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PREVIEW
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I Boogie down productions
Flushed with the success of promoting recent gigs by Gil Scott-Heron, David A-Yamoah explains to Craig McLean how he can attract such diverse attractions as The James Taylor Quartet, Nu Colours, Robbie Gordon and Norman Jay to Edinburgh on a Tuesday night.
Think big. ‘What I wanted to put on was the biggest thing of this kind in Scotland. I’ve always ' had this ambition to have a big party which has all i the big, big bands and the big DJ 5 from down south : coming up to Edinburgh to do this thing . . .’ I
Think broad. ‘It’s an appreciation of all things | good. We’re not just a nation of house kids — much as I love house — other musics like funk, jazz, ; swingbeat, rap, hip hop, whatever the genres, all i get an equal show in clubs, and I think that’s important.’
Think burn baby, burn. ‘We will, when we come up, burn the place down. Trust me on that.’
Think Blue ‘n’ Boogie, a most vital and vibesome clubfest beamed down to get down with a dancefloor vengeance at Edinburgh’s Network (or the Cavendish to give it its high-falutin’ pip-pip new name). First of all, on the ground floor,
Nu Colours i there’s the fried funk of Robbie Gordon — the Acid I Jazz producer and player of bass in Gil
Scott-Heron’s band, here supplemented by members of Galliano. Then move upstairs to hear Nu Colours synchronised heavenly harmonies,
bracketed by Femi and Marco, aka The Young
Disciples, doing star turns with new jack swing on the decks.
Then back downstairs for the uppity jazz funk of The James Taylor Quartet. Meanwhile, the third
. floor is Norman Jay’s territory. Here the Talkin’
Loud majordomo, Kiss FM presenter, and globally renowned jock will be spinning rare
groove bliss and tasters from upcoming Talkin’ Loud releases.
Phew. A line-up that any London club would scrabble to host. Architect of such ‘Big’ thinking is David A-Yamoah, saddled with an ambition to
add epic VFM to Edinburgh’s club culture. So far
this year this has meant bringing Gil Scott-Heron to the Assembly Rooms; mounting the second Shika Bail, featuring Zulu Syndicate, Makossa, DC Ellis and 1000 punters raising funds for famine relief in Africa; and hosting the first Blue ‘n’ Boogie back in February, with Botany 5 and the Zulus.
‘That wasn’t really the idea,’ says A-Yamoah of the sheer fecundity of styles on offer. ‘It just happened that way. Initially, it was gonna be an acid jazz/rare groove thing. The other bands I wanted were things like Mother Earth and D-Influence but they couldn’t make it. So then I said to myself, gospel would go down well . . .’
Hence the ‘Burn’. ‘At the end of the day it’s the voices, that’s what we are. Nu Colours are the voices, that’s the whole pulse of the thing,’ says the group’s Laurence Thomson. Already Nu Colours have shaken up the dancefloor with their premium cover of Frankie Knuckles’ ‘Tears’. More discreetly, they’ve provided fulsome backing vocals for everyone from Paul MacCartney to Primal Scream. The London group offer a quintet of confluent vocals, a six-strong band, a live show bristling with zip and zeal, and a starry fusion of R&B, funk, soul and socially aware lyrics — such is the Nu Colours performance experience.
‘Coming from a gospel background, we’re very much geared towards actually doing a : performance . . . Whether you’re a Christian or not, you don’t come to the show and think you’re i gonna be preached at. We feel that we can do
enough talking with our music and people can g come along just for the music alone and say, 1 “Wow, that was really great, I felt really uplifted ! just listening to that”.’ 9 For jazzateers and grooveaholics, funkateers I and soulaholics, this is one cool, catch-all club I concept. If you dance yourself dizzy you can blame : it on the (Blue ‘n’) Boogie. Tee hee. Blue ‘n’ Boogie at The Cavendish on Tuesday 24. ; See listings for details.
_ Egg-o trip
In 1987, God, the Roland 303 has machine and a handful of techno-fried studio bods begat a stark, squelchy, sense-scrambling sound they called ‘Acid House’. By 1988, the disco inferno was raging; bandanas and smiley faces were everywhere; and you couldn't cross a dance-floor without being set about by crazed span-mold robo-leptic acid ieik(er)s.
Five years on, the sounds, though thankfully not the trappings, oi acid are stalking back. And the home oithe re-evolutlon Is not Chicago, New York or London. lt's Edinburgh, home to one-time art weirdo foursome, now mondo bizarre onesome, Ege Bam Yasi, aka the incessantly individual Mr
! Eso- I
Ege Bam Yasi with ‘chrome-domed
‘As long as I can remember, l’ve been into doing acid music,’ says the chrome-domed maverick, ‘It went right over the top of my head the first time round. lwasn’t even aware that there
maverick’, Mr Egg
was a huge explosion of the stuff down south. But the amount of acid we've heard in the last three months of our travels has just been off its head.’ After a brief period of infamy in the mid-80s when the four members of EBY were given to donning biack blnliners and PVC suits, when ‘people talked more about the visuals than the music’, there then followed the ‘Iost egg years’ - continuous changes in personnel and clashes over their musical direction drove Mr Egg to go it alone at the start of the 90s. A successful European tour supporting fellow home-town house converts, Finitrlbe, led to three event-hard singles on Belgian label, Groove Kissing. So, when Food subsidiary, IT was looking for new releases to fit in with Its acid revivailst policy, it was no surprise that they opted for ‘Bubbles’ from the recent ‘Acid Indigestion Pt 2’ EP. What is considerany more incredulous is that
! EBY still have no firm recording deal. Mr Egg reckons he knows why.
‘if good reviews and write-ups were record company offers, we’d be doing really well now. The problem is, we don’t use guitars, we don’t use techno pianos and we don't have hair. it you've got any of those in your music the chances are someone’s gonna look at you and listen.’
Nevertheless, plans are already afoot for a future release on TAB, the label currently being initiated by those techno-gods from the Pure club, while occasional, but scorching, EBY shows around the country are bringing the eggs-centric one’s updated version of acid house home to roost. Keep on cluckin’, might, I believe, be the appropriate chant. (Calvin Bush)
Ege Bam Yasl support Finitrlbe at The Music Box, Edinburgh on Thurs 26 and ‘Bubbles-The Remixes’ is released by IT on 7 Dec.
sponsored by BACARDI RUM
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62 The List 20 November — 3 December 1992