TOMMY FUN

San Francisco skate-board guru and ace-bassist Tommy Guerrero has been causing something of a stir with his latest offering A Little Bit Of Somethin'. The fourteen track CD features some of the most beautiful and hypnotic music heard in quite a while. Imagine mating The Cure circa Disentegration with Massive Attack's Blue Lines, then introduce some Carlos Santana and you're getting close ; but it's all of this and more.

Sparse beats are spliced to etheral guitar loops, and the only vocals present seem to be sampled from half-forgotten dreams. If you've ever been stoned on a deserted beach this'll ring an echoing bell.
"You're not the first person who's said that beach thing", Tommy laughs, "but I'm actually a city boy, I don't even surf! Regarding influences, I listen to all those bands you mentioned, to some degree, but I'm also a big fan of Coltrane, and soul music... I think you can hear that in the groove. The aim is to make evocative music, a sountrack to someone's mood."
A Little Bit Of Somethin' has been
championed in the UK by deejays as diverse as BBC Radio One's Gilles Peterson, a pioneer of Acid Jazz, and house guru Patrick Forge. XFM's John Kennedy has also playlisted the album. This success has left Gurrero somewhat bemused.
"I initially co-financed my first release with some friends and I'd no real idea of how it would be recieved, and I'm really pleased with the success of this one. I think it sounds quite unique, and people with an ear for soul and jazz have picked up on it."
The latin influence is also strong. Presumably Guerrero has a latino background?
"My father is from Chile, and my mom is from the Philipines, so I got the Spanish speaking thing from my grandmother, but again I'm wouldn't identify with the Latino tag, though Latin music seems to be gaining in popularity right now.
"If people like Santana can still produce great records and introduce that sound to a generation who wouldn't have been born during the Woodstock era, that's a testament to the talent of those musicians, and I respect that. There's a melancholy to that six-string nylon sound that I've always loved, but it's also very uplifting."
Does his mellow music signifies a slowing down of his lifestyle generally, or does he still skate?
"Yeah, I still skateboard, but I'm not a professional anymore. I still take the board out and skate on the forecourts of buildings in the city with my friends, but it's getting more difficult to do that as areas are fenced off or blocked. I think the skate-boarding thing is more the San Francisco city part of me. In the music, I'm a lot more laid back and Californian!"
While the growing popularity of this latest album bodes well for a follow up, his next project is another departure. He is shortly to record with US deejay Gadget on a project that he promises will "be a little more street, with break beats, more hip-hop than this last one." We'll be listening out...
A Little Bit Of Somethin' is out now on Mo' Wax.