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Say No Go

Among a small cache of late '80s/early '90s singles that turned up in one of the St. David's Hospice charity shops in Chepstow (when there were still two such outlets) were a couple of De La Soul 45s: 'Say No Go' and 'A Roller Skating Jam Named "Saturdays"'. Having owned Three Feet High and Rising on cassette once upon a time, I picked them up.

At the time they felt like a breath of fresh air: serving up a joyous & wildly inventive bricolage in day-glo colours. I though it would herald a flood tide of similar music, but mostly, of course, it heralded decades of legal problems for the trio. In general it may well be "better to ask forgiveness than permission" but that didn't seem to work out so well for them.

While the A side of my copy is in decent shape, the B-side - the cumbersomely titled 'They Don't Know That the Soul Don't Go for That ("Potholes" Instrumental)' - is in much worse condition. I can only suppose that its previous owner was an aspiring DJ who used it for scratching practice.

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