"My purpose was simple: to catch the feel, the pulse of rock, as I had lived through it. What I was after was guts, and flash, and energy, and speed" - NIK COHN -
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "When the music was new and had no rules" -LUNA C
Another of those figures who moved through the UK rap scene and into hardcore rave and jungle.
"Can't beat the system, go with the flow" - source of the famous sample as used by (fellow former Britrap cru) The Criminal Minds, on "Baptised By Dub"
"Educated Snares" - you gotta love that title!
Associated with Suburban Base / Boogie Times - recording, with a partner, under the name e.kude
Sample from Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men there (or perhaps impersonation)
But before Suburban Base, MC Duke put out a couple of aliased records with Shut Up and Dance ("fast rap' turned breakbeat h-core)
Discogs bio:
Born Anthony Mark Hilaire / Kashif Adham
Died 21 April 2024, aged 58
MC Duke got his big break when the emcee who had won the DMC MC Battle got on stage at the DMC World Championships after party and announced that he would battle anybody in the house, MC Duke got up and beat him. Derek B saw what happened and as he had just signed to Music Of Life asked Duke to meet him at the label the next day. While waiting for Derek B, Duke met the owner Simon Harris, and rapped live as he didn't have a demo, needless to say the rest is history.
Later he joined the Shut Up And Dance label and released two 12 inches with DJ Leader 1 under the name I.C.3..
He then went on to produce for Boogie Times/Suburban Base label and set up the Harddisk and Bluntly Speaking Vinyl label
Messy playlist of MC Duke under various guises and in various eras
Interesting that despite being MC Duke, he graduated from rapping in the Britcore scene to producing in the Ardkore scene and running labels, as opposed to being a rave MC.
Check out the nifty little sample from Specials "Gangsters" - another example of the 2-Tone / Nuum connection
"Common Sensi", teehee
This E.KUD.CM stuff is good ruffstuff - clattery and jittery - and some classic vocal licks (“spread out and skiatter", "sekkle" etc)
It has taken me a ridiculous amount of time (well, a full half hour) to notice that the name E.KUD.C.M. is MC Duke backwards.
Fits the hardcore as hip hop turned inside out idea - hip hop but the MC is the occasional ancillary phrase bobbing about amid the beats, and the drums are doing all the real talking.
Listening to this when it came out really rammed home the hardcore / Brit B-boy connection for me.
Mantronix as gateway drug to Amentalism - via "King of the Beats"
(I talk a bit about Mantronix and going to UK Fresh in '86 in this podcast C86 Books )
Skratchadelicism distils the equation: hip hop + E = ardkore
Flowers In My Garden - luvved-up hardcore as hip hop pastoralized
And of course, the sample, the sample is from Woodstock the movie - John Sebastian (ex of the Lovin' Spoonful) announcing the birth of a baby at the festival - "that kid's gonna be far out" (at 19.40 in this clip)
Danny Break'z was how he monikered himself early on !
The apostrophe got lost
Then it resurfaced with the new name Droppin' Science, presumably inspired by this track
Style Warz - flying that flag high!
"I was more into the music than the rapping" - Danny Breaks, in this 1995 interview for German TV, dropping science on his beat-science
Handy playlist I made of Dantronix trax - appropriately it goes in a strange loop da loop, starting with the first Droppin' Science material and goes forward through those peerless releases, until - after "The Bear" - it doubles back to the Sonz of the Loop Da Era, er, era - but goes reverse-chronology, from "What The..." to "Far Out". Some remixes by him in there, and remixes of his tunes by others. It's quite a body of work
From a recent comp of very early Suburban Base / Boogies Times Record stuff
Loved their tunes so long - but I've never once thought to look see who Phuture Assassins were - the name alone sufficed.
