Adrian Sherwood - C/D, S & D?

WHO THE HELL IS FATS COMET? Is it Doug Wimbish?

fats comet was just a silly made up name that they invented for the character that says 'fats comet' on the records.

'stormy weather' and 'rockchester' rule as does that st. che 12". the crucial tackhead 12"s are 'what's my mission now?' and 'mind at the end of it's tether' (especially for the b-side 'is there a way out). sadly, tackhead COMPLETELY lost it when bernard fowler (peech boys) joined. they rapidly descended into a cock rock parody - truly abysmal.

sherwood was on fire from '85 to around '88 with his electro productions / remixes. check his production for pankow, skinny puppy, kmfdm and especially 'twitch' by ministry and 'major malfuction' by keith le blanc which came out on the same day! maybe a little dated sounding if hearing it for the first time now but when 'twitch' came out, it changed my whole perception of what it was possible to do with sound.

i also saw him doing a live mix for lee 'scratch' perry and dub syndicate live which reduced me to a hysterical wreck. but, thee moment that still haunts me was mark stewart and maffia live. the maffia were doug wimbish, skip macdonald and keith le blanc aka fats comet aka tackhead aka the original sugarhill session band (yup, it's them on 'white lines' and 'the message'). it was like funkadelic jamming with whitehouse with sherwood doing thee most insane live mix imaginable - sounds zapping from speaker to speaker, echoes that went on forever, white noise dissolving into sheer white heat melody. i made the serious mistake of taking acid at this show and at the end i was literally glued to the spot. i could still hear the echoes running riot inside my brain. that event is forever imprinted on my conciousness and intense as it was i would still like to personally thank sherwood for frying my brain.

i haven't really followed sherwood since 1990 or so but he was my god for a while.

on the reggae side of things, ALL the singers and players, the first 4 african head charges, 'pay it back' 1 and 2 (but my god, especially volume 1), the 'wild paarty sounds' comp, everything by new age steppers, the first playgroup record, the first 4 dub syndicates and all the 10" disco plates - all are totally and utterly essential.

nd yes i saw Tackhead .. thrice .. once without Berie - amazing .. and twice with Bernie - not quite as impressive to say the least ..

funnily enough i still run into people who count that show as one of the best they've ever been to!

then again i loved the keith leblanc solo set i saw prior o takhead proper show . so guess that indicates my part of the on-u sound i dug ..

but that was then .. i am wanting to know more re now .. after all the promise (as i have mentioned in this very thread but forgot about ^^^ !!) - where for art thou Mutant Hi Fi/2 Bad Card finished albums ?

suspect the collapse of EFA is a lot to blame .. as On-U were linked up ..

at least this seems to be updated and somewhat relevant ..

BassBruisedRibs! Amaz-zing!

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Oh go ahead, try... guess.

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Still guessing?

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Well, it's obvious! Cleopatra! Aren't you happy now? *swoon*

http://www.vennfestival.com/friday.htm

Jeebus Fecking Crust!!

Can we revive this? I've been listening a bunch to the 2-disc 15 Years In an Open Boat comp, On-U Sound Celebration comp on German Trance and assorted other goodies.

I've always been partial to the non-reggae/dub stuff. I always enjoyed Tackhead Tape Time, really loved the Voice of Authority stuff on Celebration. Most of it doesn't sound "industrial" in the "shitty guitars and bellowing vocals" sense of the word today — more cut-up electro. LeBlanc's work, in particular, is really compelling.

And I'll break with others here -- after years of being told to stay the hell away, I actually enjoy Friendly As a Hand Grenade quite a bit. "Airborne Ranger" is a hoot — kind of a more aggro-Art of Noise.

still waiting for the mutant hi-fi album.

though adrians myspace seems to indicate that the uk are going to be gettiing some new on-u product by end of the year.
i'll believe it when i have the cd in my hands, as these things have a habit of falling apart for us on-u fans.

voice of authority was my first on-u album, it totally blew me away.

at the time, i was all over the more intense side of on-u (tackhead/leblanc etc), whereas these days its the reggae stuff i listen to the most.

