Lets All Unite / My Mind / Africa Must Be Free By 1983 / Why Do Black Men Fuss And Fight

Book Of  Life / Run Revolution A Come / Day Of Judgement / Jah Will Provide / Ital Sip

Uploaded today is the debut LP by the late Hugh Mundell. The LP is a compilation of previous singles that were released in Jamaica between 1976 and 1978. Every track is a killer. The original tracks were recorded with musicians picked by Augustus Pablo at Black Ark, Joe Gibbs, Harry J and Channel One studios  and was released on Augustus Pablo’s Message record label in 1978. Five years later in 1983 at the age of twenty one, Hugh Mundell was shot in Kingston and died.

Text below, which is beautifully written and snatched off the tofuhut.blogspot.com site. Thanks in advance to the guy who runs that blog.

Augustus Pablo at Channel One studio 1976

I am eight, laid out on the floor and reading my father’s old Warren Spirit comic magazines. My father listens to music; he’s always listening to music. I listen with him while I read. He’s been spinning one record quite a bit lately; a reggae disc called “Africa Must Be Free by 1983″. It’s the first reggae I’ve ever heard and although the sound of the music is terrifically alien and utterly beyond my experience, it still somehow speaks to me. “Africa Must Be Free” becomes an album that I forever after associate with a childhood sense of comfort, security and happiness.

Back in Jamaica, the artist behind that album, a boy barely 21, sits in a car on the streets of Kingston. A figure approaches him from behind, raises a gun and fires; the boy is shot in the neck. Accounts as to the motive vary; some say that the victim had entered the neighborhood seeking revenge for an earlier burglary; there are those who claim that the boy had sold his assailant a faulty refrigerator and was shot in retaliation for the scam; some argue that it was a dispute over a woman. Whatever the cause, Hugh Mundell, a prodigy who had at the age of twenty created five albums and three children, lay dead.

Hugh Mundell was born in 1962 in East Kingston, to a solidly middle class family; his father was a well-known lawyer. We can only surmise that Alvine Mundell had ample opportunity to discuss politics, law and the sad inequalities that men faced in court with his son; we can only imagine what effect these stories might have had on young Hugh. What we know is that Alvine’s job forced him to often move his entire family; one chance landing placed the Mundells nearby to well-known Reggae performer and producer, Boris Gardner. Gardner recognized the young man’s potential and schools Hugh and a few of Hugh’s friends to reggae music and the nature of the Rasta faith. Eventually, Hugh and his friends access Gardner’s studio space and, at the age of thirteen, Mundell records his first single, “Where Is Natty Dread?” with Joe Gibbs.

The song is never released, but the experience is noteworthy as it brings Mundell to the attention of Augustus Pablo, a well-known reggae producer who had a run of considerable successes creating riddims for such artists as Dillinger, the Heptones and Delroy Williams. Pablo takes the young man under his wing and enlists him as a DJ for his sound system, where Mundell works under the DJ AKA Jah Levi.

Hugh Mundell far left with Augustus Pablo and others 1978

Augustus releases a number of singles with Mundell over the next three years; in 1978, these are collected and released, with a few new tracks, as Mundell’s first album, “Africa Must Be Free By 1983.” It is one of the truly great freshman releases of all time; polished and expert beyond any expectation. Mundell’s smooth voice has all the command and control of a man well past his modest years; Pablo’s beautifully understated production elicits a spiritual depth in Hugh’s work. There is an unmistakable political aspect to this remarkable album; beyond the obvious anti-apartheid sentiment inherent in the album’s title cut, tracks like “Day of Judgement” and “Run Revolution a Come” promised an end to the harsh treatment of the underprivileged Jamaican masses.

One could argue a corollary connection with Maya Arulpragasam, if it were not for the fact that MIA has a good decade on Hugh and that Mundell’s preachings were rooted in a deep and almost Zen-like desire for non-violent revolution. The track that most clearly reflects this is “Why Do Black Men Fuss and Fight,” an enduring anti-beef anthem if ever there was one.

 Kingston 1978

Sorry for the short notice but one of KYPP’s earliest and most loyal supporters Chris Low  is now sitting in on drums with the legendary ex Heartbreaker’s bassist Billy Rath. Chris will be performing with Billy Raths Street Pirates at the 12 Bar Club down a little alleyway in Denmark Street WC2 TOMORROW night… If this could be supported I am sure the band would appreciate it! So tomorrow night at the 12 Bar Club, Denmark Street, London WC2

BILLY RATH’S STREET PIRATES

***EXCLUSIVE LONDON SHOW***

THE 12 BAR, THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2011

ON STAGE 10pm – 3 SUPPORT ACTS – ADMISSION £6

Following his sell-out show at the 100 Club, Rock’n’Roll Living Legend BILLY RATH (Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers, Billy Rath’s Broken Hearts, Iggy Pop Group, Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group), Nico (Velvet Underground), Ronnie Spector amongst others – will play an exclusive set of Johnny Thunders classics + some surprises at the 12 Bar, 26 Denmark St, Soho, WC2 *THIS THURSDAY* accompanied by Nuno Viriato (Johnny Throttle, The Jack-Offs) – on Guitar & Chris Low (The Parkinsons, The Apostles, Oi Polloi) – on Drums. PLUS SUPPORT.

ADMISSION £6 – TICKETS AVAILABLE ON DOOR

Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers – Chinese Rocks

Johnny Thunders (vocals/guitar) and Jerry Nolan (drums) had quit the New York Dolls, and that same week Richard Hell (vocals/bass) was forced out of Television. The trio joined forces, and after a few shows added Walter Lure (vocals/guitar), who had played with a group called the Demons.

In 1976, Hell was either pushed out of the Heartbreakers or quit the group, and was replaced by Billy Rath, who, according to legend, was a gigolo. Hell went on to form his own band, The Voidoids.

Arriving for a European tour just as the UK punk scene was building momentum, the Heartbreakers developed a following playing in and around London. The band’s members and image were widely associated with drug use, specifically heroin. The Sex Pistols invited them to open for them on the ill-fated Anarchy Tour. They shortly signed with Track Records. Their debut—and only—studio album, L.A.M.F., featured all the Heartbreakers’ popular live songs. The release of the album put a huge strain on the band, because of anger among some band members over the poor quality of the mix. Several of the members of the band left at this point. The band reformed in 1979 for a few farewell shows at Max’s Kansas City with drummer Ty Stix sitting in for Nolan and resulting in the album Live at Max’s Kansas City ’79. The Heartbreakers’ song, “London Boys”, is a swipe at the Sex Pistols, in response to the Pistols’ “New York”, a put-down of the New York Dolls.

After their break up, the band re-formed occasionally to play at New York clubs. Live shows often consisted of songs performed with the New York Dolls or taken from Thunders’ solo career. They were called Rent Parties because they’d do it to make money. Rent Party is also the title of an album released by Lure’s band the Waldos. Billy had left sometime around 1985 or 86 and was replaced by Tony Coiro. Johnny Thunders died in 1991.

The last time the Heartbreakers played was at Johnny Thunders Memorial Concert with Walter Lure, Jerry Nolan, Tony Coiro and Joey Pinter playing in place of Thunders. By then Lure had already formed the Waldos. The line up, which included Lure, Joey Pinter, Tony Coiro, and Jeff West released Rent Party in 1994. Lure subsequently worked on Wall St. but still performs with his current Waldos lineup in NYC. He also travels around the globe playing when his day job allows the time for it. In 2007 Walter Lure teamed up with Belgian punk rocker Dee Jaywalker and went on a short European tour which resulted in a Live album recorded in Berlin and released on Nicotine Records. In 2009 and 2011 he reunited with Joey Pinter from the Waldos Rent Party lineup for 2 mini tours of the West Coast.

Nolan died in 1992. Hell rarely plays music live, concentrating instead on writing and spoken-word performances. Billy Rath currently lives in New Jersey and played with Walter Lure at the Max’s Kansas City Reunion in September 2010.

