Tena Stelin: An Unknown Reggae Legend?

By cobwebsandstrange on 9/1/10 11:41am
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Listening to modern reggae musics of any variety really becomes something of a trial as one stumbles onto acts like Sojah and whatever other hippie, trustifarians have been able to wrangle a group of players to tour with – John Brown’s Body excluded, of course.

Apart from the odd religious space those suburbanite rastas inhabit to the music impersonations they get off, there’s not too much distancing shows from minstrelsy. It may well be more troubling to straight society when it runs into these folks, but it has to be bizarre for musicians based in JA to come to the States – or anywhere – and find that a religion which sprung from that island nation basically utilized elsewhere as a subculture or a key to weed culture.

White folks with dreads have to be aware of this. But then again, they’re white folks with dreads. Whatever.

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TWFR: The Eternals x Bunny Lee

By cobwebsandstrange on 9/1/10 5:00am
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The Eternals

Rawar Style

(Aesthetics, 2004)

Half of these folks used to be Trenchmouth: Singer, Damon Locks and bassist, Wayne Montana.  So the idea to fuse every musical style known to man began for these fellows in the early 90’s.  Since their first full length showed up towards the end of 2000, The Eternals have crafted an advancement of what Calvin Johnson set out to do with the Dub Narcotic Sound System during the mid-90s.  Every track on Rawar Style stands out for some reason.  But on “Silhouette”, The Eternals inadvertently create the best hip-hop beat of 2004. A nice little moment of simple instrumentation turns into a whole song.  The music really doesn’t vary too much, the production kicks up a little but it all ends up staying static with Damon Locks ruminating in one tone over the whole affair.  Locks’ most intriguing vocalization takes place during “This is Megaside”. After a brief flight of production dubitry, the drums kick off with a faintly jazzy fill, which repeats for the first half of the track.  The creeping bass of Montana comes in occupanied by more gadgetry-fueled production.   “Darkness lives on every block when I am on the way, way”, chants Locks, suggesting the mean genius of The Eternals.  No track disappoints seeing as something unexpected occurs about every two minutes.  I don’t know if this is groundbreaking, but it surely isn’t grounded in a single musical idiom.  Send them your money now.

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Did Junior Murvin Make the Most Important Reggae Album Ever?

By cobwebsandstrange on 8/31/10 7:01pm
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A clutch of records helmed by Lee Perry during the latter portion of the seventies, which includes Junior Murvin’s Police and Thieves, are generally considered the artistic high point for the producer. Of course, Party Time’s generally included in that short-list, so maybe the whole thing’s invalid.

Regardless of that, Police and Thieves remains one of Perry’s most visible albums thirty three years after its being released. The disc surely won’t ever be as widespread as the work Perry did with Bob Marley and the Wailers, but it’s not inconceivable to figure Murvin’s effort one of the most important releases in JA music.

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Augustus Pablo - "AP Special" (Video)

By cobwebsandstrange on 8/25/10 1:26pm
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For the most part Augustus Pablo serves as a name for those interested in reggae, but not well acquainted with it, to drop and appear well educated on the topic. More over, Pablo's work is pretty one dimensional. That, though, doesn't "AP Special" from being one of those tracks that just gets stuck in your head.

Johnny Ringo: From Herpes to Social Circles

By cobwebsandstrange on 8/23/10 3:07pm
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Continuing JA music folks relative obsession with the Wild West and American cowboy myths, emcee Johnny Ringo took his name of a relatively well known ‘badman.’

Making all of this focus a bit ridiculous is the fact that in JA, especially in the seventies, there must have been scant information about any of these horse riding figures. Today, there’s not too great a chance that the name would be used. The real Johnny Ringo – of the first one at least – wasn’t especially well known for his participation in gun fights, even as he was a part of the cohort to have a go at the OK Corral. Possessing no storied acts, Ringo’s most related tale involves shooting a guy in a bar because he ordered the wrong drink. That doesn’t make him a tough guy. Just dumb.

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Madness: Its Second Step Beyond

By cobwebsandstrange on 8/16/10 3:44pm
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Almost everyone who owns a radio knows the song “Our House.” And while the guys comprising Madness are unquestionably glad they collectively wrote that song and subsequently made a (night) boatload of money from the effort, it shouldn’t be considered the pinnacle of the group’s creative achievement.

That song cropped up during the mid eighties, but even Madness’ first long player of the decade saw profound shifts from what was portrayed on the ensembles first disc, One Step Beyond.

