Tackhead

by John BushA collective stretching from the early days of the hip-hop label Sugar Hill into the industrial music of the 1990s, Tackhead produced at least half a dozen albums under a variety of nominal heads — Keith LeBlanc, Gary Clail, and finally Tackhead. The group came together in the early 80s as the Sugar Hill house band, with guitarist Skip McDonald, bassist Doug Wimbish and drummer Keith LeBlanc. (The trio had performed on the three best early hip-hop tunes, the Sugarhill Gangs The Rapper and Grandmaster Flashs tracks The Message and White Lines.) When McDonald, Wimbish and LeBlanc met British dub producer Adrian Sherwood (of the On-U Sound System), they moved to England and in 1986 recorded Major Malfunction, a street-wise funk-rock LP with doses of Sherwoods studio trickery informing the whole. Since LeBlanc had a bit of name recognition due to his 1983 dance hit No Sell Out, the album was released under his name. Another Brit, vocalist Gary Clail, had joined the Tackhead conglomeration by that time, and it was his name — or rather Gary Clails Tackhead Sound System — that graced the cover of the 1987 album Tackhead Tape Time, on Nettwerk Records. After another collective recording on Keith LeBlancs 1989 album Stranger than Fiction, the Tackhead team finally coalesced as a stable group on Friendly as a Hand Grenade. The album, also released in 1989, was the first recorded as Tackhead, and the addition of a standard vocalist (Bernard Fowler) made the group that much more stable, in image if not in sound. Strange Things followed in 1990, with contributions from Melle Mel and Mick Jagger. The album appeared to be a conscious attempt at mainstream rock success (not unlike that of Living Colour), and failed miserably. Though they released no more new Tackhead material, LeBlanc, Wimbish and McDonald continued to play for On-U Sound System projects, such as Gary Clails 1991 album The Emotional Hooligan.