Hip Hop Be Bop

Before Hardrock Soul Movement, Max L.X. aka Maximum Scratch (Maxwell X) and Dave V.J. (Vinyl Junkie) (Dave Morrissey) were originally members of the UK’s legendary Mastermind Roadshow together with Mastermind (Herbie Laidley) and others. As part of Mastermind, they helped complete several remixes for artists such as Aretha Franklin, Scritti Politti, Loose Ends, etc and also assisted in the first of Morgan Khan’s Street Sounds Electro series of albums. Not receiving credit for all their work, they parted ways with the DJ collective sometime around 1984.

The following year the duo appeared as Hardrock when they remixed UK R&B group, Five Star’s, Let Me Be The One, produced by Nick Martinelli. The group still continued with their DJ careers, appearing at the historical UK hip hop event, Electro Rock: Hip Hop at The Hippodrome in 1985 hosted by Capital Radio’s Mike Allen. Other artists appearing included Afrika Bambaataa, Family Quest, City Limits Crew, Junior Gee, etc. Following this, they released several singles as Hardrock Soul Movement for Elite Records, beginning with their electro funk scratch fest interpretation of Do It Any Way You Wanna by People’s Choice, which also included their own Hardrock Throwdown on the flip. The success of this led to two more similar scratch fest singles for Elite including Double Def Fresh and The Beat Is Mine.

The same year saw the duo record yet another classic single, this time for Morgan Khan’s Streetwave label entitled Funky Groove. The track featured legendary hip hop artist, Afrika Bambaataa. They continued in 1987 with Elaweaser, Just A Skeezer which saw a complete change in style to something more in-line with the sound at the time and then in 1989 they released the street soul cover version of S.O.S. Band’s Just The Way You Like It featuring Deborah French.

In the 1990’s Max and Dave hosted their own hip hop show on Kiss FM.