“I suppose our earliest memories of music actually come from cassette. I remember jumping around the living room together listening to “Space Man” by Babylon Zoo on cassette with a homemade tinfoil space helmet on (far out lyrics for a 3 and 4-year-old to absorb!)”
“However Dad did have a good vinyl collection which he occasionally sat us down to listen to. This was our introduction to John Coltrane, Erik Sate, Bartok, as well as the Hawkwinds, Led Zeppelins and Syd Barrets of the world. At this early stage though, most of our interaction with music was being in the middle of live jams, travelling nomads in France, or hijacking the instruments during soundcheck at Dad’s shows. It wasn’t until we were 12 and 13 when our formal introduction to vinyl properly happened.
It was our sister’s new boyfriend. He drove an old-school Mini Cooper and had a hefty vinyl collection. His first offerings to us were Jurassic 5’s Concrete School Yard and Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters. Yes sister; we approve. They are still together today and Kevin actually does all of our artwork including that of the upcoming release, “In Flight.”
As we got used to the delicacy of handling a needle we were allowed to sive through his collection and find some new treats, not least one of our most influential tracks, “Brown Paper Bag” by Roni Size. This collection was also our introduction to modern music scenes that were growing in popularity, such as Tru Thoughts, Ninja Tune, and Gilles Peterson. Here was perhaps our introduction to world sounds through artists such as Quantic, and Gilles Peterson’s fantastic mixes of Brazilian music.
It wasn’t long til Dad and other family members started giving us vinyl as gifts to help us build our own collection—we called it “Speakman Sounds” which is where our name comes from.
Finally, I would like to link you to a blog I posted recently about a pretty fascinating connection I had with a piece of vinyl recently. Follow this link to hear a truly special piece of vinyl and a fantastic story to go with it.”
—Todd Speakman
Speakman Sound’s latest single “In Flight” is available now via Round Badge Collective.
