THE PRODIGY! - How it all began
Twenty years ago this summer, punk erupted in the music venues of london, putting an end to a period of stagnation in the record industry.Since that time, a whole litany of bands have revered that era, and with this landmark anniversary upon us, even the original upstarts,THE SEX PISTOLS, have dusted down their bondage trousers and come out of the woodwork. Every magazine, gig-listing and television schedule is presently full of punk rock, as a flood of books, records, merchandise and concert try to revitilse the moment once again.
Ironically, it seems that the best punk record of the year won't come from one of the old-timers, nor from one of the many guitar-minded youngsters who've retraced their musical footsteps.It will be the dance act the Prodigy's third album, which is out right now. The musical force behind the band is 23-year-old Liam Howlett, from Brain- tree in Essex.His fascination with music began during primary school, when he fell for ska and two tone, after his father gave him a copy of Ska's Greatest Hits.On moving up to secondry school, he was immediately attracted to the new hip-hop culture, became fascinated with by bands like
GRANDMASTER FLASH & THE FURIOUS FIVE, and repeatedly watched the 1984 break -dancing film, BEAT STREET.
Inevitably, Howlett wanted to perform his own material and, a couple of years later, a holiday job on a building site earned him enough cash to buy two cheap turntables.Soon after, he approached a local hip-hop band called CUT TO KILL, who took on board as their second DJ.For the next two years, Liam and CUT TO KILL rehearsed hard, although they only gigged sporadically. Aged 18,Liam passed his A-level in Graphic Design and got a job at the now defunct London freebie magazine,'Metropolitan',where he struck up a friendship with the owner.
BETRAYAL
After playing him a tape of CUT TO KILL,Liam was offered 4,ooo pounds to record the band's debut album. Unfortunately, neither the band nor the benefactor were at all experienced and so the whole budget wasmistakenly spent in the studio, leaving nothing for promotion or touring.To compound matters. the rest of the band the signed to Tam Tam records behind Liams back. The deal excluded him, despite the fact the band used one of his tracks to win the contract. This betrayal coincided with Liams dwindling
interest in hip-hop and, following an incident when a knife was pulled on him at London's Subterania because he didn't fit in, he began looking for new musical pastures. It was summer of 1988. While Liam was immersed in hip-hop, his home country was on a altogether different trip, Acid house, which had engulfed most of Essex in a tide of flares and ecstasy.The tunes, like Phuture's 1987 ACID TRAX, and Derrick May and Juan Atkins work were minimalist musical hybrids, with mind altering frequencies, relentless rhythms ,unconventional structures and weird off-beat soundscapes.
While pure house music tempered its rhythmic obsession by incorporating more melodies and harmonies, Acid house pursued rhythm to new extremes, using new technology to create beats that never have been simulated by human beings. Originating in Chicago and Detriot, the music soon crossed the Atlantic, and took root via massive illegal warehouse parties that formed the foundation for what became known as RAVE. It was the era of smart bars ,marathon dancing and a recycled hippy mantra--the second summer of love had arrived. Liams first experience of rave culture was a party at the Barn in Rayne <home to the Shamen's Mr.C.>.He was immediately converted"I thought it was the bollocks, such a different experience from the hip-hop scene, which was a exclusivist, pretentious scene, and to a certain extent, it always excluded white bands. Then to experience something like that first night at the Barn was such a stark contrast, I really loved the music and the whole vibe. I never really been into dancing that much, but it did not matter, because you could just smile and jump around and really enjoy the buzz,you didn't have to dance properly". Within a few months,Liam had started DJ-ing at these partues and become a well known face on the Essex scene. However ,he was still too shy to play any material that he had been secretly been writing. Enter Leeroy Thornhill, all 6'7" of him, was a James Brown fanatic who had only taken to the scene after the early, monotone acid house had developed into something more sophisticated. With his lightening-fast feet ,he was the person to be seen with at the Barn.
Keith had left school before his exams and taken up various jobs <including one as a investigative driller>, before becoming a 'casual' and then a devotee of bike culture, smoking dope and listening to 70s legends such as LED ZEPPELIN and PINK FLOYD. When rave arrived in the summer of '88, he was travelling around the middle east and Africa, but by the spring of 1989 he was back in Britain. On return, he was immediately thrown out of his house--one night he'd been sleeping beside the pyramids of Cairo, the next he was kipping next to a river in Braintree.
RAVE
A friend of his, Ange, offered him some digs at her house. She was a keen raver and when she next went out to an acid house party, Keith tagged along. After meeting each other at the Barn, Keith and Leeroy became great friends, going out almost every night and rapidly becoming popular characters om the circuit. It was an outdoor rave that Keith first met Liam. Keith was so impressed by the tunes that Liam was playing that he asked if he could have a tape of his mixes. Liam obliged and put four of his own songs on the B side. Keith and Leeroy played the tape late one night after coming back from a party and were stunned by Liam's work. As leeroy adroitly remembers, "We were buzzing our tits off."The next time they saw Liam they asked him to play his own material for them to dance alomg to. He agreed after roping with a girlfriend, Sharkey, the PRODIGY was formed. Liam played keyboards, while Leeroy, Keith and Sharkey danced.
Shortly after, they booked their first P.A. at the Labyrinth in Dalston, East London, where the promoter told them,"I've only ever had two P.A.'s here before and they were both bottled off after five minutes". Liam had felt an MC was needed for the performance, and was put in touch with Maxim Reality, a reggae MC, originally from Peterborough, who had spent the last three years in Nottingham. Maxim had first got into music by watching his brother MC-ing at varios Peterborough reggae sounds systems. Once in Nottingham, Maxim had struck up a fruitful musical partnership with a friend called Ian Sherwood, and the two had christened themselves Maxim Reality and
Sheik yan groove. Unfotuantly, their Unorthadox proggresive dance music was highly unfashionable, and after three fruitless years they split up. Maxim had enjoyed working with Sherwood, so he went travelling for three months to chill out and ponder his life. While he was away, he realised music was his first passion, and so on his return to England he moved to London. Shortly afterwards, a mutual friend put him in touch with the Prodigy. Tapes were sent back and forth but their debut gig in Dalston was at such short notice that the first time that Maxim actually met the band was on the night of the show.
Maxim remebers it as an interesting experience "I just remember being put on this stage in the middle of the dance scene, with these for people I had just met. and I just stood at the back with my mic in my hand. Meanwhile all of the other band were doing there shit and everyone was going wild, its just went off.It happened so quickly it was weird, but really good. I thought it was wicked but I did'nt think anything more of it other than that I would like to do it again." Maxim did do again --- a few days later he was asked to join the band. With this line up, the Prodigy started to do what few dance bands had done before them---they gigged.Bands like N-Joy and Shades Of Rhythm had built a big fan base long before the Prodigy's arrival ,but it was the sheer weight of hard work done by Howlett that made them big in the months to come. Their early shows were ill-attended, like their fifth gig at Hatfield college where there were only nine people in the crowd ,including five from the support band. Conversely, their twelth gig was at Raindance, a massive rave attended by 12,000 people. In fact, a feature of the acid house scene was that it offered fledging bands the chance to play to thousands of people in a way that only young rock acts could only dream of. What made the Prodigy even more exceptional was that their shows were live, unlike the DAT-reliant P.A's of their rivals.
During Christmas 1990, Liam announced to the band that he'd secretly signed a record deal with XL a few weeks previously, though he was continuing to work at 'Metroplitan'. He was convinced that the Prodigy was the right vehicle to take his music wider audience. However, Sharky thought that she had too much and left the band at christmas.
TO BE CONTINIUED.........
GENETIX/VORTEX
