Here is my remembering of how Ninja Columbo came about…
15 years ago in a galaxy not so far away...
...there was always a tiny hole in hardcore/gabber. Even when I was 15 years old I remember that void. Don’t get me wrong, it was all amazing but every now and again one of the big labels like Industrial Strength or Mokum or someone would release an ep and there’d be 1 track on it that stood out as being completely different. There was an extra element of some sort. Be it an extra pad, melody section, stab of some kind or something actually unexplainable. Think ‘Flowers of Intelligence’ (Zenith) , ‘Listen Carefully’ (R. Wagner) and the track that I’m about to mention…
I always wanted more of those tracks and was even vocal about it back then. I’d bunk off school and head to Dolphin’s legendary ‘3rd Planet Records’ (an actual record shop that sold vinyl… IN NORTH WALES!) and ask him what ‘that tune’ was that he’d played in Steam a few weekends previous and that was now being hammered through the tape pack recording in my mates beige Ford Escort (which by the way had a lime green go faster stripe!). The main track that hooked me the most was ‘Forgotten Moments’ on Industrial Strength. I even hired Greg out for the mega reasonable rate of a 5 quid an hour each evening after the shop had closed for the day a few times for some tuition sessions and to try and write an actual tune. The main inspiration was for it to specifically be a ‘Forgotten Moments’ type track. We made a track called ‘Unheard Voices’ which took a fucking huge amount of floppy discs and a few 5ers to achieve anything even close to playable haha. (I think that has got lost in history and is probably somewhere in one of Greg’s dusty boxes that he insisted on keeping, even after 3PR came to a close. I actually named a breakcore track the same name in tribute on Sustained Recordings years later).
Greg was my favourite DJ back then (and arguably still is). Debates between myself and numerous others (Danny Crash, Tugie to name a couple) about who was better, Greg or Luke (the DJ Producer) went on for probably over a decade! (the answer, I realised at one point, was both! (obvious, now) They were actually the best at what they and they alone did and how they did it (individually) by a fucking mile, which to be honest still stands today in my opinion. You can’t simply throw them into the same category together as their styles and approach are so different and special. But one of the main reasons Greg was my favourite was because he’d always be the one to play the types of tracks I’m talking about, something different.
*For the best examples search for and download the Dolphin @ Steam 2 set (this set changed my life and concreted me in music). And also Dolphin @ Hardcore Heaven ’96 (there are an almost infinite amount of classic Dolphin sets out there but these 2 are in my opinion by far the most ‘Dolphin’ of them all, displaying not only his originality but also skills of structure on a pair of 1210’s, in a time that really was like listening to music made by beings from the future….. from a different dimension even.
A few years went by and Greg’s productions evolved and I got more and more in to writing tracks, and when we both coincidentally moved to Manchester we began writing together a lot. Both of us had similar ideas and aims when writing tracks. Either collaborating or just sitting in while the other wrote a track, the other person making butties or just offering opinions on what the other was doing. Even just coming up with names for each others tunes (see ‘Beating Miike’ hah). It was easy, we just bounced.
Outside of that though, we were constantly just discovering new music and being blown away by what was being created at that time (think early 2000’s era of Deathchant, Rebel Scum, Warp, Planet Mu, Rephlex, Ad Noiseam, Praxis, Ambush, Virus, Hard Leaders, Novamute). Fuck, that era was SO fruitful for electronic music. It was, from what I remember, a fucking amazing time for a lot of reasons really. But most importantly, Greg was churning out absolutely mind blowing tracks, that really only I’d hear unless he played them from mini disk at ‘North’ (a club night where he was resident and I worked and played for at the time). He never sent them to anyone as demos and as far as I could see he probably wouldn’t have. Or maybe he would have but it would have taken fucking years haha! That was the final seal on my decision to start a label, really. The main purpose, was to release his tunes. They needed to be fucking heard! Oh yeah… and to release my own, but at that time that really wasn’t the main priority.
I started writing a business plan to get a grant from the Princes Trust so I could get a laptop and a soundcard and to do a 1st run of vinyl. It took a little while but I got there in the end, while at the same time writing a couple of tracks. One in the style of Deathchant to send to Hellfish. I actually wrote that and quite a few others on my girlfriend at the time’s dad’s office computer, using those tape player walkman, orange foam covered ear phone things and his tiny PC speakers. (Respect to the Grace massive!)
While at Gregs one weekend, I grabbed one of his tracks, burnt it to CD along with my Deathchant inspired track and sent it to ‘Fish. I think a week or so later Greg woke me up at his place after doing a tag team on a couple of tunes (I’d fallen asleep 1st and he’d take the late shift, a system I have used to this day with Scheme Boy also haha). The 1st thing he said was, ‘I just got a random phone call (or text, I’m hazy on this) from ‘Fish, he said he’ll take both our tunes’. I think it’s up there with the best moments of my entire life and is definitely the best way that I’ve ever been woken up!
This was my 1st vinyl signing…
www.discogs.com/Dolphin-6-vs-Teknoist-The-Glitch-War-Part-1/release/223898
Shortly after, I finished the business plan, got the grant, got distribution and did the 1st vinyl run. While all this was happening, i met Scheme Boy too but that is a different story i'l save for another day :)
and...
THIS WAS FIRST RELEASE.
originally released on double vinyl in 2005
