Oral History Interview - Keith aka DJ Mackie
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Video File
Production date
2018
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2018.71
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Filmed recording of an oral history interview with Keith aka DJ Mackie, who was a member of the sound system Count Josh or Joshua Hi-Fi. This interview discusses the Richmond Road youth club, sound systems, youth sounds, and house/blues parties. Filmed as 7 .mov files, with an accompanying .mp3 audio file.
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Digital file (.wmv)
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[FULL TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW]
Interviewer (Q.): It’s Thursday the 16th of August 2018. I’d like to start the interview by asking your name please, and where you were born and when you were born?
Keith aka DJ Mackie (DM): Right, okay, yes my name is Keith, Keith Mckend. I was born in Guyana in South America. Guyana is culturally part of the West Indies and Caribbean, but geographically it's on the South American Mainland. I came to this country with my parents in 1961. I was just aged six then so basically I grew up in this country, and nearly all of my life has been here.
In terms of music, let me state this straight away, music is something that I love. Someone once said “music is life” and I think that's true. I've been involved with music for as long as I can remember. I'm currently a DJ, and I've been involved in the sound system fraternity for quite a long time.
But in terms of my first involvement with music, (I think this probably won't be unique, I'm certain lots of people will say that), I have an older brother, and he had lots of friends. And these guys were connoisseurs of music, these are guys that I respect. But interestingly the music that they were mainly into was the old soul. And my brother and his group of friends, as I say they were connoisseurs when it came to music, not just in terms of playing music, but you could ask them anything, they knew all about it. And one of the earliest things that I remember was sneaking into my brother's room when he was out and playing his music. That was my first real experience. [2:06]
Then in my early teens I started going to a legendary youth club in Hackney called Richmond Road. When I went to Richmond Road I would be one of the youngest people that would be there, ‘cos by and large the age group there was probably from about 16 or maybe even 14-15 to probably late 20s, perhaps up to 30. There was a resident DJ there who sadly recently passed, his name was Karl Henry. He was the resident DJ in the Richmond Road club, although a lot of the top sound systems used to come there by invitation.
Now Richmond Road club, I think it's fair to say, is the place where most people if you ask them they'll say that's where they sort of cut their teeth in terms of going to parties and to clubs and so on.
Q. You mention quite a wide age range. Was that usual of the time to have people in their teens right through to their 30s in the same building? Do you know how it came to be like that? [3:20]
DM: The short answer to the question is no, I don't know how that came to be. But although I described it as a youth club, it was a youth club in the broadest sense. It wasn't a place where you would go and have youth activities, the focal point was the music. And I suppose the reason why it was described as a youth club is that because most of the clientele were younger people, up to about 21 and so on. You had your table tennis and so on, but it wasn't a youth club as most people understood youth club. But in fact, as you know, youth clubs in the sort of traditional sense sort of died a death. But it wasn't even your traditional youth club, it was primarily a music venue aimed at young people - well no, aimed at music lovers. That's why there was a broad cross section of people that went there.
And it was a focal point of the community. One of the interesting things about Richmond Road, very interesting, it was a place where you could find anyone. If you wanted to see someone, you go to Richmond Road. It was on a Wednesday night, well it used to also be held on a Monday, but that night wasn't the big night. The big night was Wednesday night Wednesday night at Richmond Road, anyone that you wanted to find, you will find him or her in Richmond Road. It was just the place to be. It was just in a basic simple church hall, so it wasn't any extravagant building or anything. It was just that coming together, just the vibe that was there, we all went there.
Occasionally, maybe once a month or so, they'd have a Saturday night party. And generally what we would do, we would go to the Saturday night party at Richmond Road (although as I said Wednesday was the main night). But when you went to the Saturday night party, you would then go on to what was then the thriving house dance or shebeen setup. That's where most of the sound systems were playing. [5:20]
Now one other interesting thing I need to mention (and again I think this is not unique to me, most people will tell you this). As you were growing up, like in your sort of early teens, 15-16 or so on, we used to - if I can put it this way - sneak out and go to the big parties. We shouldn't really have been there, so we used to sneak out and there used to be certain sound systems who, similar to Richmond Road, who were the place that you would go as a young person before you went to the bigger sounds. So there's a couple of sound systems that come into that category. There was a sound system called Count Sam I’m not certain but I believe that is probably the first Sound System I went to.
And there was another Sound System which was a very important Sound System, I used to go there regularly, that was called Fugitive. Now, Fugitive was like the next level after Richmond Road. It was what we called a ‘big man’ Sound System. Interestingly enough, Fugitive I would say was very similar to Fatman, in the sense that it was a very popular Sound, it played a lot of music that generally you knew, and it was that sort of sound.
You then wouldn’t move on to the bigger Sounds like Count Shelly - who as far as I’m concerned was the king of Sound Systems in this sort of area, Hackney, Stoke Newington, Tottenham – you wouldn’t go there. And also that sort of young teen age group is not the typical person that you’d find at Count Shelly. These guys were probably anything between mid-20s to perhaps 30s, maybe 40. If I can put it this way, when you went to Count Shelly as a little boy you had to behave yourself because you knew you were the sort of youngster that they tolerated. But when you went you now were in the real Sound System scene. [07:25]
So what happened was, as I said, I used to go to Richmond Road. I continued to go to Richmond Road, and then I gradually progress to Fugitive, we used to go to Fatman. And I personally used to like to go to Count Shelly as I got older and more confident, because to me Count Shelly was the greatest sound system in this sort of eastern north London area. It's a legendary sound system. They were the resident sound in the famous Four Aces for a number of years. And also as normally happens with the big sound systems, Count Shelly himself moved on into record production and there was the Count Shelly record label. And then later on Third World, not everyone would probably know this; Third World Records was actually Count Shelly.
Q. Okay, that’s a lot to break down! I'm going to ask you to be a little bit more detailed, because you've almost set up a kind of a league table of sorts of sound system in terms of different layers, so I'd like to break that down a little bit more. Also it'll be very interesting to know where these different sounds played? So to start at the beginning of my question, what if you were to describe from the lower leagues to the top Premier League Division sound? Could you kind of put me in the picture of what that was like? During the 1970s I believe we are talking about… [09:07]
DM: Yes. Count Sam and also Fugitive, they generally played in the heart of Stoke Newington. There's a certain part of Stoke Newington that we call the heart, that includes places like Brooke Road, Jenner Road, Northcote Road. Round Stoke Newington Common, that sort of area, they played there. And in houses, all these were all house party dances where it could range from anything from one room in the house to the whole house. And those places used to be rammed. Proper roadblock. There would be no finish time, it would finish when it finished. But what you would invariably find, the top sound systems would go on even really late. So when you're talking about Sound Systems like Count Shelly, a Count Shelly party could easily go on till about 8am-10am on a Sunday morning.
And there's one other sound that I haven't mentioned, they're probably the king of the house party sound. That's Chicken. [Chicken the Thunderstorm/ Chicken Hi-Fi]. If you went to a Chicken dance, house party, you'd expect that to go on till the early afternoon, and I kid you not! And what you would find, a lot of people would go to the other sound systems, and only really go to Chicken from about 6am in the morning or later, ‘cos that used to go on till early afternoon.
Chicken was a unique sound system. They played a lot of reggae, but they also played a lot of soul, and in particular Northern Soul. So when you went to Chicken there was a certain - in terms of the music specifically, not in terms of the clientele necessarily - but in terms of the music, there was a certain sophistication, I'd call it, of Chicken. Because you'd go there and you would hear (in inverted commas) a sort of different “quality” of music. When I say quality, that's not to undermine the other sound systems. Whereas the other sound systems were primarily reggae sound systems, with Chicken you'd get reggae, but you'd also get a lot of Soul, in particular, you would get Northern Soul. And in fact those were the days before this so-called rare grooves phenomenon. There was no such thing as rare grooves, no one talked about rare grooves. But you'd get your Northern Soul, which is a lot of music that, you know, they wouldn't normally be played. [11:50]
[Film 2018.71 Part B: starts at 11:50 on audio copy]
But one thing I have to say about Count Shelly - which to me set Count Shelly apart from all the other sound systems as far as I was concerned, and most people will tell you that he was the king of all sounds - was if you went to a Count Shelly party, house party, you would hear all sorts of music at the highest level. I've got to state this: the first time I ever heard a track from what I consider now to be the greatest album of all time. And there was a couple of tracks from that that Shelly would regularly play, and this was the first time I heard this from a reggae sound system. The album that I consider to be the greatest album of all time is Marvin Gay ‘What's Going On?’ The first time I ever heard ‘Mercy Mercy Me’ and the track ‘What's Going On?’ was at a Count Shelly house party. When I heard it it blew me away. It blew me away, and in a way it's amazing, I think, that you'd go to a reggae sound system, and that was the first time I ever heard that track. And the first time I ever heard Nina Simone “My baby just cares for me”, that was a Count Shelly, right. First time I ever heard another classic track, which is Willie Tee, that's a sort of Northern Soul track called “Thank You John”, Count Shelly. So you'd go to Count Shelly and you would get all sorts of music, but played to the highest degree. And they were the greatest as far as I was concerned. [13:35]
[Film 2018.71 Part C: starts at 13:35 on audio copy]
Q. That's brilliant insight, thank you. Going back, you mentioned Count Sam and Fugitive. You said they're playing round the central Stoke Newington area. What other sounds, can you recall any others that were kind of in their league? [13:53]
DM: Yes, in that sort of league there was another sound called Metro Downbeat. Metro Downbeat is one of the original sound systems actually, and in fact as I understand it, Metro himself came on Windrush. He came to this country on Windrush, there was an article in the Evening Standard I think, yes. Metro came to England on the Windrush, as did Count Suckle I think of Q Club fame. And I think Metro and Suckle were friends. [14:32]
You also had - now this is not Hackney - you also had top sound systems in play in the South London area. And you had, obviously, the likes of Sir Coxsone, but prior to Sir Coxsone, and in fact the sound system where Lloyd Coxsone really made his name was Duke Reid. There was a sound in South London called Duke Reid. And there was another sound system which was one of my favourite sounds, (although I didn't hear much of them because in those days you wouldn't really venture across to South London too often) it was a sound called Neville the Musical Enchanter.
