Adrian Sherwood - C/D, S & D?

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.)

In brief: Tackhead/Sherwood were the most "green" band ever as far as over-recycling recordings while keeping their fans happy

Oh I don't think of those as aliases though. I mean I think of most of those as distinct bands. Just cuz they included some of the same personnel doesn't mean that they sounded necessarily sounded the same.

that's a good point. what's an alias on one forum is seen as a distinct group in another forum. that's certainly true in the world of Kingston-based music, where cross pollination of musicians is far more common.

My perspective comes from getting into On-U via the difficult dark-rock/dance back door (Wax Trax!, Mute, etc.) so, for me, having a dozen bands sharing the same personnel were "aliases" to me. On-U releases are also notoriously shy on liner note info... which is what attracted me to the label in the first place i.e these mostly dark, stark album/12" covers with cruddy typewriter type face and nothing much else.

However, I can definitely site direct backing track reissue between On-U aliases though. Then again, that's kinda the definition of a dub version, right? And that happened all the time in Kingston as well as far as sound systems went, so ur same difference. Sherwood has just applied that dub concept but added a whole skullfuckery of spacey noisy "rock" effects as well, hence On-U.

back track "reuse", sorry

hence On-U

indeed.

i got the annie anxiety's first single and album based on this thread's suggestion. that is some truly messed up, wonderful stuff. i can't believe i never heard it before.

weird to see this thread being revived.

after months of denial i caved in, and for the last few days i have listened to nothing but on-u sound.

not only that, but i had completely put to one side the whole little axe stuff.
what a mistake - headphone listened has revealed the albums, paricularly hard grind, to be absolutely fantastic.
the blending of AMS's dub studio methods, and skips love of swampy blues moods really hits the spot when you're working deep into the night.
yes, its a lot more polished than the core on-u style, but i think its a wonderful progression.

oh, and the demos on his daughters myspace prove to me that their is something in the blood - to think last time i heard her voice was backing up lee scratch on one of the old pay it all back compilations back when she must have been about 8 or 9.

so much has been promised for 2010 by the man himself to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the label, but as any fan knows, these things have a habit of not materialising.

missing brazilians is the most fucked up record i've ever heard

i was about to bump this just yesterday, mainly cause i've been obsessing over creation rebel & new age steppers and need to hear more. wish i could find some annie anxiety.

i got told off by a woman on the bus t'other day because i was listening to learning to cope with cowardice too loudly on my headphones. there's a ridiculous amount of treble on that album

i still have yet to fall in love with missing brazilians.
whenever i get in the mood for on-u i head for other stuff.
but yes, i think it could be necessary to dedicate some time for that album

xpost : i blame on-u for my tinnitus. seriously. that stuff is always needed to be heard too loud on headphones.

downloading missing brazilians now... i've been into sherwood/on-u for years, but this thread is certainly spurring me to find more.

yesterday i had a realisation that AMS is the artist whose material i have the most of in the archives (and lets be clear about this for all the input that the rest of the gang put in, it really is all about AMS's production style that makes it all sound so good)

his work outnumbers my other so called favourites by a huge factor.

re : In brief: Tackhead/Sherwood were the most "green" band ever as far as over-recycling recordings while keeping their fans happy

have you seen the site on which a bunch of the hardcore have annotated each of on-u rhythm/production and cross referenced them with other tracks so you can see the interaction between them all ?

http://www.skysaw.org/onu/resources/rhythmdirectory.html

was looking through it last night - one serious work of love.

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.

I finally found a copy of Soul Possession on LP over Xmas, yeah it is so great to hear it in full fidelity.

The 2nd Annie Anxiety album (on One Little Indian) also features a bunch of On-U players.

I have never even heard of Missing Brazilians, will rectify.

Eagerly awaiting the promised new AHC album for the 30th anniversary, but glad to hear mark e's words of caution.

I saw Sherwood at the mixing desk the other day for Lee Scratch Perry + Max Romeo + The Congos. I found myself watching the mixer at work at much as what was happening on stage. not only was his command of millions of knobs and switches impressive (I have trouble with the buttons on my washing machine), he also had some effects that he would band with a drum stick from time to time. Mesmerising.

By the way, I finally bought Action Battlefield by New age Steppers on Saturday, from a shop in Ghent (Belgium) with a huge On-U Sounds section.

watching AMS add his extras to a live show from the mixing desk is indeed special.

dont think i have ever seen a show where the man behind the mixing desk has had such an impact on the music as the various tackhead/mafia gigs that i have been too.

oh to find a shop with a on-u sound section.

those days in the uk are long long gone.

It was indeed amazing. And he was so relaxed it was like he was making a cup of tea.

To digress a bit, on the record shop theme, if you ever find yourself on this side of the channel, 'music mania records' in Ghent is a bit special. And you could do worse than a weekend record-shop trip to Cologne - you can barely move for vinyl there, and it isn't expensive.

missing brazilians is amazing

i, too, downloaded 'warzone' because of this revive- only had the chance to listen once but holy shit is it a cool album. so, yknow, thanks. very much looking forward to hearing 'learning to cope with cowardice' as well.

xpost
Flashback have a U-Sound section!

very much looking forward to hearing 'learning to cope with cowardice' as well.

i actually think the best track is one of the extras that was added to the recent reissue of that album : wrong name and wrong number

pure white noise overload with a rallying cry for the masses 'y'all bastards, bastards'

i have actively seen/heard the track blow out a very nice hi fi system. be careful.

haha yeah I destroyed a pair of speakers once cranking "Anger Is Holy".

hrm. i just looked through the skysaw website that someone linked to up there (it's an sherwood/on-u loveathon) and found i was missing a bunch of stuff. does anyone know if the "wild party sounds" and "disco plates" v/a collections are just samplers, or are they unique in any way? also, i'm completely missing african head charge, london underground, playgroup and deadly headly. any thoughts on any of those? i'm only up through the first 40 or so releases and realize i'm missing 10 or 15 of those albums. what about 12" singles? were those different? this is a fucking can of worms i don't need right now...

african head charge and playgroup are both really great. AHC puts "world" music vocal chants (sampled? i forget) on top of dub rhythms & nyabinghi drumming. obvious influence is the eno/byrne album. "my life in a hole in the ground" vs "my life in the bush of ghosts" etc. playgroup is more a post punk album with sherwoods effects and tribal drumming.

