Post by Avalanche on Feb 3, 2008 9:52:29 GMT
The mere mention of Bristol brings to mind a signature style of urban music, with Massive Attack, Smith & Mighty, Tricky and Roni Size but a few of the acclaimed artists to come from this unassuming English city. However, the beginnings of its redoubtable scene are a world away from the glossy magazine covers and international fame enjoyed by these now-established stars. Think, instead, of raucous house parties and dingy clubs, DIY ethics and the pure, simple love of great music and good times. Think, in short, of The Wild Bunch sound system.
For an all too brief period in the 1980s, this outstanding collective grabbed the Zeitgeist by the horns and performed a vital role in shaping the future of British popular music, tearing the roof off London’s stylish and aloof hip hop scene, then moving further afield and rocking both the United States and Japan; this at a time when such ventures were all but unheard of within UK DJ culture.
Including such names as Robert “3D” Del Naja, Grant “Daddy G” Marshall and Andrew “Mushroom” Vowles—who eventually went on to form Massive Attack—and renowned producer Nellee Hooper, The Wild Bunch's ongoing influence is plain to see.
However, despite having played a huge part in birthing the city’s unique blend of hazy reggae grooves, headphone-friendly breakbeats, sumptuous, soulful vocals and earthy, idiosyncratic raps, one member has never taken his place in the annals of dance music lore: Miles Johnson aka DJ Milo.
While his peers went on to receive worldwide adulation, the tall, charismatic figure seen so many archive photographs opted for an altogether quieter life. When the crew came to its natural end, he receded from view, eventually settling in New York, where he now lives with his wife and family. Far from being a forgotten man, though, Johnson’s contribution to this memorable period is warmly recalled and any historical imbalance has now, in part, been redressed with the release of his mix CD retrospective, The Wild Bunch: Story Of A Sound System.
A collaboration between the Junior label and UK reissue imprint Strut, this 26-track collection captures something of the vibrancy of those long-gone nights. Blending vintage live recordings of the team in action with an impeccable selection of music—the bumping hip-hop beats of Spoonie Gee and T La Rock, Newcleus and Man Parrish’s early electro, the silken soul of Evelyn “Champagne” King and Mr Fingers’ caustic acid house—it fizzes with joyful energy and provides a valuable lesson in the heritage of British club culture.
*****
The man responsible for this project, Junior’s Paul Byrne, says: “To be honest, the idea came to me in the bath one day. I was just thinking about how there were so many compilations and other things around in the UK celebrating places like the Paradise Garage in New York, but nothing reflecting what went on in our own clubs in the early days, even though it’s equally important in terms of where we are now. It was something that needed to be put right.
“I was only about 12 when The Wild Bunch were throwing their parties so I wasn’t there, but considering the impact they have had, it seemed like the obvious place to start. I began to bounce the idea around and the more digging I did, the more Milo’s name came up. Although the other members have gone on to do great things, he was the one that people who were actually a part of that whole thing remembered best, so we tracked him down and put the idea to him and it all went from there. The bottom line is that he was and still is a blinding DJ and deserves to be recognized for the amazing things he’s done.”
*****
Despite spending the better part of two decades far from the public eye, it is still easy to spot Johnson waiting outside Tower Records on Manhattan’s 4th and Broadway. Now 40 years old, he still has the laid-back style of the veteran B-boy and his voice has lost none of its soft West Country burr.
And so, sitting in an anonymous coffee bar, cradling a paper cup in his hands, DJ Milo starts to tell his story.
“Well, myself Nellee and Grant just got together through hanging around in Bristol when we were young, finding we had things in common and becoming friends through music. You could feel something was brewing there, that something was going to happen when we were kids, but nobody knew what. I guess it ended up being us…”
Bristol’s status as a culturally diverse maritime center is clearly reflected in The Wild Bunch’s eclectic range of influences. Already an established post-punk stronghold, thanks to local bands such as The Pop Group, this scene was enough to keep the average music obsessive busy. But add to this the stimuli provided by predominantly Afro-Caribbean neighbourhoods such as St Paul’s and Montpelier and it is easy to see the city as a musical time bomb waiting to go off.
“It all started back in the early 80s, so musically speaking things were pretty open then. I mean within our little circle of friends, we were all listening to reggae and dub, jazz fusion, disco and funk,” Johnson adds. “But we were also really into things like Gang Of Four, A Certain Ratio, a lot of new wave and stuff like Killing Joke. None of us knew how to DJ or anything, but we just used to get together and play records we liked. Then we started doing house parties together and they became pretty popular because people enjoyed what we were playing.