And actually there's another sound that I didn't mention, and I didn't hear much of that sound because they're one of the pioneer sound systems, and if you speak to some of the real oldtimers they will argue that he, or they, was actually the greatest not Coxsone. I'm not qualified to comment on that, but I know of that sound, that was a sound called Fanso [Sir Fanso] who eventually packed up and went to Jamaica. But in fact you could argue that that Fatman sound derived from Fanso, who packed up and went back to Jamaica. Now a lot of people tell me that Fanso was the original great sound, reference sound, where all the soundmen would go to Fanso. But I think I heard Sir Fanso once when they came as a guest sound to Richmond Road, but I'm not qualified to comment on them too much. But the people who said that they were great are people whose opinion I respect, so it must have been a great sound.
Q: Okay, so from the picture you're giving me, you mentioned [Count] Sam and Fugitive, and then we went off just now and spoke about some others. But then I think before this interview you were telling me about youth sound. One of yours, is Count Joshua. Is that right? [16:34]
DM: Yes. No. My, our, sound system was Count Josh, but Count Josh was also known as Joshua Hi-Fi, but it's one of the same.
Q: Yes. So, well, best that you speak about it. But I'm interested in this kind of scene at Richmond Road, and you're talking specifically about what you call youth sound. So can you explain what a youth sound is? And how you fit into it? [16:57]
DM: Right. Well the youth sound is something that I hold dear to my heart. What happened back in those days was that young people used to…sound system was probably the thing that captured their imagination the most. And what most young men aspired to was to have a sound system of their own. So that's what we all wanted to do. That’s what we all dreamt about; having our own sound system. So all these young guys would all try, and as best as they were able, to sort coble some money together, or acquire things, and build their own little sound system. So there was a whole circuit of youth sound systems.
By youth sound systems, most of these sound systems were owned by young guys; 16, 17, 18, they build up their own sound system. And there was a, if you like, that was a movement in its own right.
Q: Before you go into it, can I ask you - you just said they built up their own sounds. Could you kind of explain to us a little bit about what that process is? At 16 how do you build a sound system? At 16 years old what is the process? [18:10]
DM: Well I'm going to be very frank, I'm going to be very frank in this interview. And I have to say straight away my sound system didn't do this. But I know others, and a lot of others did this. You would try to put together your pocket money, or any money you acquired. Or you would also try to obtain equipment by other means. [Laughs] Some of the other means not necessarily being totally legal.
But the main thing was…and sorry, what I should mention as well - when we said sound system, when I say sound system, I mean a sound system in that you had a proper set, with your speakers, your turntable, and all the equipment. Nowadays people call themselves sound system, all they do is take around their CDs, laptop or whatever. But in those days I'm talking about having a proper sound system, which incorporated the actual equipment.
Q: So what is the equipment? [19:08]
DM: Well in those days the equipment was a power amplifier, at least one power amplifier. Loudspeakers, which would mean at least one base speaker, base bin, and the top section. And a turntable, and obviously the various cables and so on to run to the loudspeaker. That's, it's bare minimum. Obviously the more money you had at your disposal, and the bigger sound system you were, the more of that equipment you would have. So you might have more than one amplifier, you may have several base speakers, and you might have several top end speakers as we called it. And you might even split it between top section, mid-range and base, but that largely depended on what funds you had available. Either what you as a group were able to bring in together, and also obviously how busy you were, the amount of work, jobs that you got. Funds were coming in, you could buy more equipment.
Q: Did youth sounds, did they actually build their own boxes and preamps and those kind of things or…? [20:16]
DM: No, they didn't. Boxes…Now we were quite lucky. The owner of my sound system that I was heavily involved with, his name is Joshua. That's why it was called Count Josh or Joshua’s Hi-Fi. Now he was a master builder, so he built our boxes. So there was a combination of people building boxes, speaker boxes, themselves. How well they were constructed obviously depended on your skill. Or else they'd have those things built for them, or else they'll buy them from elsewhere. And so actually with regards to the equipment, that is quite an important thing as well. Back in those days the quality of your sound system, both in terms of the build quality of your boxes, and in particular how it sounded. That was a very, very, very important aspect of sound systems.
Nowadays, it's my impression the quality of the actual sound system is not considered to be particularly that important. I mean back in the day what we used to do - and in fact in sound system clashing culture now this is outlawed, you're not allowed, if you do what I'm about to say, if you did that now in a so-called sound clash you'd be disqualified. But back in our day, one of the things that we would do if someone played a song, a tune, a good tune, we'd say “This is how it should sound.” So we'd play it back, but we'd play it back with better quality and that. And the crowd would go crazy. That was a mark of a good sound system, the quality of your system. Now one of the rules of sound clashing is you cannot play back someone's tune, but that's to show you how it was in those days. [22:13]
As I said, we were fortunate, we had a very good sound system in terms of the technical side of it.
Q: You were about to talk more about the sound that you were on, and also the other sounds that were kind of on the same level as you. [22:29]
DM: Right. Okay. Yeah, so obviously like everything else there was a hierarchy. And I would describe the sound system movement generally, I would draw the analogy with the football pyramid. So there was the top of the tree, and then it came down and there was different levels. I would say there was at least probably about four levels. No, let me see…yeah, let's say four levels. There was the very top sound systems; your Coxsones, your Skakas and Fatman and various other sounds.
Q: So Shelly would be in…?
DM: Oh, Count Shelly, yeah, oh yes. Yes.
And then you'd come down to the next level, and these would generally be what we call the ‘big man’ sounds. Like your Fugitive and so on.
Q: Fugitive and who else?
DM: Fugitive and Count Sam, and you had various other sound systems in South London.
Oh yeah, sorry, there's another very important sound I should have mentioned, he was one of my favourites. That's Admiral Ken. Admiral Ken was another very popular sound system, like Fatman. And the reason why Admiral Ken was very popular, and I would say Fatman was very popular, they tended to play the music that people know, and people were comfortable with. Sounds like Sir Coxsone was a very advanced sound system, not everybody wanted that. Most people, a lot of people were just more comfortable with everyday music that they knew. But the important thing about Admiral Ken; Admiral Ken was the first, as far as I'm aware, was the first sound system that started thinking on a much bigger scale, and they started doing big dances in big venues and so on. But like all the rest, they started off with the house parties and so on. And Admiral Ken actually was one of the sounds, one of the big sounds, that was regularly played in Richmond Road as one of the guest sound systems. They played there. So they're very important. [24:41]
But coming back to this hierarchy, or this pyramid. You have the very elite sounds to the very top, then you have the next set of what I call the ‘big man’ sounds. And then you had a group of sound systems - where I would say my sound system came into - which were the youth sounds, who were just below the second rung of the big men sounds.
One of the things that Count Joshua / Joshua Hi-Fi - which was a sound I was associated with - was very famous for; we played in a very similar way to the big men sound systems. Most of the youth sounds had their own youth sound way of playing,
[Film 2018.71 Part D:]
which is they played a lot of drum and bass, or the versions. So they play a bit of the vocal, then they turn it over and then they play a lot of the…You'd have a DJ or an MC on it.
And then below that you had youth sounds who were - I don't want to sound derogatory - the sort of wannabes. They weren't right up there. But it was just their dream to have a sound system. So they were the next rung.
