An alternative history of 80's synths

When most people think of 80’s music with synths and drum machines, the usual electro-pop suspects come to mind: Kraftwerk, Moroder, Depeche Mode, Human League, Gary Numan, maybe Patrick Cowley.

What we should be talking about is how black musicians quietly – ok, maybe not so quietly – revolutionised popular culture through their adventures in R&B from the 70s into the 80s. They could be smooth and sophisticated, but the tracks made you tingle and move.

Glasgow-based journalist Steven Vass has achieved something significant with his book Let The Music Play, plotting a course through those decades and tracing the evolution of these sounds through the constellation of artists who invented them.

The level of research is encyclopaedic yet he’s managed to keep it breezy, capturing the thrill of hearing these records for the first time – minds being blown every week – as underground club culture broke into the mainstream.

I caught up with Steve a couple of months after this launch in Brixton to talk about: how he got into writing; reasons and reservations in doing the book; being inspired by Coming To America; giving flowers to Kashif and Paul Lawrence, Patrice Rushen, Cameo, Kleeer, Gwen Guthrie, Jam & Lewis and many more.

What the hell – flowers all around.

He also offers theories on what drew listeners and dancers to these synthesised sounds, why black artists weren’t given more credit as pioneers and the differences between the UK and US markets.

Expect a Questlove Supreme level of discourse plus a big bag of that boogie-street-soul type of thing. A bit of house too, of course. You will feel it all.

Questions, comments or abuse to @ amarofpatel ✌🏾

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More in Bluejeans & Moonbeams:

– Bristol theatre company Ad Infinitum ponders social care and aging in podcast Home from Home

– Brian Cox looms over another dysfunctional family

– How Asian youth movements fought back in 70’s Britain

– The poster art of eternal dreamer Yves Uro

– 500 years of Black British Music

Substack: Is Ripley style over substance?

Last time around, I gasped at author Patricia Highsmith’s perversions and predilection for darkness. As promised, I return with thoughts on the Netflix adaptation of one of her most famous creations.

Director and writer Steven Zaillian (alongside DoP Robert Elswit) has reframed Thomas Ripley as a more distant, shadowy and impassive conman than we might remember him in the glamorous The Talented Mr Ripley.

That’s not to say he doesn’t ruminate or what he’s done, as his hallucinations illustrate. But he’s more of a cold killer than Matt Damon’s impulsive and troubled soul. But not a natural-born killer, in Scott’s eyes. “He’s not bloodthirsty,” he told Variety. “He’s invited into this world, he doesn’t seek it out. And then the darkness within him emerges.”

Instead of being this loner and outsider who so desperately wants to belong, who “would rather be a fake somebody than a real nobody”, Andrew Scott plays him as someone who is even more cunning and fastidious. Closer to Alain Delon in Réne Clément’s Plein Soleil but almost charmless.

Read more in Bluejeans & Moonbeams.

Also in this issue: rejection letters from Toni Morrison, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, how synths and drum machines revolutionised R&B, the photography and politics of Tyneside’s Tish Murtha and the day that Prince left.

Substack: Why BBC's Champion deserves a second series

I can’t think of another TV show that looks or sounds like Champion. You might hear someone kickin’ a 16 on Top Boy. Feel the instant island warmth of likkle patois in the dialogue of a Small Axe special. Or find Nicole Lecky’s Mood and appreciate how financial insecurity and fear of failure are tightly bound up for aspiring musicians. How race and gender influence their chances of success.

But to take us into the heart of Lewisham borough (my home) and examine sibling rivalry in the music business over eight episodes through the lens of a fragmented British Caribbean family… That feels fresh, immersive and long overdue.

I am still stunned that there won’t be a second season, particularly after leaving us on a major cliffhanger after a shocking betrayal. Let’s rewind and consider what made it so absorbing from all angles.

Read more on my Substack, Bluejeans & Moonbeams.

