Part two 1. UK ELECTRO ICA SUMMER 84 2. EQUIP XXXO¹ (UNRELEASED DEMO DEC 83) 3. BROKEN GLASS STYLE OF THE STREET¹ (ORIGINAL DEMO JAN 84)
Thanks for your interest in UK Electro¹, its over 18 years ago now since it was first released and the enclosed CD provides an alternative to the Mastermind-mixed album. For our only live appearance in the summer of 84 I put together a 34-minute tape, over which live keyboards and bass were added for the performance. Broken Glass, then the best-known British break crew also appeared, dancing throughout the UK Electro set. The tape, like the album, was continuous, but much more in context with the experimental nature of the project. Excuse the long sections of just beats; certain parts were kept sparse on purpose for the musicians to fill on the night. Almost two decades on and UK Electro¹ is regarded as a cult-classic by the thriving British Retro-Electro community, many of whom were barely in their teens when the album was released (Street Sounds being the label that introduced so many young people to dance culture in this country). UK Electro¹ was the first record I worked on (as co-writer, co-producer and remixer), and was released in June 84, 6 months after I retired¹ as a club DJ at the end of 1983. Throughout 82 and 83 I was known for the New York Electro I played at my main clubs, Legend in Manchester, Wigan Pier, and later, The Hacienda. This was where the British Electro-Funk scene first flourished. Ten years on from UK Electro¹ I compiled and wrote the sleevenotes for Classic Electro¹ in conjunction with Ian Dewhirst (who devised the outstanding Mastercuts series of high quality club retrospectives). Also on the enclosed CD is the first demo I recorded with my UK Electro collaborators, Martin Jackson and Andy Connell, which we called XXXO¹ by Equip. A further 8-track demo was the original version of Style Of The Street¹, the first ever track to feature rapper Kermit (later of the Ruthless Rap Assassins and Black Grape). I always preferred the demo of Style Of The Street¹ to the final version, which appeared on the album and then on 12². Before the track starts there¹s a snippet of conversation between Mike Shaft and myself (from Piccadilly Radio, who broadcast my mixes in the early 80¹s) referring to the beginnings of Broken Glass in the summer of 83. If you need any further information, e-mail me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Greg Wilson Sept 2002 UK ELECTRO In January 1984, I sat down with Kermit and Fiddz, two of the dancers from Broken Glass, and we wrote the lyrics of a track called Style Of The Street¹. Following the Rock Steady Crew¹s chart success we figured that we might be able to get a deal for a record of our own. Along with Martin Jackson (ex-Magazine drummer) and Andy Connell (the keyboard player from Factory band, A Certain Ratio), we went into a small studio and made a demo of Style Of The Street¹, so I could approach record companies with the idea. One of the people we went to see was Morgan Khan, who I¹d already built up a relationship with during my time as a DJ. In October 83 Morgan had launched his hugely successful Street Sounds Electro¹ series, bringing the music to a mass UK audience for the first time. On hearing Style Of The Street¹ and a couple of other ideas Martin, Andy and I had been working on, he offered us a deal and sent us back into the studio to master the Broken Glass track and record some new ones. Once he¹d heard what we¹d come up with, Morgan told us he wanted to release an album called UK Electro¹, using 6 of our tracks, plus a further track that Mastermind recorded under the name of The Rapologists. To give the illusion of a thriving Electro scene developing in Britain, he asked us think up different artist names (besides Broken Glass, these would be Zer-o, Forevereaction, and Syncbeat). Morgan came up with all the colourful aliases¹ that appeared as the various production and songwriting credits, and the album was rush released in June 84, reaching a highly creditable number 60 on the UK chart. The tracks themselves were diverse and experimental; we¹d pretty much made them up in the studio as we went along. None of the keyboards were sequenced, with Andy, an excellent pianist, playing them all in, incredibly, by hand. My own experience of recording studios was minimal, and now here we were making an Electro album! My naivety no doubt annoyed the hell out of Martin and Andy, and the session became quite stressful as we tried to make sense of each other, but we somehow got through it all. The results, I feel, were interesting