Beasts / Sense Of Elation

Times Of Our Lives / Cannibal Queen

On this years Halloween night I have uploaded the debut 12″ single by Sex Gang Children, four tracks of immense greatness from this exciting band which included one time Kill Your Pet Puppy collective member Dave Roberts on the bass duties. This band were a great night out and the LP ‘Song And Legend’ was and still is a stonewall classic…

Text below on S.G.C eerily appeared on KYPP via allmusic.com.

One of the most original and, in terms of frontman Andi Sexgang’s longevity, persistent of all the early-’80s British goth bands, the Sex Gang Children came together in early 1981 around a nucleus of Sexgang, bassist Dave Roberts, guitarist Terry MacLeay, and drummer Rob Stroud. All were unknowns, ensuring that the group’s name was more fascinating than their membership. A William Burroughs line that had been grafted into a song by Bow Wow Wow, “Sex Gang Children” was promptly co-opted by one Boy George when he bowed out of that band after just two live shows in February 1981 to form his own group. But hopeful of landing a swift record deal, George conceded that Sex Gang Children was not a name that would take them far. He chose Culture Club instead, then gifted the discarded name to Andi.

By early 1982, the Sex Gang Children were regulars at the Clarendon Hotel in Hammersmith, where they recorded their debut album, the cassette-only live album Naked. The Illuminated label moved in for them within weeks of its release; the band’s first single, the four-song Beasts EP, was in the stores by August 1982. Days later, however, it was out of them again, after somebody realized they’d not procured the necessary permissions for the Diane Arbus photo on the picture sleeve. With a major lawsuit apparently imminent, the record was briefly withdrawn while the sleeves were removed, but still Beasts reached number eight on the indie chart and hung around the listings for much of the next 12 months.

Even more impressively, the band was attracting attention from further afield, as well. Tony James, midway between playing bass with the now-sundered Generation X and masterminding the nascent Sigue Sigue Sputnik, was sufficiently enamored to produce the Children’s next single, October 1982′s “Into the Abyss.”

Spring 1983 saw Sex Gang Children’s sophomore album, Song and Legend, top the independent chart for a fortnight, before spinning off two hit singles, the title track and the tumescent, eerily fiddle-fired “Sebastiane.” Of course, the band also starred on The Whip, the now-legendary goth compilation conceived by Dave Roberts, but despite these successes the Sex Gangs quickly discovered that record companies and contracts are not, necessarily, the answer to an artist’s prayers. When the band’s contract with Illuminated expired in June 1983, any number of major record labels were actively in pursuit of the group. Buoyed by a swaggering confidence that really did seem to be their right, the band turned them all down, convinced that something better was just around the corner. Sadly, it wasn’t. They had burned their boats with Illuminated as well, and slowly things began disintegrating.

Rob Stroud was first to depart, simply not turning up to a show. (He later resurfaced in Aemotii Crii.) The band initially replaced him with Steve Harle, before turning to former Theatre of Hate drummer Nigel Preston, and in September 1983, a one-off deal with the independent Clay label brought a new single, “Mauritia Mayer.” Added to the stockpile of material cut since the last album — an impressive bundle that included fresh sessions with Tony James — it boded well for a new LP. Barely had this lineup settled down, however, than Preston quit to rejoin his old Theatre of Hate mate Billy Duffy in the Cult.

The Cult’s own former drummer, Ray Taylor-Smith, promptly replaced him, only to be forced out just months later when, returning to London from their first American tour, the band discovered that the Sierra Leone-born drummer was in the U.K. illegally. He was deported home, at which point Roberts, too, quit the band.

Andi and MacLeay kept the Sex Gang Children alive for a few months more, returning to Illuminated to cut a new single, “Draconian Dream,” with a new rhythm section of Cam Campbell and Kevin Matthews. Producer Simon Boswell also remixed “Dieche,” the B-side of the old “Into the Abyss” single. This became the A-side and, in July 1984, Sex Gang Children scored their final independent hit.

Halloween history and traditions

Halloween, celebrated each year on October 31, is a mix of ancient Celtic practices, Catholic and Roman religious rituals and European folk traditions that blended together over time to create the holiday we know today. Straddling the line between fall and winter, plenty and paucity and life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. Halloween has long been thought of as a day when the dead can return to the earth, and ancient Celts would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off these roaming ghosts. The Celtic holiday of Samhain, the Catholic Hallowmas period of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day and the Roman festival of Feralia all influenced the modern holiday of Halloween. In the 19th century, Halloween began to lose its religious connotation, becoming a more secular community-based children’s holiday. Although the superstitions and beliefs surrounding Halloween may have evolved over the years, as the days grow shorter and the nights get colder, people can still look forward to parades, costumes and sweet treats to usher in the winter season.

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain.

The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.

During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of “bobbing” for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints’ Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints’, All Saints’, and All Souls’, were called Hallowmas.

Halloween has always been a holiday filled with mystery, magic and superstition. It began as a Celtic end-of-summer festival during which people felt especially close to deceased relatives and friends. For these friendly spirits, they set places at the dinner table, left treats on doorsteps and along the side of the road and lit candles to help loved ones find their way back to the spirit world.

Today’s Halloween ghosts are often depicted as more fearsome and malevolent, and our customs and superstitions are scarier too. We avoid crossing paths with black cats, afraid that they might bring us bad luck. This idea has its roots in the Middle Ages, when many people believed that witches avoided detection by turning themselves into cats. We try not to walk under ladders for the same reason. This superstition may have come from the ancient Egyptians, who believed that triangles were sacred; it also may have something to do with the fact that walking under a leaning ladder tends to be fairly unsafe. And around Halloween, especially, we try to avoid breaking mirrors, stepping on cracks in the road or spilling salt.

But what about the Halloween traditions and beliefs that today’s trick-or-treaters have forgotten all about? Many of these obsolete rituals focused on the future instead of the past and the living instead of the dead. In particular, many had to do with helping young women identify their future husbands and reassuring them that they would someday, with luck, by next Halloween, be married.

In 18th-century Ireland, a matchmaking cook might bury a ring in her mashed potatoes on Halloween night, hoping to bring true love to the diner who found it. In Scotland, fortune-tellers recommended that an eligible young woman name a hazelnut for each of her suitors and then toss the nuts into the fireplace. The nut that burned to ashes rather than popping or exploding, the story went, represented the girl’s future husband. (In some versions of this legend, confusingly, the opposite was true: The nut that burned away symbolized a love that would not last.) Another tale had it that if a young woman ate a sugary concoction made out of walnuts, hazelnuts and nutmeg before bed on Halloween night, she would dream about her future husband. Young women tossed apple-peels over their shoulders, hoping that the peels would fall on the floor in the shape of their future husbands’ initials; tried to learn about their futures by peering at egg yolks floating in a bowl of water; and stood in front of mirrors in darkened rooms, holding candles and looking over their shoulders for their husbands’ faces.

Other rituals were more competitive. At some Halloween parties, the first guest to find a burr on a chestnut-hunt would be the first to marry; at others, the first successful apple-bobber would be the first down the aisle.

Another day with connections to Halloween is Guy Fawkes Day, celebrated on November 5. Guy Fawkes was a Roman Catholic who planned to blow up the Protestant House of Parliament on November 5, 1606; luckily for the House, he was apprehended and executed. Afterwards, the anniversary of the day was celebrated by building straw effigies, entreating passersby for “a penny for the Guy”, and finally burning “the Guys” in bonfires.

All the period photographs of Halloween children and adults that are displayed on this post are courtesy of the Ossian Brown book ‘Haunted Air’. Ossian has collated dozens of astonishing photographs for this charming and luxurious  felt covered hardback book. All the photographs were taken in the United States Of America between the late 19th and the mid 20th century.

I would like to thank Ossian for sending me two signed copies of this beautiful book, one which went straight up to Sheffield towards the eager hands of my younger brother who knew Ossian, as I did also, in the mid 1980s.

Ossian is a member of Cyclobe as well as working in collaboration with David Tibet’s Current 93.

