Chapter 2: Second Time Round

In which I play Jethro Tull at the launch of the Cymande doc at the BFI.

Once in a blue moon a dream gig drops into my inbox. A gig so up my street that I say yes without worrying about my fee, or if I’m even free.

A few weeks back I was asked if I was up for playing records after the preview screening of Tim Mackenzie-Smith’s documentary Getting It Back: The Story Of Cymande. Where? The BFI. When? Feb 13th.

So let’s just check the list…

Cymande ✅

Documentary ✅

Playing records ✅

At the BFI ✅

On a Tuesday ✅

I said yes in a heartbeat. Thankfully there was a decent fee. Unthankfully, I discovered some of that would be going on a baby sitter, but that was fine, in my head I was already there whatever the cash.

In an effort to convey exactly how much this gig meant to me, let’s take a look at the list above…

Cymande have soundtracked my life since I discovered them vicariously in my teens via the sample of ‘The Message’ on ‘Me & The Biz’ by Masta Ace. They lived in my headphones, in speaker boxes, and on sweaty dancefloors. In the 90s my mate Pony started a funk night in Kingston called The Great Escape where tracks like ‘Bra’, ‘Dove’ and ‘Brothers On The Slide’ were staples, and ‘Fug’ became a big end of night record. Like most folks, we had no idea that Cymande were a UK band, but soon discovered they were from just up the road in South London when the club’s bouncer, Lee, came bounding onto the dancefloor exclaiming “this is my uncle’s band!” as we made wild shapes while Joey Dee sang “everybody needs more time” as the merciless house lights came up.

Documentary has been an obsession since I watched John Akomfrah’s Handsworth Songs back in the late 80s. Years before that, and before I became embroiled in the unstable world of niche music, I wanted to make films and fool around with moving images. I didn’t know how or perhaps even why, I was that young, but as a kid I set about shooting stuff with my dad’s 8mm before graduating to a secondhand and already outdated VHS camera.

As in the picture above, I could often be found with that bulky old beast on my shoulder. I made a few shorts, and delivered a film about a high school shooting for GCSE media studies after finding a fairly realistic looking shotgun prop in the school drama department. That and an essay I wrote about consumerism and the fall of the nuclear family in Romero’s zombie trilogy got me an A. I failed pretty much everything else, so I figured film was probably my best bet. Yet here I am 25 years into a rocky career in music. I still get behind the camera now and then though, like when I started making a documentary about ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials back in 2021, a test clip of which featuring producer John Collins you can watch below. I will finish it one day (I tell myself at least once a week).

Playing Records I’m sure I don’t need to explain. I never planned on becoming a DJ, but somewhere down the line I discovered some people like listening to my selections, and what else am I gonna do with my GCSE in media studies?

As for the BFI, who remembers the Museum Of The Moving Image? It opened in the space on the South Bank beneath Waterloo Bridge back in ‘88, and I couldn’t tell you how many times I visited. A mecca for the celluloid-obsessed. I vividly remember the Ray Harryhausen exhibition which I loitered in for hours marvelling at mechanical owls and living skeletons, but beyond my love of film, the BFI, which replaced MOMI in the 00s, holds some psychogeographical significance too.

My family have haunted this stretch of the Thames for decades. My mum was born round the corner, and both my parents were at the Festival Of Britain in ‘51. I’ve spent my entire life bopping around the South Bank’s various venues watching everything from The Slits to Norweigan free-jazz. I even once caught members of Cymande playing for free one lucky Friday afternoon at the Queen Elizabeth Hall many years ago. Somehow I’ve only played on the South Bank once prior to this, at a private party in the much missed Spiritland beneath the RFH.

On a Tuesday. The holy grail of gig offers, for me at least. I’ve always preferred week night gigs, whichever side of the decks I’m on, and there’s rarely any chance of me not being available when offered a Tuesday night session, with the exception of this gig which I accepted without checking the family calender. It turned out my girlfriend, her mum and her sister were all off to the theatre, so any hope of free childcare was out the window!

With a babysitter booked, the question now was what would I play? Of course I could go down the Cymande sample route, or should I brush up on my juggling skills and try cutting up ‘Bra’ Kool Herc style? (Probably best to not embarrass myself with the latter).

Was I over-thinking this set? Quite possibly, as I often do, but at least no one can say I don’t make the effort. Some might’ve just packed a fail-safe funk selection, but I opted for a set of UK records produced around the time of Cymande’s first 3 albums. We’re talking jazz, soul, reggae, calypso and rock, all with a funky lilt, many of which featuring ex-pat Caribbeans like the Cymande boys, while others were from London’s African diaspora, and a few from the funkier end of the jazz-rock and prog scene.

