“A night of rumbling bass sounds, a rammed, heaving mass of humanity in full dancing mode…with wild moments of madness and mayhem”, suggests Alan Dearling
Goldie is a proper larger-than-life geezer. A star who is also everyone’s mate. He’s a natural chameleon, with an eye-popping, mind-blowing range of artistic, musical and acting achievements behind him. And, obviously more to come. It was great to meet him, albeit briefly. A little more about him in a wee while…
The event I attended was the Marcus Intalex Music Foundation night. A night celebrating the life of Marcus Kaye… It was a night of performance with djs and music producers of music providing pulsating, foundations-shaking drum ‘n’ bass. A night too for audience participation. To dance, bounce, gyrate, jump and buzz.
The Foundation itself ran a dj mixing and mc-ing workshop earlier in the day. Goldie was the headline act, but a lot of the other djs are renowned in this genre.
From their site: “MIMF is a platform to support and nurture music talent in many aspects of music development and the culture that surrounds it.
One of Marcus’ greatest passions was to encourage and guide aspiring music talent, as well as pass on the knowledge he himself acquired over the course of his long-standing and successful career.
His importance to the Manchester music scene cannot be overstated, and as an extension of that, the Marcus Intalex Music Foundation aims to continue working in this spirit.
From workshops and studio sessions, to seminars and events; we will host and facilitate a series of programming for people to explore, learn and immerse themselves in everything we love about music and the people we admire.”
Here are a few images of some of the MIMF team and performers:
With Gig, venue host (left) at the MIMF event
Goldie was born: Clifford Joseph Price in 1965. He’s also been awarded an MBE. He first came into the public consciousness working as a graffiti artist, especially around Wolverhampton, and much of his early work was futuristic and also a form of politicised social commentary. But soon he turned to honing his skills as a musician, dj and music producer in the UK world of jungle, drum and bass and breakbeat, hardcore scenes. From Wikipedia we learn that: “He released a variety of singles under the pseudonym Rufige Kru and co-founded the label Metalheadz. He later released several albums under his own name, including the 1995 album Timeless, which entered the UK charts at number 7.”
He featured on the cover of the ‘Face’ magazine in 1995 as the ‘Bass Explorer’, the ‘Breakbeat Alchemist’, with hobbies including snowboarding, walking the dog and dentistry!
Many folk recognise him from his role in the 1999 James Bond film, ‘The World Is Not Enough’, and from Guy Ritchie’s ‘Snatch’ (2000). UK audiences also know him from the long-running BBC series, ‘East Enders’ (2001–2002). Increasingly he has also appeared in a number of celebrity reality television shows, including ‘Celebrity Big Brother 2’, ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, ‘Come Dine with Me’ and ‘Maestro’. He still occasionally performs as a musician in Metalheadz, having recently put on a show at London’s Koko venue. He is a high-energy, high-octane performer.
A 2020 documentary for Sky Arts called, ‘The Art that made me’, has been very positively reviewed, and Goldie has, since 2007, returned to producing new art work alongside his music and acting careers. A clip is here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=959291614603097
Goldie’s latest offering is ‘Timeless’ (30 years on) – “… ‘re-takes’ not re-mixes”, Goldie says of his new release, 2 x CDs; 3 x LPs and digital. https://goldie.lnk.to/timelessremixesFB
Goldie’s Metalheadz logo adorns one wall outside the Golden Lion venue for the MIMF extravaganza – pictured here with local muso, Sam Durham.