shop local

Of course one thing that us music nerds can do during the postal strike is to support local independent record shops – while there still are any.

I’m quite lucky in that respect – weeks after me moaning on here about the increasing uselessness of Stoke Newington Church Street, a new record shop opens up there:

lucky7

and it’s proper, you know? A nice feel, friendly staff who are happy to chat, prices are reasonable, listening decks, all that.

They now stock Woofah and were very enthusiastic about it (a true sign of excellence, of course!)

Check them out and have a rummage while you are there – ask about their “reggae mondays” (I’ve not made one of these yet…)

Hackney Heckler – debut issue out now!

heckler#1

Hackney Heckler has been launched | Hackney Solidarity Network.

Local troublemakers HSN have produced a spiffy newsletter! It covers a whole swathe of things that you won’t read about in Council-sponsored media – and it’s completely FREE!

Oh yes, and it also features “the top ten tunes about Hackney” by yours truly: a terrifying cross-genre tour of the borough.

Copies can be had by tapping up the usual suspects (and me – bung me an email here), although they are apparently going quick. A pdf edition will follow shortly and I will link to it when it appears…

The Story of Lovers Rock – world premiere

The Story of Lovers Rock + Q&A | BFI.

“A film set to rejuvenate interest in an unjustly ignored musical genre.”

Directed by Menelik Shabazz. Tue 10 Nov 18:20 NFT2

I’m looking forward to this one! Lovers Rock is of course a proper London ting – but it never gets the credit it deserves cos record collector nerds see it as squeaky girl music. As I point out in my review of this Greensleeves comp in the forthcoming issue of Woofah – they are missing out. Rumour has it that ace producer Curtis Lynch is also launching a lovers rock sub-label, so perhaps something is in the air…

This event is part of the BFM International Festival, which includes other films about Rocksteady, Soca, and steel pan player Russ Henderson.

“Granny Smith doesn’t matter any more”

Or: why I support the posties

Many people who read this blog will send and receive a lot of mail. I reckon we’ve all got a little pile of 12″ envelopes stashed away and many of us will also get dvds and books and all sorts sent our way on a regular basis. Maybe we also cull our collections and send out the odd package after our ebay sales have ended (and then empty out our paypal accounts and buy more stuff!).

Postman-Pat

Distributing Woofah has meant that I am even better acquainted with the lovely ladies and gents who work in the post office near my work – we couldn’t get the mag to people unless there was a cheap, accessible, reliable postal system.

Everyone has stories about stuff turning up late or damaged I guess, but basically a lot of great stuff has come our way over the years in little or big jiffy bags. Most of the postmen I’ve had on my doorstep have been top quality people and I have some nice memories of them handing over wads of envelopes and sharing our happiness when it was our daughter’s fifth birthday and things like that.

But like a lot of workplaces, the bosses’ thumbscrews have tightened in the last decade or so.

If you can, spare five minutes to read this piece by postal worker Roy Mayall in the London Review of Books – it’s really well written and very human – not some trot-bot political rant.

As you will see, the post workers’ strike is about making sure that posties get a fair deal, not some pisstake by shirkers or whatever bollocks is appearing in the press at the moment. But it is also about making sure that the mail retains its thin veneer of being a public service – a service that we’ve all probably taken for granted. Having sent things back to the UK from a few exotic places over the years, I can assure you that what we have is worth protecting.

Yes it might mean a bit of inconvenience. Those Jah Tubbys tunes I wrote about the other day took a good while to show up and I have to say I wanted to check them and tell you about them a lot sooner.

But if you are complaining about a delay in receiving your record with lyrics about fighting  babylon whilst this dispute is happening, you should maybe listen to it a bit more closely when it does turn up.

Bloggers WAGs

This is a repository of the astute, mischievous, blase, rat-infested, paranoiac, half-baked, half-arsed, beatific, mendacious, sorry-owled, frivolous, crepuscular, moon-addled, canny, circumspect, broked-limbed, supercilious, sanguine and blown-fused critical comments from the wives and girlfriends of your favourite, self-esteemed, male cultural critics and bloggers.

Bloggers WAGs.

I see trouble on the horizon…

Jah Tubbys repress

jtsslaughter

Well, I never thought I’d see the day, but here come:

JT7016 Dixie Peach – Tonight is the Night
JT7017 Dixie Peach – Pure Worries
JT7018 Dixie Peach – Slaughter

What’s the big deal, you may ask? Well, Jah Tubbys has been a bit of an obsession for ages – they’ve been going for 35 years as an east London soundsystem and been releasing wicked tunes since the eighties (originally from 1 Broadway Market, which just shows how much that part of Hackney has changed), but unlike Unity or Saxon or Shaka they’ve completely resisted any attempts at documenting their past, giving interviews – or anything really.