Haunted Air is available now ISBN 9780224089708 published by Jonathan Cape with a forward passage by David Lynch and Geoff Cox

In April 2010 I constructed a post on KYPP for The Mob’s ‘No Doves Fly Here’ 7″ single released on Crass records.

Among the comments left by the browsers on that post was an idea from KYPP’s Alistair about trying to get an exhibition together for the late Wilf’s artwork to be shown in public. Along with Steve Beatty, under the moniker of Cracked Image Graffix, Wilf’s and Steve’s artwork adorned the record sleeves of all The Mob’s vinyl output and several other early All The Madmen record releases. Joanne who was close to Wilf for many years raised an interest in a comment on that same KYPP post.

See that KYPP post  HERE.

While the comments on that KYPP post were slowing up a little and eventually coming to a close, Joanne must of been busy finding old acquaintances of Wilf’s to sound out this idea of an eventual exhibition of Wilf’s artwork. I can only assume the reaction was positive as Joanne, along with Graham Moore an old friend and band member of Psycho Daisies, a band which Wilf was a sometime member,  started to locate and collate artwork from many private collections for the art exhibition. Between Joanne and Graham over eighty original pieces of Wilf artwork was sourced and ready for display.

In early October 2011 the exhibition, which was now named as ‘The Grotty Hand Of Wilf’, was open to the public at the Octagon Theatre in Yeovil. An article about Wilf and the exhibition appeared in the Yoevil Western Gazette, Kill Your Pet Puppy online also helped to promote the event.

Along with the art exhibition being held at The Octagon Theatre, a concert was organised at the nearby (and strangely named) music venue pub ‘The Quicksilver Mail’. This concert would have The Mob headlining in their original local area for the first time in over thirty years. Support acts were courtesy of Try Not To, a band that features the son of Graham Fallows from The Mob in the line up. Psycho Daisies a band mentioned earlier in this text that used to feature Wilf as a member back in the early to mid 1980′s and had reformed specifically for this special night. Idiot Strength were also to perform unveiling a brand new lineup for this event.

Obviously north London was not the place to be on this special night, so after organising a day off work and some Yeovil accommodation for the weekend, myself and my family headed west early on Friday morning. Under bright blue skies we traveled speedily towards Somerset stopping off at Stonehenge for old times sake as it was rather conveniently on the way.

The Penguin family headed straight to the invite only private viewing of the exhibition before stopping off at the bed and breakfast as the Stonehenge stop had made us enter Yeovil rather later than expected. Amongst the folk already at the exhibition were Joanne and Graham, Curtis and Mark from The Mob, Debbie from Bikini Mutants and My Bloody Valentine along with Matt from the Psycho Daisies later the bassist of Thatcher On Acid. Other notables that I was also introduced to were Chris from Acorn Records, Patc who is Josef Porta’s sister and Stephen Ives AKA Farmer Glitch. I was not introduced to Wilf’s old art teacher or the Mayor of Yeovil and his wife who were also in attendance.

After a couple of hours in the exhibition the Penguin’s of north London ducked out to seek out the bed and breakfast. Worryingly I noticed a club right next to the bed and breakfast. Happily it was advertising a gig that same Friday night by a band described as ‘ex members of Boomtown Rats’. I assumed that no one would show for that gig so I was satisfied that I would get a good nights kip after the Wilf memorial concert a mile or so around the corner and up a fair gradient.

The Quicksilver Mail music venue pub is on top of a hill and by seven in the evening it was already getting Mob like supporters lurking around in the public bar area. The band members themselves had completed their sound check by the time the Penguin family had arrived and were all tucking in to some free pub food courtesy of the management on one of the benches outside, relaxing underneath the still relatively clear skies.

The toddler Penguin was happy enough at the start of the evening to hang out on the next table as the band members were on but as time went on and sound checks from the other support bands got louder he started to get a little more restless. Cue; Mrs Penguin taking toddler Penguin out to somewhere quieter for the night. Back to the bed and breakfast in fact, for an evening meal and a nice bath for the toddler.

I managed to stay out later than eight thirty and for my reward I was to witness the bands that made up this special night in Yeovil.

Try Not To performance

Try Not To were first on the bill and made quite a nice sound. I know nothing of this band aside that Graham Fallows son plays the drums for them. The band managed to put in a decent performance even with a dodgy lead somewhere in the mix, to a small but appreciative crowd including Graham and Mark from The Mob. I thought the band had a slight mid to late 1980′s ‘shoegazing’ sound reminiscent of The Primitives or The Darling Buds mixing it up with the Manic Street Preachers, which is no bad thing. A decent start to the night.

Psycho Daisies performance

Psycho Daisies were up next. Graham the guitarist of this band that had reformed specifically for this performance, was a main instigator of ‘The Grotty Hand Of Wilf’ exhibition along with Joanne that I had been to earlier in the day.

The hall lights were turned down for this performance to highlight the computer slideshow of Wilf’s artwork which along with sections of  super 8 video film of Wilf in much younger days was displayed on a white sheet behind the performing band.  Apart from some small technical hitches with the slideshow computer the Psycho Daisies set went well. It was also received well by the crowd which was growing in number by this stage.

A mainly instrumental band, Psycho Daisies featuring Matt Cornish before he played bass with Thatcher On Acid (or maybe he was in both bands simultaneously?) were a very pleasant surprise to my ears. I was expecting some kind of basic punk rock crash bang wallop, but got ‘backwards psychedelia’ instead. Each guitar, bass and drum backing track performed live was mixed up with prerecorded tape loops via a computer filled with assorted noises including birds, speeches, chimes and so forth. This computer was controlled by guitarist Graham Moore. I got a slight Durutti Column vibe from some of Psycho Daisies set.

Matt Cornish was instrumental with getting all the performances by all the bands recorded onto his hard drive via the mixing desk. He sat there patiently, headphones on, twiddling with his computer towards the back of the hall all night long (except when he was playing bass for the Psycho Daisies of course!). Matt sent the results of the recordings (that he also patiently remixed) to Penguin Towers. So if you thank anyone for these downloads, thank him!

Idiot Strength performance

Idiot Strength are a band that were well known in the Bristol and London squat scenes from the mid 1980′s. The band have gone through several line up changes since the bands inception, the only consistent member is Yeovilite Steve Corr. The longest standing Idiot Strength line up of Steve, Bob Butler and Andy Tuck who were two other young Yeovil based punks who followed The Mob back in that bands original life time is now no longer.  Andy was sadly missed tonight as he had arranged a trip to Brazil before the exhibition and concert were advertised…

Idiot Strength were unveiling a new line up tonight. The band sounded tight but sadly the performance was marred by a fuzzy sounding bass and a bad guitar lead, a lead that was swapped quickly after the first track finished by ex Idiot Strength bassist Bob Butler who was in the audience. Back in the mid 1980′s I really rated Idiot Strength and went to as many of the bands London gigs as possible generally held in squatted venues. I still look forward to witnessing the band live. Steve is a first class lyricist and the music has a bouncy enjoyable feel to it. Tonight after the sound mix was smoothed out a little, the band were as good as they normally are.  The last track was a cover of Red Lights ‘Never Wanna Leave The Sewer’ one of the Yeovil punk scenes favorite tracks from 1977. For this track Bob Butler was called up on stage to perform his old bass duties. This moment was the call for the still static (but appreciative) crowd to move down the front and a dozen or so folk danced manically for the first time on the night. This would not be the last time the crowd got up and danced, far from it.

The Mob performance part 1

The Mob performance part 2

The Mob were setting up on the stage. The audience stayed forward. The Mob backdrops were placed back up as they had slipped down during the Idiot Strength set. The audience was a nice size, many many old Yeovil and other west country punks of yesteryear had shown up for this show, including Adie Petts and Mark Hedges (the bassist for Null And Void) who both lived with The Mob in Seend back in 1980. Another Adie, an ex drummer for Null And Void and The Mob was also in attendance. Chris from Acorn Records was there. Most of the people from the art exhibition earlier were there. Fod showed up, Jaz and Des from Virus, another Somerset band from the 1980′s were also there. Mark Mob’s elderly father showed up but preferred to listen to his son’s band in the safety (and lower volume) of the corridor by the entrance doors.  Miles had shown up all the way from Denmark again to witness The Mob…

The gig all of a sudden was beginning to feel quite special. The Mob performing on home turf for the first time in over three decades.  The band had some wide grins on their faces as they started off with ‘Youth’ followed quickly by ‘Crying Again’. Mark did not even remember most of the words for this song at the beginning of the night but after some jogged memories there were some words written out on the amplifier monitor in front of him and when the track started Mark and the band got through it perfectly with absolutely no mistakes. This was the first time the track was performed live. The band have not even got around to practicing this track privately yet!

