Tackhead (aka Tack>>Head) was created when guitarist
Skip McDonald (real name Bernard Alexander), bassist Doug Wimbish and drummer Keith LeBlanc from the Sugar Hill Records house band met English dub master and On-U sound boss Adrian Sherwood at a music seminar in New York in 1984. They soon followed him to England. First under the moniker Fats Comet and then Tackhead, they recorded experimental 12 singles using a sampler as a real instrument, mixing dub, funk, and industrial music. In 1989, vocalist Bernard Fowler joined the band, taking it into a less underground direction. Tackhead was also a backing band for Mark Stewart (as the Maffia) and Gary Clail, cf.
Gary Clail's Tackhead Sound System. (Note: the trio of Alexander, LeBlanc and Wimbish had first met in the 1970s in
Wood, Brass & Steel before they were asked to form the
Sugarhill Gang Band in 1979-09.)