I can't find the whole VoA album anywhere -- I only have cuts on the Celebration CD. I'd love to hear the whole thing.

I actually agree about the reggae being more appealing as I get older. At the time, I thought it sounded very same-y -- I'd be damned if I could've been able to tell Dub Syndicate or New Age Steppers apart. But as time has gone on, I hear tunes there a lot more, even in the super dubby stuff. I pulled out Dub Syndicate's One Way System this morning and really enjoyed it.

I still play Staggering Heights by Singers and Players quite often. Bedward The Flying Preacher is among the strangest tracks I know. "He have no wing but he going to fly".

Bedward The Flying Preacher is among the strangest tracks I know

without a doubt my favourite on-u record.
this was on Pay It all Back Volume 1 : track 1 side 2.
my second On-U purchase (99p!)
As soon as I got to that track, I knew me and On-U were in for the long haul.

In order of how much I play them:

Singers & Players
African Head Charge
Creation Rebel
Dub Syndicate
New Age Steppers

I listen to the Disco Plates comps and Pay It All Back somewhere in the middle and I hardly ever pull out the London Underground, Gary Clail or Mark Stewart records (which haven't aged too well.)

I don't know Clail beyond Tackhead Tape Time and "Human Nature" (which is, if nothing else, catchy), but the Tackhead stuff has aged surprisingly well, me thinks. Even with as much cut-up and splice crap that there's been since 1987, the fact that it's a live band underneath (particularly with LeBlanc's shifting rhythms) makes those records stand apart.

They were a very hit or miss act.

I was in the right place, at the right time.

I was fortunate enough to crack open a copy of ON-U LP 01 New Age Steppers "Action Battlefield" in 81 @ the record store I worked at. It was slow, the store was empty, and I saw the name "Ari" on the back. I was a huge Slits & Pop Group fan. Then someone gave me a cassette of "Starship Africa"

About a year later I was a buyer @ Rough Trade SF, so I got the gig ordering On-U and talked to Kishi (Adrian's then wife, On-U graphics lady, future collaborator with Annie Anxiety). I went to London in Summer of 82 and made a beeline for On-U and spent a good part of my time there hanging out with them and Pete from London Underground. Somewhere I have cassettes of stuff Adrian copied for me including earlier versions of the "Learning to Cope" album that are way more straight roots + a vocal version of the Prince Hammer album and I don't know what else. I was also @ some London Underground sessions.

I moved to London from 84-85 and got to be at tons of mostly mix sessions @ Southern including the Yu-Gung remix & some of Kishi tracking for Annie's album, and met Style Scott (doing drum overdubs for Dub Syndicate) and heard stories about Creation Rebel from Adrian & Lizard. Plus some other random later stuff like the Skinny Puppy remix, which was @ Trax in Chicago, and a Clail session w/Dave Harrow.

That period in the 80s was a hugely creative time for him with big advances in production both influenced and hampered by the technology of the time, like John Loder realizing they could use the AMS digital delays as primitive samplers, which gave rise to the repetitive sound bites he used @ the time. Most of those samples were triggered by pressing a button on the front of the unit, but they could be triggered by input signals. "Very Big In America" was composed mostly by Adrian in the studio, using samples off tapes, to fulfill his Cherry Red contract. That's why it sounds really stiff. I'm pretty sure the Depeche remixes were done this way 'cause he told he went to Hansa in Berlin with reels of sounds to do those mixes. I think he had reels with him @ Trax as well.

About the whole later Tackhead thing and Bernard Fowler; it helps to remember that these guys are SESSION players, not a section of the populace known for their aesthetic. I mean Doug Wimbish played with the STONES. Their later live stuff is pretty wanky, Also I'm pretty sure that Keith was never in the Sugarhill crew, he was on the Tommy Boy team. I saw 2 awesome T-head gigs, one @ Camden w/Mark Stewart & one @ the Metro w/Stewart & Clail. Powerful stuff.