The audience was getting ever more excited now and around twenty five to thirty folks were down the front jumping around all over the place, all night long. The other hundred and fifty punters were all attentive towards the stage. The band whizzed through classic after classic at a furious pace, not dropping a beat or missing a note. This gig was starting to feel even more special than the invite only performance in Hoxton in the summer where The Mob performance was an absolute cracker. That gig can be read about and heard HERE.

The Mob on this night in Yeovil were on the top of their game and the members seemed to be enjoying everything that was going on around them.

Cue; one lone long curly haired nutter slightly reminiscent of Martin Hannett, who had caught me at the bar during Psycho Daisies set and after staring at me manically for a minute or so repeating the mantra “You alright yeah?”, “You alright yeah?”,”You alright yeah?”. He went on to ‘discuss’ Discharge with me and also went into a much more interesting slice of conversation regarding the fact that with short hair he used to look like Nidge from Blitz.

He was well on his way at that point early on in the evening.

By the time The Mob stepped up and performed several tracks, said local nutter wobbled over to the stage and made himself busy by getting to the front and tried his hardest to annoy Curtis by trying to grab Curtis’s bass neck and whack the tuning heads… Curtis showed immense restraint, which he probably would not have done thirty years ago… I am sure Curtis would have decked the loon from the stage thirty years ago, and I was very pleased to see him keep his cool and carry on. The loon did put the bass out of tune once but that was sorted out before ‘Witch Hunt’ was performed. A good Samaritan bravely stood in front of the loon for the rest of the night’s performance to avoid said loon mucking things up again. Loon looked a bit sorry for himself after he realised he could not upset a band member and not knowing quite what to do, he slunked back to the bar for another twelve pints.

The gig was coming to an end now and The Mob continued to perform extremely well and finished off to a feeling of complete joy from band and audience.

I enjoyed a little chit chat after the gig with the band members and some of the crowd including someone who told me he was the brother of Taff who played bass for an early All The Madmen records band, The Review. Later on in the early 1980′s that same Taff joined the nihilistic Disorder in Bristol.

Nowt else to do now apart from waddle down this big hill while trying to keep myself vertical and not fall in the road with the amount of cider consumed throughout the night. I only had about five or six pints but that knocks me sideways nowadays. Light weight I know.

Half way down the hill  my Angel Gabriel arrived in a battered white van. It was Mark from The Mob driving back to Bristol with some of his grown up children, some of his children’s friends and Leah.

“Alright Penguin’ where do you need to go?” he asks.

I slur “I dunno over there somewhere” pointing vaguely.

“Get in then mate” he offers.

Into the van I get and within a few minutes I am dropped off at the bed and breakfast place opposite the Globe And Crown pub.

“The Mob and all Yeovil punks used to go to that pub all the time back in the day” states Mark.

“Cool” I slur as I close the door to his van. “Goodnight all”.

I look at the club near the bed and breakfast with slightly blurred cider vision. No one is around, all is quiet just as I thought earlier on in the day. I will get some sleep tonight!

A band comprising of ex Boomtown Rats members may not have had the same successful night in Yeovil as the bands that performed at the Quicksilver Mail pub on this very special night in memory of Wilf. Best gig of the year so far.

Wilf one of the real genuine talents from Yeovil taken away from his family and friends at the young age of forty four almost ten years ago now.

It is good to know he is still remembered and loved by the community.

THIS WHOLE POST IS DEDICATED TO CURTIS FROM THE MOB WHO CELEBRATES HIS BIRTHDAY TODAY. MANY HAPPY RETURNS FROM ALL HERE AT KYPP.

All audio recordings courtesy of Matt Cornish, all photographs from Penguin’s collection.

Yeovil Live magazine review of the gig courtesy of Matt Cornish

Searching For Mr Right / Include Me Out / The Taxi / Eating Noodlemix / Constantly Changing / N.I.T.A. / Colossal Youth

Music For Evenings / The Man Amplifier / Choci Loni / Wurlitzer Jukebox / Salad Days / Credit In The Straight World / Brand New Life / Wind In The Rigging

A spectacular atmospheric record on the once essential Rough Trade record label by Young Marble Giants. The band adopted a minimal approach to their song writing which worked wonderfully and this debut (and only) LP released by the Rough Trade still sounds fresh over thirty years later on. A marvelous testament to the band and to the record label.

Sounds, May 17, 1980

Maybe it’s a symptom of the generally stale and unimaginative after-Punk musical spectrum, but there doesn’t seem to be any longer a space at all for quiet music.

Apart from MOR slush and anything calculatedly tepid from the charts, and with the recent mighty exception of Joy Division’s remarkable “Atmosphere,” quiet, imaginatively unflustered music seems to have quietly gone down the drain in a big way.

The explanation, of course, is easy.  The music scene is in a staccato state of mock-vicious toil and bluster, all big and colourful and overproduced until it’s indecent.  As now championed with Dexy’s “Geno” (which as a matter of fact I’m quiet partial to) at the peak of the chart pile, the trend is for sheer noise.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s got backbone or not, it has to be shiny and sure of itself, and the only way you can sneak out of that in the big stakes is to be like the Cure and Genesis and disappear up your own Moog being sincere and wackily modern(e).

Even in the seventies, when things were in a similarly h.m./pseud-rock dominated state, you had the efficiently low-decibelled fine arts of the likes of Richard Thompson, Roy Harper, Ivor Cutler or Country Joe, each in their own way as subversive as anything else around.

Now it’s pure Hollywood, you have to have a degree in chat-show politics to be a rock performer, and a big reactionary mouth to back it.  Which brings us to the uniqueness of Young Marble Giants.  The first impression is: God, have they a nerve!  Stepping into the showbiz whirlpool of ’80s  rock & roll with a pitter-patter trickling of songs that have more silence than sound!  You can hardly hear them!

To which the candid young Marble’s fan with an eye for logistics must reply, Colossal Youth, the colossally quiet album, is in the Alternative charts (Ugh! I hate those tidy charts!) and kicking: it looks like quiet music never went away.

I always say that for every supreme truth you must be able to take the opposite, the complete reverse of that truth and prove it real as well, like two poles of a unity.  In this sense, Colossal Youth is the opposite of “Anarchy In The UK” or “Clash City Rockers,” and it’s every bit as good as well.  It almost affected me as much, made me feel almost as excited and surprised when I first heard it.  Literally speaking, it is an exceptional record (my favorite album of the year so far with Magazine’s The Correct Use of Soap).  It stands out a mile.

Stuart Moxham, disarmingly tall writer of Marble tunes, draws some light on this when he says, “Young Marble Giants is a reaction to everything successful today…” which although misleading in terms of presenting you with idea of the music’s content, does indicate how far away the Giants are from modern mass trends.

Like Swell Maps were to DIY last year, Young Marble Giants are a splinter representation of “how else it can be done,” of new (and not really so new) ways of communicating through music.  By mellow subtlety.  By extravagant sparsity.  By not pushing it too hard.

I’ve heard tracks from Colossal Youth on everything from Radio London morning kiddies’ shows to the horrifically young and trendy Radio 1 spots, and it’s made me feel good and surprised each time, because the music has sounded right, not at all in keeping with the village idiot’s idea of a Rough Trade group, but still a little spooky and full of character.

Images the music makes are: tiny Welsh tearooms, childhood fear, coffee-bar intimacy, murder, lost love, sleep, tension and longing constantly underlied by an enduring eeriness in the music which I find similar to the now-forgotten eccentricity of Ivor Cutler.

