Articles - Interviews

Sally Rodgers from acid house originals A Man Called Adam chatted to Skrufff this week about her role in curating a history of dance music exhibition at new museum The British Music Experience, which involved picking 50 key tracks.

“Some of the entries were pretty obvious such as individual tracks like Blue Monday, Voodoo Ray, Inner City Life. Then with others we chose significant artists like Kraftwerk, Human League or Soul II Soul and we picked the tracks we felt would lead into other stories,” said Sally.

“What was great about researching and writing the stories was the interconnectedness of so much of it, of scenes growing from scenes and the tide flowing back and forward from Europe or the US,” she added.

The exhibition also touches marginally on illegal drugs, an issue Sally said they deliberately downplayed.
 
“We were straight about it all but the exhibition is the story of the DJs, producers, remixers and their place in music and cultural history,” she explained, “Trust me, you don't make a records on hard drugs. It'd be crap.”

“We really didn't really bang on about the drugs issue too much, though it was
obviously mentioned here and there as a point of cultural interest - like why Northern soul venues closed down, the criminal justice act etc,” she added.

“Though it wasn’t that we were censoring ourselves, there was just so much to say about the music. Drugs are only a small part of the story,” said Sally.

The interactive exhibit (dubbed ‘Hey DJ!’) has a giant touch screen interface allowing visitors to flick through a virtual record box containing the 50 ‘significant’ records, selected by Sally and remaining A Man Called Adam bandmate Steve Jones.

Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): How did you set about charting the history of UK Dance music, as the press release puts it: how did you decide how deep to go: or how accessible to make it?

A Man Called Adam: “We work with a company called Clay Interactive who are brilliant with the software for this kind of stuff and we pitched a load of different ideas but the virtual record box idea they came up with just worked as a concept. At first the museum curators said 'Dance music? You mean like Fatboy Slim?' but to be fair, once they'd commissioned it, they pretty much left us alone and we feel the project has got integrity.

For example, we wanted a track that was a good example of that DJ's DJ culture that artists like Harvey and the Idjut Boys represent, so we just asked them what they thought and the Idjuts came up with a track called Woman by Barabas, possibly one of the rarest records in the world, so that was included. It was also important to us that tracks by producers like Sticky and Ben Zinc went in, they're important too. Of course there are more obvious choices too like Leftfield or the Chemical Brothers. What can I say, we did our best.  Not everyone's going to agree with everything we selected but I hope we've been fair.”

Skrufff: Chatting to Skrufff a few years ago you said 'the dance scene was always kind of factional. Everybody's definition of it is different': what's your definition: how did that factionalism affect your approach?

A Man Called Adam: “Like I said it was great to dig into it. You'd have tracks by great acts like Cymande resurfacing as samples 10 years later, important labels like JBO or actually trying to describe the musical differences between UK Garage, dubstep and Grime. Great fun. Factional Schmactional. It's a great story of creativity.”

Skrufff: A Man Called Adam started out a as a ten piece collective in 1987: how much have you stayed in touch with al the other 8? How often do you still hang out with Paul Daley?

A Man Called Adam: “Never I'm afraid. I think Paul's living in Ibiza these days. But we're all always glad to see each other when we do. You can't share stuff like that and not be fond of each other forever. I hope they're all happy and well though it's been a few years since I saw any of them.”
 
Skrufff: Leftfield's debut album remains one of the handful of genuinely acclaimed dance music albums: : why do you think so few classic dance albums have emerged (compared to rock/ indie/ pop music): what makes dance different?

A Man Called Adam: “It’s not an album culture, is it? Club DJs don't put albums on to rock the dance-floor do they? They put on a killer tracks and if an act's lucky they'll string a few killer tracks together and make an album worth buying. It's the lyrics and concepts that distinguish a great album, the best ones are often slow burners that reveal new things each time you come back to them. Dance music's more like a fast blast, an adrenalin shot.” 

Skrufff: Very little dance music has really stood the test of time: why not?

A Man Called Adam: “I'm not sure I agree. Check out the box for starters. Dance music is also mostly made outside the mainstream music industry so it experiments - musically it’s been and is an important force.”

Skrufff: How much do you consider it intrinsically disposable?

A Man Called Adam: “Well take say minimal or dubstep, for instance. The artists are relatively faceless, you might not know the names of the tracks but these genres are changing music and the way we listen to it. The abstraction is insidious.

Skrufff: Your myspace page displays the motto ‘you are the music while the music lasts . . .’ seems rather dark: what's the significance?

A Man Called Adam: “It’s a quote from TS Eliot's 'Four Quartets'; The Dry Salvages to be exact) - I don't think it' s bleak. I think the  'music' of the quote is a metaphor for 'life'.  It says to me that you make the music, so make it good while it lasts.”

The British Music Experience opens at the 02 Centre in South East London later this month.

http://www.myspace.com/amancalledadam

Article by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)

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