Q: So what kind of sound would you play? If you're saying you've got Count Joshua, what other sound…? [25:59]
DM: Right, I'm going to tell you there was a hierarchy. In the youth sound circuit the biggest dance that you could have was Count Josh and a sound called Sir Lord Intruder. They were our real rivals on the battlefield, which means in the sound arena, outside of that we were friends. The thing about them as well, Sir Lord Intruder was the typical youth sound that I described that played a lot of drum and bass. Had that sort of pseudo militant stance that a lot of the young people were into in those days, whereas my sound system was a more clean cut type of sound system. But when we played against each other that's the biggest dance you could have on the youth circuit.
Q: What do you mean ‘pseudo militant’? Like, explain that a little bit. What was going on at the time? I think I know what you mean, but just so I can… [27:04]
DM: Well back in the 1970s most people were either Rastas, or took on the Rasta image, or acted in that sort of Rasta type way. Whereas our, so all of us in my sound, we were clean cut guys, you know? Now there's something I haven't actually talked about. There were a set of sound systems that were clean cut, anyway those were the soul boys. But back in those days the soul sound and the soul boys, most people used to - I don't want to say look down on them - they weren't rated in the sort of categories I'm talking about. The soul sound circuit was a different circuit, and they were seen as being sort of watered down and so on.
So the main party and main raving was within the, if you like, primarily the reggae fraternity. But within the reggae fraternity, we were one of the few sound systems that had that clean cut image. And because of that, this is just a theory of mine, not many people used to admit that they like Count Josh, because we were seen as being a little bit too watered down. Sorry, not watered down. Our image didn't fit in with that militant image that people had. But the proof of the pudding was in the eating, because when we clashed with Sir Lord Intruder, that's the biggest dance you could have on that youth level. The big biggest dance you could have.
And I said, we were rivals in the clash arena, but outside of that we were, you know…
Q: So where would you clash? Describe Josh versus Lord Intruder clash. [29:04]
DM: Right, okay. Now there was another very important youth club that I haven't mentioned. Not quite as important as Richmond Road, but very important. That was simply known as Friday Club, and just because it was on a Friday. It was in the heart of Stoke Newington, it was on Stoke Newington High Street near Brooke Road. And the resident sounds was ourself and [Lord] Intruder, so we used to play there. And on a Friday night it was a roadblock.
But there were other youth sounds. I would say they weren't in our category, but they were… No, there was one other sound that I think was that sort of level as well. There was a sound from Tottenham, they were called Scrap Iron. Scrap Iron was, you could describe Scrap Iron as sort of Fatman youth sound. And they were, you know, I mentioned about the militancy. They were very militant guys.
So I would say you had Count Josh, Sir Lord Intruder, Scrap Iron. ‘Cos Scrap Iron and Sir Lord Intruder used to clash quite a bit as well. And it was usually quite a bit of fisty cuffs when those two met! With us, with Count Josh and Sir Lord Intruder was a lot of banter, but nothing ‘cos we were really friends. And then you had other good sounds, other important sounds. Like there was a sound called Sir Lord Emperor, there was a sound called Musketeers.
There was Baron. [Laughs] Right now, Baron, Baron, I'm laughing because it when I think of Baron this is something that comes to my mind. There was a sound called Baron. Baron as you're probably aware, in the sound system arena there's always a sound that comes up. I think the same probably happens in Jamaica, anywhere. The sounds that's the flavour of the month, they come up, everyone's talking about them, they're supposed to be the in thing. Baron came up as the in thing, and they were popular. People like them, they came up as the in thing. But then one night they clashed with Count Josh and we basically slapped them down again. But they were good, because they came up.
And similarly there was another sound system where we never actually met. There was a sound system called Surge. And Surge was a very popular sound, had a good following.
Q: A youth sound again? [31:27]
DM: Yes, called Surge. They're important for their popularity. But we never actually played with Surge. But we did play with a flavour of the month sound, which was Baron.
Q: So the youth club the kind of you said the Friday Club and the Wednesday at Richmond Road. Are they these early finish things? [31:50]
DM: Yes. They'd finish about 10pm, 10:30pm, maybe 11pm on a Saturday they'd finish. But the early finish was common so you could go to one of the big sounds. For instance I mentioned Admiral Ken. Admiral Ken was famous for using pub function rooms, and those would finish 11, 10:30, 11 o’clock. And one of the most famous of all of those is a club in Leytonstone called the Red Lion and Admiral Kem was the resident there. In later years Fatman became the resident, but it used to be Admiral Ken. And that was big. In North London, that was in Leytonstone and it was on a Sunday night, most of these things were on a Sunday night.
At the same time over in Wood Green there was a place called… oh sorry, what's it called? The name's gone out my head…but there was another big Sunday night in Wood Green, where you used to have a sound from this side called Sir Biggs used to play there. Sir Biggs and another great sound from South London called Neville the Musical Enchanter. They played over there, so those were two big Sunday night sessions. They’d finish about 11pm.
Q: What were the main venues in Hackney, as you recall it, where used to be able to hear sound system play? And I mean both official venues and also unlicensed? [33:32]
DM: All right. Originally most of it was house parties, but then you also had…
Q: Was there an area that those house parties…?
DM: Yes. The two main areas as far as I was concerned were the heart of Stoke Newington; your Brooke Road, Jenner Road, Norcott Road, all around there. And then you had the St Mark's Rise, Colvestone Crescent, that area was very popular as well. And in those days you used to be able to come out of one house party and within minutes walk to another one if you wanted to. And yeah, that's how it was. So those were the main centres for house parties.
And then Chicken became…well I wouldn't say chicken came along, Chicken was always there. But at its height Chicken used to mainly play in the St Mark’s area as I said, but he used to also venture over more towards Mare Street, St Thomas Square. There was the place called Cadogan Terrace by Victoria Park, and as I said there those sessions could easily go until about one in the afternoon, Sunday afternoon. [Laughs].
Q: So then that's your kind of shebeens, Blues kind of house party places. So then what about either the youth clubs, or also the clubs. What kind of venues can you…? [35:03]
DM: Well with the youth clubs you had, as I said, you had Richmond Road, you had Friday Club. You had another place called Geneva. This is the original Geneva, ‘cos there was a place that came along later, much later in Hackney Wick, that was called Geneva. But the original Geneva was in Lordship Road near Manor road going. In Hackney, but the Stoke Newington end. You had another place over in Finsbury Park, so not actually Hackney, where the original Gemi Magic played. In those days they weren't called Gemi Magic, they were called Intrepid Rebel, and they played in a place in Finsbury Park called Hercules under that name.
Now there is another place that I have to mention. Very, very important. Technically I don't think it was in Hackney, it was on the Hackney Haringey borders. This was sort of as you go past Stanford Hill, just going into South Tottenham, so I think technically it was in Haringey, South Tottenham. There was a very, very famous venue called Noreik. And Noreik itself was a legendary venue. Now the youth sounds didn't play there, Noreik was the sort of domain of all the top sound systems. And at Noreik I witnessed, which both myself and most aficionados in the sound system circuit and sound system aficionados reckoned to be, the greatest sound clash there's ever been in England. And that was at Noreik. And that sound clash featured Fatman, Coxsone and Shaka. It sounds though you've heard about that, yes? That's arguably the greatest clash there's ever been. And some people argue over this, but I will say this, and I have to admit I didn't expect that outcome; I would say that clash
[Film 2018.71 Part E:]
Fatman came out victorious. Now I thought Fatman would come third out of three. Fatman I feel won that. And that's Noreik. So obviously you're nodding, you know of that. That was a famous clash. [37:21]
In my experience the next greatest after that - just in my experience, others would say there were other ones. But I think not many people argue about that one I've just mentioned - There was a great dance in Clapham North at a place called Caxton Hall that was Coxsone, Shaka, and there was a sound system that came up which was called Lord David.
And an interesting thing about Lord David; Lord David gave rise to another sound system that was a great sound system in its own right, and a sound system that came up very fast and were the flavour of the month. But they weren't one of these sound systems that only had a short life. When they came up they stayed there. But they came out of Lord David, that was a sound called Moa Anbessa. Moa Anbessa was derived from Lord David, south London sound. just like another one of the great sounds from South London was Soferno. B. And another great sound that was derived from Soferno. B was Stereograph from South London. So that's just a little aside… [38:31]
But that that clash in Caxton Hall in Clapham North, as I said it was Shaka, Coxsone and Lord David. Now to me Shaka was victorious. Now I particularly liked Shaka because generally I like things that are cool. I mean Coxsone had a lot to say for himself that night, so did Lord David, but Shaka was just very cool and just got on with the business.
And saying that, this is another interesting story. I once went to a dance in Noreik, it was Fatman, Fatman was actually the resident then. And there was a sound that came from Birmingham, and many people argued one of the greatest sound systems there's ever been. I only heard them the once, which was in a clash with Fatman.
