I’m really looking forward to visiting the forthcoming exhibition of the photography of Dave Hendley, who died this summer.
Hendley is best known for the photos he took of the Jamaican music scene in the 70s, but he holds a special place for me as the man responsible for one of my favourite compilations, the double-LP Rebel Music, released by Trojan at the end of that decade.
Continue reading The Rebel Music man: Dave Hendley exhibition opens this week
//Clockwise from top left: William Blake; Jah Wobble; King Tubby; Miles Davis; The Stooges; Jimi Hendrix Experience//
An essential element of the current group exhibition The Conformist is the companion soundtrack selected by Jah Wobble.
This blends Wobble’s take on William Blake’s Tyger, Tyger (from the great 1996 album The Inspiration Of William Blake) with tracks to be expected from one of the world’s greatest dub, jazz and soul fiends – including King Tubby & Augustus Pablo, Big Youth, Miles Davis and the Isley Brothers – and some surprises, such as Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi.
Continue reading Jah Wobble’s soundtrack for The Conformist: Big Youth, Blake, Buzzcocks, Joni, Miles, Stooges + much, much more
This is nice; pal and fellow Chelsea Arts Club member John Wardle talks about the importance of the immediate neighbourhood, its artistic tradition going back to the likes of Whistler, the licentiousness of the Cremorne Pleasure Gardens in Victorian times, the Bohemian atmosphere engendered by the 70s slums around the Lots Road Power Station and how all of this combined to create the breeding ground for punk.
John also talks about his love for Hawkwind, Sid Vicious, how he sold the bass he played on Metal Box to the Jesus & Mary Chain for a drink and why he should really have done the interview topless…
One of my favourite Instagram feeds is The Family Acid, run by Kate Steffens, daughter of reggae archivist, actor, anthologist, psychedelic pioneer and photographer Roger Steffens.
Junior Murvin – who has died aged 67 – will forever be associated with the rebel cool of his 1976 Lee Perry-produced single Police & Thieves. Yesterday morning’s BBC Radio 4’s Today news programme displayed it’s trademark ham-fisted approach to pop culture when eagerly proclaiming the song his shining achievement by managing to misname Paul Simonon “Mick Jones” in an interview introduction and rushing to gush unconvincingly over an excerpt of The Clash’s version.
Personally, I favour another Lee Perry collaboration from the same period, the epic single B-side Memories.
I bought the UK 12inch mix on a shopping spree in a record shop tucked away in an Earl’s Court side street one late afternoon in 1977 on the recommendation of the shop assistant.
At 8mins 45secs, Memories is not only a sonic adventure to match the very best of 70s dub, but also a sweet, romantic song, the yearning, regretful theme over Perry’s bubbling cauldron of rhythms perfectly matched to Murvin’s falsetto whoop (I found Police & Thieves too preaching, which I guess is why it made sense for The Clash – always complaining about being told what to do, they tended towards dictating to their audience).
The flip, Tedious, is pretty good, as were other Black Ark explorations such as Closer Together, but nothing in my view in Murvin’s body of work touches the tenderness of Memories.
Remember him this way:
Perry Henzell’s 1972 film The Harder They Come and its accompanying soundtrack cast quite a shadow across popular culture.
Continue reading The Harder They Come: Chris Salewicz’s excellent documentary
Dave Robinson, one of the British music business’s towering figures, has sent me this lovely pop-reggae tune from Madness man Lee Thompson’s project.
It’s great for this sunny Bank Holiday; Bitty McLean is on top vocal form.
Fair takes me back to seeing Madness in their North London Invaders incarnation support a jazz-rock trio (!) at Camden Town’s Dublin Castle, and before that the graffito ‘Kix’ emblazoned around 70s teenage nexus Golders Green tube station (courtesy of Thompson).
A fundamentalist Christian ideology which extends religious zealotry to the oppression of women and cowardly homophobia. Not a lot to love about Rastafarianism, particularly for one raised in an atmosphere of hard-line Catholicism.
Plus ca change…
Tucked away in the June 1983 edition of The Face was this news story about a brave broadcasting venture, the scabrous and short-lived Breakfast Pirate Radio.
Incredible footage here from 1977 doc Roots Rock Reggae of producer “Prince” Tony Robinson (working at either Joe Gibbs or Harry J, reggaenuts will tell me) as well as scenes shot at a JA pressing plant and the legendary Randy’s Records (“You Name It We Have It”).
Highlight for me: The Gladiators laying down the vocals for Jah Works, stand-out track on their album Proverbial Reggae.