As I discovered during my Cymande interview, one of Patrick’s favourite bands was Jethro Tull, so a few early Tull tracks were packed (there’s a first time for everything), as were wiggy jazz-rockers Colosseum and a bit of Edgar Broughton band who Cymande supported in the early 70s. From the London afro-rock scene I included Osibisa, Assagai, and Danta, while perhaps the closest to the nyah-rock sound was the Trini-London steel pan funk outfit Batti Mamzelle, led by pannist Miguel Barradas and singer Jimmy Chambers who’d go on to join Central Line in the next wave of Brit-funk at the turn of the 80s.

From beyond London I dug out tracks by Checquers (Aylsbury) and Muscles (Birmingham), and I packed a few from Ram John Holder who made some amazing records around the turn of the 70s, long before becoming a black-British screen icon as Porkpie in Desmonds. Worth noting that the Desmond’s theme was written and produced by John Collins who you just saw in the Ghost Town doc clip above, and in fact Desmond himself, aka Norman Beaton made a great soul record in ‘75 which got an airing at the BFI too.

Though Patrick Paterson and Steve Scipio said The Equals weren’t an influence - “that was heavy pop” - I had to bring some of Eddy Grant’s pioneering 70s output. Like Cymande, Grant’s material existed in its own space somewhere beyond funk and soul, fusing elements of afro-rock, reggae and calypso with his increasing interest in synths as the decade progressed. ‘Funky Like A Train’ was another big tune at The Great Escape. I’ve tried reaching out to Eddy for an interview for my book, but no word yet! 🤞🏼

Other tracks which made the cut included The Majestics’ disco bloodbath ‘Vampira’ which featured Clarke Peters on vocals, Blossom Dearie’s ‘I Like London In The Rain’ with its wild sax solo by Jamiacan-Londoner Harold McNair, Labbi Siffre’s jazz-funk classic ‘The Vulture’ with Chas n Dave in the backing band, and Al Matthews aka Apone on percussion with prog-funk outfit Rare Bird. In case you didn’t know, Matthews lived in the UK throughout the 70s and 80s, and hosted a gospel show on Capitol FM for many years. Nelson Mandela used to tune in from prison.

This might all sound a little nerdy, but the night was a lot of fun, and made even better when Cymande’s drummer Sam Kelly appeared behind the decks just as I mixed the early house anthem ‘Barah’ by Cleavage into ‘Bra’: “I know that drum fill!” While Patrick looked a little misty-eyed as I finished with his old producer John Schroeder’s string-laden version of Cymande’s ‘One More’. An utter joy to be a part of the release of Tim Mackenzie-Smith’s excellent doc (out now!), and to be a tiny footnote in Cymande’s story.

Still on cloud 9, I went home and mixed up 90 minutes worth of tracks from the night. The tracklist follows, and you can find the listen/download link behind the paywall below, alongside a slightly different playlist version on Spotify.

DJ Wrongtom ‘Think In Flight’

1. Cymande ‘Zion I’ (Janus) 1972

2. Batti Mamzelle ‘Love Is Blind’ (Cube) 1974

3. Danta ‘Calypso Rock’ (Epic) 1972

4. Muscles ‘I’m Gonna Synthesise You’ (Big Bear) 1977

5. Hummingbird ‘You Can Keep The Money’ (A&M) 1975

6. Norman Beaton ‘Love Is Around’ (Seven Sun) 1975

7. Marsha Hunt ‘Oh No! (Not The Beast Day)’ (Vertigo) 1973

8. One ‘Near The Bone’ (Fontana) 1969

9. Ram John Holder ‘Brixton Blues’ 1969

10. Labi Siffre ‘The Vulture’ (EMI) 1975

11. Joyce Bond & The Color Supplement ‘It’s Got To Be You’ (UpFront) 1970

12. Blossom Dearie ‘I Like London In The Rain’ (Fontana) 1970

13. Colin Young ‘You’re No Good’ (Trend) 1971

14. Noir ‘Indian Rope Man’ (Dawn) 1971

15. Colosseum ‘The Kettle’ (Vertigo) 1969

16. Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity ‘Break It Up’ (Marmalade) 1967

17. Majestics ‘Vampira’ (Cube) 1974

18. Eddy Grant ‘Nobody’s Got Time’ (Torpedo) 1975

19. Osibisa ‘Kokorokoo’ (MCA) 1972

20. Assagai ‘Bayeza’ (Philips) 1971

21. Chili Charles ‘Five’ (Virgin) 1974

22. Jethro Tull ‘Living In The Past’ (Island) 1969

23. Danta ‘Freeway’ (Epic) 1972

24. The Equals ‘Funky Like A Train’ (Ice) 1976

25. Cymande ‘Fug’ (Janus) 1973

26. Sounds Orchestral ‘One More’ (Pye) 1972