Balearic Breakfast | Episode 195 | Meeting the Handson Family
- by The Lioncub
- Oct 1, 2024
- 30 min read
Updated: Oct 3, 2024
Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy broadcast the 195th episode of Balearic Breakfast on her Mixcloud on October 1st 2024.
About this episode. – Coming back from the beautiful Last Note Party held in Perrugia (Italy) this week-end – which has been praised by a lot of Family members on the chat, Francesca Girelli posting "Thank you so much Colleen for all your love and passion!!! It has been so emotional, F A N T A S T I C! I can't wait to be again on the dancefloor with you and dancing_james (such an appropriate username!) I send so much love to you two ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Last Note is always a great experience! Come everybody next time! 🎈🎈🎈" and dancing_james answering "Last Note was brilliant, great energy from the crowd of proper dancers, detailed sound, incredible location and Cosmo dug deep and also coordinated her outfit with the decor!" – Colleen wasn't ready to let the party's spirit leave without embracing it one last time in today's show, letting a beautiful Latin mix enchant the Balearic Breakfast Family's ears and souls!
Before dvelving into this episode, let's give our captain the mic: "This morning’s Balearic Breakfast is now archived on my Mixcloud at https://shorturl.at/MLWgS (and please give me a follow while you’re over there).
In the first hour I catch up with some new music and take a Latin excursion and in the second hour, I’m joined by Cyndi & Chris from Handson Family. They have a new compilation called If Music Presents: You Need This – an Introduction to Handson Family. The double vinyl comp is out on BBE Music and you can order it on Bandcamp. On the show, I chat with Cyndi and Chris about their first comp, their DJ story and the motivations behind their community events in South London. And they have also put together a soulful exclusive mix for us.
Thanks to all who joined us for our Last Note in Italy this past weekend – L’amore salva il giorno!"
Listen back to the 195th episode of Balearic Breakfast:
PLAYLIST
Colleen's mix
(1973) Mel & Tim – Keep the Faith
(2013) Ian O'Brien – Love Beams
(2024) Cantoma – Summer Rain
(NOL) Sasha Galperin – Now! (Mark System Remix)
(2024) Emperor’s Machine – La Cassette (Tigerbalm' Remix)
(2024) Earth Wind & Fire – September (Eric Kupper Remix)
(2020) Unknown Artist – This Kind of Latin Rhythm
(2024) Audrey Powne – Souled Out (Joaquin’s Deep Version)
(1981) Ray Barretto – Pasttime Paradise
Handson Family's mix
(1998) Crazy P 3 – Plays it Cool
(2001) Soulstice – Colour (Atjazz Remix)
(1998) New: Sector Movements – Veonga Vonge
(2002) Jazzanova – Another New Day
(2000) Mark de Clive-Lowe – Control
(2001) Agent K – Betcha (did)
(2001) Shur-i-kan – The Freezone
(1995) DJ Cam – Dieu Reconnaitra Les Siens
(2024) DJ Bemi ft Chocscee – The Diasporians
(2023) Shall I Bruk: It ft Alex Phountzi & Heidi Vogel – Space Talk
(2009) Mr Beatnick – The 4% Day
(2003) Cybophonia – Cut & Paste (Hefner Remix)
(2005) Sabrina Malheiros – Maracatueira’ (Incognito Remix)
(2001) Bugge Wesseltoft – Change
(2023) The Main Ingredient – Summer Breeze (Jim Sharp Edit)
(1995) Incognito – Barumba
COLLEEN'S NEWS
Colleen will take part in the following events:
5th October 2024 - Bristol - Disco Isn't Dead (at Strange Brew) ;
6th October 2024 - Glitterbox Ibiza closing party (Colleen will join Dimitri from Paris) ;
18th October 2024 - Strut Record's 25th Anniversary party at the Jazz Café (w/ Danny Krivitt) ;
9th November 2024 - New-York - To be announced (parties w/ François K.
Also, not to be forgotten, Classic album sunday's october events.
THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE
Today's mix takes us to a nice forest in which we'd be all walking, with the Lioncub goofing and jumping in and out of the autumnal leaves! The cool walk image is very present in the first two tracks played by our beloved Captain (Mel & Tim's Keep the Faith and Ian O'Brien's Love Beams). There is a cool and light wind in the air in these two tracks which belong together both rhythmically and sonically, a beautiful way to start this 195th episode! Did you notice how, for instance, both songs share a beautiful, large realistic and profound soundstage? Even through Mixcloud's compressed audio stream (there's nothing after 15000 Khz sadly), we can hear these songs' sonic qualities.
