Gary Clail - Half Cut For Confidence
Ripped from a 12" vinyl single released on On-U Sound Records (ON-U DP 12) in 1985 to high quality lossless flac audio
A Half Cut For Confidence
B Half A Gram A Shout!
Tackhead - What's My Mission Now?
Ripped from a 12" vinyl single released on On-U Sound Records (ON-U DP 13) in 1985 to high quality lossless flac audio.
A What's My Mission Now?
B Now What?
Tackhead - Mind At The End Of The Tether
Ripped from a 12" vinyl single released on On-U Sound Records (ON-U DP 15) in 1985 to high quality lossless flac audio.
A Mind At The End Of The Tether
B Is There A Way Out
Gary Clail - Hard Left
Ripped from a 12" vinyl single released on On-U Sound Records (ON-U DP 16) in 1986 to high quality lossless flac audio.
A Hard Left
B The Case Has Been Repossessed
Tackhead featuring Gary Clail - Reality
Ripped from a 12" vinyl single released on On-U Sound Records (ON-U DP 19) in 1988 to high quality lossless flac audio.
A
Reality
B
Life & Dreams
Finally I have gotten round to lossless re-rips of this early ESWA post. here's what was said back then.... (plagiarised from numerous other sites!)
Tackhead are Adrian Sherwood, Doug Wimbish, Skip McDonald & Keith Leblanc with occasional vocals by Bristol roofer, Gary Clail.
The Tackhead saga goes back to the mid-70's, when Wimbish and McDonald teamed up in the 'disco' boom, when they attained cult success with Wood, Brass & Steel and with such tracks as Push Push in the Bush from Musique. They first met up with Keith LeBlanc in 1979 on the newly-formed Sugar Hill Records. They soon became the label´s house band, providing backing, both live and on disc, for the ground-breaking Sugar Hill Gang, Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel, helping to launch the onslaught of 80's rap. After the demise of Sugar Hill and drawn outlegal wranglings, the three musicians continued to work on various projects. Described by The New York Times as 'one of todays most extraordinary rhythm sections', they included recordings for the Tommy Boy label. Moving on from the early 80's rap explosion, drummer Keith LeBlanc already released some solo work on Tommy Boy Records, mixing the DMX drumbeats with his own special drumsound. His release No Sell Out featured the cut-up raps of civil rights activist Malcolm X pitched against the infamous DMX drumbeat to acknowledged as the first ever 'sampling record'. Ahead of its time and timeless, LeBlanc's No Sell Out brought him to the attention of London's dub-master extraordinaire and On-U Sound label owner Adrian Sherwood.
A foremost producer of reggae in the early 80's, Sherwood began to take his dub methodology to the limit, creating a unique form-distorted media and environmental collages of 'mind' sounds. In 1984, while working on a remix of On-U Sound act Akabu's Watch Yourself for Tommy Boy records, he met Keith LeBlanc. After a productive meeting between Sherwood and LeBlanc, McDonald and Wimbish later joinedthem in London to begin work on a new project which they christened Fats Comet. LeBlanc's beat, pitched with Sherwood's dub methodology, taken it to the limit (and far beyond...), creating unique form distorted media where the heavily distorted sound of McDonald's guitar and Wimbish's funky bass art made things complete. As LeBlanc sums it up, "We started Fats Comet as a studio experiment. The stuff we considered being 'non-commercial' got stuck on Adrian Sherwood's label and Doug Wimbish came up with the name Tackhead; which is New Jersey slang for homeboy."
After releasing a couple of 12"s, like the vast underground club and science fiction dancehall classics Mind at the End of the Tether and What's my Mission Now? Tackhead had already gained a lot of credits and popularity, especially among those who tied up to the industrial virus. An album was inevitable and Gary Clail's Tackhead Sound System's Tackhead Tape Time was bound to be a classic from the very day of its release. In the meantime, they also found the time to back former Popgroup main man Mark Stewart as The Maffia; a collaboration which resulted in probably some of the most deranged hip-mutant-funk-metal-dub-hop records ever to be made. 'Tackhead in the area!' became the common chant after the 12" The Game, which featured TV commentator Brian Moore alongside Jerry & The Pacemakers' "You'll never walk alone", a legendary Liverpool football evergreen. The band also started touring live, which resulted in the initial release of the live album En Concert, quickly withdrawn after release because the band never wanted it to be released. "Friendly as a Hand Grenade", the band's debut album as Tackhead, marked a new direction. They had now been joined by fellow American and ex-Peech Boys vocalist Bernard Fowler, giving a soulful edge to their beats an making them more accessible to a wider audience. Fowler's introduction to the band came through the Mick Jagger-connection. Jagger is a big Tackhead-fan. Bernard Fowler is still a background vocalist with The Rolling Stones.
As an addendum, Clail is definitely the poor man's Mark Stewart and the quality of his contributions would be later exposed during his solo releases. Is There A Way Out was also to surface as the infamous hip-hop classic bootleg The King Of The Beat by Fats Comet and DJ Cheese ...or by Tackhead and DJ Cheese depending on which white label you found.
Evidence that Tackhead were nothing without Adrian Sherwood!
The Fats Comet singles, Keith LeBlanc LP and maybe a few others will resurface as flac soon. Keep your eyes peeled.