“We’ve never even heard of Ivor Cutler!” Stuart protests and I believe him.  Young Marbles are very separate, they come from Cardiff and they’re still a little frozen in “provincial” (Stuart’s word) ways, so that the bravely detached aura of the music is readily explained.

While everywhere from Coventry to Liverpool to Belfast to Dorset has had its rock & roll moments in the recent past, Wales has come up with absolutely nothing, leaving you wondering whether Wales hadn’t really given up after Andy Fairweather-Low and Man (and with that track record, you couldn’t have blamed them).

“Cardiff is a really awful place…it’s industrial, a depressed area…and it’s not only provincial, it’s also Welsh which means it’s also very self-important.  Quite frankly I don’t like it very much…” Stuart Moxham opines.

Stuart is already based in London, while the other two Giants, his almost equally lanky brother Philip and singer Alison Statton, are thinking about moving up too.  It will be interesting to see if the change in environment affects the music and its quality, because Colossal Youth really does smack of an album done in a particular place and in a particular atmosphere.

Will movement from that very special, in rock & roll terms profitably secluded atmosphere, change the music, make it less special, less original?

We’ll see.  For now, Colossal Youth is the criteria to judge the Giants on, and that’s plenty.  I talked to the band last Friday at Rough Trade and was first struck by how peculiar they looked.  I’m sure it’s not my imagination; they looked provincial and slightly wholesome and innocent, though not vulnerable.

Stuart tells me they get old people liking the music, which fits.  They bring their dog with them to gigs, and that too fills out the impression of “Three Men in a Boat” that comes through, with Alison in particular looking wide-eyed and straight out of a Girl’s Own story, as the heroine, of course.  You get the impression she’s going to fall over any minute in the big-city smog, and that she’s been brought up on fresh cow’s milk and healthy Girl Guide rambles through the Welsh valleys.  She looks frighteningly innocent.

Stuart: “When we first started playing we felt almost apologetic because we weren’t loud and danceable…we were quiet and slow and melodic and all those things you shouldn’t be, especially after Punk…”

The band haven’t always been so quiet; rather they’ve progressed that way through the odd “rockier type band” along the way, finally coming to the conclusion that this is how they should sound.

Is the quietness conscious then?  Stuart: “I don’t know if that was deliberate in a way…we’ve tried to go against every possible grain at once and still come up with something that’s an essence of what we’re trying to do…you know, not to conform to anything at all.”

The important thing to note at the moment is that Young Marble Giants are a serious proposition and Colossal Youth is no one-off, bizarre fragment of talent.

Stuart in particular, as well as writing the bulk of the material, seems like the organizing, getting-it-together figure.  Natch: the band have a new single out at any time (three track, “Final Day,” Cakewalking” and “Radio Silents”), together with a series of gigs around the country.  They mean business, of sorts.

Stuart: “We never aimed to do this.  We are kind of isolated down in Cardiff in our front-room, working from inside ourselves in a way, and what we’re doing just happens to be acceptable at the moment…”

Philip, significantly: “We’ve no experience of the modern thing…the music we listened to before was the innovators like Kraftwerk, Roxy and Eno…it’s only recently since we’ve joined Rough Trade that we’ve heard about Cabaret Voltaire and the Slits and the rest…”

Stuart: “You see, we’d given ourselves a deadline.  I was going to move to Berlin and the band were going to split up at Christmas time…Rough Trade were really timely.  It’s amazing because everything’s fitted for us really well and naturally.  There’s been no unpleasantness, nothing’s been forced…”

Rough Trade stepped in when they heard the band on a Cardiff compilation, and with a sharpness that’s far too often slagged by cruds who can’t think beyond the big-label time-space, told them, in Stuart’s words, “do whatever you want to do.”  Hence, Youth (“We thought it would make an impact if we came from nowhere with an album instead of a single”) and work with producer Dave Anderson of Mo-Detted, Logic and Pop Group fame.

Stuart: “Dave’s an old rock star (!) and in a way he didn’t know what to expect from us, and I think even then we surprised him.  We did the album in five days…twenty minutes for a mix, literally!”

The album’s eerie wheezy sound comes partly from the nature of the mix, which was hurried and minimalized by the stark input of only three instruments, including Alison’s voice, at any given time.

Stuart: “When you write music you write the gaps in between as much as you write the music.  There’s ways of making a sound full without having lots of instruments playing.  I think you can lose things otherwise…”

I mention the fact that the songs are often obsessed with food; they react surprised, astonished, and Stuart brings up a more conscious theme in the music.  “The songs are all based on things that happened to me with my girlfriend.  That’s the most important thing that’s happened to me in years, meeting this particular girl and what we’ve been through.  We broke up and now we’re back together again, it’s been a really stormy relationship…”

Thinking for a moment on the frequent chilliness that comes across in Alison’s Sunday school voice, I refer to Philip’s “The Man Amplifier” on the album.

Stuart: “Philip wrote that after seeing a programme about a robot you strap yourself into and it amplified your movements, so that if you want to pick your nose and it isn’t programmed to do it, it’ll pull your head off.  It’s a really primitive American idea…that songs always sounds as though it’s about to fall apart, and that’s what I imagine the Man Amp to be like, a kind of prototype, a primitive thing.”

He talks about Alison’s extraordinary voice: “It’s really weird, because what happens is I write the melody and sing it, and then Alison sings it back.  But when I sing it, it tends to be emotional because the lyrics are mine.  Alison on the other hand is really laid back and unemotional sounding.  It’s a strange paradox, a disinterested voice singing about something emotional.”

I leave him to ponder on the consequences of that.

Some days later I’m sitting here toying with notions of Young Marbles as “psychedelic bedsit,” “uniquely old-fashioned” and “coldly romantic,” flicking away each one as it forms, really hoping only that Young Marbles discover the mind-space and the time-space in a clapped out world to be, nothing more or nothing less than, quiet.  Long may they be a whisper.

DAVE McCULLOUGH

Five Man Army / Send Another Moses

Five Man Dub

Five Man Army was a track that came out of a studio session organised by Lewin ‘Bones’ Lock which consisted of five hi ranking vocalists. The role call for this amazing session was Dillinger, Trinity, Wayne Wade, Al Campbell and Junior Tamlin. Quite a line up, throw the Roots Radics into the mix and you get one of the heaviest reggae tracks from 1982. This 12″ record originally released on the Oak Sound record label places the listener right into the heat and dust of Kingston. A big heavy tune indeed drenched in old testament dogma. The dub mix is equally fine. Play as loud you can reasonably get away with!

Text below taken with love from the dreadlibary and BBC websites… The beautiful Trenchtown black and whites courtesy of Brian Jahn from his blog blessingsallover.

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Background of Kingston

Kingston is located on the southern side of the island of Jamaica and is protected from the strong northeast trade winds by the vast Blue Mountain ranges. The city of Kingston stretches for more than fifty miles including ten mile long harbor.  This makes for a diverse community of fisherman as well as street vendors and many unemployed people.

Kingston is the largest and one of the most diverse cities in the English-speaking Caribbean.  More than half a million people populate Kingston of different decent ranging from African, Asian, European, and Middle Eastern roots.  The city’s tremendous growth during the 20th century has produced severe overcrowding, persistent unemployment, and violent crime.  Poverty has devastated Jamaica’s black majority and nowhere is this more apparent than in the ghettos of Kingston.  European colonialism set up a society of racial stratification and current residents of Kingston have to deal with historic tensions between the city’s black and brown residents.

Kingston of today is a direct result of the organized racial and cultural segregation that began more than three hundred years ago, when Jamaica was a British colony.  Many of the social and political changes that have swept Jamaica since 1692 have occurred first in Kingston, often in reaction to organized political protests. The history of Kingston itself represents the legacy of slavery and the efforts by black and brown Jamaicans to find freedom and equality in a nation haunted by what’s left of colonialism.

