TREVOR HORN:
MALCOLM MCLAREN – BUFFALO GALS (1982/1983) – week six
Trevor Charles Horn is an English music producer, recording studio and label owner, musician and composer. In the early ’80s, Horn was one of the most in-demand producers in the UK. He could essentially work on any record he wanted to. But rather than go after a song that was an obvious hit, he chose to produce the solo record of ex-Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, and the end result was one of the most fascinating records of the decade because it helped introduce England to hip-hop culture. Not only did it sound like hip-hop, but the video showed breakdancing as well as rapping, scratching and graffiti.
It was 1982 and he had just finished producing ABC’s ‘Lexicon of Love’ and everyone wanted him to produce another similar record. Malcolm McLaren wanted Horn to do his solo album, and Horn’s wife, who was his manager at the time, said “You can do Spandau Ballet and you know it’ll be very successful; they’re a very good band. If you do the Malcolm McLaren thing, God knows what’s going to happen ’cause he’s a weird guy.” Horn however met up with McLaren, and said he “told him some stuff that took his breath away”, being that “all the black kids in New York were listening to Depeche Mode“ (an English electronic music band), “And they do this thing with records, they scratch records”, and just the idea that people from New York were into Depeche Mode was mind-blowing to Horn at the time. McLaren discovered this when he was in New York seeking a support act for his post-Pistols signing Bow Wow Wow, but instead found himself at an early ‘hip-hop’ block party and witnessed the art of ‘scratching’, which is using a vinyl record player as an instrument to play sounds to a beat or create a beat by winding a sound back and forth past the needle – he explains this in the 1984 BBC documentary ‘Beat This! – A Hip Hop History’.
Horn and McLaren agreed to work on a rapping scratching version of ‘Buffalo Gals’. Trevor Horn put together the beats, scratches, music and McLaren’s rap to make the song, using an Oberheim sequencer and drum machine, a DMX and a DSX. He told the World’s Famous Supreme Team to tell him their favourite drum beat, which was “Buffalo Gals”: ‘du du – cha – du du – cha.’ This was then done on the DMX and DSX and they just scratched on top of that. McLaren’s sole contribution to this project was his desire to make a version of the country ho-down classic Square Dance Song. However, his attempts to sing this tune in time with Horn’s track turned out to be a failure. Instead, Horn simplified his part to just two lines, being, “two/three/four buffalo girls go around the outside” and “doe si doe your partners”.
Upon hearing the track, Chrysalis records were looking for more of a punk kind of sound and refused to release the song. However, thankfully, enthusiasm from UK DJ Kid Jenson encouraged them to do so. The ‘correct’, ‘best’ version of the track is said to be the DJ Stereo Mix, where all the beats are panned all the way to the left, and all the performances and scratching are panned to the right. This was done to allow potential scratchers to get involved by allowing them access to drums or music simply by taking their desired speaker feed.
[https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2013/01/key-tracks-trevor-horn-on-buffalo-gals]
[https://www.musicradar.com/features/5-songs-producers-need-to-hear-by-trevor-horn]
[https://www.songfacts.com/facts/malcolm-mclaren/buffalo-gals]