Adrian Sherwood interviewed @DJhistory

Adrian Sherwood’s music, although nominally regarded as dub reggae – or sacrilege, if you’re a purist – crosses so many boundaries it’s little wonder that he’s regarded as a primary influence on industrial music. These days, the echoes between his best work in the 1980s and drum and bass and, especially, dubstep are extant. This interview coincides with a wide-ranging and long-overdue reissue programme for the On-U-Sound catalogue. He’s still making music, still following his own path, still uniquely British. He’s also a disillusioned West Ham United fan. We love him.

How did you get into music?
The first record I heard that I liked was ‘Walking To New Orleans’ by Fats Domino when I was about seven. The school I went to in High Wycombe had lots of Pakistani, Indian and West Indian kids and I used to hang around my friend Gilbert Barker’s house. He was Vincentian and his sister Jean used to play all the 7-inches, reggae and calypso; but mainly reggae. I got into it instantly. But I was into funk and we used to go over to Dunstable, to the California Ballrooms and underneath the Ballroom there was the Devil’s Den which is where they used to have all the funk. We used to stay at my mate’s family, the Redison family, in Luton and there it was pure reggae. We were waking up to John Holt’s A Thousand Volts Of Holt playing!
So you must have been into those crossover records like ‘Monkey Spanner’ and ‘Double Barrel’.
Well what happened, I was DJing at school for fun at lunchtimes in the science lab to raise money for the old people’s Christmas fund. It was really crap but good fun. Eventually we went down to the Newlands Club and the DJs were Judge Kilroy and Chalky White. My friend, Joe Farquharson, ran the Newlands. He was Jamaican and he was like a father figure to me. Judge Kilroy and Chalky White were playing slamming dance music of the time, stuff from the States, interspersed with ska, rocksteady, bluebeat and modern reggae (but not much). The main emphasis was on the black American stuff. They’d play Adriano Celentano’s ‘International Language Of Love’, and then it would be into ‘Lottery Spin’ by Zap Pow, then loads of funk; two or three ska tunes you could shuffle to, maybe a few tunes for a smooch and then back on to the funk. That’s how it used to run in them days. They were good DJs and eventually we got to DJ there in the afternoons and then in the evenings and that’s how I started with my love for the music.
Were you collecting then, too?
I used to go from High Wycombe very early on a Saturday and get to Record Corner in Bedford Hill in Balham for 9.30am. This is from 15 or 16 years old. They used to import soul and they were more of a soul shop than reggae but I bought reggae there too. I remember buying ‘Rastaman Chant’ by the Wailers on a black Tuff Gong import. After Record Corner I’d go to Shepherd’s Bush market to Caesar’s and I’d end up in Harlesden, where I got free copies off the Palmers – the guys that ran Pama – because Joe had previously worked for them at Soundville. Then I’d go from there back to High Wycombe and drop a few of the new tunes that afternoon at Newlands. I’d be back there by 1.30pm.
How did you get involved in the industry?
Through the Newlands. That club was brilliant. In the afternoons we used to have Emperor Rosko, Johnnie Walker, Dave Lee Travis, Noel Edmonds, Judge Dread, all doing PAs in the afternoon at our thing for the kids. I started doing that in 1971 when I was 13 or 14. The opening thing Joe put on there was his mate Johnny Nash. There was a roadblock, about 2000 people. The club could only hold about 600 legally but they managed to get a 1000 in. It was only a little place. I had some mad nights down there. In 1975 or ’76 we had a really hot summer. It was so hot no one wanted to go in the club. So that was the end of the Newlands...

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Stephen Lawrence murder suspects to stand trial

