ROSTER // PRESS KIT
 
 
 
 

GOLDIE
DRUM + BASS // METALHEADZ ·· UK

It's 1991 and a bona fide B-boy by the name of Goldie finds himself caught up in the heaving mass of London's Rage Club at Heaven on a Thursday night.

DJ's Fabio and Grooverider take to the decks once again captivating the crowd with their frenzied assault on the senses. A relative newcomer to the scene Goldie pesters the duo for names of tracks and becomes an immediate convert to the hardcore breakbeat aesthetic. That many an outsider is choosing to pronounce the hardcore scene dead seems slightly ironic - a breakbeat specialist of the highest order has only just been born.

Today there are few more influential and charismatic figures on the hardcore/jungle scene than Goldie/ Schooled like so many of his peers on hip-hops B-boy ethos of the early 1980's/ Goldie's influences on the breakbeat culture of hardcore can go with the B-boy flavour. He explains "but you can go even further. Messing around with sound real bad."

Goldie would initially make his mark as a graffiti writer in his Midlands home town of Walsall. Spraying walls quickly got serious as the commissions started to flood in. "I'd paint my estate because I couldn't be a their". He recalls. "At night I'd go out to blues, but in the morning. I'd come home in the morning and change straight into painting clothes. Then it took off. I'd be doing paintings for the community, for the council. I'd be asked to appear on TV shows like Pebble Mill where I could say whatever I wanted."

Along side the likes of #D form Bristol's Wild Bunch Crew, Goldie emerged as one of Britain's leading graffers. HE began moving back and forth form New York, living the hip-hop lifestyle for real. In 1986 he'd star alongside Afrika Bambaata in the seminal graffiti art movie "bombing" -filmed partly in Bristol and most notably in New York's South Bronx, where for a time Goldie would choose to reside.

Early 1998 and Goldie returns to London from a spell in Miami. Jazzie B asked him to help out on Soul II Soul's artwork. Still painting and still getting commissions, Goldie finally gets tied down. For couple of years he's a player on the West End club scene. But than the inspiration dries up. "Hip-hop wasn't happening for me over here anymore because I'd been away living it", recalls Goldie. "It was like I just had to do something."

1991 and London's hardcore scene proves to be Goldie's salvation. Initially, he just listens and learns form the sidelines, helping out on the artwork for the hugely influential label Reinforced. But slow and surely, the face of hardcore begins to change. Where once the domineering sound had been termed "Happy" - a mix of Pinky & Perky sounding vocal mad cap oscillator riffs - by late 1992 a new darker age creeps in to the music. It was here that Goldie came into his own. His first entrance into the world of recording artists had been "Killermuffin: - a semi successful e.p for Reinforced that contained an early sample of raga artist " Cutty Ranks" - later to figure is predominantly on many a jungle release. But most significantly, early 1993 under the pseudonym of "Metalheadz", Goldie would release "Terminator" on the Synthetic label, a track that would have a dramatic impact on every hardcore release that followed. With it's eerie metallic breakbeats, "Terminator" pioneered the use of a process known as time-stretching in hardcore. It was now possible to stretch a vocal sample over any B.P.M range without altering the pitch. Although classic"dark tunes" like Terminator and Terminator II had pioneered the emergence of what became widely termed jungle. Goldie is somewhat disparaging of his legacy.

"Dark to me was just a representation of the way people were feeling at the time," he says, "there was recession, winter and the country was in decline. Dark was like the blues music. "And as subsequent release were to prove, Goldie was set to stay on e stop ahead of the rash imitators who arrived to cash in on the growing popularity of jungle. By late 1993 "angel", again released on the synthetic label, fused Urban Cookie Collective Dianne Charlemagne's jazzy vocal with eerie synth. Elsewhere on a series of remix projects for Reinforced's Enforcers series - on the 4 track e.p "Eternal Affairs" - "Fury" for the Moving Shadow label-and on a remix of the massive Hellcopter Tune (to name but a few). Goldie showed just how far he's mastered his art.

"Timeless", Goldie's (AKA Metalheadz) first release for London Records no doubt shocked an surprised once more upon it's releaser on November 1994. Twenty Two minutes long, it plays on the very concept of time, dealing with the inner-city struggle for survival. While also fooling the listener into believing the track is much shorter than it's actual running length. Again, the soaring vocal of Diane Charlemagne captures the very essence. "Timeless" survivalist spirit, as the haunting strings and fearsome breakbeats dig deep into the listeners mind. I don't even know if I'd call what I recorded jungle anymore," reasons Goldie, fully aware that at its narrowest definition jungle has become little more than a reggae sample overlaid on a breakbeat. "I'd prefer to call this inner-city ghetto music, because I'm not just going to come up with what most people would envisage to be jungle. I make my music to have integrity and if you can still play it at 6 o'clock in the morning in a club, than its bona fide."