(1973) Mel & Tim – Keep the Faith
By Mississippi cousin duo Mel and Tim, from their self-titled second album, which came out on the Southern Soul label Stax back in the day in 1973, Keep the Faith (written by Mark James, most famous for composing Elvis Presley's "Suspicious Minds") is also featured on a new compilation called Everything Above the Sky, a double vinyl on Rewarm, lovingly compiled by Luke Una and on which he explores late-night after-hours meditations on sound.
(2013) Ian O'Brien – Love Beams
From Cindy and Chris' "If Music presents: You Need This! An Introduction to the Handson Family" compilation, a beautiful Lonnie Liston Smith cover (originally from his 1975 Visions of a New World studio album) by the British Detroit techno-obsessed producer who is just as deft as a musician playing down-tempo futuristic jazz. In an interview, Ian shared his view on "Understanding Is Everything" in which Love Beams has been included, saying: "Above all, what I wanted to express with this album is what kind of world we can leave to our children who will be responsible for the future, as the world we live in now becomes more violent and heading toward constant war. It was my own response to the feeling of despair. I can't express my feelings clearly in words because it doesn't have lyrics like Curtis Mayfield or Bob Dylan's protest songs, but it was made as a protest album from me with a message of opposition to any violence or war within the scope of an instrumental album. There's a song on this album called "My Dreams Of Peace," and at first I was thinking about using that phrase as the title of the album. It's a song that really expresses how I feel and what I wanted to say on this album. I mentioned the dark world situation such as war and violence earlier, but in fact, it is an album made with positive wishes. I don't know how long it will be, but it represents my dream of peace."
Speaking of "Love Beams", Ian noted: "Herbie Hancock and Lonnie Liston Smith are my heroes from the golden age of jazz, funk and soul in the '70s. Their music is special and spiritual to me. It has been a long-held dream of mine to one day cover their songs. The chords and harmonies of "Spiraling Prism" are indescribably beautiful, and "Love Beams'" is a simple yet surprising spiritual piece of music that expresses pure positivity. The light is intense, dispelling all darkness. It's the music of hope, and I think that's what the world really needs."
Then, Colleen takes us to a groovier part of her mix, stepping up the pace quite quickly as Cantoma's Summer Rain starts, yet, if you close your eyes and concentrate, you should see autumnal images of our dear forest or, eventually, because you are your own leader, a tenderly and warmly sunny beach! Keeping the beat even when silence steps in, Colleen then plays Mark System's remix of Sasha Galperin's Now! followed by the unexpected (and very jumping) Tigerbalm' Remix of Emperor’s Machine's La Cassette (do you see why I had images of the Lioncub jumping in and out of these leaves?!).
Listen back to Balearic Breakfast's 143rd ep. w/ Harry Charles
(2024) Cantoma – Summer Rain
Phil Mison's Cantoma project, Summer Rain is taken from Phil's latest double album, See in the Sun, out now on Highwood Records, a great album, and a more evolved sound from one of our favorite Balearic producers (also a protégé of José Padilla).
(NOL) Sasha Galperin – Now! (Mark System Remix)
Spanish musician and producer Sasha Galperin with Now has been given a surprising Balearic rework by drum and bass producer Mark System. Now! can be found on Harry Charles's forthcoming word-of-mouth label, the next evolution of his Ibethan grassroots venue. The label aims to exclusively release music by artists who have performed at the venue, including their incredible in-house live band.
(2024) Emperor’s Machine – La Cassette (Tigerbalm' Remix)
From Tigerbalm who has a new album out "International Love Affair". She did the "International Love Affair" remix as a first which came out in 2022, 2023 on Ubiquiti. Emperor's Machine also have a new album out this year, Island Boogie (which was already featured in the 186th episode of Balearic Breakfast).
Colleen will then, for the next few tracks, take us on a very Latin vibe musical trip, starting with the logically also jumping number that is Eric Kupper Remix of Earth Wind & Fire's September. Once again, I just try to put forward Colleen's choice and show you how she mixes the selected songs, and the unity she creates, this part of the mix being a perfect example! Today's wow moment happens when Colleen perfectly mixes September with the next song, Unknown Artist's This Kind of Latin Rhythm, beautifully followed by 2 other jumping numbers that are Joaquin’s Claussel deep version of Audrey Powne's Souled Out and Ray Barretto's Pasttime Paradise! (did you notice how much these last two songs beautifully stray together despite their different rhythm? 😉)
(2024) Earth Wind & Fire – September (Eric Kupper Remix)
September was issued as a single on November 18, 1978, by ARC/Columbia Records but was not included in a studio album then, rather being part of The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1 compilation. Although the song deals with a failed love affair, the lyrics do not have a predominant place in the song. You might have noticed, and I did, how much the lyrics fall into the groove!
