Skip McDonald, Doug Wimbish, and Keith LeBlanc were living in Hartford, Connecticut in 1976, and their band Wood Brass & Steel was signed to one of Joe Robinson’s Platinum Records, one of his many small labels. When Joe’s son introduced him and wife Sylvia to a new sound getting noticed in clubs in and around New York City. Joe and Sylvia decided to start another label, focused on the Djs and MCs who were defining what became the B-Boy, Graffiti culture.
Most B-Boys relied on cutting and scratching records on side-by-side turntables, but Joe and Sylvia wanted their new Sugarhill records to feature a band. They went to Wood Brass & Steel to find what they were looking for. Skip (guitar), Doug (bass), and Keith (drums) would make up Hip-Hop’s Original Rhythm Section, and they and the Robinson’s had their eyes set on New York City, Uptown in Harlem.
MUSICAL MEMORY: “The first gig with the Sugarhill Gang … Harlem World … That was pretty deep.”
The Trio did find an appreciative audience across the George Washington Bridge (The GW), from the Sugar Hill studio in New Jersey, uptown to Harlem and the Bronx, and into the streets and parks of all of NYC’s five Boroughs.
Before Sugar Hill, Skip, Keith, and Doug played in a band called Wood, Brass & Steel. Doug (Wimbish), the bassist, wrote “Funkanova,” a tune that made it onto every big-city Dj’s playlist. The The Roxy, Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage, David Mancuso’s Loft, and Steve Rubell’s most popular and celebrity notorious Studio 54 created a pop social culture that made royalty of John Travolta, The Bee Gees, and Saturday Night Fever.
The Golden Record “Johnny B. Goode” ((( Chuck Berry)))
Contact Opening
Voyagers “Contact” Carl Sagan’s “Cosmic Message In A Bottle.”
When considering The Sounds of Earth, Carl Sagan chose Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” to represent “modern” music to any extraterrestrial being who might come upon The Golden Record.
1977 — Carl Sagan unveiling the Golden Record, and announcing the launch of Voyager at Wolfie’s Hotel on Cocoa Beach.
Saturday Night Fever WKRP (“Animals”) Gary Sandy and Lonnie Anderson visit TODAY. Pink Floyd (Tampa Stadium) THE WHO w/ Labelle (Jacksonville) w/ Montrose (Miami Baseball Stadium) Mayport sailors, hash, sinsemilla, dancing with Nona Hendryx, and the benefits of mushroom tea. (Purple Blend) Outlaws (Orlando) Cocoa Beach The Thirsty Turtle Fat Chance Band Jonathan’s Pub Brassy’s (Rare Earth) BCC (Blue Oyster Cult)
ORLANDO (CHURCH STREET) Pat Travers @ The Great Southern Music Hall
One Week on Church Street Billy Cobham Sea Level Spyro Gyra Valentines Fusion Clarinetist “Hotcakes” Arthritis Social (2005) Mofro
WORJ Stormbringer Imaginary Voyage Blow by Blow Teaser Come Taste the Band Whitesnake Malice In Wonderland
DEEP DOWN IN FLORIDA — Tom Petty, Linda Ronstadt, and Jimmy Buffett all made appearances in FM, the “music” movie of the day (1978). Within the next three years, all would play legendary shows in Gainesville, Florida, at the University of Florida. (Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Outlaws …)
“Summer In The City” Ray Gomez Volume 1980 — ((( fusion is what? )))
John Zorn / wee gee
They Only Come Out At Night
“Take A Walk On The Wild Side” — Tack>>Head (2009) New York City rehearsal for a show supporting Bernard Fowler’s solo release of “New York Time,” a video for the song that closed his 2007 album, Friends with Privileges.
“Scary Man” — Bernard sings on the vocal version of Doug Wimbish’s “Scary Man.” Described as a James Bond Theme-style orchestration, featured on his 2008 album, CinemaSonics.
“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” Larry Levan Opportunities were eclectic and many for a talented young musician, coming of age in New York City, at the turn of the 1980s. In the beginning, Bernard was interested in exploring it all, hoping to finding the road to Rock N Roll success. ((( mixup in clubland)))
Hollywood’s depiction of the B-Boy Culture that had surfaced in the parks and abandoned buildings in and around New York City’s Five Burroughs.