[Film 2018.71 Part F:]
That sound was called Mafia Tone. And I'll never forget this because what happened, again, it fits in with my philosophy of how sound systems should be. Like I said earlier, I think a good selector should be able to play all sorts of music at the highest level without just simply playing lip service to particular genres.
Now what happened was the clash was Fatman and Mafia Tone from Birmingham. In the early part of the dance Fatman was very hype. That's the thing about Fatman, Fatman was a very popular sound, a very hype-y type of sound. And they were hype, everything was buzzing, and they had one of the top mic's men in the business. And they were saying to Mafia Tone “You're not in country now, you're in London. When you come to London you can't…” Because Mafia Tone was playing steady, which I think is what you should do. I think when you play music you build up the vibe. But you see, and I'll never forget this, you see later on when Mafia Tone started to play music, or as we say to use the vernacular, when Mafia Tone started to let off, he was in a different class. So Fatman was the front runner, Mafia Tone was taking it steady, building the vibe. Which I believe that's what you should do, I believe that's how you should play music. But when they started to play music they was in a different class. [Laughs].
Q: We haven't got much time. A couple questions I'd like to ask; Going back to your own sound system and others in that class, were they, were you cutting dub plates at the time? [41:19]
DM: Some of the young sounds did. We personally didn't cut proper dub plates, we had some dub plates made by the guy who… Oh, so I should have mentioned this; In those days, most of the equipment was custom made. The guy who built our sound system he had equipment. Not proper dub cutting machines or something, but we were able to do sort of like DIY dubs. But we didn't rely on those a lot, because it wasn't a lot of that, it was mainly…
Where we were famous is that, unlike most of the youth sounds, I said I believe that we were top of the pecking order in the youth sound fraternity. The reason why we were top as far as I was concerned, we used to get our music from Jamaica. We used to send for music from from Randy’s. Randy’s is basically what's known as VP Records now in America. But we used to get music from Randy’s, and what we used to do, to show you how long ago this was, we used to send - I don't think they even use them now - we used to send a postal order to Jamaica, and they'd send us back a package with music. So until the package arrived we wouldn't actually know what would be in there. And sometimes, not very often, the second package may have one or two doubles, in other words we got it in the first slot. So we used to get our music from Jamaica, so we used to have a lot of music that no one else had. Sorry, no one else played. We were ahead of a lot of people in terms of the music that we played.
But not only were we ahead of a lot of people, a lot of that music the youth sounds never got. Because what used to also happen, a lot of the music - ‘cos with those original Jamaican 7 inch presses there used to [be] often just a limited number - so the people who got the first pick of those used to be the top sound systems, and then the youth sounds would get what's left. That's if you bought those music from a record shop, but we used to largely get our music from Jamaica. So we used to get a lot of music that the big men sound systems had.
Now, just quickly on that, I should mention this: Because we played in this way that was really loved, there was another very famous sound system from Tottenham, a Rasta sound. The owner of that sound, he's now deceased. His name was, they called him Jah Bones and his sound system was called City Dread. And the first time, I can't remember exactly how it went, but basically when he came into contact he said “Boy, these youths are good!” And he took us under his wing, ‘cos he liked what we did. And he took us to…he gave us different… ‘cos he just liked what we were doing as youths. ‘Cos we were playing like the big men. That's Jah Bones from City Dread. Obviously that sound is now defunct, and City Dread has actually passed.
Q: So you mentioned records, you were talking about records and sending from Jamaica. Did you use the record shops in and around Hackney? [44:10]
DM: Yeah. I'm going to tell you I'm glad you asked that. The most important record shop, now obviously a lot of the things that I'm saying during this interview, it's a matter of opinion. But I don't think many people would argue what I'm saying. The most important record shop, there was a record shop in Stoke Newington, at the beginning of Stamford Hill just after Church Street called Rita Record Shop [R&B Records]. That was owned by an old Jewish lady [Rita King] and you would get proper music from there.
Then there was another record shop, which originally was called Lasco's [Lasco’s Music Den]. That was in Clapton on Lower Clapton Road, just before you got to Clapton Pond. That was an excellent record shop. It later changed its name, which a lot of people would know this name. But originally it was called Lasco’s, later became known as ‘Regal’ record shop. Those two record shops were very important. [45:09]
Now I've got to say one other thing, since you mentioned record shops this is important. When we was all kids, remember there was no pirate radio stations or nothing like that. What we used to do, including myself, we used to go to a very famous record shop in Ridley Road Market known as either Muzik City, Musicland. And what we used to do, we used to go there and stand around just listening to music. ‘Cos apart from the blues dance you wouldn't hear any music. And it was interesting, one of the real characters who recently passed used to run that shop - I don't think he owned, he was the manager - His name was Skipper. And Skipper was one of the important people at Richmond Road. And Skipper, you know, you'll always have the the sort of big guys who everyone looks up to, and also a little bit afraid of, and Skipper was that person.
Now he used to run the record shop, and depending on what mood he was in, he would let us kids stay in the record shop and listen to music, or else he’d say “Right, you're not buying anything, come out of here.” So it was like a this sort of standoff. [Laughs] You'd go on a Saturday or Friday to Muzik City, Musicland, you stand there listening to music. And then depending on what mood Skipper was in, he'd either allow you to stay there or else he’d drive you away. Or perhaps he'd let you stay up to a certain point, then he say “Right come out, come out, you can't be standing around here.” ‘Cos you know we weren't buying records. [46:36]
And actually there's a famous, I can't remember what the LP's called, but there’s a famous Reggae album where there's a picture taken of a couple of guys standing outside Muzik City. One of the guys was, well I knew both of them, one of the guys his name is Danny. The second guy that's there I used to go to raves and things with him, blues dance. ‘Cos that again, what another phenomenon was, there was often people the only real contact you'd have with them is you'd meet them or go with them to blues dance. But other than that you wouldn't see them. So you'd only ever see them Saturday, on a Saturday. But there was a famous thing that I've seen taken outside of Music City.
Q: It's not somebody called Ted is it? in there as well
DM: Ted Charles? Yeah, no, it's not Ted Charles. Do you know Ted Charles then?
Q: I don't know him, I know of him. I've seen this picture of three people, one of them being Ted Charles, outside Muzik City, black and white picture. But it doesn't look like, I don't think it’s an album thing. [47:36]
DM: No, that's not…
But just very quickly; The first time I ever heard Sir Coxsone sound system - the great Sir Coxsone - and as I said Sir Coxsone was this mystical, legendary sound. The greatest. And you'd always want to hear Sir Coxsone because they were the greatest. And the first time I ever heard Sir Coxsone was he came here to East London, and Ted Charles had a blues dance. And interestingly what I said earlier on, about going to…you'd go to Richmond Road on a Saturday, and then you go on to something else. I remember it was a Saturday night, I went to Richmond Road, and when Richmond Road finished we went to Sir Coxsone, who came over to this side, because most of the time they were in South London. And it was Ted Charles that held that party.
Q: There's one more thing I need to ask you. How did people, how did you know where all these dances were happening? ‘Cos you know there's no internet, people are walking around without mobile phones and things. So how does that communicate? [48:47]
DM: Simple. You'd go to - this wern’t the only way - but one of the main things, you'd go to Muzik City, Musicland and on the wall there' be flyers. But interestingly enough, the flyers weren't the things that we recognise as flyers now. The flyers were basically something about the same size and shape of, say, an Oyster Card. And it’d have details of a dance, and I can tell you, you could put a flyer, one of these little flyers up in Muzik City, Musicland, on a Saturday and that alone would be sufficient promotion to ram your dance.
And just got to mention just quickly on that, because it's related to Admiral Ken. Admiral Ken was ahead of his time in terms of making it all the more commercial. As far as I remember Admiral Ken was one of the first sound systems that started using the proper big flyers that we recognize today, ‘cos he branched out from your sort of localised blues dance to bigger events. And so Admiral Ken was very important in terms of that, sort of, launching out sound system on a bigger scale and a more commercial basis.
Q: Thank you, I could talk to you for hours but we are about to get kicked out. So probably the last thing; is there anything massive that you think has been emitted from this conversation that we really needed to say? You seem to have covered quite a lot, but just to check…[50:28]
DM: I would say the important role that sound systems played in the development of reggae. Reggae particularly, but black music more generally. Sound systems were the original advocates of the music. Later on you had the pirate radio stations, they came along, they were important. But to my mind, the single most important vessel, or thing that promoted this, was the role of the sound system. Because we had no private radio stations that was where you'd go to listen to music, so the sound system is very, very important in terms of reggae music, the development of reggae music particularly. And in terms of black music generally, because as I said there were other types, there were the soul sounds and so on. So the role of reggae music should not be underestimated, and I think the original pioneers don't get the true credit that they deserve.
