Hertfordshire massive, part 17

Everyone knows about Moving Shadow coming from Stevenage

But I hadn't realized that Ruff Kut! Records was from there

As in The Good 2Bad & Hugly 

Variously spelled - sometimes there's a comma, sometimes it'se "The Good", sometimes it's Hugly and sometimes the Hugly, and sometimes there's an ampersand and sometimes nothing at all

Like The Criminal Minds, the ruff-cut origins are in Britrap

Those are all from Ruff Kut!'s debut release from 1991, which wasn't a single but an album - a sort of scene sampler, mixing MC tracks, street soul, fast breakbeat instrumentals that aren't quite jungle yet, and some bleepy acid-y tunes

On Discogs it says the LP came out of a youth project - "thanks to Prince of Wales Trust"!

Now I think about it - actually I did know Ruff Kut! was from Stevenage. Because that's the label that put out Gappa G and Hyper Hypa's "The Information Centre" - and I discovered not so long ago that GG and HH played on a Hertfordshire pirate, Perception FM, whose existence I couldn't have imagined back in the day (on visits to my hometown to see the family,  it would never occurred to me turn on the radio).  (There was also Pressure FM in Luton). 

But then again Stevenage was an London overflow town, like Hemel and Hatfield - and in that sense a kind of outpost of nuum demographics. In fact it was the U.K.'s very first New Town - albeit having existed in much smaller form for centuries before it. 

However I hadn't realized that Good 2 Bad Hugly was the main driving force behind the label

At a certain point Good 2Bad Hugly reactivated and has been churning out nu-jungle releases including New Town Sound Boy, Vol. 1. 

That record features the track "Never Give In"

https://good2badandhugly.bandcamp.com/track/never-give-in

on which the man behind the alias - Jimmy  Ryan -  muses on what jungle meant to him back in the day... 

Also powerful is "Brush Dem Off" 

Never give in, never give up, indeed - still hurling out EPs, with New Town Sound Boy, Vol 3 out  just this January 

There's also been a bunch of reissues, including Ruff Kut Reissue, Vol. 3, whose cover shows a famous pair of modernist landmarks in Stevenage - the Joyride statue and Clock Tower in the town centre. 

There's some similar but not quite as impressive statues in the New Hemel bit of Hemel Hempstead as it happens

 

Previous posts on the Hertscore Continuum

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Back in the day

G2BH did a track called "Wuthering Heights', sampling you-guessed-it the twittertastic vocals of Home Counties girl Katy B

Well in recent years G2BH went back to the Bush source for "Running Up The Road"

A different twist on 'hardcore' - laced with porno moans

"You Know How To Love Me" is the stone classic but the rest is a very solid body of ruffige 

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Here's a whole interview with Jimmy Ryan of Ruff Kut! and Good 2Bad Hugly at Gone To A Rave

some key snippets: 

"I used to work in a youth centre in Stevenage called Bowes Lyon Centre. From the age of 11 up to 16 or 17 I was there literally every day. I’d gone to the director of the place and asked him if there was anything I could do, and he said, ‘yeah we’ve got a music project going’. The project was to produce an album using all the youth that go to the centre. This first album was called Ruff Kut.

"... There was a group of us who were really into hip hop from an early age. We were all DJs and MCs, we were into stuff like Public Enemy, Rob Base and EZ Rock, all the electro albums. Bowes was a youth club – if you imagine a youth club that every Friday had 500 kids from all over Herts and Beds. It was quite a melting pot of people. For example, we’d have crews from Luton, St Albans, Letchworth, Stevenage, North London, they’d all go to this club. If you ever watched Grange Hill, it was like that, but the music was current. 

"..... Just to give you an inkling of the heritage of the place, Rob Playford from Moving Shadow, and 2 Bad Mice used to go.

".... with what I gained knowledge wise [from doing the album], I went to Princes Trust to start a recording studio, I’d got a bug for the recording side of things. The youth leader at Bowes said, look I know you’re interested in starting up a studio, I’ll let you do it here until you get yourself going. I couldn’t believe it! I got the grant from Princes Trust, then I got approached by two… I’ll call them partners now. They said they were looking to invest in something, and they knew I had a recording studio, so they suggested we start a label." 

"before I’d created what I’d call my first rave track, a guy took me down to a rave club called Milwaukee’s. I walked in and was like, wait a minute, this is me! Hahaha… I’d gone, ‘everything I love about music is here, its getting played right now!’ And that was it. I knew that it was my music, what I wanna do. Literally coming home from Milwaukee’s, I went straight into the studio and produced my first rave track. I think that was You Know How to Love Me – although it gets a bit foggy in my memory…

On The Good 2 Bad and Hugly -

"It was supposed to be like Soul II Soul at the time, people would drop in and out – I was the main person, some people would drop in – for example, when we did PA’s there’d be 5 of us working keyboards and samples, scratching and DJing, and MCing, then we had about 15 dancers. It was all people who used to dance at Bowes, it was just a natural thing, we’d say, oh we’re going to do a rave next week, whose coming?"

