808 Page #3

I think I must have turned

eighteen and moved to Brighton

and started going to this club

called Sherry's

on a Wednesday night in

Brighton, alternative dance.

These kids came by basically

with a boom box,

and they also had

the fresh BMXs.

For me it was really

a revelation.

It was like futuristic,

but making me dance.

It was something that was very techie,

when we didn't know what techie was

we just knew it was

electrifying.

And we knew that there was

something very us about it.

We heard the music but were like what is that

music, and they were playing 'Planet Rock'.

And we were like what is this, this is?

And someone said it's kind of, sort of

this American thing called

electro or hip-hop.

Instantly we all were like, we

have to find that record.

This is probably the moment

where my brain like clicked,

and I was like, wow, electronic.

'Planet Rock' was definitely one of

those like eureka moments for me.

'Planet Rock' started a

new movement in music.

A movement headed by the 808,

and one that would mark the beginning of

electronic music as we know it today.

Following on from the huge

success of 'Planet Rock',

the 808 became a defining

sound in New York clubs.

New York at the time man, you know every record

had to have an 808 in it, in order for it

to have any sort of success in

the dance floor.

It was at the end of new wave, the

beginning, you know, of, this,

which we used to call hip-hop, now it's

freestyle, and today it's electro.

One of the first tracks to explode after 'Planet

Rock' was 'Hip Hop, Be Bop' by Man Parrish.

I'm not a trained musician. I can't

read or write music, I still can't.

So, I basically learned music

by just experimenting.

But I didn't want

real drum sounds,

I wanted to be Kraftwerk, you

know? That was my influence.

I could be a band and not have to

deal with band members, you know.

This was a way of having a drummer

without having a guy there,

you know the 808.

'Hip Hop, Be Bop' was actually one of

those experimental things that I did.

I didn't have a record deal, it wasn't meant as

anything but just playing around with some rhythms.

I wound up doing a sound track

for a porn movie

and the record label said, "Do

you have any other tracks?"

And I said, "Well I have

this, this and this,"

and they said, "Well,

what's that?"

and I said, "Oh, it's something

experimental I did,

"let's see if we can develop

this into something."

And John Robie came in

put some keyboards on,

it was just basically an open

free form piece of music,

there was no verse, there was no

chorus, there was no structure to it.

We took about six ten-inch, twelve-inch,

reel-to-reel mixes filled sixty minutes each.

The guys from the label stayed home one

weekend, did a bunch of coke and MDA,

edited everything together with razors

and 'Hip Hop, Be Bop' came out.

So when they played it for me they said,

"Well this is going to be the single,"

and I said, "You can't do this, I, you know, this

is embarrassing it's not a real piece of music

"there's no verse, there's no chorus, you

know, everybody is gonna laugh at me."

Back in those days there was no DJ

culture, there was no dub music.

You can't put out music like

this it doesn't exist.

Sure enough they put it out, I hid under a bush,

and later on, you know, it is what it is.

There was a club here in New

York called The Funhouse.

John 'Jellybean' Benitez

was the DJ.

We used to bring acetates

for John to play,

and if the crowd liked the music they

would bark, woof, woof, woof, woof.

So we said, "Right, we need another track for

this thing, let's throw on some dog barking

"because I'm sure they will only play it

in this one little club and they will

"recognize the dog barks."

We were kissing ass and trying to get

our record played at The Funhouse.

Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof

There wouldn't be a freestyle

scene if it wasn't for

'Planet Rock' because that

gave birth to like that

whole scene of melody records,

you know,

R&B and pop records written

on 808 drums.

Those were R&B records,

with 808s.

Alright that sounded amazing.

And the 808 drum machine had to be prominent.

It was like all the other keyboards in

the background, all the other

musical stuff yeah that's cool,

but as long as those drums was

prominent, this record's a smash.

'Play At Your Own Risk' was the record,

when that came on the party got crazy.

That was kind of almost the

first free style records,

I mean if you want to deem

singing over 'Planet Rock',

if you want to just use it

in that layman's terms,

that was Planet Patrol.

Every time I heard that,

"Well, Well, Well,"

it was just, everybody

would run to the floor.

It was really, really

influential, and it

had that sound that you hadn't

heard before.

You might have heard

the beat before, and the beat

a million times after of course

as we know,

but the sound of that record

was definitely unique.

It created a whole

other sub-genre,

one record with a beat

in it, and a feeling

creates a whole other segment.

Slowly rap pulled away from

that 'Planet Rock' sound,

things started to get slower

and freestyle took off.

Where ya at, where ya at,

where ya at, where ya at

The drum sound of 'Let

the Music Play',

the ambient drum sound,

specifically came from me describing

to Mark Liggett and Rod Hui,

"Guys can we have the beat of the record like

this part, listen to this part it goes..."

Your own risk, your own risk

Play at, play at,

play at, play at

Play, play, play at your

own risk, your own risk

I said, "Do you hear that echo in the

beat, boom boom boom boom boom boom,

"can we have that echo through the whole

record?" And they thought I was crazy,

but it was because every time I played

that part it was like whoa this is bad,

this is when the crowd

is going nuts.

And of course you can't have all that decay

throughout the whole record as the kick.

What we ended up doing was

doing that but then gating it,

that's how that sound

came to birth.

With someone else

We started dancing and love

put us into a groove

But now he's with

somebody new

When I heard that sound back as a

full song when I was driving home

I don't know why but I was just like tearing up.

I was like this is awesome,

I guess it because it

was my first song.

You could have sang Cracker

Jacks over it.

Let the music play,

he won't get away

Just keep the groove and then he'll

come back to you again, let it play

Let the music play

he won't get away

This groove he can't ignore, he

won't leave you anymore, no, no, no

I think the first freestyle

records that got me into it,

obviously because I was coming from a

hip hop background was George Simms.

Because that... And Shannon.

That was like my intro because

it was cool it was like oh

I can breakdance to this or I

can dance with a girl.

You know, that's kinda like, it was

like oh, it was serious R&B. You know.

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