The explanation can be found here: "Lyricist Allee Willis worked on the composition for a month or so and wasn’t certain that White’s “ba-dee-ya” hook would work. But it did. Said Willis: "learned my greatest lesson ever in songwriting from him, which was never let the lyric get in the way of the groove." Willis died in 2019 and also co-wrote “Boogie Wonderland,” “The Neutron Dance” for the Pointer Sisters and the theme for “Friends.”
(2020) Unknown Artist – This Kind of Latin Rhythm
From the five-track of Latin workouts on Screwniversal Records, on which you can find tracks by Thierry Thomas, Screw Screw, Frank Virgilio, Virgilio, Virgilio, Virgilio. Screw Screw is a Armenian producer and DJ, and his real name is Anton Bogomolov.
After searching on the internet, I found that "This Kind of Latin Rhythm" does reproduce Poncho Sanchez's Soñando (Making Sound) track, taken from the 1983 studio album.
(2024) Audrey Powne – Souled Out (Joaquin’s Deep Version)
Audrey Powne, multi-instrumentalist, singer, producer, is a product of the contemporary Melbourne, Australia jazz scene. She released her debut album, From the Fire, on BBE last spring (a track was featured during Ariana's show on the Boat Pod), and now there are some great remixes of that song sold out, all by Joe or Joaquin Claussel, and he did quite a few.
(1981) Ray Barretto – Pasttime Paradise
The 1981 cover of Stevie Wonder by Ray Barretto, the American conga player, drummer, percussionist, bandleader, composer and producer who also played in Tito Puente's orchestra from 1957 to 1960 (Tito Puente composed 'Oye Como va', famously covered by Carlos Santana). He then formed his own orchestra and put out dozens of albums. Ray was also an in-demand session player and a member of the Fania All Stars and played with the greatest names of the Jazz scene, including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Dexter Gordon, just to mention a few...
This song, the darkest one on Stevie Wonder's masterful "Songs in the Key of Life" album, recently turned 48. It was not issued as a single when the album came out and was rather frightening with its short and somehow "attacking" lyrics. The track's sound was not cool, as it used synthesised strings, letting the listener feel rather cold vibrations while listening to the tormented and lonely song.
THE HANDSON FAMILY'S INTERVIEW
[Colleen]
Well, I have Cindy and Chris from Hands On Family here with me on Balearic Breakfast, and they have a new compilation out called Hands On Family, an introduction to the Hands On Family. And it's a fantastic compilation. Cindy and Chris, welcome to Balearic Breakfast. Welcome. Oh, so good to have you two here. And I'm absolutely loving the compilation, which we'll talk about in a little bit.
But the two of you are a married couple who have been hosting parties in South London for 20 years. Could you tell us a little bit about how you got started DJing?
[Cindy]
Crikey. I mean, we both were separate DJs before, with very long histories there. I think I started DJing in my teens, doing mixtapes for friends, and then, you know, graduating to school discos and things like that. So I've always loved music. My dad was the DJ, so I inherited a lot of his records, which was great. I moved to Ghana, and I was DJing there as well. And I moved back when I met Chris. So that's my background with DJing. I'm not sure, what were your, what's your background?
[Chris]
With DJing itself?
[Cindy]
Yeah.
[Chris]
Well, I didn't start really getting into it, taking it seriously until we met. And I've just always had an interest in music. Not necessarily clubs. It's like a weird thing, because most of the things I love, I sort of heard in isolation. I was very, very much a homebody. So I didn't have the reference of clubs or, you know, scenes or anything like that.
I just got into sound. So I collect music and sort of listen to it in my room, which is really weird. It's weird that I ended up DJing, because a lot of the stuff you'd even hear on the comp are things that I've kind of discovered by myself.
[Cindy]
Yeah.
[Chris]
I met this one here, Cindy, and realised after a very short while that she understood the same things that I understood about music that I love. And just, it just kind of went from there, to be honest.
[Cindy]
And I guess just as a person that likes to start doing things, I was just keen. I think we were going out, and we were going to places and just annoyed at the music we were listening to. And I was like, we can do this.
[Chris]
That's the bit I was going to mention. We were listening to stuff in the house. And it was the sheer force of frustration of not being able to hear it in clubs. So we said, okay, we're going to start our own night. It was never about money or anything. We just wanted to hear the music that we love outside.
