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Tip top
‘Ah-deng, Ah-deng, Ah Wagga Deng Deng!’ SL2’s ‘On A Ragga Tip’ was one of the year’s least likely chart smashes. Clavin Bush talked to one half ofthe duo, John Fernandez, but remains just as mystified by the song’s skanking chorus.
‘Ifyou go to a reggae do. you usually get a guy on the mic and a guy playing dub plates on the decks.‘ explains John ‘Lime’ Fernandez. one sympathetic halfof the duo who spent three weeks skanking around at number two in the charts earlier this year while a nation patiently awaited the return to the airwaves of common cliche in old-fashioned English. ‘The guy on the mic would sort of pick lyrics like that quite a bit. just to warm up before he went into his proper lyrics. To anyone who was into reggae or went to anything like that. they‘d know what he was trying to say with that.
Surely not unbeknownst to John and partner Matt ‘Slipmatt‘ Nelson, the great British unreggaefied knew sweet squat diddley about what their MC was trying to tell the world. Nevertheless they went out and bought the record and all its plentiful inevitable copyists by the bandwagon-load. Parochial underground becomes unwitting transglobal overground and what starts with SL2 could well end with them too: a re-released remodified ‘Way In My Brain’ is the duo‘s trad style farewell to an overworked era.
‘We originally wanted to A-side it when we put it out on ‘DJs Take Control‘ (their first single for XL
Records). Now too many people have ventured into this field. it‘s been exhausted so we thought with this reggae thing coming to an end we'd do this and move on.‘
Pragmatism and thriftiness are two of the key words in the SL2 handbook to ensuring their credible underground mutoid Techno sounds remain so. even as they’re scooped up equally by the nation‘s ravers and pop kids. Bedroom mixing. minimal pseudo-Super 8 videos. non-stop nationwide PAs in support and a rational approach to the potential credibility cave-in of a Top ()f'l‘lze Pops appearance that lablemates The Prodigy continue to eschew. "l‘he view we took
was that we were in the charts whether we liked it or not. and 'I'()'l'P is a programme for records in
that chart. So while you‘re in there you might as
well reap the benefits as much as you can. We turned down all those Saturday morning kiddies
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shows. though. and we won’t do Smash Hits or anything like that.‘
And what about those ‘live‘ rave performers?
You won't catch the duo in full ragga-core effect. I'm afraid. as Matt is generally too busy DJing around the country to join his partner on stage. Shouldn‘t they consider rebilling themselves for such purposes as 'SL 1‘ instead?
‘I see what you're saying.‘ confesses John. ‘but
Slipmatt's role in the group is strictly producing the music. And you don't get Stock. Aitken and
Waterman going out on the road with the rest of the groups they’ve produced.‘
Slipmatt as SAW? DJs rather than accountants
taking control? ‘Ah Wagga Deng Deng”? Some 'ting in the way ofmy brain. I guess.
Way In My Brain is out now on XL Recordings and SL2 play Brainstorm, (‘lydebank on Boxing Day
_ The club from hell
Great bores ol today: ‘Yeah, so club culture is this blissed out mind trip, where technology meets melody in a raw voyage oi space and bass, an eternal electronic soundscape through which beautilul people move and groove, high on the potent danceiloor adrenalin that is the new juice oi the underground, the new beat at the street, the dawn ol 3 whole new hedonism, where deep house tribal shamans are hunched overthe decks ; and a thousand pairs oi outstretched
means.
can lind.‘
arms are the strobe-silhouetted salute irom a gyrating dance nation, body-popping to the ceaseless sleek innovation ol young-buck dance commandos with an ear ior “hooj choons” and their linger on the pulse.’ Misery is quite possibly the first post-modern club, whatever that
‘We reler to it as a club tor the 90s,‘ Sven says between mouthluls oi smorgasbord. ‘lt’s a series at alcoholics running a desperately unsuccesiul adventure in a venue that’s probably the most horrible and dirty one in the whole at Edinburgh, with the most loathsome and ugly punters we
: probably just love the anti-club idea (darling), since the style press have told them to. But then, Sven‘s sister
writes iorThe Face. They won’t mind me saying this, since that catch-all Misery concept obeys no rules oi probity.
‘The really worrying thing last week was we put Dire Straits ‘Money For Nothing' on and there was students enjoying it. I had to take it oft-you're not supposed to be enjoying it, you can luck oti. We’re gonna instigate the random throwing out next time.
‘I think we'll snatch deleat irom the jaws oi victory.‘ (Craig McLean)
Said venue is currently The Cooler in Calton Road, but on 21 January Misery is headed torthe hyper-hip Milk Bar in Soho, with their rallying cry going
something like ‘Fans at dullness, let‘s show the nation‘s capital just how sad a club can be.’ London’s clubbers will
Misery, The Cooler, Edinburgh, 26 Dec and 9 Jan. Compilation tapes oi Misery’s lowpoints are available at the club, priced £3.
sponsored by BACARDI RUM
m List 18 December 1992 — 14 January 1993 71