4aces

Which is obviously maddening – I mean, it’s fair enough that some of the people behind some of the best music ever made (and played) in London have to scrape a living doing other things and are amazed anybody is still interested in their bits of vinyl from 25 years ago. But people have been wanting to hear Jah Tubbys’ story (and own the tunes!) for an age…

Until now not a single Jah Tubbys tune has been repressed, ever. I had to scrape around and get someone to burn me a CD of them, because the early releases (from which the current crop are drawn) are awesomely full fat digi dancehall – UK style. I’ve gradually amassed a nice selection of late eighties vinyl on the Y&D label including Crucial Robbie’s “Proud to be Black” and Peter Bouncer’s “Roughneck Sound”. But the earlier stuff was stupid money on ebay… many times I nearly paid it…

quadbox1

By the time I got to check the sound they were getting back into the UK roots thing, but they were still tough as you like – standing up to Iration and Shanti after a few years out of circulation. Easy to forget that Abashanti himself started out as an MC for Tubbys. Errol Bellot (who has now done vocals for LV on Hyperdub) also cut his teeth there. Rumours abound of trips to Kingston to visit King Tubby himself and mix exclusives on his desk, back in London rival sounds rushing the set and dragging the needle across the killer dubplate because they couldn’t take the pressure. Strange diversions into Garage. And the vocalists still exhibiting that dancehall swagger whilst keeping it rootical, chanting “You might have the almighty, but we’ve got the electricity!” when the opposition has technical problems…

I even waged and little covert operation, trying to sneak mentions of a reissue campaign into pieces like this one for pitchfork and pestering the folks at Honest Jons to try and open the vaults up like they did with Unity. But man like Tubbys just seemed to shake his head and get on with building pre-amps. Chatting all that history with a soldering iron in hand, but going mute if anyone mentions interviews or tape recorders.

So this is great – 3 slices of niceness from the man Dixie Peach. Get them from the usual places. Some are on coloured vinyl, all are limited pressings as far as I know.

Hopefully there will be many more, and maybe, just maybe somebody will get the chance to document the tale of this hidden corner of soundsystem culture…

ragga dance new releases

wow, some “dance” promos which are actually worth writing about… lots of people will hate these – if you’re a reggae purist or some kind of minimal techno spod, then you need read no further!

cutty

Talen – Kingston Book (Mouthwatering Records)

Time to note the effect that globalisation has had on the ultra-localist dancehall world, I guess. As Stelfox pointed out in his Guardian piece a while back, music sales are especially down in JA (bootleg CDs being the main method of circulation). But vocalists can still turn a dollar by performing and especially by voicing dubplate specials.

So this global network has evolved of little studios (in some cases simply one man and a laptop) who record artists on tour and offer up dubplate specials over the internet. This is potentially quite exciting as it means anyone can in theory access the the cream of the crop of JA’s vocalists and get a personalised vocal off them. The only limits are of course whether or not you can afford it and the gentleman’s agreement that the vocal won’t come out as a properly released tune.

Of course there is no guarantee you’ll get a decent performance out of said vocalist. Generic dubs along the line of “[name of your sound] is the champion, come to mash down all soundbwoy, [name of your DJ] is the greatest selector yadda yadda yadda [insert catchphrase or well known chorus of vocalist here].” abound.

But morally and economically this is more tenable than simply ripping off another bogstandard accapella and sticking a wobbling bass underneath it.

The studio network also opens up the field for more interesting collaborations. This release from Swiss crew Talen features both Sizzla and Cutty Ranks. They have got some nice performances out of both of them, so clearly some work has been put in by all parties – although the dubplate culture is pretty transparent with all the mentions of “Talen Sound”.

Sizzla chants down the “undercover cops who investigate the music” over a rasping synth and shuffly beats. Proper “big room” chorus. Stereotyp provides a cavernous remix which sounds like an offcut of The Bug’s output. Which I think is fine – there is more room in my world for noisy ragga filth, especially with Sizzla on top. This lacks some of the fine detail of Kevin Martin’s palette, but still provides that critical adrenaline fix.

Cutty Ranks isn’t really known for his customer-focused approach to business, even by reggae vocalist standards. But here he really brings it with rhymes like “viper/hyper/sniper” and many many more. Backing is a bit more restrained with some spag-western touches. Markus Kienzl (who?) starts his remix with slightly jarring Boards of Canada-esque ambience and then slams in them “dancey”-ragga beats and some nice stabs.

There’s some good energy here – might be a bit too “big room rave” for some. It is what it is and I’ll take this over monochrome DJ mix fodder any day of the week.

myspace.com/talench

bounty

321 vs TIM HEALEY & DEEKLINE – Bring It Back  (Giant Pussy)

“Shake shake shake it all abaht, man’s got bare champagne in me mouf”

Blimey, it’s gone a bit cockney yardie again – good oh! Nice combination of pumping bass, steelpan, carnival whistles and samba beats. And lyrics about bringing back dances of yesteryear – bogle dance, butterfly, robot dance, running man – is good!

Six mixes which I suppose are aimed at keeping different types DJs happy. It all gets a bit functional really. But! 321, Tim Healey and Deekline collaborate on a couple of cuts which are the ones for me.

Deekline is responsible for novelty 2step hit “I Don’t Smoke” which sampled Jim Davidson, right? I always thought that was boss. No doubt I am alone in that, but [slams hand down on the table] my popism will triumph over every other fucker’s purism in the end.

On one mix they even bring Bounty Killer into the equation for what would seem to be an original vocal unless any of the spotter massif can correct me on that score. Bounty Killer! He’s hardly “rent-a-dread”, is he? Bounty Killer, ffs! Proper stupid bring-a-smile-to-your-face when you’ve had a shit week business.

www.myspace.com/giantpussyrecords/