[Cindy]
And I think also it's the explosion of bars culture as well. And so much of the music, even if you hear the compilation, isn't necessarily completely banging or anything. But it's like music that you can listen to over a drink. So we always kind of had this discerning taste, if you like, on what we wanted to listen to. And yeah, that's how we started. And we started to DJ in little spaces and places really.
[Chris]
Bars, restaurants.
[Cindy]
And in our locality, because we were like, we're not going to try and compete with the likes of Uncle Giles and so on. We're just going to do our own thing in our end, where we'd like to listen to music.
[Colleen]
And that started to build a community around you, I expect.
[Chris]
Because everything was more or less locally based, it happened kind of by default. You're working in a local area, so we got to, I don't know, the fan base of it, if that's the right word, but people got to know who we were.
[Cindy]
But also there were a lot of, at that time, I mean, we're thinking about the early noughties. That was a time when there was a lot of New Jazz and Broken B and really still excellent, like Soulful House and Deep House happening. So it's not to say that we were the ones bringing it. A lot of our friends were into it, but it was like we always had to go out of the community to hear those tunes and those artists.
[Chris]
Yeah, you would never come down south and hear that sound. And it did coincide with an explosion in independent labels. You look at them now, I can name them all, but they're all about 20, 25 years old. So we got in.
[Cindy]
So we saw the birth of independent kind of music in London that was not sort of following the format of maybe R&B, hip hop, all the various black music genres that were really big in America and were global. But there was this really exciting thing happening in London and the UK in general that was just, you know, there was the whole, I don't like the term trip hop, but like down-tempo chill out. You know, that was the days of Mixmaster Morris doing these amazing soundscapes. And, you know, obviously people like Jazzanova or, you know, True Force had just started, Wawa had just started. There was just amazing things happening. And we were just very lucky to be around at that time and then just really excited about it.
[Colleen]
And it was one of the things that excited me when I moved to London too. I moved here in 1999 and the whole broken beat scene was what I immediately gravitated towards. But I had a record label named Bitches Brew with my friend Nikki Lucas and we were distributed to people.
[Cindy]
No way, that was you?
[Colleen]
I didn't know that.
[Cindy]
Babe, we used to sing those lyrics.
[Colleen]
I didn't know that was you.
[Cindy]
Straight Men's Painter and all that. I need to go to this, I need to go to this.
[Colleen]
That was us. We even had like a chill out night called Chill Bitch. Anyways, it was such a London sound and that's what I really loved about it. And the fact that you were doing that in Peckham. Brixton, mainly.
[Chris]
Brixton, mainly. Yeah.
[Colleen]
So how did you start to build your parties?
[Cindy]
I mean, the very earliest days, I can remember where things, we started to see that people liked what we did was we played in a really cool place called Tug and Brew. We always used to go to Tug and Brew and we used to go to parties to kind of give a lot of reference to that little space. It was a little bar in Brixton on Atlantic Road, and on a Thursday, they had like Trevor Fung DJing with the Mucho Soul Boys. On Fridays, there was like Spiritual South, who did really well in the early noughties. He was starting to make beats, you know, make that wicked tune Green Gold. Then on Saturday, there was a guy called Eric.
But generally speaking, like every night there was really good music, but they never did anything on a Sunday. And these were the days when you'd go into bars and clubs and just hand out a CD mix. So we handed out a CD mix to this bar. Didn't hear anything from them for months. And then we got a call from Maria and she was like, do you know what? I found this on the floor of my boyfriend's room. He's the owner of Tug and Brew, we really like this. Can we give you a Sunday night? So that was one of our...
[Colleen]
You found it on the floor?!
[Cindy]
Yeah. She was like, but I loved it. And I think it's amazing. You guys must do it. So we started there. And then, yeah, I guess if you fast forward to probably some of our more successful parties, they would have been certainly not that long ago, about eight, nine years ago, working with the late Ty, Ben, running a party called No Long Ting, which was really a labour of love of his, again, a love of Brixton and wanting to do a family friendly party.
I was very hellbent on making sure that young people and children and babies could come to parties as I was getting older.
[Chris]
You start very, very early.
[Cindy]
I was like, I don't want to stop raving, but I've got to find a different way to rave. I think we've kind of aged gracefully, dare we say. We've always just recognised that there's a space for every age group. And as we got older, we started to do more daytime parties, which is now a cool thing to do, as you may already hear yourself. And you've been doing it for a long time. But for us, it was like, well, they're just like the old school all dayers that we were raised on as kids anyway. And we were just having, we were missing those sort of things. So we've done a lot of different parties, but I think people know us a great deal from No Long Ting.
[Chris]
I would say that's when everything started to expand.