The True Oasis (Hertscore Continuum)

Unfortunately they are the Shed Seven of ambient jungle, but below is something of a classic

Oaysis - from St Albans!

Part of the Hertscore Continuum!

Outposts in Stevenage, Hertford itself, Hitchin ... 

Labels like Moving Shadow, Candidate and PM Records.... 

Photek, Source Direct... 

Omni Trio obviously

Nookie is from Hitchin

2 Bad Mice / Kaotic Chemistry....

Chill Records was based out of Luton.... as in early bleep tracks by Original Clique etc

But more strictly in the ardkore to jungle line, Gappa G and Hypa Hypa, from Luton

Who played on a pirate called Perception FM, out of Luton / Hitchin area

As did DJ Concrete 

And to my surprise there were other pirate radio stations in Hertfordshire

Via RollDaBeats forum, ancient post

Mad FM

freq: 90.6

area: Hertfordshire

broadcast out of Hertford town centre

known years running: 1990/1-1993

basic style genre: Oldskool

known dj's: 2 Stoned crew (2 bad mice in disguise), dj lucky, dj active, dj duffy

 

Frequency FM

freq: 101.4fm

area: Hertfordshire

known years running: 1991-1993

basic style genre: Oldskool

known dj's: DJ Legacy (myself), DJ Twist, DJ Nitemare, DJ Donny P, DJ Shiva

Got bust when the aerial got blown down in high winds.

(and this one, shrouded a bit in non-knowledge)

Unknown FM

freq: 108.0 fm

area: Hertfordshire (not 100% though)

known years running : no idea

basic style genre: no idea

known dj's: no idea

And what do you know, just this morning Droid alerts me to this release by Justice and Metro, a mini-LP  titled PRESSURE 101.5 FM-Luton Pirate Memories. 

It's actually from a few years ago and is woven out of old pirate adverts and jingles - info about long-lost record shops and club nights in the Luton and Dunstable area.

"J and M takes us on a journey back to the 90's and compile Pirate radio adverts from their local station Pressure FM. The flip is a track inspired by the sounds being broadcast around the rave era."

Hark at the well spoken voices in the adverts...  big up the bourgeoisie! big shout going out to the  middle class massive!

"Right of admission is reserved - and this is a drug-free zone" - yeah pull the other one, luv!

1. Pressure EZ 03:41

2. 101.5 Skit 01:04

3. Last track from me..... 00:32

4. Soul Sense 00:26

5. Mad Dog Birthday Rave 00:49

6. Soundz Wicked 00:37

7. Gatsby's Hair Dressing 00:32

8. Pressure Zone 00:43

9. Ozone 2 01:15

10. 33 studio 00:38

https://modernurbanjazz.bandcamp.com/album/pressure-1015-fm-luton-pirate-memories

peace of mind piece of memory

one of those early 94, back in the UK (after living in NYC for 18 months) tracks that blew my mind - sounded so fragrant, so spring breezy on the pirates in January, February, March - listening in the kitchen in the Belsize Park flat

"Music Box" = my kind of jazz jungle - sparing

never thought til now to wonder where the sample is from




this one, from the same sort of time, another favorite with a similar vibe, but less chilled - more disjointed - a panicky bliss



but no one seems to know the sample sources

once, after we'd moved back to America,  so later into the Nineties, I was calling up some doctor's office or official building of some sort or other, and got put on hold - and then I heard it, as muzak - the original sample-source as used by Gappa G and Hyper Hypa!!!!  it got played over and over (they kept me waiting a long time)

but there was no way to find out then  - no Shazam

I think the Ron version was the mix that got the play and that I particularly loved but there were many others

Some rate the Bizzy B highly





Hyper Hyper getting remixed by Hype - could be confusing



Think there was some kind of double-pack, two 10-inches in a gatefold job maybe

ah i was right 

i have it but i'm not sure with the pic sleeve

now is this the original or the Ray Keith? (the labels got mixed up apparently)




This (people seem to agree) is the actual original original mix



it's great - only a notch behind the Ron version

And then this...



(there were also a bunch of later remixes i discover, from after the enshitenment of d&b, so with useless skitter beats underneath)

I don't know anything about Gappa G and Hyper Hypa

How interesting!

"DJ/Producers from Luton, UK. Played on Herts pirate radio station Perception FM." 


Luton - not far from where I grew up. Another Hertforshire/hardcorecontinuum connection (Omni in Hatfield, Moving Shadow in Stevenage, Source Direct / Photek in St Albans, others too I think)

Perception FM! Had no idea there was ever a Herts pirate -  I would have stayed up all night secretly at my parents, on visits back to Berko, to tape it, if I had known. 


They did loads of other tunes, Gappa and Hyper

This is the next best after "Information Centre"




But I came in with "Music Box"

What about its remixes?



Is that the only one? It's very subtle. I suppose how could you improve on perfection? (not that this has stopped umpteen remixers in any number of genres I suppose).

I must have got it only on CD (the last track on Drum & Bass Selection 1, that Breakdown comp)  because I have no recollection of its vinyl incarnation with this Krust tune on the flip