THINKING OUT LOUD

I’m gonna interrupt my usual satire done in poor taste with some finely seasoned drama.

Wal-Mart…where lower to middle class consumers like my currently unemployed self go to shop. While the wife was gathering together the necessary goodies, I wandered over to the music aisle in morbid curiosity to check out the REGGAE selection. Only one single CD of one single REGGAE artist was stocked. Guess who?

Of course, that one lonely disc was a ROBERT NESTA MARLEY release.

Guess which title? LEGEND of course silly, that title is only the biggest seller in REGGAE’S 40 plus year history.

Wal-Mart doesn’t fuss around with small potatoes like the TROJAN record label. So that leaves only major label moguls Island/Universal for your Marley choice. Wal-Mart was kind enough to make up your mind for you.

I wasn’t shocked, but I wasn’t happy either. Part of me loves being considered an insignificant slice in the demographic pie. As someone who beats his eardrum with Reggae Dancehall I feel like I belong to a secret society.

But is that attitude profitable for “our” music’s vitality? I mean the health of REGGAE music is at stake here.
No serious money coming in means no reinvesting. Why produce new product if the old stuff is getting’ stale? No waiting fans with fists full of cash to spend means no new REGGAE releases.
Sure REGGAE will always exist in JAMAICAN ghetto YARDS and local DANCEHALLS but am I gonna hear the next generation of stars way up here in North America? Hell no! No JAMAICAN businessman is about to push supply where there is no demand. Which means a slow death.

So as long as ROBERT NESTA MARLEY’S LEGEND continues to shift astronomical numbers, new fans will come to the music. Some will stick around for more. Brave souls will seek out the names we take for granted. Remember they have no clue as to who an AUGUSTUS PABLO or a SIZZLA KALONJI is yet. Give ‘em time though. Ganja may not be habit forming but REGGAE is downright addictive.

My only fear is that “our” beloved music will reach too huge a listening audience. Which is initially a good thing fiscally. But the backlash will be critically devastating. There will be the usual media over saturation. The music will be diluted with every POP influence to the very inch of its authenticity. “Yeh Mon!”

And then quietly disappear as last year’s fad.

Then my only choice will be the thousands of faceless R ‘n’ B and country twang discs that line their shelves. And I like to think for myself. Not to completely diss Wal-Mart, my wife scored some great deals on everyday items.

KING JAMMY pt. 1

To do this justice...I'm gonna break up this book report into several parts.



A few straight up facts about this 7x7 inch (exactly the size of a 45 single in its sleeve), one hundred and fifty two page thick soft cover book (the thickness of my pinkie finger.) It is simply the most massive book of it size. So heavy are the contents that it is like trying to move a mountain every time I pick it up to read.
And read it you will. You’ll find yourself casually skimming through it. But mostly you will find yourself deep in research. It is picture packed and full of facts.

Remember these!

It tells the story of a Prince behind the mixing console in the studio of his boss and mentor KING TUBBY. Once this prince left the security of his former employer he re-emerged newly crowned as KING JAMMY. He ruled the 80’s decade, from a humble home studio in the Kingdom known as WATERHOUSE. This neighborhood was just one among many impoverished parishes in and around the capitol city of KINGSTON.
The world may know of TRENCHTOWN through the words of the late reggae ambassador ROBERT NESTA MARLEY but this WATERHOUSE parish can boast of having more talent per square inch than any place on EARTH except maybe the renaissance of HARLEM in the 1920’s.

All the game changing names passed through his studio doors. The singers, the players of instruments and young mixers that became the next generation masters of sound. JAMMY'S was as much an incubator as it was a music studio...it gave birth to the new digital RIDDIM.

More...

EYE POPPING BASS SLAPS

Curves that feel good inna your hands.

No gutter minds...not CE'CILE!

(picture does no justice to the real thing!)

An IBANEZ SR700!

I was searching Craigslist when I felt my wife looking over my shoulder. “No phucking way are you buying a drum set!” “But babe…they have killer kits selling for dirt” I sassed back in self-defense. She then stated simply in her dead serious tone trying to penetrate my thick skull, “It is not the money…its because there is no quiet way to play the drums.” Sure there is…when she’s not home. Umm, I am hoping to add a CASIO 3800 as well. Why? Home studio.

Back in late the 1970’s I bought a black Rickenbacker bass. It cost me about half of what I earned that year. RICK JAMES was photographed playing one, so I wanted one. Umm, I did more fumbling than getting funky. Learning an instrument requires full discipline and I had discovered girls at the same time so…a few years passed and I up-graded to a handmade blonde maple Schecter Research with polished brass hardware. She was a real head turner. I pawned it 15 years ago. This beauty practically played itself but I still wasn’t playing like JACO PASTORIUS.