[Cindy]
And Covid, unfortunately, but fortunately, Covid was a really strange one for us because even though there's lots of people that know us and have been going to our parties for years and blah, blah, blah, one thing that we noticed was that our age group were very nervous about social media, where I'm not, as I'm sure you can see on my...
[Colleen]
You must follow Cindy, hands on. It's just hands on fam, right?
[Cindy]
Yes, that's right.
[Colleen]
Your Instagram is fantastic. It's fantastic.
[Cindy]
So I've never, thank you. I've never shied away from journaling my thoughts and interests. And we realised that as there was this lull of the world or the so-called Western world, that it was a really great time to stay relevant. And we were like, you know what? We're just going to keep pushing what we do. We're not going to just, you know, forget about this.
[Chris]
Sit back and wait for everything to start back up again. You've got to prepare to do it.
[Cindy]
No.
[Chris]
So we do mix here, keep yourself present online. Everyone's online.
[Cindy]
I'm always about documenting culture, especially Black culture and the absence of it. And I think social media has been very helpful to Black creators in general across the board.
And so it was just a happy but sad medium because it was like Black Lives Matter version two, wasn't it? So everybody was like feeling a bit uncomfortable about, oh my God, we need to like think about the Blacks more. And because I've always spoken about these things, you know, through all my adult life, it just felt very natural to speak on it because actually what we do as DJs is quite political, we feel, without being pretentious. It is a kind of activism to kind of spread good, you know, good vibes and, you know, love to people in times of effort, which is what we're in at the moment.
[Colleen]
Yeah. I mean, also we were talking earlier too, you came along to the London Loft Party and we were talking, which is also community-based, all different ages. And you were saying, oh, it's really great that younger people are going to this and they can see, you know, how these types of parties rather than performances can be.
And you were also tying that back to the Black community. Can you expand on that a bit and let us know exactly what you're talking about in terms of community parties and the Black community and how they're different from what a lot of the young DJs are experiencing today?
[Cindy]
I mean, it goes back to the whole Shabin tales, which I know you're very well read in, but I guess for the new listener, maybe this is the first time someone's listened to your show. Ultimately, because of the nature of racism in the UK at the time, and I'm pretty sure that would be echoed in places like America anyway, it ultimately, the parties that we went to were because we weren't actually allowed to go to mainstream events because there were racist door policies, et cetera, et cetera. So often our parents would put on events anyway.
I think Black folks are more in tune with amplified music anyway. So if you speak to the average Black person across the board, if they've been raised in a Black household, they'll be telling you about remembering seeing mum and dad dance in the living room. And then, you know, by five o'clock, three or four, people have turned up. And by ten o'clock, there's a whole party and drinks have been bought. And then before you know it, you've got a full blown house party. And I think Chris and I were both really exposed to that. So when we came to your party, we just felt like, oh, this just reminds me of, you know.
[Chris]
It was familiar. It was very familiar because what clubbing has become now is something
[Cindy]
slightly foreign to what we knew...
[Chris]
Yeah, to what we know. We've come to see you and it's like, OK, well, this reminds me of when I was a kid. These were like the parties in my dad's living room.
[Cindy]
Yeah.
[Chris]
These unintentional, unannounced parties where he'd have a few friends. It kind of brought us back to that. So that's what a lot of us really do understand.
[Cindy]
And that's what even we think about, you know, the term house. I mean, that's literally what it's about, home, a feeling of safety, etc. So I think a lot of us come from similar communities. So that's what we liked when we came to your lovely party.
[Colleen]
It's really interesting because when David started The Loft and his own home, first he started throwing parties in 1968, just friends coming over. But in 1970, he formalized it as a rent party that was based on the Harlem rent parties that started in the 1920s. The black Americans were migrating to the northern cities from the south. And because they could not get in to venues in Manhattan, they did their own thing and made their own thing happen.
[Cindy]
We make lemonade out of lemons regularly. That's the situation. And then everybody wants this lemonade and it's like, oh, God, you know.
[Colleen]
But well, let's have a listen to some more music and then we'll come back and talk about the compilation. This is Hands On Family of Balearic Breakfast.
Second part of the interview
[Colleen]
You're listening to an exclusive mix by Hands On Family for Balearic Breakfast. And they have a new compilation. Their first compilation is called If Music Presents, You Need This, an introduction to the Hands On Family. And Cindy and Chris are here with us in the studio. Now, this compilation is fantastic. And one thing I really love about it, number one, is it's so eclectic.
Can you tell me about what you wanted to achieve with this compilation?
[Chris]
I could say nearly every track was a first discovery of the sound of this not necessarily a scene of a label.
