to reggae dub specialists

That guitar sample is from "Zungguzungguguzungguzeng" by Yellowman

Anyone know the original track for the dub "Extra Time 4" on Scientist Wins the World Cup?

nm, it's Hugh Mundell's "24 Hours A Day". thanks, internets.

I love that Hugh Mundell song. Jacqueline is great too. Not too much by Hugh Mundell I don't like actually. Pick up the Lacksley Castell - Princess Lady album if you like that vibe.

from the RAIDERS OF THE LOST DUB liner notes:

doctor indiana jones, a professor of dub at a small new kingston college, is better known to army intelligence as a cunning and steel-nerved adventurer. indiana jones is the only man with the ability and recklessness to undertake the task demanded by his country on the eve of world war III -- recover the lost dub

yeah I picked up the "Mundell" album once I figured out what that was a dub of. Great album. Junjo is right up there with Scratch for me. Junjo stuff sounds much better thumping out of good speakers, no doubt.
Only Lacksley Castell album I've got is Morning Glory. Will check for Princess Lady.

yeah, Morning Glory is great, Princess Lady may not be quite as good as Morning Glory but it's darn good. also, the Hugh Mundell - Jah Fire album is actually half (or more than half) voiced by Lacksley yet credited fully to Mundell.

just picked up "The Biggest Dancehall Anthems 1979-82" on Greensleeves. Junjo stuff, like Bembeya Jazz, is one of those things that when I'm listening to it it's so immaculate that it seems to be the pinnacle of music and I wonder why anyone would make or listen to anything else.

Junjo + Scientist is a winning combination on nearly everything i've heard from them.

heh I was just gonna ask if anyone could point to a bad Junjo/Scientist/Roots Radics track prior to '84, cause I've yet to hear one.

That's a ridiculously good collection. Also amazing is this.

ok so at this point I've heard nearly all the classic stuff from the time period I like ('68-'83ish). any recommendations on either things you think are classic but don't usually get classified as such, or things you really like but wouldn't be the 1st thing you'd point to when someone asks for reggae recs?

You don't like dancehall at all, right?

only the early pre-digital stuff

Tough one, but I can't believe I hadn't heard Joe Gibbs' majestic dub until quite recently

Have your heard any of the post-Shaka roots stuff (Disciples, Iration Steppas, Jah Warrior,etc)?

I saw Iration Steppas mentioned in that "modern dub" thread, so just downloaded a collection of their remixes. Haven't listened to all of it yet but like what I've heard so far. Are Disciples and Jah Warrior in their same camp, or just the same ethos? Where should I start with them?

Classic stuff that doesn't get bigged up enough are the three Singers & Players albums on On-U.

Yes!

I should probably investigate dubstep more, too.

I could never find those albums, but that was before I gave up on getting stuff though legit means.

PRetty similar although perhaps more interested in working with singers/deejays (esp. Jah Warrior's case.)

There are two Jah Warrior Showcase collections (vocals followed by dubs). I quite like the Prince Alla records as well. For Disciples there are a couple of dub records with Shaka that quite good that I've heard.

"I should probably investigate dubstep more, too."

It's a pretty depressing scene overall imo.

"I could never find those albums, but that was before I gave up on getting stuff though legit means."

I think On-U is doing another reissue campaign actually, but African Head Charge seems first on their list.

I'm old and tend to keep a distance from "scenes", so maybe just copping the highlights of the genre would be worthwhile? Pretty much all I've heard is a DJ Rupture mix, I think. Wasn't blown away by liked it well enough.

alex in sf your knowledge on this subject has been a source of constant pleasure to me for years so just takin this opportunity to say thanks.

Your welcome. Amusingly twenty years ago I barely listened to reggae at all. I associated it almost entirely with dudes I couldn't stand who had Bob Marley posters in their dorm rooms and appeared not to have bathed since the Reagan years. So I should probably thank the dude who played me Keith Hudson & Friends constantly at the record/book store I worked at.

wait which store was that

Green Apple

Did Anton LaVey ever release any dub mixes?

man, i was just going to post something v. similar to aero's last post!

talking of stuff thru non-legit means ahem, cld anyone rec a gd (mainly 70s) dub blog?

http://www.recordstore.co.uk/images/covers/cookingvinyl/HPCD1004-300.jpg

Oh yeah I'd recommend everything on the Hot Pot label. This is also great.

