Breakers Revenge!

It's funny...I didn't see myself as a Dancer...Poppin' wasn't just Dance to me, it was an expression, a way of fighting without punching...That's what it was all about! At the time, growing up in 'Cov' it was all Gangs and every area or School had Gangs...you walked into that area and you didn't know anyone, well...you'd get your Ass kicked! Maybe I'm painting a negative picture and maybe in reality, it wasn't that way...but it felt like it!

The whole Breakin' scene took off hugely...all the big Cities, London, Birmingham, Manchester etc got it first and Cov, which is just outside of Brum caught it. So you're thinking, "Well, it was just a bunch of lads (and girls) Dancing in the Street with a roll of Lino and and a 'Ghetto Blaster'"...err...no...it was life or death...seriously...it was a Battle against other Gangs (Crews).

Early on I realised what I was quite good at it...the whole Dance scene essentially broke down into Poppin' and Breakin'...Breakin' was probably the more energetic, exciting and dangerous, but Poppin' was more...I don't know...intellectual! Poppin' is what I did...and did very well!

Of course, in the early days before we formed a Crew, there were a few places you could show your skills and one in particular was near the Courtaulds building in Foleshill. This place was a Sports and Social Club, but on a Saturday afternoon, there were just hundreds of kids packed in and some of the main crews from around...including Future Shock. Electro music would be blasting out and every 5 minutes or so, you'd see kids gather round in a group...'cause there was a 'Battle' on!

So what was a Battle? Well essentially it was a case of someone doing a move and then the other person tried to do one better, until 1 of them gave up. Sounds simple, but in reality it was all about 'blowing out' the person...doing moves that took the piss out of them.

On one Saturday, I thought I'd make my move....but not just having a simple Battle...I'd take on one of the best in the West Midlands...Mr Freeze! I walked up to him while he was talking to someone, looked at him and he looked back and just knew...he was a veteran at this. I was about 14, in my cheap Hip Hop gear and he was this huge black guy in his late teens early 20's...all kitted out with the best gear...

The crowd could sense it, all eyes were on us both...BATTTLE CRY! With a crowd, gathered around us...maybe 5 or 6 deep...I started, did a bit of floatin', lockin' and tickin'...all my best moves at the time and thought...yeah...beat that! Now this guy was watching everything I did...he could tell what level I was at and knew how he would respond. This guy was about 10 feet away from me and in a blink of an eye...he floated all the way around me and then next thing I knew he was again standing 10 feet in front of me...only this time, he was wearing my Baseball Cap! All in a few seconds...I didn't even notice!

I was beaten and everyone knew it...it was my turn, but thought I'd save myself from anymore embarrassment, smiled and said "nah, nah", while waving my hand. Thing is, I got respect for that, not because I'd got beaten, but because I took on the best. Anyway, had a little chat with Mr Freeze after and he gave me some tips and encouragement...nice guy! I was determined then, I was gonna' get good!

Next time, I'll talk about the crew we formed (Sonic Beat), which ended up at one point being about 15 of us, where we practised and some of the scrapes we got into...especially one time when I 'broke the rules' and ended up with about 100 lads outside my house...looking for blood!

Release Yourself

"Ain't no Stoppin us...no Stoppin'...

Of course, from my last post...I mentioned about the fact that I used to do 'Break Dancing'...this may come as a bit of a surprise to people that have met me in recent years, but...yeah...I did it! It wasn't just dance to me...it was a way of life...an entry into something that shaped everything that I am today. No it's not technical stuff, that's just a vehicle I use...it's one thing and one thing only...Creativity! To make or do something from just a thought...what's that saying? "Actions speak louder than words?"

Staying with the topic though, before I go into it...below is a video or an excerpt from a film that had a huge impact on me and countless others in 1985 who were part of...even though we didn't know at the time...a new movement...one that I embraced with every part of my body...Literally!



Maybe looks a bit old and tired now, but to me, still impressive. These 2 "crews" who played a part in the film, were real Crews at the time..."New York City Breakers" and the "Rock Steady Crew" and set the "Bar" at the time...but remember, there was no Internet at the time (or as we know it) so you couldn't find out what was going on...this Film, legitimised Street Dancing...and 'boy' did I fall in love with it.

The whole 'Hip Hop' thing came over to the UK in the early 80's and it wasn't just dance...it was a combination of Dance, Graffiti (or Art) and Music...that all were as important as each other, but for me, the Dance aspect was huge...this made me feel special, unique...a feeling that has stayed with me ever since...but it was bloody fun...sometimes dangerous and hand on heart, what i'm doing today and what i'll end up doing, is all because of this time in my life.

As mentioned in my previous post, it all started with Michael Jackson, when he did the 'Moon Walk" ...it was like..."how the Hell is he moving backwards, but looks like he's walking forwards"...I had to find out and my Kitchen that had Lino tiles was going to be my 'Test Ground'...I must have worn out countless pairs of Socks practicing that move, but then through School, the 'Wave' came in...this was the start for me, as well as probably the first Film that really went into the culture (Breakin') but was a cheesy movie, but opened my eyes to what was possible...

For now, i'm going to leave it at that, but my next post's will go into the type of Dance I did, how I nearly got the crap kicked out of me in a Battle and how we ended up doing shows in Workingmens Clubs doing this...but for now..."Ain't no Stoppin' Us"

Old Tech – New Tech – SX Spectrum

The mighty ZX Spectrum…no other ‘Home Computer’ has ever been this successful…well, ok, maybe a few others, but this was a great machine when ‘we’ got it. This was when gaming got good…

I’ll take you back to 1983 (the picture wobbles and you hear the sound of a Harp)…ahem! Here I am at the age of about 12 and the Spectrum had been out for almost a year. It was my Brother’s Birthday and he got the Spectrum. Now picture this…if you wanted to play a decent game back then, you had to go to maybe your local Video Shop or an Arcade in town. There were a couple of video consoles around, but they were pretty crap and of course, you had to buy the games…not anymore!