[Film 2018.71 Part G:]
But I think part of the reason for that is - and with no disrespect to the original sound system pioneers - I think they were just into their music. That's what they did. I don't think that they were the most…I don't think they would necessarily promote themselves or the whole thing. They just did their own thing. But you can't underestimate the importance of the original sound systems in the development of reggae music, and more generally black music in the UK.
Q: Thank you very much. That was amazing.
Interviewer (Q.): It’s Thursday the 16th of August 2018. I’d like to start the interview by asking your name please, and where you were born and when you were born?
Keith aka DJ Mackie (DM): Right, okay, yes my name is Keith, Keith Mckend. I was born in Guyana in South America. Guyana is culturally part of the West Indies and Caribbean, but geographically it's on the South American Mainland. I came to this country with my parents in 1961. I was just aged six then so basically I grew up in this country, and nearly all of my life has been here.
In terms of music, let me state this straight away, music is something that I love. Someone once said “music is life” and I think that's true. I've been involved with music for as long as I can remember. I'm currently a DJ, and I've been involved in the sound system fraternity for quite a long time.
But in terms of my first involvement with music, (I think this probably won't be unique, I'm certain lots of people will say that), I have an older brother, and he had lots of friends. And these guys were connoisseurs of music, these are guys that I respect. But interestingly the music that they were mainly into was the old soul. And my brother and his group of friends, as I say they were connoisseurs when it came to music, not just in terms of playing music, but you could ask them anything, they knew all about it. And one of the earliest things that I remember was sneaking into my brother's room when he was out and playing his music. That was my first real experience. [2:06]
Then in my early teens I started going to a legendary youth club in Hackney called Richmond Road. When I went to Richmond Road I would be one of the youngest people that would be there, ‘cos by and large the age group there was probably from about 16 or maybe even 14-15 to probably late 20s, perhaps up to 30. There was a resident DJ there who sadly recently passed, his name was Karl Henry. He was the resident DJ in the Richmond Road club, although a lot of the top sound systems used to come there by invitation.
Now Richmond Road club, I think it's fair to say, is the place where most people if you ask them they'll say that's where they sort of cut their teeth in terms of going to parties and to clubs and so on.
Q. You mention quite a wide age range. Was that usual of the time to have people in their teens right through to their 30s in the same building? Do you know how it came to be like that? [3:20]
DM: The short answer to the question is no, I don't know how that came to be. But although I described it as a youth club, it was a youth club in the broadest sense. It wasn't a place where you would go and have youth activities, the focal point was the music. And I suppose the reason why it was described as a youth club is that because most of the clientele were younger people, up to about 21 and so on. You had your table tennis and so on, but it wasn't a youth club as most people understood youth club. But in fact, as you know, youth clubs in the sort of traditional sense sort of died a death. But it wasn't even your traditional youth club, it was primarily a music venue aimed at young people - well no, aimed at music lovers. That's why there was a broad cross section of people that went there.
And it was a focal point of the community. One of the interesting things about Richmond Road, very interesting, it was a place where you could find anyone. If you wanted to see someone, you go to Richmond Road. It was on a Wednesday night, well it used to also be held on a Monday, but that night wasn't the big night. The big night was Wednesday night Wednesday night at Richmond Road, anyone that you wanted to find, you will find him or her in Richmond Road. It was just the place to be. It was just in a basic simple church hall, so it wasn't any extravagant building or anything. It was just that coming together, just the vibe that was there, we all went there.
Occasionally, maybe once a month or so, they'd have a Saturday night party. And generally what we would do, we would go to the Saturday night party at Richmond Road (although as I said Wednesday was the main night). But when you went to the Saturday night party, you would then go on to what was then the thriving house dance or shebeen setup. That's where most of the sound systems were playing. [5:20]
Now one other interesting thing I need to mention (and again I think this is not unique to me, most people will tell you this). As you were growing up, like in your sort of early teens, 15-16 or so on, we used to - if I can put it this way - sneak out and go to the big parties. We shouldn't really have been there, so we used to sneak out and there used to be certain sound systems who, similar to Richmond Road, who were the place that you would go as a young person before you went to the bigger sounds. So there's a couple of sound systems that come into that category. There was a sound system called Count Sam I’m not certain but I believe that is probably the first Sound System I went to.
And there was another Sound System which was a very important Sound System, I used to go there regularly, that was called Fugitive. Now, Fugitive was like the next level after Richmond Road. It was what we called a ‘big man’ Sound System. Interestingly enough, Fugitive I would say was very similar to Fatman, in the sense that it was a very popular Sound, it played a lot of music that generally you knew, and it was that sort of sound.
You then wouldn’t move on to the bigger Sounds like Count Shelly - who as far as I’m concerned was the king of Sound Systems in this sort of area, Hackney, Stoke Newington, Tottenham – you wouldn’t go there. And also that sort of young teen age group is not the typical person that you’d find at Count Shelly. These guys were probably anything between mid-20s to perhaps 30s, maybe 40. If I can put it this way, when you went to Count Shelly as a little boy you had to behave yourself because you knew you were the sort of youngster that they tolerated. But when you went you now were in the real Sound System scene. [07:25]
So what happened was, as I said, I used to go to Richmond Road. I continued to go to Richmond Road, and then I gradually progress to Fugitive, we used to go to Fatman. And I personally used to like to go to Count Shelly as I got older and more confident, because to me Count Shelly was the greatest sound system in this sort of eastern north London area. It's a legendary sound system. They were the resident sound in the famous Four Aces for a number of years. And also as normally happens with the big sound systems, Count Shelly himself moved on into record production and there was the Count Shelly record label. And then later on Third World, not everyone would probably know this; Third World Records was actually Count Shelly.
Q. Okay, that’s a lot to break down! I'm going to ask you to be a little bit more detailed, because you've almost set up a kind of a league table of sorts of sound system in terms of different layers, so I'd like to break that down a little bit more. Also it'll be very interesting to know where these different sounds played? So to start at the beginning of my question, what if you were to describe from the lower leagues to the top Premier League Division sound? Could you kind of put me in the picture of what that was like? During the 1970s I believe we are talking about… [09:07]
DM: Yes. Count Sam and also Fugitive, they generally played in the heart of Stoke Newington. There's a certain part of Stoke Newington that we call the heart, that includes places like Brooke Road, Jenner Road, Northcote Road. Round Stoke Newington Common, that sort of area, they played there. And in houses, all these were all house party dances where it could range from anything from one room in the house to the whole house. And those places used to be rammed. Proper roadblock. There would be no finish time, it would finish when it finished. But what you would invariably find, the top sound systems would go on even really late. So when you're talking about Sound Systems like Count Shelly, a Count Shelly party could easily go on till about 8am-10am on a Sunday morning.
And there's one other sound that I haven't mentioned, they're probably the king of the house party sound. That's Chicken. [Chicken the Thunderstorm/ Chicken Hi-Fi]. If you went to a Chicken dance, house party, you'd expect that to go on till the early afternoon, and I kid you not! And what you would find, a lot of people would go to the other sound systems, and only really go to Chicken from about 6am in the morning or later, ‘cos that used to go on till early afternoon.
Chicken was a unique sound system. They played a lot of reggae, but they also played a lot of soul, and in particular Northern Soul. So when you went to Chicken there was a certain - in terms of the music specifically, not in terms of the clientele necessarily - but in terms of the music, there was a certain sophistication, I'd call it, of Chicken. Because you'd go there and you would hear (in inverted commas) a sort of different “quality” of music. When I say quality, that's not to undermine the other sound systems. Whereas the other sound systems were primarily reggae sound systems, with Chicken you'd get reggae, but you'd also get a lot of Soul, in particular, you would get Northern Soul. And in fact those were the days before this so-called rare grooves phenomenon. There was no such thing as rare grooves, no one talked about rare grooves. But you'd get your Northern Soul, which is a lot of music that, you know, they wouldn't normally be played. [11:50]
[Film 2018.71 Part B: starts at 11:50 on audio copy]
But one thing I have to say about Count Shelly - which to me set Count Shelly apart from all the other sound systems as far as I was concerned, and most people will tell you that he was the king of all sounds - was if you went to a Count Shelly party, house party, you would hear all sorts of music at the highest level. I've got to state this: the first time I ever heard a track from what I consider now to be the greatest album of all time. And there was a couple of tracks from that that Shelly would regularly play, and this was the first time I heard this from a reggae sound system. The album that I consider to be the greatest album of all time is Marvin Gay ‘What's Going On?’ The first time I ever heard ‘Mercy Mercy Me’ and the track ‘What's Going On?’ was at a Count Shelly house party. When I heard it it blew me away. It blew me away, and in a way it's amazing, I think, that you'd go to a reggae sound system, and that was the first time I ever heard that track. And the first time I ever heard Nina Simone “My baby just cares for me”, that was a Count Shelly, right. First time I ever heard another classic track, which is Willie Tee, that's a sort of Northern Soul track called “Thank You John”, Count Shelly. So you'd go to Count Shelly and you would get all sorts of music, but played to the highest degree. And they were the greatest as far as I was concerned. [13:35]
[Film 2018.71 Part C: starts at 13:35 on audio copy]
Q. That's brilliant insight, thank you. Going back, you mentioned Count Sam and Fugitive. You said they're playing round the central Stoke Newington area. What other sounds, can you recall any others that were kind of in their league? [13:53]
DM: Yes, in that sort of league there was another sound called Metro Downbeat. Metro Downbeat is one of the original sound systems actually, and in fact as I understand it, Metro himself came on Windrush. He came to this country on Windrush, there was an article in the Evening Standard I think, yes. Metro came to England on the Windrush, as did Count Suckle I think of Q Club fame. And I think Metro and Suckle were friends. [14:32]
You also had - now this is not Hackney - you also had top sound systems in play in the South London area. And you had, obviously, the likes of Sir Coxsone, but prior to Sir Coxsone, and in fact the sound system where Lloyd Coxsone really made his name was Duke Reid. There was a sound in South London called Duke Reid. And there was another sound system which was one of my favourite sounds, (although I didn't hear much of them because in those days you wouldn't really venture across to South London too often) it was a sound called Neville the Musical Enchanter.