[Cindy]
So many of them have a personal connection, like you said, of the discovery.
[Chris]
Yeah.
[Cindy]
So as an example, Bring Me To Your Life with Heidi Vogel on the vocals. Heidi has become a very good friend of mine. I first saw her in a bar in Brixton singing and I was blown away thinking, how on earth has no one ever heard of her? Then I discovered that, well, people had heard of her in the very same scene that I was interested in. IG Culture was working with her. She was friends with Eska. She'd worked with Marcina Arnold. And she's a jazz girl. Currently, she sings with Cinematic Orchestra.
Like there's the constant dots hanging around. And she's a very well respected musician in the musician world, in the London jazz scene, as well as globally. We traveled with Spacebeats. That's from Emma Native, who Nick Woodman sees group. He's been doing a lot of releases. I believe he's even got a new release. But amongst many of the things that we've done, we used to sell music. And any time we played that particular track, it'd be like in Camden or Portobello on our store. It was like if we were having a slow day selling music. You know, there's certain tracks. You've worked in record shops. You're like, I'm going to play this because I know someone's going to buy this. And bam, every time. So that's another kind of record.
[Colleen]
We also have Ty. Yeah, I think we should talk about him. Can you tell us about how you met him?
[Cindy]
We actually met very briefly in college, but I was asked to leave Nick's girl being a primary child. I'm sure he did well in whatever he was doing. But on a serious note, this is a guy that's just you see his face everywhere. He's really calm, very nice, very kind. And that's how I kind of knew him in the area. You know, those people that you see in your head not respectfully because you know them, but you don't know them.
[Chris]
The first sort of meeting that we both had together with Ty, we were running a record store in Brixton and you saw him pass.
[Cindy]
I was doing that. Any time I saw a music person, I'd be like, ah, you're selling music. And he was like, oh, amazing. And he gave us his special kind of full album to sell. Like a lot of artists just come because we were a tiny little shop with other things selling. You can't just say it was our shop, it was a whole owned store. He does a beautiful head that's that's a carved wooden head of Ty's on that album. You check it out. And he brought it to us to display in our window.
And that started a whole long friendship. And he would tell everyone and anyone that there's these guys in Brixton selling music. You need to get there. And that's kind of how we became much, much closer as friends. But then also, Chris, you've also got other stories. You know, you knew him.
[Chris]
Oh, from a very long time ago. This is school days. I'm slightly older than my little brother. He's sort of 55 now. But I knew Ty as my little brother's best friend. And he's someone I'd go to work and come home and see him and my little brother rapping in their school uniforms. Just bought a new sample. I didn't know who this guy was. Said hello a couple of times. Used to come to the house. Didn't see him for a few years. I heard about this Ty, Ty everywhere.
Not realising that it was Ben. For about two, yeah, because I knew him as Ben. Yeah, I didn't know him as Ty. And it just turned out we sort of met again some 15, 20 years later. And the rest of the sort of history really started working together, doing lots of things, you know, just discovering also that we have the same taste in music.
[Cindy]
Yeah.
[Chris]
And a lot of this music we were buying, he was working with those artists.
[Cindy]
Yeah. And he would always be like, Oh, so you know Terry? Oh, I know Terry Walker. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I know.
[Chris]
Anyone you could mention, he'd work with them or he knew them.
[Cindy]
Yeah.
[Chris]
So, yeah, that was another reason why we started working together. We understood each other's art. Yeah.
[Cindy]
And we were angry, but in a positive way. We always, I always talk about positive anger, like being angry and kind of internalising and doing something as an action counter to the anger. We were angry about how like black artists, especially in the UK, were mistreated, not platformed with one in one out rule, which is still unfortunately happening today.
And we were very much into like having a DIY attitude. And Ty had just got to, yeah, a few years before, just got to the stage of the same mindset. So everything about what we did was like, let's just do it ourselves. DIY. Let's just get hands on with everything.
[Chris]
It's fair to say he gave us a heads up on the industry as well. Good and bad, because he was already there. He was already in there. So he took a lot of guidance.
[Cindy]
Yeah. He was Mercury Award nominated.
[Chris]
You'd already seen everything.
[Cindy]
Seen various aspects of it. You know, the man that knows De La Soul, you know, Damon Albarn. Obviously, when he passed away, I think people were very shocked to see the amount of musicians and artists that were devastated because of the work he had done with them. It wasn't just some people think he was just a hip hop artist, but he's got a huge discography.
[Colleen]
Well, may he rest in paradise. And it's great that, you know, he's part of this compilation because he's such a big part of your story. And obviously his music, music lives on, you know. McNasty is another local, right? Tell us about Mackenzie.
