A GUY CALLED GERALD

“Describing this music is like a fish trying to describe water. There’s so many memories, smells, people – my entire teenage years were shaped by all the tracks that are in this mix. I¹m thinking of Adidas high top trainers and jogging bottoms, bruised knees and elbows, all of which were part of my breakdancing day to day.

I was 15 and always at Greg Wilson’s night on Wednesdays at Legends in Manchester, . I was just a little bit underage but managed to get in. I really miss those times coz people back then had nothing else but that, the atmosphere was something I’ve never ever seen repeated. People would come to Legends from all over the country just for that night. At the time dancing and music was the most important thing in my life. I recognised the music as a way of basically escaping from my environment. It was a pretty harsh environment in some ways and there was a lot of judging going on. There were the typical teenage pressures – everyone was classified as either a Dub head or Funk head. It would be easy to fall into someone else’s mould and do what they were doing, but in them days that was looked at as cheesy. The people that were into Electro and breakdancing were basically crazy – it was definitely a young movement. We had a kind of careless aggression about things – a Punk attitude – people would be laughing at us for washing the floor and spinning on our heads, but you could see they would never know how to break out of a system. And that’s basically what we felt we were doing.

Tracklist -

MALCOLM X / KEITH LeBLANC ‘No Sell Out’
GRANDMASTER FLASH & THE FURIOUS FIVE ‘The Message’
DIMPLES D ‘Sucker DJ’s (I Will Survive)’
B BOYS ‘Two, Three, Break’
RUSSELL BROTHERS ‘The Party Scene’
THE PACMAN ‘I’m The Pacman (Eat Everything I Can)’
DJ DIVINE ‘Get Into The Mix’
MALCOLM McLAREN / WORLD’S FAMOUS SUPREME TEAM ‘Buffalo Gals’
NEWCLEUS ‘Jam On Revenge (The Wikki Wikki Song)’
TIME ZONE ‘The Wildstyle’
PUMPKIN ‘King Of The Beat’
ART OF NOISE ‘Beat Box’
B BOYS ‘Cuttin’ Herbie’
HERBIE HANCOCK ‘Rockit’
NEWTRAMENT ‘London Bridge Is Falling Down’
WHODINI ‘Magic’s Wand’
EXTRA T’S ‘E.T Boogie’
THE WEBBOES ‘Under The Wear’
Q ‘The Voice Of Q’
ARKADE FUNK ‘Search And Destroy’
G.L.O.B.E & WHIZ KID ‘Play That Beat Mr DJ’
WARP 9 ‘Nunk’
PROJECT FUTURE ‘Ray-Gun-Omics’
TWO SISTERS ‘High Noon’
C.O.D ‘In The Bottle’
GRANDMASTER & MELLE MEL ‘White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)’
TOM BROWNE ‘Rockin’Radio’
NAIROBI ‘Soul Makossa’
MAN PARRISH ‘Hip Hop Be Bop (Don’t Stop)’
WARP 9 ‘Light Years Away’
FREEEZ ‘I-O-U’
TYRONE BRUNSON ‘The Smurf’
NEW ORDER ‘Confusion’
AFRIKA BAMBAATAA & THE SOUL SONIC FORCE ‘Looking For The Perfect Beat’
MIDNIGHT STAR ‘Freak-A-Zoid’
CAPTAIN ROCK ‘The Return Of Captain Rock’
RUN-DMC ‘It’s Like That’
ROCKERS REVENGE ‘Walking On Sunshine’
HASHIM ‘Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)’
KLIEN & MBO ‘Dirty Talk’
SHANNON ‘Let The Music Play’
XENA ‘On The Upside’
JONZUN CREW ‘Pack Jam (Look Out For The OVC)’
MELLE MEL & DUKE BOOTEE ‘Message II (Survival)’
REGGIE GRIFFIN & TECHNOFUNK ‘Mirda Rock’
GRANDMASTER FLASH & THE FURIOUS FIVE ‘Scorpio’
JONZUN CREW ‘Space Is The Place’
KLIEN & MBO ‘Wonderful’
MAN PARRISH ‘Techno Trax’
CYBOTRON ‘Clear’
PLANET PATROL ‘Cheap Thrills’
ORBIT ‘And The Beat Goes On’
JONZUN CREW ‘We Are The Jonzun Crew’
RYUICHI SAKAMOTO ‘Riot In Lagos’
TWILIGHT 22 ‘Electric Kingdom’
PLANET PATROL ‘Play At Your Own Risk’
AFRIKA BAMBAATAA & THE SOUL SONIC FORCE ‘Planet Rock’

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