FREE TO THE PUBLIC — After being created, under the cover of night, Graffiti painted subway cars became a moving exhibit of art. Trains running across the five New York City Boroughs. Fine, Vivid Art, in the Sunlight, or a criminal act of vandalism. (StyleWars)
This girl was wearing winter underwear with a black leather coat on top of that, and she had a paper bag with a bottle of vodka in it … She was screaming about Thorazine and being in a mental hospital, and“IT WAS REAL!”
— FRANK ZAPPA After seeing Little Annie Bandez, onstage, at Max’s Kansas City. For New York City’s thriving art community in the late 1970s, Max’s was the nightclub of choice. The place for Musicians, Dancers, Actors, Painters, Poets. Artists of all persuasions, including Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe.
“Bless Those” Little Annie w/ Tack>>Head (((openminded)))
dave.
Next Holy Trinity Joe Satriani (Surfing With The Aliens) Living Colour (Vivid) Guns N Roses (Appetite for Destruction) Steel Wheels (1989) Lollapalooza
“Young Americans” Taking Mick for a Ride. 1988 — Mick Jagger
The Brothers of Sodom w/ Joe Satriani (The Extremist),Doug Wimbish, Simon Phillips, Jimmy Rip, Susie Davis, Tina Turner (TOKYO/ AUSTRALIA). They called it Mick’s “solo” career, but the three years after Keith and Mick announced the end of The Rolling Stones in 1985, represented a short was more a wild ride but we know now, that it was actually just a little longer than usual argument between Mick and Keith. At the time, the Rolling Stones were preparing for their Steel Wheels (reunion) Tour, and most media was saying Mick’s “solo” career had been unsuccessful, and that was made the reunion possible. Of course they weren’t listening. For those who were looking, they saw Mick pushed back in his seat, as a group of Young Americans took him on the most Wild, E-Ticket Rides.
“Cult of Personality” Living Colur Vivid 1988 — ((( next level )))
dave.
Kick Ass Rock N Roll November 16, 1989 — It was the day before my birthday when I saw the Rolling Stones in the Miami Orange Bowl, one show in their 1989 North American Tour. I was fortunate enough to be sitting in the second row. From there, as the band broke into “Honky Tonk Woman,” I was surprised looking up to see two roadies, high up in the scaffolding on both sides of the large stage. Soon, two enormous inflatable dolls rose 40 feet into the South Florida night sky, and began to writhe slowly to the honky tonk groove. From a distance, I’m sure it appeared that the “women” were being moved by the tropical breeze, but in actuality, it was the two roadies, with their backs to the crowd, hidden behind the dolls, kicking each in their inflatable ass.
Tack>>Head (left-right) Adrian Sherwood, Skip McDonald, Bernard Fowler, Keith LeBlanc, Doug Wimbish. Tack>>Head, at a studio on a farm just outside of Chicago, taking a break in the middle of the 2004 reunion tour.
Most Tack>>Head album and record covers feature an image of The Statue of Liberty , reminding us that despite all the English influence, Tack>>Head, despite all the English influence, Tack>>Head is, and always has been an American band. Reinforcing the fact, in 2009 the band covered James Brown’s “Funky President,” including Keith sampling Barack Obama’s First Inaugural Address. Twenty years earlier, in a similar way, Keith used Malcolm X speeches in making “No Sell Out,” Keith’s landmark, post-Sugar Hill recording, many call the first “sampling” pressed in vinyl.
On the sidewalk outside The Roxy, a downtown NYC institution (roller rink by day, B-Boy dance club by night), and where the climactic scene of the big-budget, Hollywood movie, Beat Street, was filmed. The finale featured Bernard, as the Original B-Boy Preacher, leading a raucous congregation in what seemed like a sort of Hip-Hop religious service.
Love & Assassination 1963 — JFK Conspiracy Theory ((( The Christian Way)))
“America The Beautiful” Frank Zappa — Halloween Night 1981 NYC @ The Palladium song ((( dark angel )))
“Sympathy For The Devil” Bernard Fowler (Rolling Stones) 2021 — Inside Out ((( talking to god )))
“Johnny B. Goode” Jimi Hendrix In The West ((( 1968)))
About the Author
A Florida Journalist, Photographer, and Art Director with an eclectic client list of individuals and organizations with musical, visual, educational, and editorial interests.
yt.
dave.