(Considered the greatest electric bass player ever. Died homeless in Miami.)

Work and pleasure gave my knuckles a beating. I had a cast iron boiler slide off its’ cement block footing and pin my right hand between a wall. Until my co-works helped push the thing off, I could hear my knucklebones cracking under the weight. Over 900 hundred pounds. (We scrapped it.) That and my youthful habit of swinging first and asking question later left my dexterity shot. (Barroom fisticuffs.) So my musician days had past.

Society made me do it..my studio 1985

When my youngest daughter was really little I bought her one of those made in China cheapo guitars that she could trash like a kid. With interest lost I ended up playing around with it more than her. I would be sitting at my computer waiting for the page to eternally load and to save my impatient mind from exploding; I started finger picking my old melodies. I removed two strings to make it more Bass like. About a year of this nonsense I realized I could wiggle my fingers again. Time to do it proper. An Ibanez SR700 caught my eye. She is an Indonesian exotic made from jungle woods. I know not very green but I do intend to be buried with her when I leave behind my mortal coil. My big picture is coming together.

In the little space in between every thing that’s happening right now, I’m trying to lay down my own RIDDIMS. I made scores of demos a half a life ago. That was easy with old school tech. This home computer recording studio software has me getting grayer. I’m learning at the pace of paint drying. Speaking of paint …

I don’t make New Years resolutions because I never think more than a few days ahead. Not gonna happen but this year is different. I have a lot of new stuff planned for the new year-though none of it blog related. Well not directly anyway. A few weeks ago my youngest daughter, she is 17 years old, wanted too check out the capitol city’s ART MUSEUM. While strolling through the halls where all the Jesus paintings hang and the subject of RELIGON is pushed as hard as drugs, I started singing JAH LLOYD’S “MOSES was a DREADLOCK.”
That got me thinking…maybe I’ll correct the old world masters mistakes. This would be an extremely time consuming endeavor however. Some of those paintings took years to paint! That will be a serious challenge to my lack of patience. And ummm...pretty damn arrogant of me.

VINTAGE 2010

Now that the year 2010 seems like ancient history...Nico's Big Mouth looks back at a few of the releases that held my attention for more than passing moment.

The best video not featuring the beautifully talented CE'CILE goes to COURTNEY JOHN.

I haven’t viewed too many videos...my computer is so old that you-tube plays in stop motion. As I mentioned in a past post my cable provider has a feature that offers a small handful of REGGAE videos. This video for the COURTNEY JOHN tune LUCKY MAN has made me a huge fan.

The video is shot in glorious black 'n' white. A film-noir piece that evokes the feel and emotion of the 1960’s. Before COURTNEY takes the song out, he segues into a few bars of the SOUL standard, I WANNA GET NEXT TO YOU. This tune was the signature ballad by ROSE ROYCE used in the movie CAR WASH. So strong is COURTNEY’S visual performance that I blindly (deafly?) picked up the disc that the single is off of. Am I satisfied?
Do used car salesman take advantage of little old ladies?
Most certainly!

All right…this REGGAE discussion on AMAZON went foul fast so I added my Big Mouth to the “arguement.” Below is my smart-ass remark...

This is perfect for those “fans” too colorblind to spot the difference between SIZZLA and 50 CENT. Courtney John makes reggae the old fashioned way. He digs back even further than Roots to an era defined by Rocksteady crooners. John creates pure soul poured over smooth grooves. All the empty spaces are filled with harmonies and a touch of punchy horns. No annoyingly ponderous guitar solos to distract from the melody. No camouflaging sour notes with auto-tune. No generic digital beats. No way will you mistake it for Hip-Hop. Or that Rock n Roll nonsense either. The CD title explains it all-MADE IN JAMAICA

I was beginning to think that my forte’ for this BLOG was becoming bargain hunting for REGGAE deals, but my human nature acted up.

The single tune that got stuck on repeat in my brain goes to WAYNE MARSHALL and MAVADO'S massive MY HEART. Normally tunes like this make me vomit till I turn blue. These tunes are fit for sullen teenage girls. But for reason unexplainable too myself, I love this tune. Maybe therapy will help get it outta my head.

Many big drops from big talent last year… LADY SAW’S something different MY WAY, CAPLETON’S slow burning ITERNAL FIRE, BUJU’S get out of jail BEFORE THE DAWN and GYPTAIN’S nah sell out crossover HOLD YOU… et cetera. But my most played new CD of 2010 goes to TAD’S REGGAE JAMMIN PLUS Vol. 2.