With almost no national radio airplay at all the double album shot straight into the national charts at no. 7, which reflected a huge groundswell of record buyers that up until now were supposedly non-existent. Demand for Goldie's drum & Bass was such that a live tour took his eight piece band to Europe and the USA supporting Bjork. Upon returning to the UK Goldie headlines his own sell out tour. Whenever time allowed, Goldie would return to London to run his Metalheadz club every Sunday at London's Blue Note. The UK leg of the tour was an event never heard before. Peshay, Doc Scott, Kemistry & Storm, Fabio, Grooverider, Randall and MC extraordinaire Cleveland Watkiss played sets that testified a new consciousness on dance culture everywhere, due no doubt to Goldie's efforts to hoist jungle from the underground to the mainstream. His Efforts were rewarded throughout 96 & 97 when he won an array of awards for his debut album, his DJ'ing, the Metalheadz label and his labels compilation album "Platinum Breakz".

It's 1997 and Goldie spends his time running not only his Sunday nights at the Blue Note but also the Metalheadz night at London's Hanover Grand on the first Friday of every month, as well as working on his follow up album to "Timeless" entitled " Saturnz Return". His energy is almost limitless. " I sleep three hours a night, I just have this abyss of energy" he explained to a journalist recently, which partly explains the albums title " Saturnz Return" is taken from the notation of seven year astrological cycle where the starts are now in his favour. "I am a Virgo, the way my planets are lined up to the time I was born, I'm set man".

Released on February 2nd 1998, the album has already spawned the singles, Temper Temper, Digital and Believe. "Digital" an innovative collaboration of hip-hop and drum & bass featuring New York's hip-hop meister KRS One. Released on October 30th, 1998, Digital charted at no. 13 just as Goldie was packing his bags in preparation for a US tour supporting the re-formed Jane's Addiction.

"Saturnz Return" is another double album, the first CD running 75 minutes over ten tracks including vocals once again by Diane Charlemagne, and for the first time vocals by Goldie and a collaboration with Noel Gallagher on "Temper Temper", whose screaming, distorted guitar work will be featured on the album and as the second single from the album, released on January 5th, 1998.

The second CCD features just one track entitled, "Mother", reflecting yet another side of Goldie's music. Running for over an hour and obviously autobiographical, this ambitious project was conceived by Goldie singing all the instrumental parts into a tape recorder and employing someone to score the music-including a 30-piece string section for him, and it works.

The music could even be described as contemporary classical in its form where the modern technology of loops, beats and electronic sounds meets spoken words, celestial voices and full orchestra. One could guess that Goldie was exorcising the demons of his past on "Mother"; Goldie insists the record was like his childhood, full of pain but like all music it comes from the soul, one usually has to experience pain to attain joy.

Over the last three years Goldie has had his fingers in many piles. Not only has his infamous Metalheadz imprint continued to release cutting edge music, but he has also carried that sound world-wide. Recent tours have included Australia, South America, the United States and Japan to name but a few. These dates have seen Goldie performing alongside such artists as Beth Orton, Rage Against the Machine, Bjork and many more.

He has also been busy on the remixing front, looking after cuts for The Fugees, KRS one, Pat Methany, Black Grape, Slipknot, Garbage, and Roni Size. Goldie has also re-touched a number of underground anthems throughout the drum and bass circuit.

Recently Goldie has launched himself into the world of Television and Movies. Starting with an hour long documentary on the like of the Goldikus, filmed by Channel 4, this brilliant insight opened up further roles and projects.

Goldie's first film role was in David Bowie's gritty northern gangland flick "Everybody Loves The Sunshine". This led into a part in Guy Ritchie's classic "Snatch", pen ultimately seeing Goldie appear in "The World is Not enough", the latest film in the James Bond saga. Over these three films Goldie worked alongside such actors as Brad Pitt, Robert Carlyle, Robbie Coltrane, Denise Richards and Vinnie Jones.

Recent TV appearances have seen Goldie featured on a huge number of terrestrial and digital shows including: The Jo Whiley Show, Shooting Stars, The Big Breakfast, Jumpers for Goalposts, Nevermind the Buzzcocks and The Richard Blackwood Show.

Only last year saw the golden man grab the part of "Angel" by the scruff of the neck and really shake up the resident" Eastenders". Goldie will be appearing in "Eastenders" throughout this year, and by the way his career is going, who knows where you'll see him next!!