Special Request (Labello pt 2 - the samplige)

Ooh Macka Brown sampling the Pirates Anthem

4 Meg Soundboy with some nifty usage of "Can't turn me away" by Sylvia Striplin

Then there's Smokey Joe with a famous vocal lick

The "Special Request" vocal licks are sampled from Shut Up and Dance's "Rest In Peace" - but where did they get them from? 

Those reggae vocal licks recur, alongside JVC Force "Strong Island" riffs, on DJ Double G's UKG classic "Special Request" 

Ah (bit nuum nummy this) DJ Double G turns out to be DJ Gunshot as in No U Turn, making the same shift as No U Turn becoming Turn U On, but not sticking with the label

Real name Gordon Gummer, a veteran deejay on Don FM and Flex FM

a different "special request" occurs in this track - and the "special" recurs passim

A title-becomes-artist-name homage 

More Smokey Joe

Posse and crew

Two of my most cherished 'Mystery Tunes' - 'Do the Right Ting' identified a while ago by a knowledgeable reader, and 'Honey Love' I only just spotted myself

Artist name comes from a Queen Latifah album

But who is Princess of the Posse? Answer to come in a minute 

Now Labello Blanco did some fun things

Also the tune I insist on calling "Sexual Feeling Is Mutual" - as 'slow jam' lyrics go that is some clunky writing

And Labello put out some great things - mostly those involving Rogue Unit

Like this unofficial, only-released-on-a-Jungle-Massive-comp Steve Gurley rmx of  UK R&B micro-star Princess

And this gorgeous dreamy wistful remix

Labello Blanco - wouldyabelieve I only just twigged it's a play on "white label"!

Labello had a bunch of sub-labels including Urban Gorilla, who did this beauty

Did not realize that  Labello was the precursor label to UK Garage stalwart Public Demand (as in Artful Dodger, Steve Gurley, Sticky feat Ms Dynamite etc)

Some serious Nuumy Nuum stuff there, history fans!

There was a 2steppy sublabel called Absolute Corruption

Add that to this long list of Erik Satie "Trois Gymnopedies" rifling tunes

For a second there - in a feat of absolute nuumtinuity - I thought this might be a cover of Goldie's "Kemistry" / "You and Me" - but it seems more inspiration / homage

Labello / Public Demand / etc is-was a tightknit operation clustered around the Low family 

Key figure is Jimmy Low,  who set up Labello in 1990.

Also known as Macka Brown and MC Kann aka Bug Kann (as in Bug Kann & The Plastic Jam, Labello's most successful act with "Made In Two Minutes") (although Macka's "Go Down Baby" was a big tune too)

But there's also younger brother Dave Low and sister Patti Low

Patti is Princess of the Posse - at least it says that "all tracks created by" her, but "all tracks produced by the Plastic Jam"

Which is Grant Bowden, the key non-family member of the operation. 

An interesting distinction - what is the difference between "created" and "produced", in this sort of music? 

Nuum nuuumy alert -  Bowden became the UKG artist Gass,. Named after the UK garage club I  assume. 

Back to Princess of the Posse

The other two tracks on the Pun Project EP are solid ruffige with squeakified raggavox

One of  Grant Bowden's aliases is Payback, as in "Eastenders' and "Dope" 

Huge bass on this tune and nice clangy beat

Monster tectonic rumblizm on this 

I'm guessing Bowden's got the lion share of responsibility for the label's early classic "Made In Two Minutes"

1990 and this is almost ambient jungle ahead of schedule - the main lick is a dreamy, chilled version of the 'rave signal' melody-riff

But it also came out as Reel To Reel?

Now is this the same as the Original Bleep version or slightly different?

The famous incarnation of "Made In Two Minutes" is very UKrappy in the Criminal Minds / Genaside II / Rebel MC mode.  And presumably that's sister Patti cooing over the top. 

And there's raggamuffin bizness at the start (ALLCRU - mouth-mangled it sounds more like ARDKORE) and at points throughout....

Many remixes

Foul Play - a remix by them I missed

And many other versions, including second go's by Gachet and others

And keeping it nuum nuum nuumy here's a coupla UKG remixes from 97

Talking of the UKG era....

It says at Discogss that the younger scion of the Low clan  -  Dave Low - is "the DJ in Artful Dodger"

But this was achieved in an unusual way

In 2001, Hill and Devereux parted ways due to creative differences and the trademark, name and usage rights of Artful Dodger was purchased by Blessed Records.

Capitalising on the significant live demand for the group, the owner of Blessed Records DJ Dave Low accompanied by MC Alistair adopted the name, in essence creating a cover band. They continue to tour under the name Artful Dodger to this day, performing the music of Hill and Devereux frequently in their sets.