Two men are to stand trial accused of being part of a racist white gang that "targeted and killed" the black teenager Stephen Lawrence because of the colour of his skin, the appeal court has said.
The killing in 1993 in Eltham, south-east London, is one of the most high-profile unsolved murders in Britain.
The men charged are David Norris, who has never before been charged over the stabbing, and Gary Dobson, who stood trial previously and was found not guilty.
Dobson was acquitted of killing Lawrence, 18, after a private murder prosecution brought in 1996 by the parents of the talented youngster who dreamed of being an architect.
A new law established in 2003 abolished the longstanding ban on people being retried for the same crime after being found not guilty, if "compelling" new evidence came to light.
The appeal court agreed on Wednesday that new evidence was compelling enough to allow Dobson's acquittal to be quashed.
In effect, the appeal court, in a ruling by the lord chief justice of England and Wales, wiped the legal slate clean. This means Dobson and Norris will stand trial for the murder of Lawrence, in November at the Old Bailey in central London.
The Crown Prosecution Service and police charged Dobson and Norris in September 2010, but some of the toughest reporting restrictions on the media meant the dramatic development in the long-running case could not be reported until now.
In March, a hearing was held at the appeal court to decide if the acquittal of Dobson could be set aside, watched by Lawrence's parents, Doreen and Neville. The media was also banned from reporting that hearing.
The judgment says the murder of Stephen Lawrence was a "calamitous crime" and declares he was "a young black man of great promise, targeted and killed by a group of white youths just because of the colour of his skin".
The new evidence that convinced the appeal court to quash Dobson's acquittal is based on forensics.
The media is restricted in its reporting to Wednesday's judgment from the court of appeal.
According to a summary of its judgment: "The present application depends on the reliability of new scientific evidence which by reference to the grey bomber jacket (LH/5) and the multi-coloured cardigan (ASR/2) closely links Dobson with the fatal attack on Stephen Lawrence.
"It does not and could not demonstrate that Dobson wielded the knife which caused the fatal wound, but given the circumstances of the attack on Stephen Lawrence – that is, a group of youths in a violent enterprise converging on a young man, and attacking him as a group – it would be open to a jury to conclude that any one of those who participated in the attack was party to the killing and guilty of murder, or alternatively manslaughter (a verdict which would, if there had been sufficient evidence, also have been available at the first trial).
"If reliable, the new scientific evidence would place Dobson in very close proximity indeed to Stephen Lawrence at the moment of and in the immediate aftermath of the attack; proximity, moreover, for which no innocent explanation can be discerned."
Counsel for Dobson, Timothy Roberts QC, argued the new forensics were unreliable because they "are likely to be the product of contamination over the years, that is, by contact with Stephen Lawrence's blood and his clothing". This was "the result of outdated or incompetent storage or packaging or transporting arrangements".
Furthermore, Roberts said Dobson's acquittal should stand because "the huge wave of constant publicity over the years, directly identifying some of those suspected of the murder with involvement in the crime" meant there could not be a fair trial.
In the judgment by the lord chief justice, the appeal court decided there was enough new evidence for Dobson to stand trial for Lawrence's murder for a second time: "There is sufficient reliable and substantial new evidence to justify the quashing of the acquittal and to order a new trial.
"This decision means – and we emphasise that it means no more than that – the question whether Dobson had any criminal involvement in Stephen Lawrence's death must be considered afresh by a new jury, which will examine the evidence and decide whether the allegation against him is proved. The presumption of innocence continues to apply."
The judgment states that its ruling does not mean that Dobson is guilty and stresses that the court of appeal "is certainly not required to usurp the function of the jury, or … indicate to the jury what the verdict should be".
Lawrence was murdered just after 10.35 pm on 22 April 1993. He was waiting at a bus stop in south-east London with a friend, Duwayne Brooks.
According to the judgment: "As they waited peacefully for the bus, a group of white youths crossed the road towards them. One of the youths used abusive racist language. This was followed by a sudden and immediate attack, as the group converged on or charged at them.
"Duwayne Brooks managed to make his escape, but Stephen Lawrence was felled.
"He was stabbed twice to the upper torso … Major blood vessels were severed. The injuries were fatal.
"Mortally wounded, Stephen Lawrence managed to get to his feet. He ran after Duwayne Brooks, but after a little while, he collapsed on the pavement. He died shortly afterwards in hospital."
Vikram Dodd @'The Guardian'

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Australian journalist arrested for technology conference report

An Australian journalist was arrested after writing an article about vulnerabilities of Facebook's privacy controls.
Ben Grubb, deputy technology editor of the Sydney Morning Herald was later released without charge. But police retained his iPad.
His article, Security experts go to war: wife targeted, was a report from an IT security conference at a Queensland resort.
It was addressed by a security expert, Christian Heinrich, who demonstrated how he had gained access to a woman's privacy-protected Facebook photos.
He was demonstrating that people who use social networking sites should not trust their privacy settings.
When police arrested Grubb they told him they were acting on a complaint from a person whose Facebook photo had been accessed without a password.
Darren Burden, an executive with the paper's publisher, Fairfax, said: "Ben was reporting on something actually said and presented at that conference. It's fundamental for journalists to be able to report these events."
Though Queensland police denied arresting Grubb, he recorded his conversation with the detective who questioned him - it's hilarious, by the way, a genuine Plod classic - he was formally arrested in order for police to confiscate his iPad.
Grubb refused to hand it over voluntarily because he explained it was a tool of his trade.
A police spokeswoman later said it would "be returned as soon as possible."
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Roy Greenslade @'The Guardian'

Even more 'ploddier' is the fact that the Queensland Police tweeted that Ben had not been arrested after he tweeted that he had...