Introduction

From 1992 – 2000 I was signed as a recording artist first to a Berlin label, Dynamica Records, and later to TVT records in New York. This was a prolific time. Apart from several albums with my acts Cubanate and Ashtrayhead, I also made two C-Tec albums with Jean-Luc De Meyer whilst he was temporarily divorced from Front 242 and I also found energy for production, writing soundtracks and games music.

It was a very strange phase of my life. I seemed on a mission to destroy myself in particular style. At the time I was willfully ignorant, and out of my mind. This did nothing to improve my paranoia, which reached ridiculous proportions while these songs were recorded, and only got worse afterwards. By 1999 I was applying for planning permission to build a bunker underneath my back garden in Hackney. I got it too.

Cubanate originally had the working title of “Hard Club Project”. This was a reference to the “Hardclub 90” that ran between 1989 and 1994 on Wednesday nights at Gossips, off Wardour Street. At that time in London there was a genuine underground scene made up of alternative drop-outs, freaks and the fetish crowd. Most Wednesdays I would go down to Hardclub, hang out, get wasted and if I was lucky, pull some Jap or German girl. (I was strictly Axis powers in those days).

My previous band, Westwon, had ground to a halt. The band was a hangover from the ‘80’s when I was trying to play the commercial game and the act had become limp through desperation and greed. On March 31st 1992 Nitzer Ebb played the Forum in Kentish Town. I remember that night well, a radio from the chip shop crackling out that Labour was going to win the election, which seemed impossible and indeed proved to be. It seemed every electro freak in town had turned up for the Ebb show and an idea started forming in my mind.

The second Westwon single actually scraped into the top 100 a week or two later. But by then I was on a mission so I called everyone up and resigned from the band anyway.

This blog is an attempt to extract what happened next, and before. I’ve no doubt that the process will be fragmented and barely chronological. But still. Here we go.