“In fact, that’s how we got our name, through throwing these wild parties that all kinds of people would come to—punks, nice middle-class kids from Clifton and Rastas from St Paul’s—then one day someone just said ‘You guys are wild… you’re The Wild Bunch’. It stuck.”
Having quickly become Bristol’s most popular sound system, hip-hop would point The Wild Bunch toward even more fertile ground. Then still a trio, Johnson, Marshall and Hooper embraced the new Stateside sound wholeheartedly and earned a reputation as fearsome record collectors, able to find the rarest tracks around.
“We travelled all over the place buying records and always wanted to be the only people with those tunes—or at least the first people with them,” recalls Johnson, with a smile. “The fact that G was working at the best record shop in town, a place called Revolver, did help us there, though. He used to put all the good stuff away so only we could get it. None of the other local DJs had a chance!”
Scoring a Wednesday-night residency at The Dug Out, a down-at heel club in the centre of town, The Wild Bunch found their spiritual home. It was at these fabled sessions that the final members of the line-up would appear—young graffiti artist Robert “3D” Del Naja, long-time friend of Johnson’s Claude “Willie Wee” Williams, hip-hop enthusiast Andrew “Mushroom” Vowles and Adrian “Tricky Kid” Thaws, (who would later become renowned for albums such as Maxinquaye under the name of Tricky).
“They were great days,” Johnson says. “We all brought something different into the mix and it really worked. People had a brilliant time at our nights and so did we. That was what it was all about for us—we were just kids, up to no good, having a laugh.”
The addition of rappers certainly brought a new dimension to the live experience and, indeed, for a while, it looked as though The Wild Bunch could not put a foot wrong.
Not content with riproaring performances across Bristol—causing havoc at the annual St Paul’s Carnival by blocking off the road with walls of speaker stacks and playing epic sets of up to 20 hours—they had to show the world what they could do.
*****
It all started with DJ Milo’s 1985 booking to support their friend Neneh Cherry in Japan. “I remember the first time I went to Japan, it was just mind-blowing—the whole experience was amazing. The records you could buy there and the clothes were incredible, so I thought I had it made,” says Johnson. (His fascination with the country would continue and result in the still-sough-after Major Force single “Return Of The Original Artform” by DJ Kudo and Hiroshi Fujiwara feat. DJ Milo some years later.)
Further trips followed, including visits to the States. However after a third journey to Japan in 1986, egos had grown and cracks had begun to appear in the group.
Perversely, though, it was at this point that The Wild Bunch were asked to go into the studio and commit their sound to vinyl, the resulting single being the now ultra-rare “Tearin’ Down The Avenue”.
For some reason this rollicking slice of UK hip-hop was afforded a limited US-only promo release and then failed to see the light of day. When the time came for Island/4th & Broadway to put it out in the UK in 1987, the lead track was substituted for the alternative “Friends & Countrymen” and the record sank without a trace. However, turn to the B-side of either 12-inch and Johnson’s importance becomes clear. It was his idea to update Burt Bacharach classic “The Look Of Love” with luxuriantly bass-heavy hip-hop breaks and winsome jazz instrumentation. In doing so he laid down the blueprint for what was to become “The Bristo Sound”, so much so that the vocal was even sung by a young Shara Nelson, who would feature heavily on Massive Attack’s timeless 1991 album Blue Lines.
By then, though, three years after it had begun, The Wild Bunch was all over bar the (often literal) shouting and its members slowly went their separate ways, Hooper changing camps and linking up with London’s Soul II Soul, whose era-defining 1989 LP Club Classics Vol. 1 he would go on to produce, and Marshall, Del Naja and Vowles forming Massive Attack.
But looking back, Johnson has no regrets: “I’m happy with the way things turned out for me and I’m glad for everyone else,” he says. “Although I’ve been out of the game for a long time, they’re all still my boys. I suppose I just never wanted to make it big, playing records was what I wanted to do, not be a pop star. It’s taken a while but I’m actually working on a lot of music at the moment. It feels like the time’s right and I’m loving it again.”