http://cover7.cduniverse.com/MuzeAudioArt/Large/86/1021186.jpg

Supposed to be the last B&F release, I think.

yeah I knew I could count on Alex. Thanks, dude. A bit perplexed as to why the reggae contingent on ilm is so small, but I think it's hard for people to hear it for what it is (an off-shoot of soul) because of it's distinctiveness.

people are stupid

but yeah seems like the reggae threads are always the same 5 or 6 people

I think part of the problem is that unlike let's say metal, a lot of reggae fans aren't super interested in recent innovations in Jamaican music. So we're talking about a pretty large, but still ultimately finite set of albums, artists, producers and esp. with most of the big reissue labels have shut shop there are less "ohmigod you have to hear this reissues" hitting shelves and thus less to spur sustained discussion on reggae threads (this is why the Listening Club died, I think) and get new fans into talking about it, etc.

with most of the big reissue labels have shut shop there are less "ohmigod you have to hear this reissues" hitting shelves

yeah this has been really noticeable and bums me out cuz for awhile there I could just pick up literally dozens of reissued classics really cheap any day of the week. and after my last few visits to Ernie B's and various record shops it's clear that era is pretty over.

Have you look at the stuff on Dug Out, Shakey? It's a pretty great label (the R&S, Basic Channel dude's thing, I think.)

for me, dub is one of those genres where the core recordings are so satisfying, I never feel like researching/buying more

http://dug-out.de/

I'm always grabbing reggae comps on emusic and it seems like there's an endless supply of at least pretty good stuff. I never post on reggae threads because (1) I rarely post about music at all since ILM basically killed my urge to write anything about music, and (2) I have a hard time coming up with anything to say about most reggae because I feel like a lot of it is good in a very similar way. I don't mean this to disparage it, but I think it's a genre, or at least a set of genres, that are like infinite subtle variations on certain themes. I love that about it, in fact. I love the way various styles of reggae change only a few things and create a different but recognizably related sound. There's something very disciplined and masterful about it.

didn't know about Dug Out thx for the tip!

well said, H

from Ernie B:

You may have noticed that for a long time now we have not had any music by Burning Spear available. Burning Music (Burning Spear's label) has informed us that they wish to completely stop all sales of their music throughout the world, no matter who is selling it. We agreed to do our part and comply with this request. Therefor, we immediately stopped selling their music through all channels (this includes our website, eBay store, Amazon Marketplace, etc.). We regret that the music can not be purchased through us (and will be very difficult to find elsewhere) but we are hopeful that they will decide to start supplying everyone (including us) in the future. Until then, we suggest that you visit Burning Spear's website to see if the products are available there.

the fuck?

Yeah I saw that too. Weird.

Btw the I know I already mentioned Dug Out above, but the Tempo Explosion album is particular stellar.

otm^

Alex, I haven't heard the Nitty Gritty one yet, is that as good as I want it to be? It has longed bummed me out that the reissue market mostly dried up before people got over their digital aversion. I would trade half the Bunny Lee reissues in the universe for one good digital Jazzbo productions compilation. Or a sequel to pressure sounds' Firehouse Revolution. Or more of those VP Selector's Choice sets on other producers, etc etc

also, I've been meaning to post in the Sherwood thread that the first African Head Charge, Creation Rebel's "Starship Africa", and New Age Steppers new reissues are all out now.

"but now they're relegated to performing for patchouli-drenched hippies in Burlington VT"

It's been that way for a while for a lot of these dudes sadly. But I can't blame them for going to where the money (and their audience is.)

I love old Burning Spear stuff, but that's mostly because in addition to the unique artistic voice he (and other reggae legends) had, there was - for a long time - a very innovative element to their music. Reggae was an historically inventive and rapidly changing musical genre - aside from its many crucial sub-genres / precursors like ska, rocksteady, dub, dancehall (etc) there were always new ideas getting thrown into the mix - toasting, extended mixes, production techniques, the endless re-use of great rhythmic ideas, lyrical borrowings from scripture to nursery rhymes to newspaper articles, great humor and heavy depth. And the unique personalities that reggae spawned (for every captivating Lee Perry or Linton Kwesi Johnson, there were a dozen relatively unknown greats just as original and groovy) would match those from any other musical genre at any point in time.

