Play Man Parrish Tracks…

Man Parrish Tracks…

The Information…

When I first started buying record albums and 12-inch singles in 1977, I was collecting all kinds of pop music such as Gary Numan, Blondie, Boney M, Bee Gees, Grace Jones, Grandmaster Flash, etc., throughout the following decade.

There were only few handful of electronic musicians and music groups who’ve pioneered electronic music decades prior to the 1980s, such as Vangelis, Jean Michel Jarre, Jean Jacques Perrey, ELP, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and others.

However, the 1980s decade began with a backlash against disco music, and a movement away from the orchestral arrangements that had characterized much of the electronic music of the 1970s. Music in the 80s was characterized by unheard of electronic sounds accomplished through the use of synthesizers and keyboards, along with drum machines. This made a dramatic change in music. 80s pop music experienced a revolution driven more by technology and consumerism than any resounding political message. It was that new electronic sound from synthesizers, samplers and drum machines, enhanced with unprecedented leap forward towards advanced and new production techniques of the time, where both analog and new digital domains fused together as one.

Fairlight III CMi sampler, music workstation.

Roland MC-202, the ultimate analog bass machine ... blows away TR-303!

Linn 9000 digital sampling drum machine and 64-midi channel sequencer.

By 1982, I was already tired of the old disco sound but hip to the new “rap” genre (which were heavily produced by drum machines and synths) and in love with all kinds of electronic-pop and electric-funk styles. However I was still hungry for something more but wasn’t quite sure what it was. Something was in the air … or ON THE AIR for sure.

After Malcolm McLaren’s release of Buffalo Gals in late-1982, I knew something bigger was coming along. 1983 saw the big shift in electronic dance music taking place. In Europe (especially Germany, England and Italy), electronic dance music was essentially electric-disco — 4/4 drum beats + 1/8th note basslines — such as New Order’s Blue Monday.

However, in New York, electric-disco became known as “high energy” with a twist: a new sub-genre was emerging as “electro” which was a blend of hiphop beats with electronic dance arrangements.

Examples of electro music releases were:

• Freeez – “I.O.U.”
• Man Parrish – “Hip Hop be Bop” (listen to track in flash music player above)
• Man Parrish – “Heatstroke” (listen to track in flash music player above)
• Man Parrish – “Boogie Down Bronx” (listen to track in flash music player above)
• Mantornix – “Needle To The Groove”

I was enrolled in a boarding-school back then in England and was still listening to New Order and Grandmaster Flash on the Walkman. There was this fuckin’ Jamaican kid in my dormitory — David Yakabu. One day, David ran up to me and said, “Hey mon! Chek dis Mon Pah-rish wikkidest sound!” I put on the heaphones, he pressed play, and my socks were blown off my feet.

I was listening to Man Parrish for the first time ……… “Hip Hop Be Bop” and “Heatstroke.”
HOLY CRAP – THIS SHIT IS FIERCE !! — was my impression.
I followed and bought every release by Man Parrish.

Man Parrish links…

• ManParrish.com
• MySpace
• Wiki

Read  below, Sean Cooper’s Review of Man Parrish…

Link to original source.

MAN PARRISH REVIEW by – Sean Cooper, All Music Guide

This ground breaking 1983 Dance-Urban Synthesizer album is considered by many, to be a DANCE CLASSIC and a MUST HAVE in any serious collection. Man Parrish is said to have coined the phrase “Hip Hop” from this classic, electronic dance record.

Although he produced only a handful of tracks of renown and disappeared into obscurity almost as quickly as he had emerged from it, Manny ( Man ) Parrish is nonetheless one of the most important and influential figures in American electronic dance music. Helping to lay the foundation of electro, hip-hop, freestyle, and techno, as well as the dozens of subgenres to splinter off from those, Parrish introduced the aesthetic of European electronic pop to the American club scene by combining the plugged-in disco-funk of Giorgio Moroder and the man-machine music of Kraftwerk with the beefed-up rhythms and cut’n'mix approach of nascent hip-hop. As a result, tracks like “Hip-Hop Be Bop (Don’t Stop)” and “Boogie Down Bronx” were period-defining works that provided the basic genetic material for everyone from Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys to Autechre and Andrea Parker — and they remain undisputed classics of early hip-hop and electro to this day. A native New Yorker, Parrish was a member of the extended family of glam-chasers and freakazoids that converged nightly on Andy Warhol’s Studio 54 club. His nickname, Man, first appeared in Warhol’s Interview magazine, and his early live shows at Bronx hip-hop clubs were spectacles of lights, glitter, and pyrotechnics that drew as much from the Warhol mystique as from the Cold Crush Brothers.

Influenced by the electronic experiments of his good friend and co – writer Klaus Nomi and Brian Eno as well as by Kraftwerk, Parrish together with “Cool” Raul Rodriguez recorded their best-known work in a tiny studio sometimes shared with Afrika Baambaata, whose own sessions with Arthur Baker and John Robie produced a number of classics equal to Parrish’s own, including “Wildstyle, ” “Looking for the Perfect Beat, ” and the infamous “Planet Rock.” What distinguished “Hip-Hop Be Bop, ” however, was its lack of vocals and the extremely wide spectrum of popularity it gained in the club scene, from ghetto breakdance halls to uptown clubs like Danceteria and the Funhouse. After he discovered a pirated copy of his music being played by a local DJ at theinfamous “Anvil” club ( NYC ), Parrish found his way to the offices of the Importe label (a subsidiary of popular dance imprint Sugarscoop and Disconet DJ mixing service), which whom he inked his first deal. He released his self-titled LP shortly after, and the album went on to sell over 3 million copies worldwide. He was signed to Electra Records and managed by David Bowie’s notorious manager Tony De Fries and the infamous Main Man Ltd management team. Tony De Fries had managed careers of David Bowie, New York Dolls, Mott the Hoople, Mick Ronson and Dana Gillespie to name a few.

Following a period of burn-out that followed, Parrish recorded and remixed tracks for Michael Jackson, Boy George, Gloria Gaynor, and Hi-NRG group Man2Man, among others, and served as manager for the Village People and Crystal Water to name a few. While Parrish’s subsequent material has achieved nowhere near the success or creative pitch of his earlier work, he continues to record from his brooklyn studio and is a frequent DJ at New York’s eclectic night spots and SM clubs. His Sunday Underground Party “Sperm” at the “Cock Bar” on New Yorks lower east side, is notorious, to say the least ! He is main DJ and co founder for a circut party called “Hustlerball” which has parties in many cities worldwide. He also has several adult websites and online businesses which keep him busy as a webmaster, and “jack of all trades”. His second LP, DreamTime, appeared on Strictly Rhythm in 1997.

- Sean Cooper, All Music Guide