What's up, broheims. First of all want to just thank you all for getting down with the blog. I just assumed you guys would all write back "hahaha, that idea is gay. peace." because we're good like that, but it's really blowing up. So many different styles have been represented: From gay indie rock with lyrics to massive stoner southern california rock to obscure soundtracks to peruvian psychedlic to the bleep bleep bloop bleep Warp records shit... it has definitely been diverse.
One style we haven't tapped into yet is reggae. I might do a reggae week. One good friend kicked me a TON of KKKIIIIILLLLLLEEEERRRRRRRR reggae shit. I will not call him out as he is in immersed in the bootleg/trade scene, with like invite-only sharing sites who ostracize anyone who dares to convert a file to MP3 (the nerve!) Anyway, god bless him because now my reggae collection is deeeep. Plus all the recs I have on vinyl, of course.
Right now I'm bumping this Sons of Negus joint, "Freedom Sounds". It's nyahbinghi which is basically like a reggae rastafarian stoner drum circle. Yes, I know "rastafarian stoner" is redundant. It's great, though. Extremely spiritual, good melodies, shredding reggae guitar solo, chanting , hand percussion, and a bunch of guy shouting out "rastafarian! king of kings!" and shit like that. Lots of "Holy Mt. Zion" talk. Everything good about reggae music right here. This is bomb.
Another CD I just got off iTunes that is in the same vein is Count Ossie and The Mystic Revealation of Rastafari, "Grounation". This is a classic, similar to the above but with tons of drummers and with skronking, almost free jazz saxophone solos. And this one track IS drum and bass. It's crazy, it sounds like a Tricky record or something. It's that classic drum and bass beat for like 15 minutes with Holy Mt Zion shit on top. EJ, I will hook you up with this at next sesh.
The Count Ossie shit is especially noteworthy because it is some rare, $100 on eBay type shit, and it is some how on iTunes for $9.99. I also found this super duper rare 70's Psych record, Henry Tree "Electric Holy Man" (another $100 record) on iTunes for like $6.99! So, any record collector types out there, don't be afraid to check iTunes on a whim for the reissue and save yourself a buck or two like 10-10-220, smell me?
Lastly, here is a YouTube clip of Sons of Negus. I do my homework.
Some of you other guys... start posting or I'm going to call you out by name. "ATOR", I'm looking in your direction.
dc
6 comments:
I've gotten like 15 gigs of reggae over time from DC and it's all mostly good but it all mostly sounds the same. How much reggae can you need? At some point this whole thing moves away from the idea of listening to music and moves into collecting, or hipster/esoteric posturing, you might as well collect baseball cards or stamps or something, it's practically the same thing, it's just about reveling in the obscurity of some random reggae record from the early 70s and tripping out on how rare it is and how you got it for a good price. I think it has little to actually do do with being really into the music.
Oh do he didn't!
I think it is about constantly striving for the really really great top ten joints. I have 15 gigs of reggae (or like 9 days or something ridiculous), and half or 2/3's i could live without, but the other 1/3 are top shelf, creme de la creme, which is just really good music.
I know you're just hating on me because I dissed Rogue Wave.
I collected comic books when i was a kid, though, FYI.
Postured hipster esoteric collecting is the name of the game baby! I actually make no claims of hipness but I do have an enormous appetite for music. It is more enjoyable for me to seek out some esoteric source of some groove or some sweet track that got nowhere near it's props in it's day than to just slap on a Rogue Wave thing, which is really fine american indie pop but how much of THAT do you really need???????
DC I had an older cd version of that Count Ossie thing, got to be the all time stoner listen (in a spiritual sense of course). I am fascinated by Rastafari, there is a really good, concise section about it in that one Marley bio, Catch A Fire. I would recommend it to anybody.
Mr T says: I pity the fool who be dissin the reggae music! Sure it can be repetitive, but the trained ear picks up on the nuances and learns to appreciate the flow.
Repetitive aint a dirty word in my book, at least when it comes to music... look at AC/DC, Slayer, lots of punk, world music, shoegazer, electronica, etc, etc... some of my favorite music is repetitive, at least on the surface
Reggae is a very incestuous genre of music.
The reason reggae sounds similar is a lot of the same musicians play on the classic records. It's like Motown's Funk Brothers or Phil Spector's Wrecking Crew.
On top of that, you have a handful of producers and engineers mixing everything.
Reggae also likes to re-use rhythms over and over again. There are entire records devoted to a single rhythm.
And yes, there is a strong collecting thing going on with reggae lovers but that's true for almost any genre of music.
Some of the early JA 45s' sell for thousands of dollars!!
"how much reggae can you need"??
there is no end. every rim crack is one more step on the journey.
i guess there's a bunch of pseud crap flying around collecting, but the good thing about that is that it surfaces really good stuff. so to all the genuine dub heads, and all the pseuds, keep it up.
written while listening to the agrovators "straight to jackson head" 45 rip.
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