Kingston was founded in the summer of 1692, after a large earthquake destroyed the coastal city of Port Royal.  From the beginning Kingston was run by Jamaica’s white elite, mostly sugar planters from England.  The city was created to serve the social and economic interests of white planters.  Residential segregation in the form of a color-class system, beginning in 1692, served to reinforce cultural separation.

During the first half of the 18th century Kingston saw an influx of Jewish merchants, white sugar planters, African slaves, and a small amount of free blacks in the colored community.  Kingston served as a trading post for the Transatlantic Slave Trade and this was one of their main trades.  The African slaves were used to produce sugar in Jamaica and this sugar was then sent to New England.  These goods were then exchanged for more African slaves to grow the industry.  Slavery changed the social color of Kingston during the 18th century; the whites dominated Jamaica’s legal and political organizations and originally pushed the growing black majority to the outskirts of town.

Laws like the Consolidated Slave Laws of 1792 regulated racial Interaction between the different colors.  This law restricted the where slaves could go as well as their right to assembly and the slaves were supposed to stay on their respective rural sugar plantations.   Colored Jamaicans were required to carry certificates of freedom that stems from British practices used in South Africa and since most of the officials were originally from Britain they used similar guidelines.  The whites firmly believed in the difference between originally free blacks and those who were freed from slavery.  This made it pretty tough on those who were freed from slavery who had less white in their blood and were considered the lowest of the classes.

The strict laws and organizations made for a firm social ladder that privileged the city’s white minority.  Tensions therefore developed between blacks and slaves living in the lower level of Kingston society.  At first most freed slaves tried to gain acceptance into white society by trying to copy white European culture.  These freed slaves favored people who looked more European in nature with attributes such as straight hair, light skin, and thin lips.  Kingston’s social hierarchy however never allowed these freed slaves to gain full access to power.  Jews and white indentured servants stood above them. “By the end of the 18th century Kingston’s policy of residential segregation had produced a cultural and social separation among the city’s black, brown, and white residents.”

Kingston underwent a series of dramatic changes during the 19th century.  By 1820 it was the largest and richest city in the British West Indies.  Whites were still the leaders of the legal and political organizations that assured their advantaged positions.  Kingston, just like the rest of white Jamaica, had grown to fear the runaway slaves called maroons who developed independent communities in more central Jamaica.  The fears turned into a reality when in 1831 a serious slave rebellion led by a black slave named Samuel Sharpe alongside over than twenty thousand other slaves, broke out in the northwest parish of Saint James.

The slavery in Jamaica ended in 1834 and dramatically changed Kingston’s society. Contrary to the fears of many whites, liberation did not bring a flood of former slaves into the city.  Most of the blacks found few employment opportunities in Kingston and were essentially forced to remain as workers on sugar plantations.  These blacks were ancestors to today’s peasant communities and this is what started the bad neighborhoods consisting of shacks made out of whatever the community members could find.  These towns were primarily located on the outskirts of Kingston.

For almost the next three decades, most people in Jamaica experienced considerable hardships as the island’s economy collapsed.  Wealthy whites went back to Europe and thousands of blacks and freed slaves of various ancestry immigrated to places such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Panama, and Cuba.  Those blacks that stayed in Kingston turned to selling homegrown produce in the small-scale markets that crowded the sides of streets.  Even though the economic crisis hit the wealthy as well as the poor, government policies in the 1860s targeted the poor and made a difficult situation even worse.

This continued persecution led to further frustration, which appeared in 1865 when the black activist Paul Bogle organized a substantial demonstration in Morant Bay to protest the government’s policies.  Blacks in Kingston participated in most of the events and after a violent police crackdown the Jamaicans rioted.  After the riots, the British Parliament decided to make Jamaica a crown colony.   A crown colony means that Jamaica would be under the direct rule of the British Crown.  This transformation also took away some of the power from the hands of the island’s whites.  This was the start of a major change for Kingston’s people.

Lighter skin people did the best during the crown colony period, and many could afford to move into some of Kingston’s nicer neighborhoods.  Kingston’s black majority however continued to find themselves blocked out of the city’s economy.  Poor schools and widespread unemployment left most of the blacks at a serious disadvantage.  For example, in 1871, sixty percent of the city’s population were illiterate, most of whom were black.

Kingston began to make an economic comeback in 1872, when it became the capital of Jamaica. Manufacturing provided jobs for some of the city’s black residents, and the immigration of merchants from East India, China, and Syria boosted the city’s recovery. Although a major earthquake in 1907 slowed development, Kingston continued to grow.

During the 1920s and 1930s Marcus Garvey headed a Black Nationalist movement that brought attention to the world of the poor conditions facing black workers.  During the rise of Garveyism Kingston became the front line for black nationalists, black religious organizations such as the Rastafarians, trade unions, and political activists.  Their activities eventually led to universal adult suffrage in 1944.  This placed Jamaica on the path to independence and induced the formation of two major political parties in Kingston.  The two parties were the Jamaican Labor Party (JLP) and the People’s National Party (PNP).

The JLP and PNP competed throughout the 1940s and 1950s for the support of Jamaica’s black, working-class majority.  Michael Manley and Alexander Bustamante emerged as two black politicians who spoke for the island’s black and brown population.   During this time Kingston acted as an example of the negative impact of white colonial rule, and for continued to place pressure on the British Crown for independence.  The Jamaican’s succeeded in 1962 when Jamaica was allowed full independence from Great Britain.

After independence, Kingston there was a great deal of competition between the supporters of the PNP and those of the JLP.  Party supporters who lived in and controlled political clubs divided downtown Kingston.  In the elections of 1976 and 1980, hundreds of Jamaicans died during vicious political altercations in the political clubs of Kingston.  Even though there was a great deal of violence, Jamaica was able to gain the benefits and the main principles of democracy.  Kingston has come to represent a current capital complete with organizational centers and an improved work force of civil servants.

Kingston today still remains racially segregated, and substantial numbers of its residents are still dirt poor.  Kingston continually deals with unemployment, crime, and overcrowding, as we have seen in such movies as The Harder They Come and Third World Cop.

Trench Town is a small area in the West Kingston ghetto community of Jamaica’s capital.  Trench Town just like other ghetto areas has basically been abandoned and avoided by both the public and private parts of Kingston’s society.  It has been isolated and controlled by the inhabitants consisting of police and gang violence.

Trench Town has been a town of violence, where the people live in fear and despair that goes along with ghetto life.  Trench Town is also recognized and respected worldwide as providing the Roots of Reggae Music.  The messages of Reggae are Unity, One love and the inhabitants as well as Reggae artists incorporate this message to combat their rough lives.

In reality Trench Town can be a dangerous place but it is also a community.  The community and its leaders believe in social change and responsibility.  The power of reasoning and constructive action is highly valued.  Unfortunately for the younger generation, crime has seemed in the short term to be the only way to survive and achieve any material gains.  The leaders of the community seem determined to change this as well as the Police as we have seen in Third World Cop.

Trench Town  is an impoverished town that was built around a former garbage dump in the early 1950’s  The country folk used whatever they could find to build their homes and mostly worked on sugar plantations like most of the peasants of Kingston.

Trench Town produces so many Reggae artists because of the nature of the ghetto.  The only thing that musicians of Trench town own is their music.  The music is a way of sending out messages, entertainment, and a way to finance their way out of the ghetto into a better life.  Reggae tells the stories of their life as well as things they would like changed.  When Peter Tosh sang “Legalize It” he spoke about the hypocrisy around the use of ganja.  The people of the ghetto are arrested for smoking ganja but judges and politicians smoke it too.  Bob Marley advocated political peace that would improve the living conditions of almost all Jamaicans.  Music is a powerful weapon and since the people of the ghetto are essentially powerless they must use other forms of fighting.

The history of Rastafari

The history of Rastafari begins with the colonisation of Africa, or ‘Ethiopia’ as it is the whole continent was known to believers, by Europeans.

The European powers took many Africans as slaves, and the people of Africa were divided up and sent into exile as captives throughout the world. The areas of captivity became known as ‘Babylon’.

For Africans this exile marked the suppression of their culture by whites. However, Rastafarians believe that the suppression of blacks in Babylon is ending and that soon they will all return to ‘Ethiopia’.