"this is a fucking can of worms i don't need right now..."

its just insane to even try and keep up with it all.
thankfully i never bothered with the vinyl side of the label (bar a couple back in the 80s) as it was just too much.
but picked up most of the cd albums at some point as and when.
missed out on a lot of the reissues on EFA due to the fucking up of the artwork on everything (the superimposed coloured 'M' really pissed me off).
now of course, i feel really fucking stupid, as the reissues are ££££ on amazon, and rarely seen in shops.
so hanging on for AMS to sort out another reissue package ..
ie. just in time for my retirement.

re : disco plates.

these were a series of 10" singles that they released back in the late 80s, and so were all collated for 2 cds at some point.

predom reggae tracks with their associated dub versions.

volume 1 :

1. African Blood - Congo Ashanti Roy
2. Blood Shed - Congo Ashanti Roy
3. Hands And Hearts - Congo Ashanti Roy
4. Revolution - Sherman, Bim
5. Too Much Workload - Sherman, Bim
6. Independent Man - Creation Rebel
7. Creation Rebel - Creation Rebel
8. Murder - Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah
9. Murderation - Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah
10. Stand Firm - Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah
11. Virgin - Prince Far-I
12. Danger - Sherman, Bim

volume 2 :

1. England Cold Pt. I - Undivided Roots
2. England Cold Pt. II - Undivided Roots
3. Move Up - Undivided Roots
4. Breaking Down The Pressure - Ashanti Roy
5. Autobiography - Mikey Dread & Singers & Players
6. What Happened - Dub Syndicate (1)
7. 2001 Love Pt. I - Dub Syndicate (1)
8. 2001 Love Pt. II - Dub Syndicate (1)
9. 93 Struggle - Dub Syndicate (1)
10. Can't Take It Easy - Dub Syndicate (1)
11. Keep You Dancing - Sherman, Bim & Dub Syndicate
12. Can't Stop Jumping - Sherman, Bim & Dub Syndicate

and brilliant of course - if you like the straight up reggae side of the label.

alright, disco plates. so they aren't just collections of already-released stuff then. late 80s though? i see them listed as some of the earliest stuff, as in disco plates vol 1 being the 12th vinyl release. which would place it back in 83 or so at the latest. i love the reggae stuff, but a lot of these titles i know. just want to know if they're different from album versions. i've actually tried to look these up before, but there was no info that would help me out. are you saying (when you say "straight up reggae") that these aren't dubbed? is "dubbed" a verb?

shit, i might have just made an ass of myself. look, between all the different rhythms and titles the man used, i'm getting confused. (nice rhyme) anyway. i guess those two albums are worth getting. at least for half of them.

i'm no collector, but sherwood drive me crazy.

sorry - i cant say if they are diff. to the album versions as dont have that deep an archive.
the cds i have basically have the straight reggae version followed by a more AMS styled dub version.
i suspect they are tracked as per the 10" singles themselves with a-sides followed by the b-sides.
my advise : if you see the cds at a decent price, buy.
simple as that.
if you are not happy with them, then i'll take them off your hands.
[my own copies are skippety-hop degrading cd-rs .. ]

xpost : yeah .. buy em.

ps. when you said 'album versions' i originally assumed you meant the various tracks appearing on other albums as opposed to these collections.

which of course they do all over the place as per the previously linked 'rhythms directory' will confirm.

i think i like the first AHC album best, my life in a hole in the ground. has to be the heaviest fusion of dub and post-punk ever

also, i'm certain the berwick st record exchange still has an on-u section, it's just empty most of the time

i'm chuffed to bits that the newly released (but recorded several years ago) AHC album, vision of a psychedelic africa, is very much in line with the classic songs of praise album.

great news!

I've been listening a lot to Jah Wobble's Molam Dub, and I really like it...one track I can't get enough of is the fourth track, "Lam Bane Xoc"...it's really good...

I wz thinking about getting the first New Age Steppers album, along with Annie Anxiety's Jackamo and African Head Charge's Off the Beaten Track? Are those good ones?

hell yes to all three imo

There are no bad African Head Charge albums.

Found the Missing Brazilians record this weekend and its great, but I think I like the Dub Syndicate album I got Strike The Balance just about as much.

according to new Mojo, AMS is working with Kevin 'the Bug' Martin on a dub version of London Zoo.

could go either way i guess, but i'm hoping for all out sonic immenseness.

of course i wont get my hopes up until the disc is actually in my hands, as the list of on-u related albums i have got excited about only for them to never appear continues to grow (audio active slash-n-mix , mutant hi-fi to name but 2)

Classic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTgp8UtwmSc

^^^ my all time fave on-u track !!

The most hilarious thread ever.

New African Head Charge album streaming http://www.onu-sound.com/african-head-charge/index.html

will be getting that asap.
hopefully this new release is the beginning of a proper 30th anniversary celebration.
a boxset has been promised, but as always for on-u follwers, i suspect that patience will be tested.