Thursday 17 February 2011

Skimming Stones ... eight times

Skimming Stones, the special issue of Your Heart Out which can be downloaded for free here, mentions the pub rock outfit Clancy, for which Barry Ford played drums. One of the group's founders was Colin Bass, who is one of that wonderfully confounding breed of musicians whose CV defies logic. Among the records Colin has been part of is his (former Clancy colleague) Gaspar Lawal's revolutionary Ajomase LP from 1980. One track from this set, Kita Kita, was given a new lease of life when it appeared on the Strut collection Nigeria 70. Another star of that collection, is Joni Haastrup, who was heavily in the production of Gaspar's 1980 LP. Joni's own LP, Wake Up Your Mind, which features classics like Free My People, is an absolute 'must have' as well. The same can be said for the MonoMono LPs he was part of. In 1985 Gaspar Lawal played on the charity single, billed as an alternative to Band Aid, which appeared on Madness' Zarjazz label. One side of the single was Tam Tam Pour L’Ethiopie which featured something of a who’s who of African performers. It also appeared as the first track on a NME cassette called All Africa Radio which gave a wonderful introduction to the sounds coming out of Africa at that time. Gaspar appeared on the other side, with what was essentially a 2 Tone all-stars line-up, which was an update of The Pioneers' Starvation.

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