Also in this issue: listen to a radio documentary about genius Charles Stepney, Paul Mescal on the pull in Islington, sports science is obsessed with men, Samantha Morton is an exemplary human being, subcultures aren’t what they used to be, time to stop being extremely online, Avril Lavigne is dead (maybe) and can I play you some music?

Substack: A new identity in Electronic India

Growing up as a chubby and shy brown boy in 80’s/90’s Brighton, I yearned for more role models who looked like me. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciated the dedication of grafters like my parents who went from cut-short careers in radiography and accountancy to monotonous seven-day weeks in newsagencies. But when you’re a kid, safe can be boring and routine mind-numbing. There must be something else.

Where were the artists? The rebels and risktakers. The mavericks and mould-breakers we could follow. Someone to stoke our defiance, slap the need for approval out of us and say, go on, express yourselves. Bust out of that straightjacket of an acceptable profession, be it medicine, banking or law.

Is this a reflection of my sheltered childhood or my narrow window to the world at the time? As a graduate of a bohemian seaside town who was immersed in popular culture and wondering where he fit in, I doubt it. But let me think…

We had Handsworth-born ragamuffin Apache Indian storming up the UK charts in 1993 with ‘Boom Shack-A-Lak’, which found its way into the comedy Dumb and Dumber. Cornershop, fronted by Tjinder Singh, reaching number one in 1998 courtesy of a Fatboy Slim remix. Who else?

Goodness Gracious Me causing a stir on British TV by royally taking the piss. Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia raising eyebrows with Karim’s horny escapades as a bisexual adolescent who’s raging against his mixed race in 70’s Britain. The Asian Underground movement (an umbrella term used to cover the likes of Talvin Singh, Nitin Sawhney, Asian Dub Foundation and State of Bengal) carving their own lane in the UK music industry.

How we claimed swaggering, somersaulting Prince Naseem Hamed as one of our own, particularly the Muslim South Asians, even though he’s of Yemeni heritage. At a stretch, let’s add “that bass player from No Doubt” playing in the background, as Aziz Ansari quipped on stage. (His name is Tony Ashwin Kanal, by the way. And respect is due.)  

So you can imagine my shock and excitement when I discovered that Ahmedabad, in my family’s homeland of Gujarat, was a hotbed of electronic music experimentation. And not a decade ago or whatever. Way back in the 1960s!

Read the full story on my Substack, Bluejeans & Moonbeams.

Also in this issue: The Holdovers rekindles my love of cinema, the best of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Michael Jackson back in the spotlight, Carl Weathers RIP and the late Neil Kulkarni destroys Oasis.

Substack: Throwing bricks at glass ceilings

Tell me, what’s more compelling? To have a writer appraise music in a competent yet bookish manner or to read them bringing it to life like a novelist? So much so that it means almost as much to you now as it did to them then. Crossing from the world of what happened and why – the play-by-play – into the realm of characters, conflict, tests and obstacles.

From mixtape drops and nods to your ‘endz’, to triumphant arrivals on the national stage that feel like collective wins because you’ve been on the long journey with them, “throwing bricks at glass ceilings” as Kano rapped. Taking some heavy losses too, it must be said.

I’m not talking about a pure expression of fandom or an I-was-there awareness of a genre’s genesis, both of which have merit. This is different. It’s the ability to chronicle the times in anything other than a straight line. To look behind demographic shifts and hit records. To see the turning points and setbacks with an acute sense of time and place. Complexity and precarity. Cause and effect.

To join the dots between past movements and evolving scenes like you’re explaining your family tree. How we get from Cecil Morris’ Peoples Community Radio Link (PCRL) pirate in 80’s Birmingham to West Midlands grime entrepreneur Despa Robinson, who co-founded the label StayFresh and started the artist management and media company BE83. Aniefiok ‘Neef’ Ekpoudom has achieved this and so much more in Where We Come From.

Read the full story on my Substack, Bluejeans & Moonbeams.

Also in this issue: a poem for all ages, why friendships feel like admin, the curious world of crisp flavours, age-gap relationships, Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi and it’s Fred Again … again.