And actually there's another sound that I didn't mention, and I didn't hear much of that sound because they're one of the pioneer sound systems, and if you speak to some of the real oldtimers they will argue that he, or they, was actually the greatest not Coxsone. I'm not qualified to comment on that, but I know of that sound, that was a sound called Fanso [Sir Fanso] who eventually packed up and went to Jamaica. But in fact you could argue that that Fatman sound derived from Fanso, who packed up and went back to Jamaica. Now a lot of people tell me that Fanso was the original great sound, reference sound, where all the soundmen would go to Fanso. But I think I heard Sir Fanso once when they came as a guest sound to Richmond Road, but I'm not qualified to comment on them too much. But the people who said that they were great are people whose opinion I respect, so it must have been a great sound.
Q: Okay, so from the picture you're giving me, you mentioned [Count] Sam and Fugitive, and then we went off just now and spoke about some others. But then I think before this interview you were telling me about youth sound. One of yours, is Count Joshua. Is that right? [16:34]
DM: Yes. No. My, our, sound system was Count Josh, but Count Josh was also known as Joshua Hi-Fi, but it's one of the same.
Q: Yes. So, well, best that you speak about it. But I'm interested in this kind of scene at Richmond Road, and you're talking specifically about what you call youth sound. So can you explain what a youth sound is? And how you fit into it? [16:57]
DM: Right. Well the youth sound is something that I hold dear to my heart. What happened back in those days was that young people used to…sound system was probably the thing that captured their imagination the most. And what most young men aspired to was to have a sound system of their own. So that's what we all wanted to do. That’s what we all dreamt about; having our own sound system. So all these young guys would all try, and as best as they were able, to sort coble some money together, or acquire things, and build their own little sound system. So there was a whole circuit of youth sound systems.
By youth sound systems, most of these sound systems were owned by young guys; 16, 17, 18, they build up their own sound system. And there was a, if you like, that was a movement in its own right.
Q: Before you go into it, can I ask you - you just said they built up their own sounds. Could you kind of explain to us a little bit about what that process is? At 16 how do you build a sound system? At 16 years old what is the process? [18:10]
DM: Well I'm going to be very frank, I'm going to be very frank in this interview. And I have to say straight away my sound system didn't do this. But I know others, and a lot of others did this. You would try to put together your pocket money, or any money you acquired. Or you would also try to obtain equipment by other means. [Laughs] Some of the other means not necessarily being totally legal.
But the main thing was…and sorry, what I should mention as well - when we said sound system, when I say sound system, I mean a sound system in that you had a proper set, with your speakers, your turntable, and all the equipment. Nowadays people call themselves sound system, all they do is take around their CDs, laptop or whatever. But in those days I'm talking about having a proper sound system, which incorporated the actual equipment.
Q: So what is the equipment? [19:08]
DM: Well in those days the equipment was a power amplifier, at least one power amplifier. Loudspeakers, which would mean at least one base speaker, base bin, and the top section. And a turntable, and obviously the various cables and so on to run to the loudspeaker. That's, it's bare minimum. Obviously the more money you had at your disposal, and the bigger sound system you were, the more of that equipment you would have. So you might have more than one amplifier, you may have several base speakers, and you might have several top end speakers as we called it. And you might even split it between top section, mid-range and base, but that largely depended on what funds you had available. Either what you as a group were able to bring in together, and also obviously how busy you were, the amount of work, jobs that you got. Funds were coming in, you could buy more equipment.
Q: Did youth sounds, did they actually build their own boxes and preamps and those kind of things or…? [20:16]
DM: No, they didn't. Boxes…Now we were quite lucky. The owner of my sound system that I was heavily involved with, his name is Joshua. That's why it was called Count Josh or Joshua’s Hi-Fi. Now he was a master builder, so he built our boxes. So there was a combination of people building boxes, speaker boxes, themselves. How well they were constructed obviously depended on your skill. Or else they'd have those things built for them, or else they'll buy them from elsewhere. And so actually with regards to the equipment, that is quite an important thing as well. Back in those days the quality of your sound system, both in terms of the build quality of your boxes, and in particular how it sounded. That was a very, very, very important aspect of sound systems.
Nowadays, it's my impression the quality of the actual sound system is not considered to be particularly that important. I mean back in the day what we used to do - and in fact in sound system clashing culture now this is outlawed, you're not allowed, if you do what I'm about to say, if you did that now in a so-called sound clash you'd be disqualified. But back in our day, one of the things that we would do if someone played a song, a tune, a good tune, we'd say “This is how it should sound.” So we'd play it back, but we'd play it back with better quality and that. And the crowd would go crazy. That was a mark of a good sound system, the quality of your system. Now one of the rules of sound clashing is you cannot play back someone's tune, but that's to show you how it was in those days. [22:13]
As I said, we were fortunate, we had a very good sound system in terms of the technical side of it.
Q: You were about to talk more about the sound that you were on, and also the other sounds that were kind of on the same level as you. [22:29]
DM: Right. Okay. Yeah, so obviously like everything else there was a hierarchy. And I would describe the sound system movement generally, I would draw the analogy with the football pyramid. So there was the top of the tree, and then it came down and there was different levels. I would say there was at least probably about four levels. No, let me see…yeah, let's say four levels. There was the very top sound systems; your Coxsones, your Skakas and Fatman and various other sounds.
Q: So Shelly would be in…?
DM: Oh, Count Shelly, yeah, oh yes. Yes.
And then you'd come down to the next level, and these would generally be what we call the ‘big man’ sounds. Like your Fugitive and so on.
Q: Fugitive and who else?
DM: Fugitive and Count Sam, and you had various other sound systems in South London.
Oh yeah, sorry, there's another very important sound I should have mentioned, he was one of my favourites. That's Admiral Ken. Admiral Ken was another very popular sound system, like Fatman. And the reason why Admiral Ken was very popular, and I would say Fatman was very popular, they tended to play the music that people know, and people were comfortable with. Sounds like Sir Coxsone was a very advanced sound system, not everybody wanted that. Most people, a lot of people were just more comfortable with everyday music that they knew. But the important thing about Admiral Ken; Admiral Ken was the first, as far as I'm aware, was the first sound system that started thinking on a much bigger scale, and they started doing big dances in big venues and so on. But like all the rest, they started off with the house parties and so on. And Admiral Ken actually was one of the sounds, one of the big sounds, that was regularly played in Richmond Road as one of the guest sound systems. They played there. So they're very important. [24:41]
But coming back to this hierarchy, or this pyramid. You have the very elite sounds to the very top, then you have the next set of what I call the ‘big man’ sounds. And then you had a group of sound systems - where I would say my sound system came into - which were the youth sounds, who were just below the second rung of the big men sounds.
One of the things that Count Joshua / Joshua Hi-Fi - which was a sound I was associated with - was very famous for; we played in a very similar way to the big men sound systems. Most of the youth sounds had their own youth sound way of playing,
[Film 2018.71 Part D:]
which is they played a lot of drum and bass, or the versions. So they play a bit of the vocal, then they turn it over and then they play a lot of the…You'd have a DJ or an MC on it.
And then below that you had youth sounds who were - I don't want to sound derogatory - the sort of wannabes. They weren't right up there. But it was just their dream to have a sound system. So they were the next rung.
Q: So what kind of sound would you play? If you're saying you've got Count Joshua, what other sound…? [25:59]
DM: Right, I'm going to tell you there was a hierarchy. In the youth sound circuit the biggest dance that you could have was Count Josh and a sound called Sir Lord Intruder. They were our real rivals on the battlefield, which means in the sound arena, outside of that we were friends. The thing about them as well, Sir Lord Intruder was the typical youth sound that I described that played a lot of drum and bass. Had that sort of pseudo militant stance that a lot of the young people were into in those days, whereas my sound system was a more clean cut type of sound system. But when we played against each other that's the biggest dance you could have on the youth circuit.