1930s

The Rastafari movement began in Jamaica during the 1930s following a prophecy made by Marcus Garvey, a black political leader. Garvey led an organisation known as the Universal Negro Improvement Association, whose intention was to unify blacks with their land of origin.

Garvey preached “Look to Africa where a black king shall be crowned, he shall be your Redeemer.” This statement became the foundation of the Rastafari movement.

The prophecy was rapidly followed by the crowning of Emperor Haile Selassie I in Ethiopia. Rastafarians see this as the fulfilment of Garvey’s prophecy. The religion takes its name from Haile Selassie’s original name.

Haile Selassie is therefore regarded by Rastafarians as the Black Messiah, Jah Rastafari. He is a figure of salvation and it’s believed he will redeem blacks from white suppressors, reuniting them with their homeland, Africa.

1935

The first branch of Rastafari is believed to have been established in Jamaica in 1935 by Leonard P. Howell.

Howell preached the divinity of Haile Selassie. He explained that all blacks would gain the superiority over whites that had always been intended for them.

Howell’s action encouraged others to help develop and spread the message of Rasta theology, and as E.E. Cashmore explains:

“All, in their own ways, added pieces to the jigsaw, and the whole picture came together in the mid 1950s when a series of congregations of rastas appeared at various departure points on Jamaica’s shores, awaiting ships bound for Africa”.

This marked the first uniting of Rastafarians and it paved the way for the future of the movement, bringing hope of repatriation with Africa and freedom for the black race.

1960s and 70s

In 1966 Haile Selassie visited Jamaica, where he was greeted with vast enthusiasm.

The development of Reggae music during this period made Rastafari audible and visible to an international audience. The work of Bob Marley (one of the most important figures in Rastafari) and Island Records was popular with a much wider group than the working class Jamaican culture from which it sprang.

As the rock critics Stephen Davis and Peter Simon said, reggae propelled “the Rasta cosmology into the middle of the planet’s cultural arenas, and suddenly people want to know what all the chanting and praying and obsessive smoking of herb [marijuana] are all about” (Reggae Bloodlines).

Some traditional Rastafarians were disturbed by the popularity of reggae, fearing that the faith would be commercialised or taken up as a cultural fad, rather than a religion.

In 1974 Haile Selassie was deposed by a Marxist revolution. He died mysteriously the next year. The removal of a divine figure by an atheist secular political group was initially discouraging to Rastafarians, and undermined any suggestion that he had been anything more than a human representation of God.

One Chord Wonders / Bored Teenagers / New Church / On The Roof / New Boys / Bomb Site Boy

No Time To Be 21 / Safety In Numbers / Drowning Men / On Wheels / Great British Mistake

Uploaded tonight is the superb debut LP by The Adverts, a band that shone brightly for several years releasing many excellent singles and two fine LPs. Every track on this debut LP is a classic and the LP is one that can still be played over and over again all these years since it’s original release… Text below ripped violently from the pages of wikipedia.

TV Smith and Gaye Advert were originally both from Bideford, a small coastal town in Devon. After witnessing Sex Pistols at Plymouth the couple relocating to London where the two young punks recruited guitarist Howard Pickup and drummer Laurie Driver, and the Adverts were born.

The Roxy one of London’s first live punk venues, played a crucial role in the Adverts’ early career. They were one of the pioneering bands who played at the club during its first 100 days. The Adverts played at the club no less than nine times between January and April 1977. In January 1977, after their first gig supporting Generation X, the band impressed Michael Dempsey so much that he became their manager. Their second gig supporting Slaughter & the Dogs was recorded, and their anthem ‘Bored Teenagers’ was included on the UK Top 30 album Live at the Roxy WC2. In February, shortly after the band’s third gig supporting The Damned, they signed a recording contract with Stiff Records. In March, the band supported The Jam at the Roxy.

In April, the Adverts recorded the first of four sessions for John Peel at Maida Vale for BBC Radio. Days later, their debut single, ‘One Chord Wonders’, was released. The single, “a headlong rush of energy”, was recommended by both Melody Maker and Sounds.

The Adverts were a prolific live act. Their first nationwide tour was with Stiff label-mates the Damned. The tour poster read, “The Adverts know one chord, the Damned know three. See all four at…” Later they would support Iggy Pop on tour, as well as conducting their own headlining tours in Britain, Ireland and Europe.

In August, the band released the first of their two UK Top 40 hit singles. Lyrically, ‘Gary Gilmore’s Eyes’ was a controversial song based on the wishes of Gary Gilmore, an American murderer, that his eyes be donated to medical science after his execution. Sounds described it as “the sickest and cleverest record to come out of the new wave”.

After the tabloid-fuelled controversy surrounding the single, and an appearance on Top of the Pops, the Adverts became big news. Observers focused on front man T.V. Smith and bassist Gaye Advert. Reviewers noted T.V. Smith’s song-writing ability. He was said to have “captured the spirit of the times few contemporaries could match”. Another reviewer described Smith as the band’s “raging heart, spitting out the fail safe succession of songs which still delineate punk’s hopes, aspirations and, ultimately, regrets”. In contrast, Gaye Advert’s reputation was more fleeting. She was “one of Punk’s first female icons”. Her “photogenic” looks, “panda-eye make-up and omnipresent leather jacket defined the face of female punkdom until well into the next decade”.

The band’s follow-up single, ‘Safety in Numbers’ did not chart. A fourth single, ‘No Time To Be 21’, scraped into the UK Top 40. A month later, their debut album ‘Crossing The Red Sea’ was released, and has become one of the most highly regarded albums of the punk era, with Dave Thompson calling it “a devastating debut, one of the finest albums not only of the punk era, but of the 1970s as a whole”, and several other writers including it in lists of all-time greatest albums.

Despite releasing some more well-regarded singles, the Adverts were not able to maintain the momentum and their career stalled after the release of their second album ‘Cast Of Thousands’. The band split up shortly after the accidental death by electrocution of their manager, Michael Dempsey. Their last gig was at Slough College on 27 October 1979.

In regards to their legacy, critic and author Dave Thompson argues that “nobody would make music like the Adverts and nobody ever has. In terms of lyric, delivery, commitment and courage, they were, and they remain, the finest British group of the late 1970s”

Dedicating this KYPP post tonight to Alistair Livingston ex Puppy Collective, ex All The Madmen manager, early 1980′s music paper hack and general social-political good guy whose birthday it is today.

The Mob will be performing in Yeovil on October 14th at the Quicksilver Mail pub. This performance is in tribute to the late Wilf who along with Steve Batty under the guise of Cracked Image Graffix supplied the artwork for most of the posters and flyers and to all The Mob’s record releases in the band’s original lifetime from 1978 to 1983.

Wilf was also a member of Psycho Daisies in the early to mid 1980′s. A Yeovil based band whose remaining members will be reforming to perform for the audience on the night.

Tickets for this special performance may be purchased direct from the pub or from Acorn Records in Yeovil. For those people not local to that area you may get them via Mark Mob’s scrap and van parts business on this link HERE

The ‘Grotty Hand Of Wilf’ exhibition is being shown at a separate venue in Yeovil from 3rd to 17th October 2011 so please if you are in or traveling to Yeovil support both events.

Photograph of Wilf courtesy of Matt Cornish.

Ten Commandments / Majestic Dub / Social Justice / Kings Of Dub / Bionic Encounter

Edward The Eight / International Treaty / Martial Law / Nations Of Dub / Embargo

Joe Gibbs was one of Jamaica’s most influential producers during the seventies and early eighties. His long lasting relationship with the late sound engineer Errol Thompson, who had left Randy’s Studio prior to working with Joe Gibbs, resulted in producing more than well over one hundred  hit records in Jamaica and the UK. They became famous as ‘The Mighty Two’.

