It’s 1980 and we’ve just played our first number. I’m on stage at the Electric Ballroom in Camden Town. While the crowd is applauding I look down at the set list taped to the floor by my drum kit. Someone shouts out, “Make one up!”.
He’s in the front row with his black hair spiked up and his eyes are shining with the fire of someone who knows he’s plugged into the revolution. Together we’re going to change the world. Starting tonight!
Scritti Politti, in
the early days, used to make up half of our set on stage. We’d do a song people
knew then we’d make one up. We didn’t call it ‘improvising’. That’s what jazz
musicians did, playing with a song or a theme that already existed. This
‘making one up’ was something no band
had ever done before as far as we could see. We would take it in turns to begin
and the other two would just have to fall in. So Green might start with a
scratchy guitar riff and, once I’d got the shape of it, I’d bring in a beat to
fit. Niall would join in too, maybe with a loping Jamaican bass line and we
might suddenly pivot the song into a scratch reggae anthem.
We rotated. When it was my turn to begin I would look through the dazzle of
stage lights at my gleaming kit and just start hitting things till a pattern
emerged. Then I’d repeat it, not so much by sound but by watching my arms and
legs dance while the others brought some melody in. That would lock it down,
give it some sense, it was quite scary until that moment. Exposed live onstage!
Whatever style the
song took we had this uncanny ability to listen to each other and, when about
three minutes was up, we’d stop. Just like that, together. We would look at
each other and laugh. If Twitter had existed there would have been a veritable
Twitter storm about it. At the bar later fans collared us, amazed, saying, “You
never made that song up, it was too perfect, you must have rehearsed it!”.
As it is, as I don’t think any of those gigs were recorded, it’s a memory for
that guy in the front row and a few thousand people who came to see us.
The groove can be found at the crossroads of discipline and surrender. Yes, we
practiced our instruments but that was a small part of it. More important to
those performances was the trust between us, built through defining and refining
our shared values. Then living them, walking the talk.
What were we being
applauded for, musicality? Yes, there was a song there, and often a good song.
Green was a real wordsmith and he always managed to find something appropriate
to sing over whatever we came up with. But the greater applause, the heart of
it, was for our courage. We hadn’t been to Musical Academy, we were an Art
School band, quite new to the music scene. But as political activists we wanted
to be part of this activist punk movement that brought rock and reggae
together. To make a difference. As Green used to say, “to get ourselves in the
history books”.
I’m
on my knees. It’s 10 years later. I’ve lost the groove completely and I can’t
even listen to music anymore, let alone play it. I’m having a standard music
business breakdown. People call it burnout.
I didn’t think I had a spiritual bone in my body but, at the advice of a
friend, I’ve come to an ‘Enlightenment Intensive’ residential retreat in the
Dordogne. It’s a ten day programme and this is the fifth morning. Nineteen of
us have just finished chanting, naked, in a Native American sweat lodge which
we entered at 5am. It’s 6am now and, allegedly purged, we’re off to the Chateau
through the trees for a healthy breakfast. The peacefulness of nature is all
around us.
It’s still dark and I stumble over an African djembe drum, laying on its side
by the camp fire outside the sweat lodge. I’ve never played one of these but I sometimes
played the bongos at teenage parties. It can’t be that different. I close my
eyes and explore the different sounds of this new drum. Free from the
judgements of music biz executives and the demands of the music press to behave
a certain way, I sense the long lost the groove flashing like lightning on the
horizon. My personal dark night of the soul, which relentlessly demanded
silence, begins to rumble like thunder. As the sun rises over the trees my
rhythm rings out. I open my eyes and discover, much to my surprise, I’m not
alone at all. I’m surrounded by naked dancing people. Everyone skipped
breakfast and is letting their hair down big time. The retreat leaders were
hoping a drummer would emerge from this group so we could dance for the second
half of our time here. And that’s exactly what happens. With this sunrise beat
I move from zero to hero.
Two hundred drummers surround me in the Berlin Hilton. I’m not on my knees now,
it’s twenty years later and I’m elevated. Wearing a dinner jacket and a headset
mic I’m running a corporate teambuilding session. Since my reconnection to the
groove in France I’ve been facilitating huge djembe sessions around the globe.
Moscow, New York, Paris, Stevenage… you name it I’ve drummed there. In the team
building world they call me the Vibe Navigator or the Groove Master. Right now
I’m in trouble though. Health and safety. I shouldn’t be standing on this chair
with a drum strapped to me right in the middle of these ‘bistro-style’ conference
hall tables. EVERYONE is looking at me like I’m mad. Why didn’t I do what I was
told, stay on the stage and simply get paid?
Because, d’you know what? We’d get a better team sound, a more fulfilling
groove, if we moved all these tables out of the way. We’d be more connected,
more tribal. There’s no “i” in team but there is an “i” in tribe and it’s right
in the middle. I want this group to FEEL that, not read it on a PowerPoint
slide.
All morning I’ve had well-groomed Hilton staff telling me it’s not logistically
possible, I’ve listened patiently to onsite event organisers with
walkie-talkies telling me they’re not insured for such risks, the Audio Visual crew
who politely miked up my drum told me to stay on the stage or risk ear-piercing
feedback if I ventured into the crowd. And here I am. The rebel. Two hundred
execs looking at a man who spent his childhood living up a dirt road and
climbing trees for fun. No one’s telling me I can’t stand on a chair!
As security come forward to remove me from the building I call on the CEO, who
I had a word with just before I came onstage, and say, “Jack, you said you
wanted the same session as Chicago right?” Jack gives me the thumbs up.
“Someone give Jack the roving mic please. And Jack, did we have tables there?”
Conspiratorially he says, “No, we didn’t Tom”.
The security men freeze, rooted to the spot. The events manager raises her
clipboard to cover her face. “And Jack, if the theme of this conference was
ACHIEVING THE IMPOSSIBLE, which it is, do you think it would be a good final
day metaphor to move these tables, form three concentric circles like Chicago, and
play our drums being able to see each other and connect in a new and memorable
way?”
“Sounds good to me Tom. Come on, let’s do it people!”.
Within five crazy minutes the whole room is re-arranged with twenty circular tables
hoisted onto the now empty stage or scuttled, crab-like, into empty corners.
This is unprecedented and the maverick energy is delighting everyone. The
grooves we play are now focussed, energised and bonding. We ARE a tribe. Everyone
wants to shake my hand in the bar later, including the CEO.
Like those ‘make one up’ days I’m applauded for my courage and empowering this group
to achieve the impossible together. It was all about building trust fast, which
gave us the permission to cut through the red tape and innovate in the here and
now. Looking back, that’s exactly what Scritti Politti were demonstrating that
night at `the Electric Ballroom. I wonder what happened to that guy with spikey
hair in the front row. “Hey Jack, did you say you started your business in Camden
Town in the 80s?”