Saul searching.... part one

so what has lead me to the point that I am at today?

it certainly is a strange and twisted journey.

I guess it starts with xfm maybe? possibly The Remix show? I can't really remember now

but I heard Krust's Coded Language and it was like nothing else I had ever heard, a high tempo piece of warped industrial electronica that appealed to my tastes for music to be a little different, to challenge my expectations of what music could be, and all of this was heightened by the commanding VCR performance that graced the track.

it was poetry like I had never ever heard it before, a delivery that wasn't quite rapping, and it was this inclusion of spoken word overlaid atop a pulsing breakbeat that blew my mind.

I presume I must have picked up the single from one of a number of nonexistent record shops that had previously flourished in central London, it would go on to feature on the first ever (poorly) mixed DJ set that I ever recorded alongside my other left field musical choices and Coded Language remains a benchmark moment in my love of music, arriving at a time when I was straying from the mainstream and working harder to find what I truly loved.

my next experience of Saul Williams was purely accidental, as my taste for the more obscure, delving into up and coming music, led me to record Steve Lamacq's 'Lamaqc Live' on a Monday night and then listen back to it on my minidisc player (yes, minidisc player) on my journeys to and from work... Saul was not featured on this show, but as I would set my stereo to over run (a trick I had learnt from my mum when he wildest the video to record something off the telly) I had caught a little of Mary Ann Hobb's even further out there Breezeblock show, on which Saul would be appearing as Mary Ann Hobb's sung his praises, talking of his slam poetry.

this was a time when I did not have proper Internet access (we really are getting quite throwback here, with music stores, minidiscs, vcrs and lack of Internet) so to hear the name Saul Williams again was a revelation to me, it was a name I had not forgotten, and a name I was eager to hear more from....

but it would be a few years until the name would once again present itself to me....



ok, before this tale gets too tall, I have decided to split it down the middle for the sake of those with short attention spans....