This collection is giving notice to VP’S REGGAE GOLD series and the GREENSLEEVES' BIGGEST REGGAE ONE DROP/RAGGA DANCEHALL ANTHEMS that TADS is a force to be reckoned with. As you can see there is a lot of big names spread out over 40!!! big tunes. Do not be foolish...add this 2 disc set to your selection. Bliss.

BROOM PUSHERS NOT WANTED

ELEPHANT MAN was born Joseph Carey Merrick on August 5,1862. No…that aint right. ELEPHANT MAN was born O’Neil Bryan on September 11, 1975 in KINGSTON JAMAICA. I’m telling you, JAH hisself, had to have spiked the water supply. How else could you explain all that massive talent coming from one spot?

I don’t listen to ELEPHANT MAN for enlightenment.

If you want an urban Shakespeare, then be all ears at a poetry slam. Or pick up MUTABARUKAS amazing CHECK IT disc.

This is ELE yelling thru my headphones to shovel faster!

I listen to the “freak show” for entertainment purposes only.

On that promise, the MAN always delivers. ELEPHANT MAN is not for the faint of heart. At 46 years old I make sure I change the batteries in my pacemaker before pressing play and digging out my mailbox from yet another snowstorm. ELE didn’t fill the job description of ENERGY GOD by mopping floors. He earned it by sweeping the competition clear off the stage. I hold high regard for one MR. BOUNTY KILLER, but find it convenient that the ELE is part BOUNTY’S ALLIANCE crew. MR. BOUNTY KILLER even threw down a verbal challenge to friend and collaborator, BUJU BANTON and when BUJU inquired what’s up? BOUNTY laughed nobodies safe! I wonder if the elder could survive a toe to toe with his young protégé.

I ordered my copy of HIGHER LEVEL new from an Amazon associate seller for $3.98. That included shipping. It was the real deal from GREENSLEEVES. No bootleggers counterfeit surprises. Now Amazon pinches $2.30 out of the profit and it averages $1.90 for shipping. Not including the bubble wrap envelope. I am not complaining. I just can’t figure out the poor bastard made any money off me.

This 2002 release from Greensleeves feature a who’s who of producers (if names like “Scatta” Burrell, Donovan “Vendetta” Bennett, and Lloyd “John John” James Junior mean something too you) and only top shelf Riddims are used. ELE makes the best of these 23 tunes. BAD MAN A BAD MAN my favorite cut. I also picked up the newer GOOD 2 Go and LETS GET PHYSICAL both for $3.98 each.
I am far from a stranger to the ELE’S work. Figured it was time to have a copy to call my own. That’s what friends are for. If my friends got something good, they’ll burn me a copy. And vice-versa.

While I was lingering online, I browsed the comments submitted by fans on AMAZON.
I love how he is an either ya get him or ya don’t affair with the ELE. Thankfully most dancehall fans are blessed with extraordinary insight. Yeah, ya always get the one putz claiming that it doesn’t sound anything like real REGGAE, you know, like Slightly Stoopid. (they're Kali beach music-juss not my taste)

Masters of ART go through different stylistic stages. Picasso had his Rose period and his Blue period before pushing boundaries with Cubism. The ELE is no different. His rallying war cry of SCOOBAY developed into the rump shaking SHIZZLE MI NIZZLE. Two of very distinct phases of personal artistic growth for the maturing ELE.
Lowbrow? ELE is a master of being deceptively simple. There is some high art lurking around his locker room bragging. The scholars of French literature would of referred to him as an existential warrior.

No, seriously.

Next...

My portal to all things Jamaican! When I reach in to grab the bubble wrapped envelopes containing those jewel cases of sweet REGGAE music I get a blast of sunshine and warm breezes in my face. It has to be 96 degrees in my mailbox. And that is in the shade.

I have a rant about the evolution of vinyl records, compact discs and mp3 formats that reek of Darwinism. And capitalism.

I have a write up about the first ladies of Dancehall ie: LADY SAW, LADY SWEETY, LADY G...u get the idea.

I have a theory about Government conspiracy and a review of BUJU BANTON presents JAMROCK CLASSICS vol.1

In one of those envelopes was a copy of ELEPHANT MAN'S HIGHER LEVEL.

All I have to do is translate everything into ENGLISH. My first language is BROKEN ENGLISH. I need to sort it all out with SPELL CHECK. So if I don't haffi fight over who gets to use the computer... maybe later tonight?

My car...now you know where I live and what I drive.