By 1980, the punk thing had pretty much become a joke. And along with it a great deal of Two Tone stuff had changed to the point that it was difficult to recognize. That being said, a number of critics saw the changing approach to song craft as bands maturing.

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the Music Specialists: B-Side (Video)

By cobwebsandstrange on 8/14/10 12:41pm
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Never heard of the Music Specialists? Me neither, but the b-side to one of the group's singles sits it well within skinner's listening habits. Get an earful and see if you can hunt down a copy without selling children into slave labor.

Jah Walton aka Joseph Cotten and the Female Image

By cobwebsandstrange on 7/30/10 2:35pm
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Working with some of the most talented if not internationally known producers before hitting it big was obviously a help to Jah Walton. And if that name resounds hollowly in most ear holes, it’s understandable. Under the name Jah Walton, there weren’t any hits, but as Joseph Cotton the deejay made inroads towards success in the United Kingdom.

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TWFOR: The Gladiators x The Skatalites

By cobwebsandstrange on 7/24/10 6:29am
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The Gladiators

The Studio One Singles

(Heartbeat, 2007)

To comment upon this group in an unbiased manner is ostensibly impossible for me. To extricate the sounds that I hear – the harmonies, the rhythms – from a time that, in my mind, is linked to them, simply can’t be done.

Whatever period of one’s life gets replayed incessantly in the mind, if you’re a music devotee at least, there’s a theme song that goes along with the images. I know others have made this same heartfelt and exuberant connection. But that just points to the fact that this music possesses the power to hold a literal and emotional meaning.

The reason that these meanings are possible most likely stems from the intense belief that this trio, whose only consistent member was Albert Griffiths, had the ability to enrich a mass of people who felt marginalized. Touching upon secular and spiritual life, Griffiths worked to give voice to points of culture that he felt were either misunderstood, ignored or exploited.

Since this disc is made up of singles, as the title clearly states, a quarter of the tracks represented here are versions, or dubs. Being arranged in such a fashion as to have each dub accompany the vocal track serves to exemplify a showcase style that Wackies exhibited, in contrast to a relatively recent reissue of the Mighty Diamonds’ Deeper Roots, which separates the versions.

Every vocal and every dub – save for “Don’t Fool the Young Girls” and its version – is rootsy and free from blemishes. The one exception wouldn’t be as blatant a departure from quality if it sat along side other artists or lesser tracks. Basically a weak Gladiator’s workout still surpasses a great deal of other Jamaican music.

If the listener is familiar with either the group’s first studio effort, Trenchtown Mix-Up or their Live at Sunsplash - split with Israel Vibration – these offerings occasionally sound a bit slower than the later recordings. It’s not a re-tread; it’s just a re-arranging of classics that might not have been heard in any other way.

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TWOFR: The Abyssinians x Lee Perry

By cobwebsandstrange on 7/18/10 6:08am
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The Abyssinians

Satta Massagana

(Heartbeat, 2007)

As far as re-releases go, very frequently, the packaging is ignored. In the case of Satta that has been avoided. The cd cover most would associate with this disc is a close up of Bernard Collins, Donald Manning and Lynford Manning, who make up the vocal trio that are the Abyssinians. Across the cover of this new Heartbeat edition, the trio is shown near what appears to be an underground waterfall. Whether or not the image is authentic is secondary to the fact that it adds to the mystique of the men that it aims to represent.

Packaging aside, this set has expanded the ten tracks that make up the original “Satta” to include an additional 8 songs, including a vocal and a dub version of “Leggo Beast”. Forgetting the supplementals, “Declaration of Rights” begins the disc and urges, much in the same way Tosh and Marley do, to “Get up and fight for your rights my brothers”. Immediately predating the Clash’s “Know Your Rights” on Combat Rock, the song makes clear the political and social stance of the group.

A religious fervor, starting with the next track “The Good Lord”, and continuing through “Forward Unto Zion” is blatant and could not be more apparent as the group croons “Send us home to Zion city/For we drink milk and honey”. Further allusions to the Torah, the Book of Jeremiah specifically, abound as in “Abendigo” where three men are “condemned to be burned in the furnace” as a result of remaining stalwarts of their faith.

If one fault can be pointed out, and there may only be one, during “Y Mar Gan” the keyboard production, while being a few years ahead of its’ time, sounds less organic that on any other track.

The ’76 debut of the band remains a classic within the roots catalog, and even if you think you aren’t familiar with this vocal trio, you’ve probably heard the “Satta” rhythm more times than you can count, which as it turns out, isn’t such a bad thing at all.

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