Search as follows:

Roots/dub:

Creation Rebel, Singers & Players, Deadly Headley, Bim Sherman "Across the Red Sea", earlier Dub Syndicate, Lee Perry "Time Boom", Doctor Pablo (fake Augustus Pablo album). Also check the Hitrun stuff. http://www.discogs.com/label/Hitrun+Records. That's his old label, with some Creation Rebel & Far-I.

The more "progressive" stuff:

African Head Charge "My Life", Mark Stewart "Learning/Jerusalem", Annie "I Think Of You" 12", New Age Steppers, Bim Sherman "Miracle" (astounding acoustic album that cost so much to make, Adrian had to sell it to Martin Mills). Early Tackhead/Clail.

There're loads of other records that are worth grabbing cheap for the odd track, like the Andy Fairly album, Strange Parcels, Little Roy (I might still have a box of promo CDs of this somewhere).

Annie Anxiety's Soul Possession album is one of my favorite Sherwood productions.

Great post, factcheckr! You sure are right about the "right place at the right time" -- wow! That's interesting to know about the Voice of America stuff -- I actually like that record quite a bit, but your point about AMS digital delays makes a lot of sense.

I'm a little shocked at how little has been written about Adrian and the whole On-U scene. Outside of a great entry in the Spin Alternative Record Guide and a mention in Rip It Up and Start Again, and the spare interview here and there, there isn't much on the web on this stuff at all.

"i'll believe it when i have the cd in my hands, as these things have a habit of falling apart for us on-u fans."

Lee "Scratch" Perrys, The Mighty Upsetter, is solid but relatively straightforward production, Samiah Farahs debut, the many moods of .., is not a proper On-U release, but with Adrian on the mix its got a few tracks of value.

However the real deal is the Harry Beckett collaboration.

Jazz trumpeter Harry Beckett riffs over some On-U productions (some new, some known) and sets in stone a cracking album.

fatcheckr - whoa. I always wondered re VOA album .. many thanks for the insight.

One of my biggest regrets (along with the Nasty Rox Inc., CA$H cd) happens to be seeing a box of ON-U cds in a shop in halifax that had a copy of the Little Roy album.

I always intended to pick it up, but i moved jobs and forgot to go back in my last week there.

Gary Clail "Half Cut For Confidence"

Annie Anxiety's Soul Possession album is one of my favorite Sherwood productions.

been listening to the first african headcharge album alot recently, it's incredible, easily the best post-punk approximation of dub i've heard, and it sounds incredibly fresh.

also really like learning to cope with cowardice by mark stewart, although i made the mistake of listening to it loudly with headphones and almost deafened myself, there is some ridiculous levels of high-range noise on that record.

can we do a s/d of adrian sherwood remixes? somebody already mentioned his mix of "master & servant", his mix of "people are people" (re-titled "are people people?") is also jaw-droppingly amazing and weird. his remix of einsturzende neubauten "yu gung" is cool. tell me more!

and yeah, twitch is a great album

great sherwood remixes -

"masimbabele" - unknown cases
"addiction" - skinny puppy
"here to go" - cabaret voltaire
"don't argue" - cabaret voltaire
"radio morocco' - pulse 8
"enjoy the silence" - depeche mode
"stop this crazy thing" - coldcut
"television" - the beatnigs
"art and madness" - pankow
"gimme more" - pankow
"rip the system" - kmfdm
"girls and boys" - pankow

is his "enjoy the silence" remix the 15 minute quad mix, made alongside tim simenon and holger hiller? i really need to hear that.

it is. the orchestral "strings" mix is also fantastic.

can we do a s/d of adrian sherwood remixes?

echodek.

as you'd expect, i listen to this a lot more than the source material.

i just seen he did a remix of "let's all make a bomb" by heaven 17, love the og, but the remix is from 1998, is it worth tracking down?

he did Shriekback's "Mistah Linn He Dead" and I think another remix of "Hand On My Heart". love 'em!