TALES FROM NYC part two

FOOTBALL

Back in the mid-eighties, I used to hang out at Washington Square Park. New York University’s student housing overlooked the park. The park back then was unofficially split between race and style. Punks held their section. Grateful Dead Head hippie types had their little slice and if memory serves me correct…Rasta’s set up camp right between the two. Sort of peacekeepers. Of course college kids were free to roam all sides and score dope.
I’d like to forget about the Neo-Nazi Skinheads but they hung out too. The different factions would band together to challenge the goose-steppers in a “friendly” game of football.

Fuck the World Cup for intensity; I remember watching matches with the Rastafarians against the Neo-Nazi Skinheads. All the player’s faces looked like clenched fists. The game was played on concrete! Brutal.

I also remember sitting on the sidelines and a ball was kicked past my head. It was like bullet whizzing by. It would have taken my head clean off my shoulders. Everybody played the game powered by pure hate for each other. Nasty.

A lot of lines were blurred back then. One of the heaviest hardcore bands back then was the BAD BRAINS. They were African-American Punk Rock RASTAS who hailed originally from Washington D.C. They could go from blitzkrieg slam-dance to PRAISE JAH without blinking. Another hardcore punk band, REAGAN YOUTH, who looked and smelled like unwashed hippies on a yearlong road tour with the Dead! Their lead singer could constantly be seen engaged in a philosophical debate with the Neo-Buttheads. The boy had BALLS!

This New Year is off to one weird ass beginning. My big sis, I say that figuratively because my older sister stands four foot nine inches, became a victim of her own bad temper. In doing so she ran afoul to the law, and I have been engaged in meeting after meeting with the Blue Meanies trying to undo her erroneous felony charge.

Nowhere in the “Old Testament” does it say to pack unregistered heat.

I have big stuff planned.

TALES FROM NYC part one

BILLIE JEAN RIDDIM

Okay this is a lethal hit RIDDIM that has origins in everyone’s favorite acquitted child molester. The melody is lifted from Michael Jackson’s January 1983 monster single, BILLIE JEAN. But the intro and underlying themes are borrowed from ENNIO MORRICONE’S 1966 soundtrack to the western GOOD, BAD and the UGLY. Both tunes were first merged like peanut butter and jelly by SHINEHEAD on his very cool debut. Who would of thought these two very opposite styles would mesh seamlessly together?

His story reads like a travel brochure. Born in England, raised in Jamaica and then he became a man in New York City. Those mean streets of the Bronx to be specific. That borough was an early incubator for what would hatch into Hip-Hop. SHINEHEAD was working the Rotten Apple’s sound-systems. Critics compare his vocal flow to the FRESH PRINCE had WILL SMITH traded West Philly for Kingston. I sort of hear it. Yeah, SHINEHEAD is good times music but his tunes have a dark side if you go looking for it.

The DREADLOCK less, (hence the moniker SHINEHEAD) singer, DJ chanter , and rapper were given the birth name Edmund Carl Aiken.

He blazed the trail for SHAGGY to follow a decade later. SHAGGY blew up international while SHINEHEAD still remains a hipster’s secret.
Since the ROUGH and the RUGGED debut CD are fetching ridiculous prices I would strongly recommend finding it here.

Speaking of New York City DANCEHALL and HIP-HOP being infused, this two-fer comp packs a lot of punch. Blast it loud and beat up the woofers!

SOUL JAZZ is another top-notch UK boutique label. Unlike their other BRITISH contemporaries BLOOD and FIRE and PRESSURE SOUNDS they don’t just specialize in all things REGGAE.
SOUL JAZZ gathers together long lost missing pieces to all kinds of different musical puzzles. They dig stuff up from dusty recording vaults all over the world. Are you interested in Bossa Nova or early Hip-Hop? They got something for ya! Are you interested in experimental German Electronic or funky Blaxploitation soundtracks? They got something for ya!

It is their catalog of REGGAE/DANCEHALL that gets my pulse pumping tho. Tons of the classy stuff from STUDIO ONE. You will feel like a connoisseur dressed in your silk robe, slippers and pipe. You can always count on them for great presentation and incredible mastering of analog to digital. The SOUL JAZZ crew are absolute authorities of good taste.

I hadn’t heard any thing new with this RIDDIM in any form until this collection dropped. I simply don't get sick of this RIDDIM. All of the above rates a ten outta ten.

STARTING LIFE IN 2011

Life has seriously got in the way lately. Have my fingers crossed that'll be back blogging tomorrow. I wouldn't out right claim that bad omens be haunting me but I wouldn't say that some good shit has gone down either. I have however found some precious minutes to read a couple of good books. I watched a few good videos and listened to the greatest music on JAH'S green EARTH!

That would be Reggae Dancehall dummy!

Hopefully tomorrow brings new rants on race, religion and politics. Maybe i'll even get around to writing a record critique or two.

Continued.....