A Guy Called Gerald

A Guy Called Gerald

A Guy Called Gerald performing at DEMF in 2007
Background information
Birth name Gerald Simpson
Born 16 February 1967 (1967-02-16) (age 43)
Origin Moss Side, Manchester, England
Genres Acid House
House
Drum & Bass
Techno
Electronica
Occupations Producer, Musician, DJ
Instruments Synthesizer, Drum Programming, Sampler, Keyboards
Labels SUGOI, Protechshon, Rham Records, Columbia/CBS, Juice Box Records, Retroactive, !K7 Records, Sender Records, Laboratory Instinct, Perlon Records
Associated acts 808 State
Website guycalledgerald.com

A Guy Called Gerald is the stage name for the musician, record producer and DJ Gerald Simpson (born 16 February 1967, Moss Side, Manchester, England).

He is perhaps best known for his early work in the Manchester acid house scene in the late 1980s and the track "Voodoo Ray". At that time, he specialised in techno music produced using equipment such as the Roland TB-303 bass synthesiser and the TR-808 drum machine.

Contents

Early influences and music

Simpson was heavily influenced by his Jamaican roots; his father's blue beat, ska and Trojan reggae record collection, his mother's Pentecostal church sessions and the Jamaican sound system parties in Manchester's Moss Side area where he grew up.

He absorbed jazz fusion at clubs like Legends in Manchester where the dancefloor in the early 1980s inspired him to study contemporary dance. Around 1983 with electro booming and early hip hop, breakdancing and b-boy culture making its way from the US, he left dance college to immerse himself in electronic music. At this time music from Detroit and Chicago - from producers such as Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson was being played by Stu Allen on Piccadilly Radio and imported directly into Manchester's specialist record shops.

Inspired, Simpson began experimenting with tape editing and drum machines and the regular jams in the attic of his house led to forming the Scratchbeat Masters. Using cut up beats, samples and turntables they would challenge other crews and their sound systems. They released a 12" single called "Wax On The Melt", a collaboration between a number of crews and Graham Massey and Martin Price together with whom he would later form 808 State. Their first album Newbuild was released in 1988 but he soon left the group to concentrate on his solo work.

Success and releases

The result of heading back into his bedroom studio was "Voodoo Ray", played first at the Hacienda in 1988 and then the underground clubs and entering the UK charts a year later. It was one of the first acid house tracks produced in the UK, and released on a small Merseyside independent label (Rham! Records) based in Liscard, Wallasey [1]. This was a time when musicians believed they needed to be signed to a major record company to have a hit but without the backing of the major label marketing machine and spurred on by the acid house fever sweeping the club scene, "Voodoo Ray" entered the UK charts in 1989 rising to number 12. It was also the best selling independently released single of that year.

At the same time a track Simpson started before leaving 808 State, "Pacific State". was released and hit the charts. However, according to Simpson, they had finished and released the track without Simpson's permission. Although Simpson was credited on its first release on the album Quadrastate both as a writer and co-producer, the dispute escalated as Simpson claimed to have written the entire track. The dispute was eventually settled out of court.

In 1991 after a mismatched partnership with CBS / Sony producing two albums, Automanikk and Hi Life Lo Profile (unreleased) he started his own label, Juice Box Records, releasing a string of pioneering 12" singles - the seeds of what became known as jungle and later drum and bass. The first singles were compiled and released on his landmark (and very rare) third album 28 Gun Bad Boy (1992).

During the next five years as jungle rose in popularity and expanded well beyond its UK roots, Simpson released a string of groundbreaking music. In 1995 his next album, Black Secret Technology was released. It is cited as one of the first single-artist drum and bass albums and was very well received. He released a remastered version in June 2008.

In 1997 he moved to New York and in 2000 released Essence on the independent label !K7 Records. Essence was Simpson's first song-based rather than dance/club album featuring guests such as Lou Rhodes, David Simpson, Lady Miss Kier and Wendy Page. In January 2005 he released a more ambient album To All Things What They Need, also on !K7 Records.

In August 2006, Proto Acid / The Berlin Sessions was released on the German label Laboratory Instinct. A continuous mix album, it was recorded live in Berlin and is a definite return to the dancefloor. It was followed up by Tronic Jazz / The Berlin Sessions in 2010.

Juice Box Records

Juice Box Records
Founded 1992
Founder Gerald Simpson
Genre Jungle
drum and bass
Techno
Country of origin United Kingdom
Location Manchester, England

Juice Box Records was an independent record label in the United Kingdom established by Simpson in 1992, after he left Sony Records,[1] and closed in 1998. It took its name from the sound system that Simpson operated with MC Tunes.[2] The label provided an outlet for 7 years for Simpson's work, with 33 titles released under various other pseudonyms such as The K.G.B. and Ricky Rouge, and collaborations between Simpson and artists including Lisa May, DJ Tamsin, Goldie (as The 2 G's), and Finley Quaye.[3]

The label has been identified as being responsible for influential releases that provided the blueprint for what was to become jungle then drum n bass,[1] with early singles on the label described as "genre-defining".[4] The early singles on the label were compiled on the LP 28 Gun Bad Boy, of which Simon Reynolds of Melody Maker stated in a review of the album, "If there was a blueprint for what would transform rave into jungle/techno, then this is it."[4] Reynolds also stated in a Melody Maker article in October 1994, about Simpson's Juice Box-era music, "Gerald's tracks take the jungle mesh of polyrhythms, cross-rhythms and counter-rhythms to new levels of insane detail."[5] Gerald's Black Secret Technology LP was released in 1995, including contributions from Goldie and Finley Quaye,[4] and is regarded as the first full-length Jungle album ever released.[6] In 1998, the label closed, with Simpson relocating to New York.

Discography

Albums (A Guy Called Gerald)

Singles / 12" (A Guy Called Gerald unless specified)

Albums (collaborations)

Singles (collaborations)

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Vision - A Guy Called Gerald
  2. ↑ Label Profile - A Guy Called Gerald" from Echoes, June 1994
  3. ↑ Juice Box
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 samurai.fm | new music radio from Tokyo, Japan & The World
  5. ↑ Melody Maker, 8 October 1994, reproduced here
  6. ↑ Allmusic review of Black Secret Technology

Sources

External links

808 State
Graham Massey | Martin Price | Gerald Simpson | Andrew Barker | Darren Partington
Albums
Newbuild | Quadrastate | Ninety | Utd. State 90 | Ex:el | Gorgeous | State to State | Don Solaris | State to State 2 | Outpost Transmission | Prebuild
Live and Compilations
Forecast | Thermo Kings | 808:88:98
VHS/DVD
808:90ptical | Opti buk