Q: What do you mean ‘pseudo militant’? Like, explain that a little bit. What was going on at the time? I think I know what you mean, but just so I can… [27:04]
DM: Well back in the 1970s most people were either Rastas, or took on the Rasta image, or acted in that sort of Rasta type way. Whereas our, so all of us in my sound, we were clean cut guys, you know? Now there's something I haven't actually talked about. There were a set of sound systems that were clean cut, anyway those were the soul boys. But back in those days the soul sound and the soul boys, most people used to - I don't want to say look down on them - they weren't rated in the sort of categories I'm talking about. The soul sound circuit was a different circuit, and they were seen as being sort of watered down and so on.
So the main party and main raving was within the, if you like, primarily the reggae fraternity. But within the reggae fraternity, we were one of the few sound systems that had that clean cut image. And because of that, this is just a theory of mine, not many people used to admit that they like Count Josh, because we were seen as being a little bit too watered down. Sorry, not watered down. Our image didn't fit in with that militant image that people had. But the proof of the pudding was in the eating, because when we clashed with Sir Lord Intruder, that's the biggest dance you could have on that youth level. The big biggest dance you could have.
And I said, we were rivals in the clash arena, but outside of that we were, you know…
Q: So where would you clash? Describe Josh versus Lord Intruder clash. [29:04]
DM: Right, okay. Now there was another very important youth club that I haven't mentioned. Not quite as important as Richmond Road, but very important. That was simply known as Friday Club, and just because it was on a Friday. It was in the heart of Stoke Newington, it was on Stoke Newington High Street near Brooke Road. And the resident sounds was ourself and [Lord] Intruder, so we used to play there. And on a Friday night it was a roadblock.
But there were other youth sounds. I would say they weren't in our category, but they were… No, there was one other sound that I think was that sort of level as well. There was a sound from Tottenham, they were called Scrap Iron. Scrap Iron was, you could describe Scrap Iron as sort of Fatman youth sound. And they were, you know, I mentioned about the militancy. They were very militant guys.
So I would say you had Count Josh, Sir Lord Intruder, Scrap Iron. ‘Cos Scrap Iron and Sir Lord Intruder used to clash quite a bit as well. And it was usually quite a bit of fisty cuffs when those two met! With us, with Count Josh and Sir Lord Intruder was a lot of banter, but nothing ‘cos we were really friends. And then you had other good sounds, other important sounds. Like there was a sound called Sir Lord Emperor, there was a sound called Musketeers.
There was Baron. [Laughs] Right now, Baron, Baron, I'm laughing because it when I think of Baron this is something that comes to my mind. There was a sound called Baron. Baron as you're probably aware, in the sound system arena there's always a sound that comes up. I think the same probably happens in Jamaica, anywhere. The sounds that's the flavour of the month, they come up, everyone's talking about them, they're supposed to be the in thing. Baron came up as the in thing, and they were popular. People like them, they came up as the in thing. But then one night they clashed with Count Josh and we basically slapped them down again. But they were good, because they came up.
And similarly there was another sound system where we never actually met. There was a sound system called Surge. And Surge was a very popular sound, had a good following.
Q: A youth sound again? [31:27]
DM: Yes, called Surge. They're important for their popularity. But we never actually played with Surge. But we did play with a flavour of the month sound, which was Baron.
Q: So the youth club the kind of you said the Friday Club and the Wednesday at Richmond Road. Are they these early finish things? [31:50]
DM: Yes. They'd finish about 10pm, 10:30pm, maybe 11pm on a Saturday they'd finish. But the early finish was common so you could go to one of the big sounds. For instance I mentioned Admiral Ken. Admiral Ken was famous for using pub function rooms, and those would finish 11, 10:30, 11 o’clock. And one of the most famous of all of those is a club in Leytonstone called the Red Lion and Admiral Kem was the resident there. In later years Fatman became the resident, but it used to be Admiral Ken. And that was big. In North London, that was in Leytonstone and it was on a Sunday night, most of these things were on a Sunday night.
At the same time over in Wood Green there was a place called… oh sorry, what's it called? The name's gone out my head…but there was another big Sunday night in Wood Green, where you used to have a sound from this side called Sir Biggs used to play there. Sir Biggs and another great sound from South London called Neville the Musical Enchanter. They played over there, so those were two big Sunday night sessions. They’d finish about 11pm.
Q: What were the main venues in Hackney, as you recall it, where used to be able to hear sound system play? And I mean both official venues and also unlicensed? [33:32]
DM: All right. Originally most of it was house parties, but then you also had…
Q: Was there an area that those house parties…?
DM: Yes. The two main areas as far as I was concerned were the heart of Stoke Newington; your Brooke Road, Jenner Road, Norcott Road, all around there. And then you had the St Mark's Rise, Colvestone Crescent, that area was very popular as well. And in those days you used to be able to come out of one house party and within minutes walk to another one if you wanted to. And yeah, that's how it was. So those were the main centres for house parties.
And then Chicken became…well I wouldn't say chicken came along, Chicken was always there. But at its height Chicken used to mainly play in the St Mark’s area as I said, but he used to also venture over more towards Mare Street, St Thomas Square. There was the place called Cadogan Terrace by Victoria Park, and as I said there those sessions could easily go until about one in the afternoon, Sunday afternoon. [Laughs].
Q: So then that's your kind of shebeens, Blues kind of house party places. So then what about either the youth clubs, or also the clubs. What kind of venues can you…? [35:03]
DM: Well with the youth clubs you had, as I said, you had Richmond Road, you had Friday Club. You had another place called Geneva. This is the original Geneva, ‘cos there was a place that came along later, much later in Hackney Wick, that was called Geneva. But the original Geneva was in Lordship Road near Manor road going. In Hackney, but the Stoke Newington end. You had another place over in Finsbury Park, so not actually Hackney, where the original Gemi Magic played. In those days they weren't called Gemi Magic, they were called Intrepid Rebel, and they played in a place in Finsbury Park called Hercules under that name.
Now there is another place that I have to mention. Very, very important. Technically I don't think it was in Hackney, it was on the Hackney Haringey borders. This was sort of as you go past Stanford Hill, just going into South Tottenham, so I think technically it was in Haringey, South Tottenham. There was a very, very famous venue called Noreik. And Noreik itself was a legendary venue. Now the youth sounds didn't play there, Noreik was the sort of domain of all the top sound systems. And at Noreik I witnessed, which both myself and most aficionados in the sound system circuit and sound system aficionados reckoned to be, the greatest sound clash there's ever been in England. And that was at Noreik. And that sound clash featured Fatman, Coxsone and Shaka. It sounds though you've heard about that, yes? That's arguably the greatest clash there's ever been. And some people argue over this, but I will say this, and I have to admit I didn't expect that outcome; I would say that clash
[Film 2018.71 Part E:]
Fatman came out victorious. Now I thought Fatman would come third out of three. Fatman I feel won that. And that's Noreik. So obviously you're nodding, you know of that. That was a famous clash. [37:21]
In my experience the next greatest after that - just in my experience, others would say there were other ones. But I think not many people argue about that one I've just mentioned - There was a great dance in Clapham North at a place called Caxton Hall that was Coxsone, Shaka, and there was a sound system that came up which was called Lord David.
And an interesting thing about Lord David; Lord David gave rise to another sound system that was a great sound system in its own right, and a sound system that came up very fast and were the flavour of the month. But they weren't one of these sound systems that only had a short life. When they came up they stayed there. But they came out of Lord David, that was a sound called Moa Anbessa. Moa Anbessa was derived from Lord David, south London sound. just like another one of the great sounds from South London was Soferno. B. And another great sound that was derived from Soferno. B was Stereograph from South London. So that's just a little aside… [38:31]
But that that clash in Caxton Hall in Clapham North, as I said it was Shaka, Coxsone and Lord David. Now to me Shaka was victorious. Now I particularly liked Shaka because generally I like things that are cool. I mean Coxsone had a lot to say for himself that night, so did Lord David, but Shaka was just very cool and just got on with the business.
And saying that, this is another interesting story. I once went to a dance in Noreik, it was Fatman, Fatman was actually the resident then. And there was a sound that came from Birmingham, and many people argued one of the greatest sound systems there's ever been. I only heard them the once, which was in a clash with Fatman.
[Film 2018.71 Part F:]
That sound was called Mafia Tone. And I'll never forget this because what happened, again, it fits in with my philosophy of how sound systems should be. Like I said earlier, I think a good selector should be able to play all sorts of music at the highest level without just simply playing lip service to particular genres.