Dub versions of popular Jamaican songs started emerging in the late 60′s. Eventually, studio engineers and producers such as King Tubby, Derrick Harriot, Clive Chin, Errol Thompson and Harrie Mudie mixed and modified the dub tracks, occasionally using the voice as an additional instrument. The evolution of dub finally resulted led to point were the dub tracks stood on their own. Consequently, full length dub albums began to appear, initially in small pressings with high prices. Joe Gibbs released a slew of fine dub albums between 1975 and 1980.

African Dub All Mighty – 1975

African Dub All Mighty Chapter 2 – 1976

State Of Emergency – 1976

African Dub All Mighty Chapter 3 – 1978

African Dub All Mighty Chapter 4 – 1979

Majestic Dub – 1979

On these albums you can find dub workouts of popular Joe Gibbs productions from the 70′s, most of which are updated versions of classic Treasure Isle and Studio One riddims. ‘African Dub All-Mighty Chapter 3’ was the most commercially successful and genuinely brought the dub format to the ears of many listeners outside the reggae community specifically the growing punk community. Part of the appeal was the broad use of bizarre sound effects such as ringing bells, buzzers, phones, whistling birds and shooting sounds. For some dub purists this distracted from the impact of some of the original riddims. The band Joe Gibbs and The Professionals included top musicians such as bassists Lloyd Parks and Robbie Shakespeare, drummer Sly Dunbar, guitarists Earl Chinna Smith, Winston Bowen, and Bingi Bunny and organists Bubbler and Ossie Hibbert.

”Majestic Dub’ was a ten track set released on the Lazer record label in the UK and the Joe Gibbs record label in Jamaica in 1979. This was a time when the disco craze was hitting the island of Jamaica hard so the organ / synths and guitars recorded on top of some of the riddims showcased on this LP have a very recognisable disco feel! This album offers a selection of familiar riddims. There is ‘Social Justice’, a tune across the Augustus Pablo ‘Java’ riddim. Furthermore there’s the ‘To the Foundation’ riddim, courtesy of the late great Dennis Brown. More Dennis Brown riddims include ‘Edward The Eight’, utilising the ‘Stay At Home’ riddim, courtesy of the original Paragon, Mr. John Holt and ‘Nation Of Dub’, riding the ‘How Could I Live’ riddim voiced by artists such as The Sharks, John Holt, Dennis Brown to name but a few.

‘Majestic Dub’ is not the most powerful dub outing Joe Gibbs has put out, nevertheless it still stays an enjoyable album. The pick of the bunch for me is the African Dub All Mighty set and not surprisingly the third installment is my pick of that bunch. I would have tried to upload that set but I did not have time to record four LP’s in one session and more importantly the records were unreachable in the lock up…This LP was more accessible hence it’s inclusion today.

Some of the text above was lifted from the reggaevibes.com website and the text below from wikki…

Joe Gibbs worked as an electronics engineer in the United States before his career in music started. Gibbs eventually returned to Kingston, Jamaica and opened an electrical repair shop with television repairs and sales as its main concern. It was in this shop that he first started to sell records. The fast growth of the local music scene encouraged him to get more involved in the music business, and in 1967 he started to record some artists in the back of his shop with a two-track tape machine, working with Lee Perry who had just ended his association with Clement Coxsone Dodd. In 1968, with the help of Bunny Lee, he launched his Amalgamated record label, and had his first success with one of the earliest rocksteady songs, Roy Shirley’s ‘Hold Them’.

When Perry decided to leave to start his own record label, Upsetter, Gibbs enrolled the young Winston Niney Holness (later known as Niney The Observer) who helped Gibbs maintain his productions at the top of the charts. During the rocksteady period until 1970, he had hit records with numerous artists including The Pioneers, Errol Dunkley, and Ken Parker. He also worked with backing bands such as Lynn Taitt and the Jets (including the organist Ansel Collins, and horns players Tommy McCook, Johnny Dizzy Moore, Bobby Ellis and Vin Gordon), or The Hippy Boys (featuring the Barrett brothers as the rhythm section).

He concentrated exclusively on the production of the then new reggae sound after his first international success ‘Love of the Common People’ by Nicky Thomas (#9 in the UK Singles Chart in summer 1970). Gibbs still recorded the rock-steady artists that he had initially worked with; artists like The Ethiopians, Delroy Wilson, and The Heptones. The two volumes of his singles compilations The Heptones and Friends were bestsellers in Jamaica. During this period, he launched three new labels — Jogib, Shock, and Pressure Beat.

In 1972, after having moved his studio in the Duhaney Park district, he set up a new one at Retirement Crescent and started to work with sound engineer Errol Thompson, who used to be at Randy’s Studio. Together they were known as The Mighty Two, and along with his studio band The Professionals (including bassist Robbie Shakespeare, drummer Sly Dunbar and guitarist Earl Chinna Smith), they produced hundreds of singles, including the hits ‘Money In My Pocket’ by Dennis Brown, ‘Ah So We Stay’ by Big Youth and ‘Eviction’ by Black Uhuru. The duo worked on over 100 Jamaican number one hits.

In 1975, he set up his new 16-track studio and record pressing plant and kept producing Jamaican artists under numerous label names (Crazy Joe, Reflections, Belmont, Town & Country). He had success again with roots reggae, rockers, lovers rock and Dub music artists including: Dennis Brown, Jacob Miller, Sylford Walker, The Mighty Diamonds, Gregory Isaacs, Prince Alla and Junior Byles.

The 1977 Culture album ‘Two Sevens Clash’ was a major influence on the then emerging punk scene and an internationally acclaimed production. The album was cited by punk rock band The Clash. Other successful artists produced by the Mighty Two during the end of the 1970s include: Marcia Aitken, Althea & Donna, John Holt, Barrington Levy, Cornell Campbell, Dean Fraser, Delroy Wilson, Beres Hammond, Ranking Joe, Prince Jazzbo, Prince Mohammed, Dillinger, Trinity, Prince Far I, Clint Eastwood, I-Roy and Kojak & Liza.

Re uploading this post as I have now added the second and last single by Kindergarten.

Warrior

Ha Ha Ha

World Turned Upside Down

Double Standards / Carbon

Kindergarten along with Lack Of Knowledge were one of the Enfield area bands, although by the time of these record releases some members of the band were holed up at Lansdowne Road in Tottenham within cheering distance of the football stadium there. The band were connected to Tea House Camp not only by location (a member of Tea House Camp also lived at Lansdowne Road) but also by constantly performing together at various gigs around the north London area. Kindergarten were the heavier sounding of these two bands with a sound reminiscent of Killing Joke.

Tea House Camp were actually from Bradford, home of New Model Army and Southern Death Cult and were just temporarily based in London. Both brothers in that three piece band were actively employed by doing stints at Rough Trade Distribution, then based at Collier Street in Kings Cross.

Kindergarten had quite a decent following at those North London gigs and I saw them a fair few times. A lot of Play Dead and New Model Army types used to come to the performances including the infamous Nick The Frog. Joolz the Bradford poetess and Justin from New Model Army would come along now and again and those two would also invite the band to there private parties in Stamford Hill which were always fun. Gig highlights for me were performances at The Three Crowns in Stoke Newington on one of Jon Fat Beasts free entry gigs and The Boston Arms in Tufnell Park which was an all day gig with Brigandage, Rubella Ballet, Ausgang and Tea House Camp performing amongst a host of others.

While an idea of recording the second single was in the air I was paying a visit to Lansdowne Road and it was discussed that the band wanted to place mugshots of various people onto the eventual artwork.

I went out to the nearest photo booth with Magnus who was quite a character. He was a relatively well connected roadie and did a fair amount of regular work at the Clarendon in Hammersmith. Bands he had worked for were quite vast including New Model Army, The Cult, Play Dead as well as Tea House Camp and Kindergarten.

We came away with four mugshots from Seven Sisters tube station and wondered back to Lansdowne Road where we placed them in a pile with other booth photographs already collated. Something like half a year later the record had been recorded and pressed and artwork ready to go to the printers and I was quite chuffed to see that three of the four photo booth photos had been used. One of me, one of Magnus with his treasured (and seemingly always worn) eagle baseball cap on, and one of the both of us together.  My little brothers girlfriend of the time named Amy was also on the inside cover…