i would firstly like to apologise to anyone who has received videos from me. they are not from me but from an imposter. another strange happening is that i lost hundreds of friends simply by accepting a certain friend. if anyone knows how this happens i would be so grateful for some contact. anyway.....
Along the road from my Talkin Loud days to Jukes I have made a few musical experiments .While recording for Giles Petersons' label I was listening to a lot of soul, brasillian, and hip hop (and a heavy dose of 70s funky things like Sly And The Family Stone, Parliament and Sun Ra ) and so my output reflected that. I was beats driven (there was an as yet undiscovered drummer inside me !) and my songs at that point had hip hop running through them.
i became a drummer. Four hours a day playing congas in the basement, samba school,eventually getting together enough to join a salsa band in London. During this time I listened to Jerry Gonzales and his Fort Apache band, Hermeto Pascoal, Los Papines and stuff like that. I got a latin jazz group together and wrote for trumpet and trombone.
Along side this I got a little second hand drum kit together and started obsessing over Tribe Called Quest beats. Recording myself over and over to find just one section that was tight enough to loop. Again, the beat was a driving force and I would play my loops and make tunes for them.
The results of this can be heard on two Cup Of Tea Records releases: In Deeper Life under the name Tammy Payne and Look At Me under the name Sissi.
Soon after these releases i became enchanted with great songs, beats or no beats. i started listening to a lot of 70's rock and folk. Leonard Cohen, David Bowie (honestly, I had never listened to anything but Life On Mars before), Dylan, Nick Drake, Johnny Cash, Joni Mitchell, Velvet Underground, Jonathan Richman, Simon and Garfunkel..
During this time I got a guitar and learned my favourite Leonard Cohen songs so that I could join in round the campfire.
I would write in the day strumming in parks and visiting cafes with my little red word book, and gig at night in my own thing and friends things too. I liked to play drums for other song writers like Jesse Morningstar (formerly of The Moonflowers) and Patrick Duff (formerly of Strangelove) so I could keep the drumming together but keep myself involved in songs.
I released some songs with Bristol sound pioneers Smith And Mighty which are on their album on k7 records called Big World Small World.
I was still playing drums at this time and played some dates with Mckay.(music by Geoff Barrow of Portishead). And then i got my avante garde rock boots on to stomp the pedal for John Parish.
Along the way i had been filling up my little red book with words, which came to be the stories of Jukes.
There is a Jukes album called A Thousand Dreamers, on Twisted Nerve Records. Their website is. www.twistednerve.co.uk.The new album (samples of which are here on my space) is not yet released.