And as the conversation takes a final turn to those seminal nights at The Dug Out, he adds: “Thinking back, they really were wicked days, the kind you never want to end—good times, nothing complicated, partying for partying’s sake. I wanted this album to reflect that. Even then, although I had no idea what it would all lead to, you could feel that something really special was happening. I never thought that people would end up wanting me to put together compilation albums about what we were doing, that it would go into history or anything like that. You just knew that you were part of something really good…”
For an all too brief period in the 1980s, this outstanding collective grabbed the Zeitgeist by the horns and performed a vital role in shaping the future of British popular music, tearing the roof off London’s stylish and aloof hip hop scene, then moving further afield and rocking both the United States and Japan; this at a time when such ventures were all but unheard of within UK DJ culture.
Including such names as Robert “3D” Del Naja, Grant “Daddy G” Marshall and Andrew “Mushroom” Vowles—who eventually went on to form Massive Attack—and renowned producer Nellee Hooper, The Wild Bunch's ongoing influence is plain to see.
However, despite having played a huge part in birthing the city’s unique blend of hazy reggae grooves, headphone-friendly breakbeats, sumptuous, soulful vocals and earthy, idiosyncratic raps, one member has never taken his place in the annals of dance music lore: Miles Johnson aka DJ Milo.
While his peers went on to receive worldwide adulation, the tall, charismatic figure seen so many archive photographs opted for an altogether quieter life. When the crew came to its natural end, he receded from view, eventually settling in New York, where he now lives with his wife and family. Far from being a forgotten man, though, Johnson’s contribution to this memorable period is warmly recalled and any historical imbalance has now, in part, been redressed with the release of his mix CD retrospective, The Wild Bunch: Story Of A Sound System.
A collaboration between the Junior label and UK reissue imprint Strut, this 26-track collection captures something of the vibrancy of those long-gone nights. Blending vintage live recordings of the team in action with an impeccable selection of music—the bumping hip-hop beats of Spoonie Gee and T La Rock, Newcleus and Man Parrish’s early electro, the silken soul of Evelyn “Champagne” King and Mr Fingers’ caustic acid house—it fizzes with joyful energy and provides a valuable lesson in the heritage of British club culture.
*****
The man responsible for this project, Junior’s Paul Byrne, says: “To be honest, the idea came to me in the bath one day. I was just thinking about how there were so many compilations and other things around in the UK celebrating places like the Paradise Garage in New York, but nothing reflecting what went on in our own clubs in the early days, even though it’s equally important in terms of where we are now. It was something that needed to be put right.
“I was only about 12 when The Wild Bunch were throwing their parties so I wasn’t there, but considering the impact they have had, it seemed like the obvious place to start. I began to bounce the idea around and the more digging I did, the more Milo’s name came up. Although the other members have gone on to do great things, he was the one that people who were actually a part of that whole thing remembered best, so we tracked him down and put the idea to him and it all went from there. The bottom line is that he was and still is a blinding DJ and deserves to be recognized for the amazing things he’s done.”
*****
Despite spending the better part of two decades far from the public eye, it is still easy to spot Johnson waiting outside Tower Records on Manhattan’s 4th and Broadway. Now 40 years old, he still has the laid-back style of the veteran B-boy and his voice has lost none of its soft West Country burr.
And so, sitting in an anonymous coffee bar, cradling a paper cup in his hands, DJ Milo starts to tell his story.
“Well, myself Nellee and Grant just got together through hanging around in Bristol when we were young, finding we had things in common and becoming friends through music. You could feel something was brewing there, that something was going to happen when we were kids, but nobody knew what. I guess it ended up being us…”
Bristol’s status as a culturally diverse maritime center is clearly reflected in The Wild Bunch’s eclectic range of influences. Already an established post-punk stronghold, thanks to local bands such as The Pop Group, this scene was enough to keep the average music obsessive busy. But add to this the stimuli provided by predominantly Afro-Caribbean neighbourhoods such as St Paul’s and Montpelier and it is easy to see the city as a musical time bomb waiting to go off.
“It all started back in the early 80s, so musically speaking things were pretty open then. I mean within our little circle of friends, we were all listening to reggae and dub, jazz fusion, disco and funk,” Johnson adds. “But we were also really into things like Gang Of Four, A Certain Ratio, a lot of new wave and stuff like Killing Joke. None of us knew how to DJ or anything, but we just used to get together and play records we liked. Then we started doing house parties together and they became pretty popular because people enjoyed what we were playing.
