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A Guy Called Gerald is the stage name for musician, record producer and DJ Gerald Simpson. He has proven to be among the most innovative modern electronic music figures to emerge during the 1980s.
He is perhaps best known for his early work in the Manchester acid house scene in the late 1980s and the track "Voodoo Ray". At that time, he specialised in techno music produced using equipment such as the Roland TB-303 bass machine and the TR-808 drum machine (he sourced much of his equipment from Johnny Roadhouse, a second-hand music shop on Oxford Road in Manchester).
Early influences and music
Simpson was heavily influenced by his Jamaican roots; his father's blue-beat, ska and Trojan reggae record collection, his mother's pentecostal church sessions and the Jamaican Sound system (DJ) parties in Manchester's Moss Side area where he grew up.
He absorbed jazz fusion at clubs like Legends in Manchester where the dancefloor in the early 1980s inspired him to study contemporary dance. Around 1983 with electro booming and early hip hop, Breakdancing and b-boy culture making its way from the US, he left dance college to immerse himself in electronic music. At this time music from Detroit and Chicago - from producers such as Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson was being played by Stu Allen on Piccadilly Radio and imported directly into Manchester's specialist record shops.
Inspired, Gerald began experimenting with tape editing and drum machines and the regular jams in the attic of his house led to forming the Scratchbeat Masters. Using cut up beats, samples and turntables they would challenge other crews and their sound systems. They released a 12" single called "Wax On The Melt", a collaboration between a number of crews and Graham Massey and Martin Price together with whom he would later form 808 State. Their first album Newbuild was released in 1988 but he soon left the group to concentrate on his solo work.
Success and Releases
The result of heading back into his bedroom studio was "Voodoo Ray", played first at the infamous Hacienda in 1988 and then the underground clubs and entering the UK charts a year later. It was one of the first acid house tracks produced in the UK. This was a time when musicians believed they needed to be signed to a major record company to have a hit but without the backing of the major label marketing machine and spurred on by the acid house fever sweeping the club scene, "Voodoo Ray" entered the charts in 1989.
At the same time a track he'd started before leaving 808 State, "Pacific State". was released and hit the charts. However, according to Simpson, they had finished and released the track without Simpson's permission. Although Simpson was credited on its first release on the album Quadrastate both as a writer and co-producer, the dispute escalated as Simpson claimed to have written the entire track. The dispute was eventually settled out of court.
In 1991 after a mismatched partnership with CBS / Sony producing one album, Automanikk he started his own label, Juicebox Records, releasing a string of pioneering 12" singles - the seeds of what became known as jungle and later drum and bass. The first singles were compiled and released on his landmark (and very rare) third album 28 Gun Bad Boy (1992).
During the next five years as jungle rose in popularity and expanded well beyond its UK roots, Simpson continued to release music on Juicebox and crafted his next album, Black Secret Technology (1995). It is cited as one of the first single-artist drum and bass albums and was very well received.
In 1997 he moved to New York and in 2000 released Essence on the independent label, !K7 Records. Essence was Simpson's first song-based rather than dance/club album featuring guests such as Louise Rhodes, David Simpson, Lady Kier and Wendy Page.
In January 2005 he released To All Things What They Need on !K7 Records.
His next album, due out August 2006, is called Proto Acid - The Berlin Sessions and will be released on Laboratory Instinct.
Selected discography
- 'Voodoo Ray' Rham Records 1988
- 'Hot Lemonade' Rham Records 1988
- 'Automanikk' CBS/Sony 1990
- 'Hi Life, Low Profile' CBS/Sony 1990 (Unreleased)
- '28 Gun Bad Boy' Juicebox Records 1992
- 'Black Secret Technology' Juicebox Records 1995
- 'The John Peel Sessions - A Guy Called Gerald' Strange Fruit 1999
- 'Cryogenix' MP3.com 1999 (Unavailable)
- 'Essence' !K7 Records 2000
- 'To All Things What They Need' !K7 Records 2005
- 'Proto Acid - The Berlin Sessions' Laboratory Instinct 2006
Born Jaime Meline, El-Producto or El-P (El-P is short for Lyrical Punisher) is an underground hip hop producer and rapper from New York City.
History
As a member of Company Flow, on the Rawkus Records label, he honed his production skills alongside DJ Mr. Len and Bigg Jus. His unique style helped Company Flow gain critical, then popular success, culminating in 1997 with Funcrusher Plus. Eventual differences between the group and Rawkus lead to El-P and Len leaving Rawkus in 2000. El-P then decided to start his own record label, Definitive Jux. Of the many albums he has helped produce (most on Definitive Jux), the most influential and successful has been Cannibal Ox's only full-length album, The Cold Vein (2001). El-P has also contributed productions and guest raps to albums by DJ Krush, Aesop Rock, Murs, Cage, Mr. Lif, Prefuse 73, Del the Funky Homosapien, Mike Ladd, The High and Mighty, Aceyalone, and Alec Empire on the first Handsome Boy Modeling School album. Cannibal Ox member Vordul Mega can be heard on Linda Tripp El-P's cruel response to Sole's Dear Elpee. He was also selected to work on Rage Against the Machine frontman Zach de la Rocha's solo album. El-P also provided the soundtrack for the graffiti film Bomb the System.