"Long running act made famous for their ragga tinged hardcore releases on seminal UK breakbeat label Suburban Base. Originally started off as a collaboration between Dave Jay (as Dave B) and Reesh for the very first release on Boogie Times [i.e. "I Like Techno"] , the name was then passed on to Austin Reynolds who collaborated with Krome & Time for the remaining Suburban Base releases." - Discogs
That's Austin Reynolds in the middle there, with Krome & Time.
Phuture Assassins stuck with the "future" thematic through much of the output
All excellent stuff, but true immortality for this one - the title alone and the resonances it's set off, but the madcap rub-a-dub meets Hava Nagila frolic of it.
Vocal lick sourced in this
Flipside starts with a Pam Ayres sample about a deejay rocking the house!
Dis, dis is my CULCHA!
Lots of good tunes that don't have "future" in the title, of course
Plus stuff he did as Austin - blogged earlier here -
Plus engineering many - most? - all? - of the Suburban Base golden age tuneage.
After "Roots n' Future", Austin Reynolds folded that identity - went into other ones (including the Big Beat-aligned-I-think band Soul Hooligan) but then reactivated the name just a few years ago
"The long awaited Ancient & Modern from Phuture Assassins is finally in hand and due for release on the 3rd of August. If you have heard Luna-C play live at an event this past year or so, or SupaSets 21 & 22, then you would of heard a couple of these tracks already but Austin really shows what the early days of Rave was all about with this insane double vinyl release. All inclusive and not afraid to try things. This is rave meets jungle meets industrial meets sitar music, an instrument that Austin actually plays himself."
Sitar!
For Kniteforce, Austin also ruffed up this Jonny L classic
From a few years ago, Austin Reynolds interviewed by Vinyl Junkie
"I was
brought up in a house with a piano. I don’t remember where I learnt it from but
I started playing simple boogie woogie 12 bar stuff aged 7 or 8. I Picked
up the guitar as a teenager and did bands and gigs while at school. You
can blame Alan Suger for my recording career... one day an ad for the Amstrad
Studio 100 appeared on the telly, it was a four track studio and record player
combined that came with headphones, a tape of drum beats and four microphones.
Myself and friends started recording as a ska band, badly named The Janitors.
It happened to include Kevin Beber (D-Zone/Toxic) on drum machine. Surprisingly
I was offered a record deal off the back of the tapes, but couldn’t commit to a
touring schedule while I was busy failing my A levels. These were my
first dabbling’s"....
[More evidence for the 2-Tone / nuum nexus - as is his comment below from elsewhere in the VJ interview]
".... the complete set of 2-tone singles I call ‘my precious’"
Who do you see as your major influences in music and why?
"Jerry
Dammers - King Tubby - Motown - Studio 1 - Nick Drake - Ginger Baker.
From the rave scene.. ‘The Scientist’ (The original keyboard wiz in the studio
at Kicking Records, he also engineered SB001) The Rebel MC. Longsy D. Shut up
and Dance. Rob Playford and The Meat Beat Manifesto."
"Early releases Shot
Like Dis, Please Don’t Stand In My Way and I Get High were recorded in my
bedroom at my family home. One session was attended by SB founder Dan Donnelly,
myself, both of M&M and my mum on the hoover. My equipment was then moved
into Dan’s Mum’s garage where I began recording with DJs and other musicians
for the label at what is known as Sub Base Studio’s."
"... One PA that stands out was my first one, an appearance as Phuture Assassins at the Eclipse in Coventry. I remember the unforgettable and overpowering smell of Vicks Vapour Rub, topless dudes on platforms covered in the stuff, smoke and lasers."
Some people say you are the unsung hero of hardcore and
that you are one of the innovators of this sound...
To be honest there were so many talented people in the rave scene in those days
and so much we copied off them or owe to them. It’s easy to say ‘Yeh I
did the first this or that, but it’s a bit narcissistic. No one really
invented anything. It was all the people, clubs, records labels and technology,
it was collaborative.
Scenius ahoy!
But modesty aside, Austin Reynolds certainly warrants the term "hardcore hero".
Fave tunes of AR's according to the Vinyl Junkie interview