Now what happened was the clash was Fatman and Mafia Tone from Birmingham. In the early part of the dance Fatman was very hype. That's the thing about Fatman, Fatman was a very popular sound, a very hype-y type of sound. And they were hype, everything was buzzing, and they had one of the top mic's men in the business. And they were saying to Mafia Tone “You're not in country now, you're in London. When you come to London you can't…” Because Mafia Tone was playing steady, which I think is what you should do. I think when you play music you build up the vibe. But you see, and I'll never forget this, you see later on when Mafia Tone started to play music, or as we say to use the vernacular, when Mafia Tone started to let off, he was in a different class. So Fatman was the front runner, Mafia Tone was taking it steady, building the vibe. Which I believe that's what you should do, I believe that's how you should play music. But when they started to play music they was in a different class. [Laughs].
Q: We haven't got much time. A couple questions I'd like to ask; Going back to your own sound system and others in that class, were they, were you cutting dub plates at the time? [41:19]
DM: Some of the young sounds did. We personally didn't cut proper dub plates, we had some dub plates made by the guy who… Oh, so I should have mentioned this; In those days, most of the equipment was custom made. The guy who built our sound system he had equipment. Not proper dub cutting machines or something, but we were able to do sort of like DIY dubs. But we didn't rely on those a lot, because it wasn't a lot of that, it was mainly…
Where we were famous is that, unlike most of the youth sounds, I said I believe that we were top of the pecking order in the youth sound fraternity. The reason why we were top as far as I was concerned, we used to get our music from Jamaica. We used to send for music from from Randy’s. Randy’s is basically what's known as VP Records now in America. But we used to get music from Randy’s, and what we used to do, to show you how long ago this was, we used to send - I don't think they even use them now - we used to send a postal order to Jamaica, and they'd send us back a package with music. So until the package arrived we wouldn't actually know what would be in there. And sometimes, not very often, the second package may have one or two doubles, in other words we got it in the first slot. So we used to get our music from Jamaica, so we used to have a lot of music that no one else had. Sorry, no one else played. We were ahead of a lot of people in terms of the music that we played.
But not only were we ahead of a lot of people, a lot of that music the youth sounds never got. Because what used to also happen, a lot of the music - ‘cos with those original Jamaican 7 inch presses there used to [be] often just a limited number - so the people who got the first pick of those used to be the top sound systems, and then the youth sounds would get what's left. That's if you bought those music from a record shop, but we used to largely get our music from Jamaica. So we used to get a lot of music that the big men sound systems had.
Now, just quickly on that, I should mention this: Because we played in this way that was really loved, there was another very famous sound system from Tottenham, a Rasta sound. The owner of that sound, he's now deceased. His name was, they called him Jah Bones and his sound system was called City Dread. And the first time, I can't remember exactly how it went, but basically when he came into contact he said “Boy, these youths are good!” And he took us under his wing, ‘cos he liked what we did. And he took us to…he gave us different… ‘cos he just liked what we were doing as youths. ‘Cos we were playing like the big men. That's Jah Bones from City Dread. Obviously that sound is now defunct, and City Dread has actually passed.
Q: So you mentioned records, you were talking about records and sending from Jamaica. Did you use the record shops in and around Hackney? [44:10]
DM: Yeah. I'm going to tell you I'm glad you asked that. The most important record shop, now obviously a lot of the things that I'm saying during this interview, it's a matter of opinion. But I don't think many people would argue what I'm saying. The most important record shop, there was a record shop in Stoke Newington, at the beginning of Stamford Hill just after Church Street called Rita Record Shop [R&B Records]. That was owned by an old Jewish lady [Rita King] and you would get proper music from there.
Then there was another record shop, which originally was called Lasco's [Lasco’s Music Den]. That was in Clapton on Lower Clapton Road, just before you got to Clapton Pond. That was an excellent record shop. It later changed its name, which a lot of people would know this name. But originally it was called Lasco’s, later became known as ‘Regal’ record shop. Those two record shops were very important. [45:09]
Now I've got to say one other thing, since you mentioned record shops this is important. When we was all kids, remember there was no pirate radio stations or nothing like that. What we used to do, including myself, we used to go to a very famous record shop in Ridley Road Market known as either Muzik City, Musicland. And what we used to do, we used to go there and stand around just listening to music. ‘Cos apart from the blues dance you wouldn't hear any music. And it was interesting, one of the real characters who recently passed used to run that shop - I don't think he owned, he was the manager - His name was Skipper. And Skipper was one of the important people at Richmond Road. And Skipper, you know, you'll always have the the sort of big guys who everyone looks up to, and also a little bit afraid of, and Skipper was that person.
Now he used to run the record shop, and depending on what mood he was in, he would let us kids stay in the record shop and listen to music, or else he’d say “Right, you're not buying anything, come out of here.” So it was like a this sort of standoff. [Laughs] You'd go on a Saturday or Friday to Muzik City, Musicland, you stand there listening to music. And then depending on what mood Skipper was in, he'd either allow you to stay there or else he’d drive you away. Or perhaps he'd let you stay up to a certain point, then he say “Right come out, come out, you can't be standing around here.” ‘Cos you know we weren't buying records. [46:36]
And actually there's a famous, I can't remember what the LP's called, but there’s a famous Reggae album where there's a picture taken of a couple of guys standing outside Muzik City. One of the guys was, well I knew both of them, one of the guys his name is Danny. The second guy that's there I used to go to raves and things with him, blues dance. ‘Cos that again, what another phenomenon was, there was often people the only real contact you'd have with them is you'd meet them or go with them to blues dance. But other than that you wouldn't see them. So you'd only ever see them Saturday, on a Saturday. But there was a famous thing that I've seen taken outside of Music City.
Q: It's not somebody called Ted is it? in there as well
DM: Ted Charles? Yeah, no, it's not Ted Charles. Do you know Ted Charles then?
Q: I don't know him, I know of him. I've seen this picture of three people, one of them being Ted Charles, outside Muzik City, black and white picture. But it doesn't look like, I don't think it’s an album thing. [47:36]
DM: No, that's not…
But just very quickly; The first time I ever heard Sir Coxsone sound system - the great Sir Coxsone - and as I said Sir Coxsone was this mystical, legendary sound. The greatest. And you'd always want to hear Sir Coxsone because they were the greatest. And the first time I ever heard Sir Coxsone was he came here to East London, and Ted Charles had a blues dance. And interestingly what I said earlier on, about going to…you'd go to Richmond Road on a Saturday, and then you go on to something else. I remember it was a Saturday night, I went to Richmond Road, and when Richmond Road finished we went to Sir Coxsone, who came over to this side, because most of the time they were in South London. And it was Ted Charles that held that party.
Q: There's one more thing I need to ask you. How did people, how did you know where all these dances were happening? ‘Cos you know there's no internet, people are walking around without mobile phones and things. So how does that communicate? [48:47]
DM: Simple. You'd go to - this wern’t the only way - but one of the main things, you'd go to Muzik City, Musicland and on the wall there' be flyers. But interestingly enough, the flyers weren't the things that we recognise as flyers now. The flyers were basically something about the same size and shape of, say, an Oyster Card. And it’d have details of a dance, and I can tell you, you could put a flyer, one of these little flyers up in Muzik City, Musicland, on a Saturday and that alone would be sufficient promotion to ram your dance.
And just got to mention just quickly on that, because it's related to Admiral Ken. Admiral Ken was ahead of his time in terms of making it all the more commercial. As far as I remember Admiral Ken was one of the first sound systems that started using the proper big flyers that we recognize today, ‘cos he branched out from your sort of localised blues dance to bigger events. And so Admiral Ken was very important in terms of that, sort of, launching out sound system on a bigger scale and a more commercial basis.
Q: Thank you, I could talk to you for hours but we are about to get kicked out. So probably the last thing; is there anything massive that you think has been emitted from this conversation that we really needed to say? You seem to have covered quite a lot, but just to check…[50:28]
DM: I would say the important role that sound systems played in the development of reggae. Reggae particularly, but black music more generally. Sound systems were the original advocates of the music. Later on you had the pirate radio stations, they came along, they were important. But to my mind, the single most important vessel, or thing that promoted this, was the role of the sound system. Because we had no private radio stations that was where you'd go to listen to music, so the sound system is very, very important in terms of reggae music, the development of reggae music particularly. And in terms of black music generally, because as I said there were other types, there were the soul sounds and so on. So the role of reggae music should not be underestimated, and I think the original pioneers don't get the true credit that they deserve.
[Film 2018.71 Part G:]
But I think part of the reason for that is - and with no disrespect to the original sound system pioneers - I think they were just into their music. That's what they did. I don't think that they were the most…I don't think they would necessarily promote themselves or the whole thing. They just did their own thing. But you can't underestimate the importance of the original sound systems in the development of reggae music, and more generally black music in the UK.
Q: Thank you very much. That was amazing.