Now, please note, I don’t advocate piracy in any form, but because the Spectrum was so popular, all you needed to do was borrow a game off a mate, get two cassette recorders, play on one and record on another (these were even traded at School) and there you go…Jetset Willy for the next 2 weeks!

My Lazer computer was crap by comparison because they went out of business and apart from the game that resembled some ‘guy pissing down into a Bucket’, there wasn’t much choice…or you could program your own and well…bugger that!

There were so many games available that we had hours of fun with it. Granted by today’s standard, the graphics were rubbish but the gameplay was pretty good, with Attic Attack being my favourite. My Brother preferred Manic Miner and he was very good at it…it was all about “What sheet are you on”…not level or anything…”Sheet” WTF!

Of course, if you want to see what all the fuss was about, you can play these games now:

http://www.zxspectrum.net/

Ahhh…memories! Sadly, this was to become my last interaction really with Home Computers until several years later. Though, around this age 12/13, my destiny was before me (or so I thought at the time). In 1983 Michael Jackson showed the world his Moonwalk. Hip Hop, Breakin’ and Body Poppin’ was coming in…and if I say so myself, I was pretty good at it.

Next up…Sonic Beat are born!...(That's me to the right)

Old Tech – New Tech – Laser 200

As I was the youngest in the family, it was thought that to have my own Computer would be a bit too over the top…I mean “He’s just a Kid”. I was about 11 at the time and just started Secondary School, where I had ‘Computer Lessons’. I can still remember the first lesson…I sat at the back of the class and the Teacher started to introduce himself to the class and gave an outline of what we would be doing.

He then started to talk about Computers and gave a brief description and stated “they run on BASIC”…”Does anyone knows what BASIC means?”…ha hah…it was my chance…you see, I’d already wrote programs, or should I say input them from magazines…with complete silence in the class, I raised my hand…”Yes…what is it?” while pointing at me, “Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code” I answered with complete confidence! The other kids looked at me like I was ‘Teachers Pet’ and the Teacher looked a little amazed that some average looking kid in a not so great Secondary School…new the answer…but I did!

Christmas then came and to my delight, I got my first and very own Computer…Enter the Laser 200! The what? Yeah, it kind of fell under the Radar a little, but it was all mine. I had a Cassette player with it and plugged it into the spare downstairs TV. It was better than the ZX81 my Brother had, because it was in colour and had sound, plus it had a ‘Hi-Res’ mode. It had a whopping 4k of memory and came with a few games on tape.

I loved it, small rubber keys that beeped when you pressed them and looked great. I had to wait for the January sales (yes, back then, they actually happened in January) to use my Xmas money to buy some more games and a RAM pack. Now…bear in mind this was nearly 30 years ago, but you just have to trust me on this…Imagine having about 6 or 7 DVD cases stacked on top of each other and you get close to the scale of this extra memory. “How much extra did you get?” I hear you cry…wait for it…16k! Yep, 16k.

This gave me access though to some better games…of course there was Chess, for some reason every new Computer came with Chess, but there was a game that used the ‘Hi-Res’ mode (basically, the blocks were a little smaller) and cannot for the life of me remember what it was called, but I can only describe it as a ‘Man’ on top of a high rise, shooting things into Buckets below…unfortunately, it didn’t really look like shooting…it was more like an electronic ‘Stickman’, peeing off the top of a building into a Bucket.

Not long after, my Brother got the mighty ZX Spectrum and I’ll talk about that some other time, but I can remember, clear as day that our Stepdad at the time, set us a task to write a Program ourselves…we jumped at it, as it wasn’t that often you could do anything to impress the Man, so with my Brother all set on his new Spectrum and me on my Laser…we set to work one Saturday.

The biggest movie at the time was Tron. It was probably the first CGI movie and in the local Arcade, the Tron game was the most popular…Light Cycles, the Frisbee thing and if you’ve ever seen the film, it ends with the ‘Hero’ throwing one of these Frisbee things at the evil Computer and destroying for all time…mind you, the new Film is out soon, so I guess not…”End of Line”!

So, I decided that my Program was going to recreate this ending, with animation and sound…it was gonna’ be Ace! I can’t remember what my Brother wrote, but I spent ages and ages on this Program. One good thing about my Laser is that you could program each button to play a different Musical note...of course, it was just a beep, but you could specify the note and the length (If only I knew then, how much of an impact this would make to me in the future).

So here I am, been on it all day and it was finally finished…When I ran the Program an animated version of the evil Computer showed, with the theme tune to Tron playing over the top…all in different colours…it was great. The Stepdad decided to see what we had done and looked at my Brothers code…but can’t remember what he said, but then he looked at mine…I ran the Program and he seemed to like it, then asked me to ‘List’ the Program…He just laughed at it, but not in a good way “You’ve just used PRINT@ statements, not PEEK and POKE”…he was a ‘Better Boy’…anything you could do, he could do better.

I was left there sitting in the corner of the living room, looking at my Program list and felt humiliated, small and cried for the rest of the day…I was proud of what I had done, I’d done it all on my own, with no help, but it was no good. In a way, this moment kind of put me off Computers or should I say the Programming side and it wasn’t until much later when I got into Music Production when I was 17/18, that my interest started again.

Anyway, shortly after having the Laser, the company went ‘Bust’ and you couldn’t buy any games or anything, but that didn’t matter, the game market exploded with the release of the ZX Spectrum that my Brother had and this will be the topic of my next post…The ZX Spectrum…Gaming had arrived!