So has he been doing anything lately?

So has he been doing anything lately?

ummm. yeah. i refer the honourable fastnbulbous to the answer i gave earlier.

ie. production on lee scratch perrys new album (on-u), the new harry beckett album(on-u), and mixing of the samiah farah album.

clearly from these new releases it feels like the man is mellowing, as none of these have the trademark use of noise/distortion, but all have their moments of brilliance.

ok i need more stuff by this guy that sounds like twitch and the depeche mode remixes and less straight up dub/post-punk. please help!

Keith LeBlanc/Tackhead - Major Malfuction

St. Che - "(Be My) Powerstation"

If you don't care as much for actual notes or a constant beat, and just want something really noisy and amazing

Mark Stewart - As The Veneer Of Democracy Starts To Fade

(i think Sherwood co-produced Pretty Hate Machine by NIN?! Or was that just the "Down In It" single?)

Just the single. Flood did most of it.

I went to London in Summer of 82 and made a beeline for On-U and spent a good part of my time there hanging out with them and Pete from London Underground. Somewhere I have cassettes of stuff Adrian copied for me including earlier versions of the "Learning to Cope" album that are way more straight roots + a vocal version of the Prince Hammer album and I don't know what else. I was also @ some London Underground sessions.

wow! especially the roots version of the mark stewart album, would love to hear that for the contrast

I'm a little shocked at how little has been written about Adrian and the whole On-U scene. Outside of a great entry in the Spin Alternative Record Guide and a mention in Rip It Up and Start Again, and the spare interview here and there, there isn't much on the web on this stuff at all.

― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, August 9, 2008 1

I think I recall reading interesting stuff way back in Op and Option that I guess is not online. I still have some of those issues, I think.

This was written about all the time in 80s and 90s zines, but yeah, as curm says, much of it never made it to the web. Honestly, not much of what was written really good or accurate either. It always came from the "Twitch was groovy!" angle. That's a perfectly valid angle, but there were far more.

I admit though that On-U was my bridge to Jamaican/Kingston based music (aside from The Specials, which really doesn't count as much.)

The one question I've always wanted to ask but was never answered was why all the gazillion aliases? Just because? Is it just the same analogous situation where certain dance artists/producers use several aliases as a tradition of sorts?

Didn't realize Sherwood used that many aliases?

Tack>>Head [insert new suffix here]
Fats Comet
Barmy Army
Gary Clail & Soundsystem
(St.) Che
The Maffia
Missing Brazilians
Akabu
The Forehead Brothers

A few of these side projects/aliases each involve someone specific to it (Clail being the obvious example.) But for the most part, all of these have been part of the same family involving Sherwood, LeBlanc, Style Scott, and all of their 1-2 degree frends/musicians. Actual recordings of songs have often been transferred to different aliases for overdubs. (e.g. Mark Stewart's "Dreamers" is basically a Missing Brazilians track distorted and fucked with, add Stewart on top, etc.)

ha, thought you might be interested in that.

he has been promising a excessive psych dub album a la starship africa now for a while.

but as any on-u fan knows, what's rumoured to be released is often very different to what actually is made available.

missing brazilians is amazing. "savanna prance" is seriously one of the most psychedelic things i've ever heard. i like it when sherwood restrains himself, but when he goes all out, he's pretty damn special.

― zingzing, Monday, March 22, 2010 11:49 PM (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink

A month or so ago (right before the world shut down) I bought the second African Head Charge box set and the Dub Syndicate box set. Now I just wish they'd do one for Creation Rebel.

Creation Rebel, and Singers & Players are top of my wish list re boxsets.
was supposed to be at the On-U 40th (!!!) Anniversary AHC gig last night.
been rearranged for March 2021.