[Cindy]
Yeah, Josh. So, Josh, we know through his partner, Umpol. Again, another singer, artist. Her name was Umpol Skeef. Her artist name, she was doing a lot of Broken. I think she even made a track with the Bugs in the Attic earlier. So she was even on her own trajectory in the early days.
Similarly, she had the same old story about the industry. But that's her story to tell. But she just by her connection and us knowing each other and also on top of that, when we had our little shop in Brixton, honestly, a few doors away, she had a little tea shop in the same avenue. And we ended up, long story short, taking over her tea shop in the evening, making it a pop up bar and inviting DJs. And we really came closer through that. And then eventually, when we all left those operations, that bar still stands there today in the market as a bar that has DJs.
So that was an interesting connection. But Josh is like a happy outcome of marrying a lovely person like Umpol. And when we heard this record, we were like, God damn, because he's known as a session drummer for some of the largest names in pop music. And he comes from a gospel background, but he rarely does this kind of sound. And the Mech sisters are his sisters. So Umpol and his sisters wrote the lyrics. And if you see them working together, it's just like they're in their house jamming. And he literally said that that record, I think I've got a voice note of him explaining that it was a one take session with a few friends that he'd got in a free music session. And he said, right, I'm going to do this. And he did it. And he what he did, because he's very much like a vibes man. He just kind of sings out what he wants. And then the band just follows. And that's how the song happened.
[Chris]
I think that's what it was about that particular track. You can hear the energy in it. I think if you were to get together and re-do it, you could never do a better version than the one that's there.
[Cindy]
And it feels so old school.
[Chris]
Like, yeah, I have no idea.
[Cindy]
Old school kind of reggae.
[Chris]
Why have I not heard this before?
[Cindy]
Yeah, so it was and given that with with the lack of, you know, the money of local, of independent labels, you know, we could have licensed some really cool rare grooves. So this was like our take. Like, this is actually because Rare Groove is so much part of our musical upbringing. So this kind of head nods nicely to that.
[Colleen]
The thing that's great about this compilation, it does feel very family and it does feel very community oriented. Like you've got your spirit on wax and which is great because you're really representing the community, which is exactly what you want to do. I mean, how does it feel, because you've described yourselves and I felt the same way as a women DJ who's been going since the 80s as an outlier. And, you know, there have been times when somehow I would never say I've ever been mainstream, but more accepted and visible, I guess, is a better way. And sometimes I definitely haven't. Now you're becoming more visible. How do you feel now that you're shifting into kind of a a new moment for Hands On Family?
[Chris]
It's nice that it exposes other people to what we do. You know, that's a really nice thing, but it's really important to not let go how it got to this point in the first place. You know, I don't want to be crass, but it's not the money or anything like that. Once you let go of that, I think that's an issue. And you lose creativity as well. And you also lose an interest in what you're doing if you are just... if you are just there for the exposure.
[Cindy]
Do you know what I will give? I will say I will always say this fair play to people that want fame and success through the hype. But for me, it's like maybe 20, 30 years ago when I was younger. But I'm 50. I'm literally thinking about my kids going to secondary school this week. Like I'm thinking about, you know, we're like, you know, with all this terrible stuff happening in the world with the cost of living, like, will I have enough for my funeral expenses? I'm seeing my friends pass and get ill and and God's honest truth. So for me personally, this is a massive like if there's a DJ bucket list for people that love music 100 percent, this is probably the top for me to have achieved. Fruit, thank God, you know, through John, Claude and Pete of BBE and obviously with Chris.
And I'm really grateful. But like I said, I'm just too long in the tube to care so much about that aspect. And if you know me, like even when we've, you know, had the pleasure of playing in more not mainstream, but visible gigs like the amazing We Out Here festivals and things like that, you know, I'm always quick to tell younger people to calm down and forget about this hype. Be polite when you're in the green room. I'm always the first person to just break bread. And let's stop with all this pretense. You know, we're all going home. We've all got bills to pay. You know, a lot of this isn't real.
Calm yourself down, you know. So that's how I feel about it. And that's what I internally tell myself. Like, for example, for some strange reason, after our launch last week, you know, we get a lot of flying colors and we become some level of high end DJ getting paid thousands of pounds. I promise you, I'll be telling myself every morning in the mirror. It's not that deep. This isn't real. Calm down.
[Colleen]
Yes. Don't believe your own hype. I was taught that a long time ago. And I also agree with you that you should always remember why you do it. So the loft parties, for instance. I don't make any money. I don't pay myself.