Style
As a rapper, El-P's style can be characterized by his dense, aggressive, and verbose attacks, which include notable use of metaphor, science fiction and fantasy themes and references, and associative word play. Regardless of this sophistication, he does not eschew traditional hip hop subject matter, a description which would fit equally well several of his colleagues. His impact as a producer owes to his innovative mix of bleak futurism and low fidelity sounds. This sound is influenced by Public Enemy's production team, The Bomb Squad. El-P is a great fan of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, and many of Dick's themes—paranoia, the nature of reality—feature in El-P's work.
El-P has worked with free jazz pianist Matthew Shipp, a fan of El-P's music. In an interview with Shipp, Meline stated:
First and foremost, I wanted to do it because it scared the shit out of me ... And when I get offered the chance to be involved with something that scares me, I usually do it, because I'm trying to learn, I'm trying to understand music as much as I can, to become a better musician in general and work in different capacities.El-P has done some work as a DJ. In November 2004, he spun alongside Peanut Butter Wolf, owner of Stones Throw Records at a small club named Sonotheque in Chicago. Also, in the summer of 2005, at the Intonation Festival hosted by Pitchfork Media El-P did a short DJ set alongside Yo La Tengo member James McNew, both denizens of the same apartment complex in Brooklyn. El-P is not considered to be a gifted turntablist however his broad knowledge of music and personality make his sets enjoyable.
Comments
yeah, man, thanx a lot! music is the most important for me. i would be already dead without it. one love
Did you check "Collecting the Kid". It's mostly instrumentals (Elstrumentals?) and is just as rock and electro as hip hop. I brought it expecting some solo El brilliance but the more I listen to it the more I dig it. I'm getting into Shipp's work as well (through DJ Spooky) and I think this came out around the time of their collaborations.
Roots Manuva (born Rodney Smith in Stockwell, South London, 1972) is a rapper.
Biography
Manuva grew up around Stockwell in South London. His parents were from a small village in Jamaica called Banana Hole where his father was a preacher and tailor. Spending much of his early years in poverty, this and his strict Pentecostal upbringing clearly had an influence on his music as can be seen in many of his tracks such as "Sinny Sin Sins" and "Colossal Insight".
A quote from Smith himself sums up his early discovery of music: “I was a kid. Before I even knew what a soundsystem was. I was walking past Stockwell skateboard park and there was this sound being set up. They were probably just trying out their speakers. I was with my mum, holding my mum’s hand. And I remember my mum being quite intimidated by the whole affair. Such a barrage of bass coming from it! And these dodgy-looking blokes standing beside it just admiring the sound of their bass. It’s just a bass thing. A volume thing. I don’t know if I rose-tint the memories, but I remember it sounded so good, so rich. It’s not like today when we go to clubs and it hurts. It was more of a life-giving bass.”
Smith made his recorded debut in 1994 as part of IQ Procedure through Suburban Base’s short-lived hip hop imprint Bluntly Speaking Vinyl. He debuted as Roots Manuva the same year on Blak Twang’s “Queen’s Head” single, before releasing his own single, “Next Type of Motion” the following year through the same label, the hugely influential Sound of Money. 1996 saw the release of his collaborations with Skitz (“Where My Mind Is At”/“Blessed Be The Manner”) on 23 Skidoo’s Ronin label. The release of “Feva” on Tony Vegas’s Wayward imprint followed in 1997. This was also the year that saw the first releases from Big Dada, a collaboration between Coldcut’s Ninja Tune label and hip hop journalist Will Ashon.
Releasing for Coldcut's renowned experimental/hip-hop label Ninja Tune in 1998, some of his music may be seen as a predecessor of grime. The following year he released his fearsome debut album, Brand New Second Hand. A reference to his family's modest lifestyle as a phrase his mother used for presents he often got as a youngster that were pre-used. He had such an impact on the UK rap scene that The Times declared that “his is the voice of urban Britain, encompassing dub, ragga, funk and hip hop as it sweeps from crumbling street corners to ganja-filled dancehalls, setting gritty narratives against all manner of warped beats.” Manuva was rewarded for his breakthrough with a MOBO as Best Hip Hop Act that year.
The lyrics of his songs are usually known to take a distinctly British edge, with many critics highlighting his references of eating cheese on toast and drinking bitter as examples of this. His warm and easily recognizable voice can be heard on many songs he performed with other artists such as Chali 2na (of Jurassic 5 & Ozomatli), DJ Shadow, U.N.K.L.E., Nightmares on Wax, The Cinematic Orchestra, Beth Orton and Leftfield. He also made an appearance on the Gorillaz latest album, Demon Days, lending his distinctive vocals to the track, All Alone.
Trivia
- Roots Manuva's "Witness the Fitness" track was parodied by MC Pitman and renamed; "Witness the Pitness".
- Roots Manuva produces much of his own music, under his own name and also under the pseudonyms Lord Gosh and Hylton Smythe.
MOG Meter
Comments
Cool stuff -- did you write it yourself, or is it from a website?
top secret! ;)
Dude, just sayin' -- acknowledge your source. There are a bunch of published music writers on Mog, and we tend to be sensitive when people take our work and present it without attribution.