Hill and Devereux reunited in 2017 but were unable to release new music or perform under their own name so formed Original Dodger.

I wonder what the market value of the Artful Dodger brand was in 2001-ish?  

They had had a run of Top 10 singles - five of them - and two of those were #2 smashes. 

And they must have done a million remixes.

But as a performance outfit...  how much would someone pay them for that, as the UKG-goes-pop bubble bursts? 

As for Princess of the Posse, it says at Discogs that Patti Low is a

"session singer from Essex, England based in Marbella, Spain.

Now works as a vocal coach and songwriter and performs in an ABBA tribute act."

So both of them ended up in nostalgia acts.... 

A snippet on Labello at 18.30 in this doc

Radio Utopia

People remember the Sixties pirate radio heyday, when the pirates were literally boats at sea.... and they remember the Eighties terrestial tower-block resurgence of reggae and soul and jazz and funk and early rap stations.... and of course they remember the Nineties onwards rave hardcore jungle UK garage grime etc explosion of piracy...

But what about the in-between bits? 

Even after the Labour government (Tony Benn specifically) squashed the pop-crazed offshore pirates in '67, and the big buccaneers accepted "pardons" and joined Radio One as its first roster of deejays.... some people carried on broadcasting outside the law. Via pirate radio scholar Rob Chapman, here's a roundup from May 1971, from an enthusiast's zine called Newsbeat Newsletter. 

Love the fact that a bunch of these are broadcasting from the Home Counties - Hertfordshire, Sussex, Surrey, Berkshire (where the intriguingly named Radio Utopia transmits from, or at least can be picked up in)

(Echo here of my repeated and enormous delight in the fact that Herts was something of a bastion for the Hardcore Continuum. Indeed there was a jungle pirate out of Luton  - Perception FM. Gappa G and Hypa Hypa were involved)

Radio Free Rhubarb feels more like a Home Counties type name than Radio Utopia... I'd like to imagine it was some kind of renegade counterpart to Gardeners Question Time, eccentric views on herbaceous borders and composting, the kind of horticultural heresy that Radio 4 wouldn't allow on the airwaves... but I imagine the name is goofy, perhaps a little Goonsy or Pythonesque. Or just the old slang meaning...

Also intriguing - The Voice of Freedom. A rare example of the political pirate in Britain? I believe there was some kind of right-wing pirate, opposed to the unions - I think this comes up in the Andy Beckett book. And then there were a few short-lived pirates from the other side of the struggle, started during strikes... This is all hazy memory, though. 

Check out Rob Chapman's pirate radio archive - he has recordings of 1960s pirates but also some prime 90s hardcore rave junglism action via a Manchester radio station (not actually a pirate, I'm repeatedly told by someone - it was somehow legal). 

A whole thesis - beautifully illustrated and designed, more like a book - on London Pirate Radio of the Nummy Nuum Nuum era, by Frederik Birket-Smith. Although as this blog post shows, the title should really be Not Just 4 U London.... 

Pirate radio zines and newsletters via Offshore Radio Museum

RIP Max Romeo

 

Romeo reaches rave through this unlikely conduit 

While we're paying tribute to Max, this tune is oddly topical - reusing the "War Inna Babylon" rhythm 

Would love to read something really probing on the Anti-Papacy subcurrents in Rasta 'n' roots culture. 

Given that Rasta is essentially Afro-Protestant - a  Caribbean cousin of the born-again, fundamentalist, Scripture-is-literal-truth offshoots of Calvinism in America - one explanation would be that it is simply sourced in the anti-Catholic paranoia that impregnates Protestantism from the start: the idea that the Church of Rome is an ungodly perversion of true Christianity.  It taps into the same wellsprings that led to the anti-Catholic secret societies in 19th Century and early 20th Century America, the nativist newspapers with their fears of an influx of Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Poland, changing the fundamental make-up of the country. At its extreme edge, there were fevered fears of the Pope arriving at the head of a new Armada to conquer the USA. 

But perhaps there are some uniquely Jamaican ingredients involved.... 

I seem to remember reading that at dancehall events to this day (or at least whenever it was I read the piece) you would get anti-Pope shout-outs from the deejay

Here's another Vatican-themed tune - Lee Perry, no Max - about the Conclave itself

Here's a really sharp piece of writing about Lee Perry - specifically his way with a kick drum, but also his whole sono-spiritual project - by Nick Coleman at his Substack. There's also some great outlandish quotes from Scratch from an interview Nick did some time ago.