but patchy, but the album has its moments and, given the circumstances, I think we did quite well. Style Of The Street¹ sounded like exactly what it was; a first, and not very successful attempt at writing a Pop/Dance song (it sounded much better as a demo, before we¹d over-electrofied it). The Forevereaction tracks were dark and brooding with strange sounding samples, whilst the two versions of Real Time¹ by Zer-o had a funkier edge. The track that received the best response was Music¹ by Syncbeat, which was full of good vibes and could have easily been re-vamped down the line as a House track. The white rock press¹ and style magazines¹ had recently begun to latch onto Electro, no doubt due to the Street Sounds compilations. The Face announced Electro The Beat That Won¹t Be Beaten¹, across a loud bright yellow cover in June 84, just ahead of the release of UK Electro¹, and suddenly we were receiving much interest and acclaim from these unexpected sources. Further to the album, Morgan wanted to release 3 singles, and he hooked us up with New York engineer Craig Bevan (who¹d worked on the B Boys tracks) so we could put some remixes together. I enjoyed working with Craig and learnt a lot from the session. I extensively edited these new mixes together, and hot on the heels of the album, Morgan simultaneously issued 12² singles by Syncbeat, Broken Glass, and Forevereaction on his Streetwave label. Neither made any impact on the chart, Streetwave ultimately not being geared to the singles market. The response, as with the album, was mixed, ranging from love it to hate it. It was too abstract for the breakers and the Soul crowd obviously hated Electro regardless of its origin, so it received little attention in the black press. But some journalists went for it in a big way. Dylan Jones, nowadays editor of GQ and a columnist with The Observer, interviewed Martin, Andy and I for a full page Record Mirror feature entitled ³British Electro Foundations?². He was a big fan of the project, and the following month he reviewed the Syncbeat 12² as the magazines record of the week. He wrote, ³It¹s been lifted and remixed from the UK Electro album, and paves the way for likeminded British artistssimply because it¹s so good it can¹t be ignored². At the end of the year he included UK Electro amongst his highlights of 84. In contrast, Paul Simpson of No 1 magazine regarded Syncbeat as ³too clever too arty by half². Melody Maker and Sounds were particularly (and surprisingly) supportive, with features and reviews. One of the main themes that the journalists picked up on was the novelty of a British DJ (or more precisely, ex-DJ) making rather than playing dance records, for this was something of a rarity back then (despite the fact that legendary Blackpool Mecca DJ, Ian Levine, had been doing this since the mid-70¹s). This only added to the growing tension between Martin and myself, especially when a review in Melody Maker described the project as ³the work of Manchester DJ Greg Wilson and sidekicks². I cringed when I read it, and knew that this would go down like a lead balloon. I obviously had no control over what the journalists wrote, but Martin took umbrage, and would soon decide that he¹d had enough, combining with Andy to create an altogether different type of music, eventually tasting success with the softer tones of Swing Out Sister. It was sad that it had ended this way, I¹d become pretty friendly with Martin before the rot set in and our ego¹s clashed. We ultimately had different agendas, each of us being fairly intense characters who generally wanted our own way. It was my first time working with musicians (as it was their¹s working with a DJ), and very much a learning curve for me, on both a musical and a personal level. Our final fling was at the prestigious ICA in London. Amazingly we¹d been asked to perform on the opening night of the annual Rock Week¹. This would be UK Electro¹s one and only gig¹, featuring Broken Glass and topped off with another London break challenge, this time from a crew called the Zulu Rockers (following on from Sidewalk at Camden Palace the previous December). Lynden Barber summed it up in Melody Maker when he commented; ³Whoever thought of presenting the team at the ICA should be both congratulated for breaking out of the usual rock gig¹ restrictions and castigated for trying to present what is in essence a studio music on stage². At the end of the day UK Electro was an idea ahead of its time, hastily put together, which no sooner had it begun, ended. All in all it was a mad little period! COPYRIGHT GREG WILSON 2002