[Chris]
Right. Right. Yeah, we understand.
[Cindy]
Two weeks ago, we did a street party in Brixton and we didn't we just asked to have our expenses covered. We played for six hours on the streets of Brixton. People came and it was fantastic
[Chris]
Because it's what it's for...
[Cindy]
And that was it. I just told them, look, I'm hearing there's a street party. I want to be involved. This is what it is. Can we do it? Of course, they were so excited. We had loads of people come down.
--- a bit of the interview is missing here ---
[Colleen]
And mentor some young DJs. And what I tell them when they're asking, well, these people are offering this, but it's not going to pay much. And I'll say, is it good? Because the good things are usually the ones you don't get paid as much. And also as a creative, you should always be doing stuff for free. Like I have a lyric breakfast. It's one of the most important things in my creative life right now. Yeah, I do it for free. And I really believe that you need the balance.
You know, it's great to be able to to still make a living through your passion. And I'm grateful, you know, but you have to always remember why you do it. And that really hit home during the pandemic when I was broadcasting every week from this room for free, realizing I do it because I have to.
[Chris]
Yeah, it's who you are.
[Cindy]
Exactly. And I wish, you know, not to not to be difficult with the younger people, because there could be somebody my age that wants to start DJing and there's accessibility now. So it's not really age related. I guess it's for people that are new to the game.
I just feel that too much of it is caught up in, oh, get an agent, get paid lots of money, you know, and it's like, well, what are you bringing to the culture? There's got to be a kind of an exchange here. And I do always try to kind of remind people of that. So people are like, oh, but, you know, you guys are lucky. People always ask you to do things. It's like because we also do things in kind. We don't just it's not everything is about the bottom dollar.
You'd be surprised at the things that we do in kind. And the things that, you know,
[Chris]
Yeah. and that's reciprocated and so on.
[Cindy]
And so it's not luck. It's like, oh, I did that. I did that gig for free with those people that...
[Colleen]
Well, it's this is saying the harder, the harder you work, the luckier you get.
[Chris]
And that's right.
[Colleen]
And when you create your own things as well, you've created your own platforms. You haven't sat around waiting for the phone call. And you did it because you wanted to make something happen because it didn't exist.
[Chris]
Yes.
[Colleen]
So, you know, that the two of you are really into creating community parties, safe spaces and also inspiring other people to to do things and to also recognize local talent, recognize people in the community as well. So this compilation is out. If presents, you need this an introduction to the hands on family. It's out on BBE. What's coming up in the calendar for hands on family? What's coming up in the future?
[Cindy]
Well, we're going to be pushing this. So this is interesting because we I keep saying this to Chris. We come from school. I don't know if you've seen the TV show when we were kids. It's called His Was and Swap Shop, right? And these are shows that you see on a Saturday. This is like the 80s. And these TV shows would always be like, we've got Spandau Ballet on, you know, coming on. And it would be like, right, Spandau Ballet are going to talk about their album. And they would, you know, talk about their promotion. And, you know, for months on end, we'd be hearing about Spandau Ballet's new album. And what I've noticed with a lot of independent releases these days is that, OK, it's out now. Job done. And that's because most of us don't necessarily have the skill set of marketing, maybe. I don't know.
But for us, it's like we're going to do a couple more parties promoting this this this compilation before we think of anything else outside of what we already do. We do have parties in Brixton Village. We still we've got a residency every Thursday in Peckham. And we still getting invited to do it.
[Colleen]
Are you going to tell people where it is?
[Cindy]
Yeah, it's a place called Corner House, Peckham Rye Lane. We're there every Thursday. In terms of Brixton Village, if you follow Brixton Village Lates on Instagram, you'll see everything that we're doing. We do have a last Saturday party at the end of October, which will be great because a lot of our music DJ friends will come. So from about three o'clock all the way till 10, there'll be a free party on the courtyard. Everybody loves a free party. Lots of things juggling, you know, and and trying to raise a daughter and, you know, continue to argue with people online. Yeah, there's a lot of things.
[Colleen]
But it's great. It's really great. Well, I'm so happy for the two of you. And I'm just chuffed to bits that this compilation is out. It sounds great.
[Chris]
Thank you.
[Colleen]
And it's a really true testament to what the two of you have created together. And I wish you all the best with it. And so thank you so much for coming up to Balearic Breakfast.
[Cindy]
I'd just like to say a big shout out to Jean-Claude of If Music, who is the person that asked us and has handheld us for the last 16 months to get this on track. So, yes, we all thank you. We've been very fortunate to have a mentor. In this whole process.
Comments