I just heard the news of the untimely passing of the great drummer, programmer, and producer Keith LeBlanc from an unspecified illness last April. I am really, really saddened by this—I didn't get the memo till just now!
Keith was a great friend back in the day. I hung out alot with him, Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald (basically, the Sugarhill Gang) in their loft on 14th Street off 7th Avenue in the early '80s—and I put a few of their records out on vinyl mixed by my pal dubmeister extraordinaire Adrian Sherwood (Fats Comet's "Stormy Weather," a Mark Stewart + Maffia compilation, Che's "Be My Power Station") through the indie label Upside Records, who I was doing A&R for part time.
Keith, Skip, and Doug encouraged me to really start writing and playing on my own steam after Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) quit music for a career as a full-time painter—and Keith and Skip helped organize my first ever first studio recording made under my own name, "King Strong"—recorded and mixed at Unique Studios in midtown back in 1985.
Keith did all the drum programming as well as playing live drums on the track, which also features my two bassists of that time, Jared Michael Nickerson and Paul Nowinski. He even was in Gods and Monsters for a short spell--I recall a live gig we did at the old Knitting Factory on Leonard Street. I think the track came out spectacularly well thanks to Keith’;s visionary touch, and it got played alot back in the day on WFMU, WNYU, and other college stations simply off cassette copies I circulated. Eventually in 1992 the track finally appeared on CD, closing my album Gods and Monsters (Enemy Records, which received a 4-Star Review in Rolling Stone)—and it is also on my recent double CD best-of album The Essential Gary Lucas (Knitting Factory Records).
Keith was a real creative force of nature. He hit the drums harder than anyone I knew, as well as becoming a total master of sample drum programming. The heavy sampled drum sounds he and Adrian came up with sound like sledgehammers to the brain, ICBM misses going off, or more appositely, like Roman rowing-masters beating out the pounding rhythms for galley slaves in a trireme bound across the Mediterranean for a naval engagement with the Spartans.
Keith was also blessed with a heavy sense of radical compassion for sufferers far worse off than the exploitative music biz sharks he and his loft mates were forced to swim with, in order to effect the release of their records, which he once described to me as "basically the news set to beats."
Certainly visionary tracks like Keith's masterpiece Malcolm X: No Sell Out—which samples Malcolm's voice taken from various forceful political speeches set off a storm of controversy, with much protest coming from American Black radio programmers who believed Malcolm would never have sanctioned use of his voice on what was essentially a hip-hop track.
In turn, Keith was eloquently defended by black music writer Nelson George, who wrote in Billboard:
"LeBlanc has done an amazing job of capturing the essence of Malcolm X's intellectual street raps, bringing this messenger's message to a new generation of listeners."
Malcolm's widow Betty Shabazz, aware of Malcolm's influence on the growing rap and hip-hop community, gave Keith permission to sample Malcom's voice on the track, and wrote in the liner notes to the Tommy Boy Records 12-inch:
"This recording documents Malcolm's voice at a time and space in history some nineteen or more years ago. Its meaning is just as relevant today as it was then. His belief is that people must constantly monitor behavior, refine goals, and direct their objectives to insure that the right to life and work is a reality. Ultimately, our goals should be peace and brotherhood. After all, the universe belongs to all its inhabitants."
Keith's work with former Pop Group firebrand Mark Stewart is even more radical, cutting-edge and avant-garde.
Listen to the sample and drum beat hellscape of "As The Veneer of Democracy Starts to Fade," which posits the ever-encroaching surveillance police state worldwide:
Keith once told me of a session he did with anarchist manager/recording artiste Malcolm McLaren, where Keith, ever the perfectionist, labored away for hours trying to achieve the perfect drum sound.
Eventually Malcolm sniffed: "At the end of the day, it's all a boom-crack-boom, innit?"
Keith was a heck of a lot more than a "boom-crack-boom."
Check out "You Drummers Listen Good" from his 1986 visionary solo album Major Malfunction to stare the future in the face.