DK sent me this link of a 1983 performance by Material at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland featuring not only scratching, MCing and breakdancing duties by the Grandmixer DST but also live painting by Keith Haring!
An incredible slice of history. They do a version of ‘Rockit’ midway too, I wonder who has the Harings now? It might also explain how he came to do several posters for the festival in the 80’s too.
Talking of ‘Rockit’ there’s an incredible full Herbie Hancock band version live on The Tube from a year later including not only DST but also the dancing robots from the Godley & Creme-directed video.
Fabulous! An clean-shaven Bill Laswell on bass, brilliant solos by Henry Kaiser and the late, lamented Sonny Sharrock, J.T. Lewis on drums and I think that’s Michael Beinhorn on the other keyboard. I wish there were high quality live recordings of this band – such a great collision of funk, hiphop, jazz and free improv. Funny to hear Rockit minus Herbie. I was a huge Material fan for their first three albums to the extent my first cat was called Laswell.