Creation Rebel top of mine along with a Hitrun singles comp.

https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/interviews/bonjo-iyabinghi-noah-by-dave-segal

Interview w/ African Head Charge member

Really, Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah IS African Head Charge. Cheers for the link.

ta for the pointer re the interview.
not got the latest AHC boxset as i have all the albums on cd from when they were originally released.
however, i suspect that during the current situation, i will succumb to the lure of the extra tracks, and cd of unreleased bits-n-bobs.

Man, Drastic Season is going down really well right now. I love this era of Sherwood. Almost makes me want to get the first box.

I can’t stop listening to this stuff now that it’s all on Spotify – the Lee Perry/Dub Syndicate/AHC playlists there are all pretty well-curated overviews and a good launching point for dipping into individual albums. Even tho a lot of it is blending into a psychedelic haze, some observations from my quarantine OST:

AHC – Drastic Season, as noted, this hits the spot in a ton of ways. Notably this is Xgau’s favorite.

Gary Clail – End of the Century Party, I’m kind of surprised I’m enjoying this as much as I am but this is a poppish side of the On-U sound yet plenty experimental

Lee Perry/Dub Syndicate – Time Boom X De Devil Dead, maybe a little disappointing? It almost feels like a James Brown record with all the boasting in the first several tracks but any version of Music & Science Madness is worth your time. Allergic to Lie is a great little tune as well. Oddly not on Spotify for some reason.

Barmy Army – The English Disease, kind of a mellower Tackhead with football cheers instead of Maggie Thatcher samples? That’s kind of hilarious.

Flux – Uncarved Block, digging into this now. Took me a second to realize this was a different record from AMM’s The Nameless Uncarved Block. Well, this wasn’t remotely what I was expecting. MBV-style backing vox? Hmm. Def. an unprecedented car crash of influences but I’m not totally sure the singalong choruses over stadium funk workouts entirely work for me.

I'd love to be hearing Time Boom X De Devil Dead and Uncarved Block with fresh ears. Both are totemic albums for me, with Uncarved Block in particular being one I return to again and again over the years. Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah is all over this as much as Sherwood.

I revisit Time Boom a little less but Kiss The Champion remains all time.

i find it hard to pick an AHC fave out of the first phase (the first 4 albums).

Gary Clail and Barmy Army I can't see myself revisiting any time soon though. I loved them then but time has not been so kind, Two Thieves And A Liar and Sharp As A Needle possibly excepted.

this feels rather strange, and makes me feel old.
but many years ago adrians daughter appeared on various on-u tracks as a kid (eg gary clail/magic penny) , and now, tomorrow she is releasing her debut album - 'this road'.
i love the opening d-n-b track featuring LSP, but suspect this is a one off and the rest will be laid back mellow grooves.
that said, of course i will purchase it during bandcamp friday

https://denisesherwood.bandcamp.com/album/this-road

if I were to buy one of the new age steppers reissues, which would be The One?

tough, tough, tough...

the debut.

nice, thanks for the spiritual guidance stirmonster

the new AMS remix album for Spoon makes it 4 non-On-U remix albums yeah ?
the other 3 being Primal Scream (Echodek), Screaming Soul, and Mongrel (a Reverend and the Makers side project).
weirdly, the Screaming Soul remix album seems to have been scrubbed off bandcamp.

https://darkfloor.co.uk/recommended-screaming-soul-ghost-inna-dub-emerging-species/

correction, the screaming soul dub album is still up on bandcamp, just takes some digging to find it :

https://emergingspecies.bandcamp.com/album/ghost-inna-dub

https://www.clashmusic.com/news/mark-stewart-the-pop-group-has-died/

fuck.

the artwork for their new shirts/prints is amazing

https://on-u-sound.myshopify.com/collections/all

New Creation Rebel album - their first in 40 years! - in October.

I interviewed Keith LeBlanc, drummer for Tackhead (and the Sugar Hill Records house band, who played on all your favorite early hip-hop hits).

Interesting. Thanks.

Nice

very sick timing—will link out to you on a post ive been working on