Scruff - Get a move on
Sly n Robbie - Softcore surge Ashley Beedle remix
Specials - Message to you Bombs edit
Colm K and the freestyle mellowship - Dancing skulls main mix
Lord Echo - Thinking of you
Footsie - Cuss cuss footsie dub
Amadou and Mariam - La realitie
Ely Paperboy Reed and the trueloves - Ace of spades
Sharon Jones and the Dapkings - The reason
Whitefield bros - Safari strut
Junior Murvin - Bad weed
Viceroys - Walkie talkie
Big Youth - Jim screechy (Smith and Mighty mix)
Smith and Mighty - Bi line fi blow
Schoolly D and Joe Delia - The player - Ganja kru remix
LCD sound system - I can change
Liquid liquid - Cavern
Redds and the boys - Put your left hand in the air....
Harlequin fours - Set it off - Walter Gibbons mix
Casino music - The beat goes on
Patato and Totico - Dilo como yo - Antibalas remix
Ariyo astrobeat arkestra - Crosstown traffic
Belleruche - 56% proof
Luciano - Life - Da Lata remix
Fat Freddys Drop - Midnight marauders - Pylonz & Kinetix remix