“In fact, that’s how we got our name, through throwing these wild parties that all kinds of people would come to—punks, nice middle-class kids from Clifton and Rastas from St Paul’s—then one day someone just said ‘You guys are wild… you’re The Wild Bunch’. It stuck.”
Having quickly become Bristol’s most popular sound system, hip-hop would point The Wild Bunch toward even more fertile ground. Then still a trio, Johnson, Marshall and Hooper embraced the new Stateside sound wholeheartedly and earned a reputation as fearsome record collectors, able to find the rarest tracks around.
“We travelled all over the place buying records and always wanted to be the only people with those tunes—or at least the first people with them,” recalls Johnson, with a smile. “The fact that G was working at the best record shop in town, a place called Revolver, did help us there, though. He used to put all the good stuff away so only we could get it. None of the other local DJs had a chance!”
Scoring a Wednesday-night residency at The Dug Out, a down-at heel club in the centre of town, The Wild Bunch found their spiritual home. It was at these fabled sessions that the final members of the line-up would appear—young graffiti artist Robert “3D” Del Naja, long-time friend of Johnson’s Claude “Willie Wee” Williams, hip-hop enthusiast Andrew “Mushroom” Vowles and Adrian “Tricky Kid” Thaws, (who would later become renowned for albums such as Maxinquaye under the name of Tricky).
“They were great days,” Johnson says. “We all brought something different into the mix and it really worked. People had a brilliant time at our nights and so did we. That was what it was all about for us—we were just kids, up to no good, having a laugh.”
The addition of rappers certainly brought a new dimension to the live experience and, indeed, for a while, it looked as though The Wild Bunch could not put a foot wrong.
Not content with riproaring performances across Bristol—causing havoc at the annual St Paul’s Carnival by blocking off the road with walls of speaker stacks and playing epic sets of up to 20 hours—they had to show the world what they could do.
*****
It all started with DJ Milo’s 1985 booking to support their friend Neneh Cherry in Japan. “I remember the first time I went to Japan, it was just mind-blowing—the whole experience was amazing. The records you could buy there and the clothes were incredible, so I thought I had it made,” says Johnson. (His fascination with the country would continue and result in the still-sough-after Major Force single “Return Of The Original Artform” by DJ Kudo and Hiroshi Fujiwara feat. DJ Milo some years later.)
Further trips followed, including visits to the States. However after a third journey to Japan in 1986, egos had grown and cracks had begun to appear in the group.
Perversely, though, it was at this point that The Wild Bunch were asked to go into the studio and commit their sound to vinyl, the resulting single being the now ultra-rare “Tearin’ Down The Avenue”.
For some reason this rollicking slice of UK hip-hop was afforded a limited US-only promo release and then failed to see the light of day. When the time came for Island/4th & Broadway to put it out in the UK in 1987, the lead track was substituted for the alternative “Friends & Countrymen” and the record sank without a trace. However, turn to the B-side of either 12-inch and Johnson’s importance becomes clear. It was his idea to update Burt Bacharach classic “The Look Of Love” with luxuriantly bass-heavy hip-hop breaks and winsome jazz instrumentation. In doing so he laid down the blueprint for what was to become “The Bristo Sound”, so much so that the vocal was even sung by a young Shara Nelson, who would feature heavily on Massive Attack’s timeless 1991 album Blue Lines.
By then, though, three years after it had begun, The Wild Bunch was all over bar the (often literal) shouting and its members slowly went their separate ways, Hooper changing camps and linking up with London’s Soul II Soul, whose era-defining 1989 LP Club Classics Vol. 1 he would go on to produce, and Marshall, Del Naja and Vowles forming Massive Attack.
But looking back, Johnson has no regrets: “I’m happy with the way things turned out for me and I’m glad for everyone else,” he says. “Although I’ve been out of the game for a long time, they’re all still my boys. I suppose I just never wanted to make it big, playing records was what I wanted to do, not be a pop star. It’s taken a while but I’m actually working on a lot of music at the moment. It feels like the time’s right and I’m loving it again.”
And as the conversation takes a final turn to those seminal nights at The Dug Out, he adds: “Thinking back, they really were wicked days, the kind you never want to end—good times, nothing complicated, partying for partying’s sake. I wanted this album to reflect that. Even then, although I had no idea what it would all lead to, you could feel that something really special was happening. I never thought that people would end up wanting me to put together compilation albums about what we were doing, that it would go into history or anything like that. You just knew that you were part of something really good…”