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Reggae - A daily blog

For many it may not be that surprising, but I heard this afternoon something to suggest Bob Dylan liked reggae music. As I often do, I had ABC local radio on and Friday James Valentine (of The Models fame) has David Kilby from ABC Canberra on his show (and vice verca). Anyway, David Kilby has a huge record collection of a wide variety of music styles. Today's theme was the music Bob Dylan has in his collection and one of those songs was Dandy Livingstone's Susan Beware of the Devil. This is a great song from the man who gave us the hugely popular Rudy, A Message To You before the Specials got a hold of it.

An interesting little bit of trivia then. Dylan is in Australia soon, but I won't be going, nor attempting to find out whether what I heard on the ABC was true.

Another bit of trivia on Susan Beware of the Devil is that it is featured in the first series of the Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant created show Extras.

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Posted By: Glen - Category: History

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Club Ska - a reggae history lesson

April 13th 2007 04:57

If you read the blog earlier this week you'll know a band called The Rocksteady Ratpack will be playing Mods Mayday this year - Saturday May 5th @ Newtown RSL.

Anyway, a number of members were once in a Sydney band called Club Ska. I myself am too young to have seen this band, and I expect not too many of the people reading this will remember them. I did a little digging and found the no-longer updated History of Australia Ska by Tracey.

The Club Ska page tells of a few seven inch releases, the members, but most impressively, the picture below of Pat Patou (Powell?) in a great silve tonic suit.

Make sure you check out Pat as he fronts the band on May 5th.

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Posted By: Glen - Category: History

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Junior Murvin and the Heptones with Lee Perry - Play on Mr Music

January 24th 2007 07:29

I was checking the very excellent Dancing Mood forum when I came across this video, linked to below. It is from Roots Rock Reggae, a doco from the 1970s, which I am yet to see, but will look into.

Anyway, this particular clip from that doco is of Lee Perry in his Black Ark Studio. First up, he is recording with Junior Murvin, The Heptones and The Upsetters. They are recording a most beautiful song in Play on Mr Music. It is fantastic to see the Heptones and Murvin singing - swapping between hearing the backing music and just the vocals as they listen to the music through the cans.

Well impressed by this tune, I tried to find it. I was disappointed to discover that the song wasn't released at the time - if the information is correct, it was created for the purpose of the documentary. It was however later recorded by the Heptones - though apparently it is quite difficult to get a hold of.

Anyway, check it out, I'm still going to try to find it, hopefully on vinyl. (Yes unlikely).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcazoSica40

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Posted By: Glen - Category: History

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The best reggae video on Youtube - The Pioneers

January 8th 2007 08:16

Reggae, rocksteady and ska vocal groups are my main love, and The Pioneers are definitely up there as far as my favourite of these JA vocal groups go. I was ecstatic then, to come across this Pioneers video where they performed Easy Come, Easy Go. It's from 1970 and by then they had to moved to England. You can see why, the crowd loved them. Not a small venue either, showing how successful these guys really were. The synchronised dancing of these guys is fantastic and the clothes! This is what the reggae is all about. Hope everyone enjoys it as much as I have.

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Posted By: Glen - Category: History

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Alpha Boys School Coasters

November 16th 2006 00:55

I am not going to go to deeply into the history of the Alpha Boys school, but for the uninitiated, it is a Jamaican school with a music programme that saw many of the great Jamaican musicians, both living and dead, go through. In recent year, the school has been under some financial pressure and so set up a foundation to keep it running. There has been support worldwide, but it needs to continue and luckily enough, you can support the school through some pretty cool purchases.

One is the below set of coasters - replica labels of old ska, reggae and rocksteady labels. How bloody cool is that

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Posted By: Glen - Category: History

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Sunsplash 1982

July 21st 2006 06:35

The other day I did a blog about the upcoming Sunsplash. This festival has a huge legacy with all the who’s who of reggae having played the Jamaican festival. This years lineup is fantastic, but I thought I’d have a look back in time to past festivals.

The 1982 Sunsplash was apparently one of the best festivals. It included artists such as Toots and the Maytals, The Gladiators, Israel Vibration, Yellowman and Eek A Mouse. The below video is Eek-A-Mouse performing Ghetto Living. It is a fantastic track, but it also an unusual sight. At the start, take notice how many people are sitting down as Eek is introduced. Also, check out how unenthusiastic the crowd is! It must be very early in the day because they aren’t dancing or anything. Maybe they see Eek a Mouse all the time. One final thing to take notice of is how many people are on the stage! There is a big band yes, but there are heaps of people just standing around. I know there would be people with passes or whatever, but normally they stand at the sides of the stage. I actually love how relaxed the whole thing feels – as though this isn’t anything big. Anyway check it out and learn some patois with Eek A Mouse

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Posted By: Glen - Category: History

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Arthur Kay before 2tone

July 11th 2006 12:02

I recently bought as part of a collection, a 45 by artist Arthur Kay, titled Ska Wars. For starters, go and find it. Fantastic tune. It has a British sound, released in1979 in the UK and that I suppose is what I find so interesting.

In 1979, The Specials released Gangsters, which was a huge hit and began a ska revival that was huge in the UK. A number of bands such as Madness, The Beat, The Selecter etc were part of this revival and found great success. Many of these bands are still together.
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Posted By: Glen - Category: History

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Reggae History

May 5th 2006 05:27

Some people like to read about how reggae developed, or how a scene was at a certain point in time. Google may be your first option for searching for these resources, but of course there are problems with finding the best information. Here are a few resources that document the reggae and ska past.

Pre-sixties club in Jamaica

Global Village Idiot
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