HISTORY

I blame Tenniel Garwes. When I was 13, He lived around the corner and had a microphone and an echobox. We experimented, we made noise, and we blew it up. It was fun. There was no turning back after that.

There was the vain attempt to impress girls by remixing pop songs using only a record player and a cassette deck. (My remix-edit of In a Big Country by Big Country got me no extra kisses). Those were the days when I would travel miles to pick up American imports of hip-hop records.

With my Roland SH101 synth, I spent an entire summer messing about and recording in the spare room. I loved it. And it had a strap-on pitch bender so I could give guitarists stiff competition.

DJ-ing at university is where I learned that you’ve got to keep the dance floor active and the punters entertained. I remember going from an Indie disco where they had been playing the Smiths and the Cure all night and then heading straight to an RnB/Hiphop night where I walked in to find people grooving on tables to Sugar Bear’s ‘Don’t Scandalize Mine’ (great use of a Talking Heads sample).

Trouble Funk came to the UK around that time and had a big effect on my musical direction.

And in between all this, there was my electronic love affair with synths, drum machines and sequencers – the SH101, the Korg Poly 800, the Oscar, the MSQ 700 sequencer all came and went.

I sold everything and went to the Caribbean then South America where all the disparate musical flavours in my head coalesced and made sense.

When I returned, life revolved around fronting bands, gigs in obscure places, changing group names every week, one great drummer and five shit ones.

Thank God, Akai and E-mu for the sampler.

Playing with Fire LP (1997) was born out of those times.

I was the MC for a live Drum n Bass band in 1999 / 2000 which was the most fun I have had gigwise. I also ran a DJ agency and a beat-heavy club night in the North East called Beats Rendezvous where I occasionally played my electronic dance tracks live as Tribal Vybes. These tunes formed the basis of my Afro-Electro series of LPs.

Then it all becomes a bit of a blur: Wife, kids, moving house, mortgages, digital and analog gear that cost as much as houses, productions, songwriting, record labels, companies, contracts, Africa, Cuba, the highs, the lows, the distractions like remixing the winners of ‘Canadian Pop Idol’ to break into the U.K market (they split up before the official release), managing artists and the EMS Synthi AKS synthesizer in a suitcase whose Dr Who sounds scared my wife every time I turned it on.

Afro Electro LP (2000)

Invisible Headphones LP (2002)

Back To My Future Compilation LP (1995-2005)

I still blame my friend Tenniel for kickstarting it all.

In 2011, along with my venturing into spoken word performances, I started composing for film so I set up Good Voodoo Music to facilitate soundtrack work. Two things happened – The first film I was making music for took ages to make and the second release on the label did really well in South Africa. This led to my Afro-House trilogy of LPs (Good Voodoo Afro House vol 1 -3) as well as my more eclectic music as the Tru Roots Project.

Good Voodoo Afro House Vol 1 LP (2012)

Beats Without Borders LP (2014)

Rapture and Lightning LP (2016)

Good Voodoo Afro House Vol 3 LP (2017)

High-profile DJs like Vinny Da Vinci played my Afro House tunes. Soweto was the springboard for over 100 singles released on the Good Voodoo Label as well as my music being licensed to TV, film and more than 50 compilation albums for other record labels.

Sound of Good Voodoo MMXX LP (2020)

You Know My Son is A Doctor, Eh Eh! LP (2023)

I took time off to recover from stage 4 cancer. The healing process made me re-evaluate the tunes I was putting out. After more than a decade of Good Voodoo dance tracks, I put my energy into finishing the songs and spoken word pieces that meant the most to me that hadn’t seen the light of day.

Boss Moves LP (2024)

Return Of The Juju Man LP (2024)

If you’ve read this far, you’ll know Everything is different nothing has changed. I spend 99% of my time on creativity and 1% on promotion. If you’ve been following my journey from back in the day I might send you some old remix-edits on cassette.