Influences: 808 State

This is a good example of music I took an interest in as a child. Anything spacey and ambiguous went with my hobby of Astronomy and of course the ongoing race to the Moon at the time. Looking outward became a theme in music for me. I started messing around with cassettes, guitar, electric violin and bits of old tech my dad would bring home from work.

One of the first and definitely the most influential gigs I attended in the 1970’s was Hawkwind. Space themed, fairly atonal, overwhelmingly loud and trance like. They had electric violin, electric sax, an amazing light show, their own radio phonic workshop and naked dancing. What’s not to like when you’re 14!

Further spacey counter culture with jazzy flavors, synths, tape loops and a sense of fun.
A lot of kids at school had this album as it was 49p when it came out at the dawn of Virgin Records. Faust Tapes was another 49p bargain that shaped our listening. We had a high school band that played Gong songs. We played our first 3 gigs at street parties on Jubilee Day, 1977.

Also in the 70’s I fell for Fellow French cosmonauts MAGMA. They had a darker vibe and used ridged discipline to achieve escape velocity. They still play some 50 years later as if their lives depend on it. Christian Vander plays drums, sings in a made up language and writes the music about relocating from a dying Earth. The music references Stravinsky and John Coltrane. All roads lead to Coltrane.

I started buying Coltrane records on hearing references from Santana albums. The Live at Newport album was the gateway for me. This tune just rinses me out, I mean Julie Andrews is nice but what he does with this innocuous musical ditty is all the way out joy. They should have scraped that whole voyager 10 record and just put a 7 inch of this out as a representation of humanity… end of.

Talking of Joyful Noises… a common figure in Manchester record collections of the 70’s was Sun Ra, due to budget constraints and import bargain bins (also great cover art). So when Sun Ra came to visit MCR in 1982 at the RNCM the place was rammed and ready. I don’t think I will ever experience something quite so musically life affirming ever again. They swung you through the timeline of music like a straw doll, ancient music, cosmic music, next stop New Orleans – final stop Saturn. Sun Ra was a marginal figure in jazz but just look at him rocking this crowd in Japan. His popularity grows and grows despite his death due partly to his huge back catalogue, internet access and the continuous touring of his band under the leadership of Marshall Allen. We were lucky to have Marshall jam with some of us a couple of years back. We also run a band in MCR to play some of Sun Ra’s music.

I had loved Weather Report from early on and I followed them as they changed, I think Zawinul is my favorite when it comes to synths, but he was a colorist before he had the ARP. I love their melodies, art, quite ambiguous, never landing where you think. Wayne Shorter is the best writer on earth and he only sometimes gets a look in, They can be the grooviest, most danciest bands with only monster musicians passing through. Don’t get me wrong I can hate those types of things and fusion, but like anything some people can take it to a high level. I love Jaco, I love his writing – 3 views of a secret is awesome but Alphonso Johnson and Victor Bailey will also make you dance your ass off. The drummers and percussionists are also very specific at times. I love Erskine’s bounce and swing and colorists like Airto and Nana Vasconcelos.

I followed two Weather Report drummers: Manolo Badrena and Alex Acuna to this record by Louie Bellson. I’ve worn out about three copies of this album. Its essentially a load of LA percussionists having a party, what I love is the poly rhythmic grooves. 4 /4 can be a dead end. I started going to the Hacienda back in the 80’s on a Friday because they played Latin and it seemed like the best dance music at the time to me. Acid House played alongside it quite easily. Newbuild our first album has these concepts and density. Emil Richards the vibraphone player has done some amazing solo stuff exploring microtonal music and odd meters. He played with Harry Partch and Don Ellis who explored those themes and appears on thousands of records as a member of The Wrecking Crew and also toured with Sinatra’s small group and George Harrison. Check his biog.

When 808 State came together is was spawned from a bunch of MCR hip-hop crews. I couldn’t say I was from a hip-hop direction but we all shared a commonality in the Street Sounds compilations, more the Electro side of things. Seeing Mantronix in 1987 at the Hacienda seemed like a page turning. Just a drum machine and an MC with a more musical sensibility than some other programmers back then.

Using the technology of hip-hop and fusing it with musicians was something Adrian Sherwood had been exploring at the time. It was unusually Trans Atlantic having members of the Sugar Hill Gang play in the productions. Funk players in a reggae environment
The Tackhead Sound System was a big inspiration in setting up as more of a collective. Using the Mixing Desk as an instrument and playing in outdoor settings. Of course all this had come from Jamaica, playing out with the new technology in a social setting was attractive. So we tried certain experiments in that direction.

We were hearing Acid House not only in the clubs but also from Stu Allen’s radio show in MCR. It was perfect for my tastes: atonal, ambiguous, trance like… alien & outward looking… terribly terribly terribly terribly exciting and still is. The wonkiest practitioners from that period that I bought vinyl off were The Gherkin Jerks which I believe is Mr Fingers under another name.