But you know, there was a point in the mid- to late-seventies when reggae just started degenerating. Innovations like digital rhythms seemed to spring up more to serve the purpose of eliminating time spent in the studio than in furthering the music itself. The recycling of rhythms that had always been an interesting aspect to reggae went so overboard as to bore a lot of fans to tears. Subject matter seemed to split between Rasta orthodoxy and slackness with little room for anything else. Reggae musicians started to ape non-Jamaican musical forms more than ever before - it was sad to see gangsta rap become a big influence on reggae, especially when most of what was originally "different" to Western ears about rap originated in reggae. Artists whose work had earlier been individual and awaited started exclusively going the "Keith Richards on guest guitar" route. (I'm looking at you, Toots.) Entire strands of reggae, like the "country proverb" stuff of Justin Hinds or the playful experimentation of Mikey Dread, was subsumed into a really predictable sub-Bob Marley roots reggae. What was once the Slits or Flying Lizards creating interesting hybrids, or Adrian Sherwood putting a new spin on things, or the Clash interpreting Lee Perry or Studio One productions with real panache became Chrissy Hynde duetting with UB40 on Sonny & Cher covers. In only a few years' time, too.

Yeah, things change. And the situation in Jamaica - for many reasons - probably made the interesting and innovative development of reggae much harder. But the fact is, many (formerly) great artists simply started repeating themselves, or offering up releases that were diluted versions of what they'd done years earlier. They quit trying, as far as I'm concerned.

I can plausibly see someone following Burning Spear from the early days until now. But it's been decades since he's offered up anything truly new or different, and his time of true inspiration seems to have passed. It makes for a pretty stale career.

Fig On A Plate Cart is right - it's tough to blame these guys for going where the money / audience is. Yet their diminished possibilities, to my mind, have a lot to do with not fostering growth and originality in what they do. Their audience is a reflection of that, and is largely of their own creation.

should have been "Chrissie" Hynde, sorry.

well-put.

I agree with some of what you're saying there man but the classic period in dancehall, barrington levy stuff for example - surely that was as convulsive a wave of innovation as any other time?

all i can recall about dancehall is the digital stuff -- which sounds bland and depressing to me -- and the grim lyrics. admittedly, a lot of my exposure comes from that greensleeves comp (from dubplate to download, which i just hated). maybe i'm missing diamonds in the rough.

I agree with some of what you're saying there man but the classic period in dancehall, barrington levy stuff for example - surely that was as convulsive a wave of innovation as any other time?

Hmm. Well, there was some good stuff there, for sure, though I think the general trend was one of decline. I don't see it as innovative as other periods of reggae*, it also dead-ended pretty quickly (if not simply mutating into awful stuff.) But Barrington Levy first appeared in the late '70s, which is about the time that I'm talking about. So consider it as right there near the "end."

* One of the reasons I don't see it as that innovative is that this kind of dancehall existed in live sound stage form for quite a while before it was really recorded. This was true of deejay / dancehall stuff throughout reggae. Even really innovative early guys like King Stitt were hardly (if ever) recorded doing their most genius stuff. For instance, dancehall deejay duos existed in the 1960's, but Michigan & Smiley are regarded as the "first," presumably because they were the first recorded - and then not until the late 70s. So was late 70s dancehall really all that innovative? I'm not too sure, though I'd welcome convincing.

I will add, though, that I'd probably never buy much "late" dancehall, but the odd compilation (particularly the "xxx% Dynamite" series on Soul Jazz does feature stuff from early ska to digital dancehall. And there's good stuff amongst that digital dance hall. But:

1) It comes across like novelty, and none of it has made me think that there's likely to be any credible body of work behind the artists. In some cases, I have investigated and come away with the same feeling.

2) Pick a year like 1973, and you can still find a great variety within the genre of reggae - dubby stuff, experimentation, political roots, group harmony, remnants of ska and bluebeat, and so on. But (and I guess I've said this already), at some point in time there's not much more than sub-Marley roots or slackness, and even that's of limited quality.

I can't speak for the present moment (keeping up with the flood of riddims is a lot of work--too much for me these days) and there are always the occasional lulls, but by and large there has been a near constant stream of greatness from Jamaica from basically mento on. Reducing Sizzla, Capelton, Ward 21, TOK, Elephant Man, Bounty Killer, Buju Banton, Beenie Man, Lady Saw, Cecile, Tanya Stephens, Cocoa Tea, Pinchers, Richie Spice to nothing more than "sub-Marley roots or slackness" is some crazy "this shit all sounds the same" nonsense (not to mention that there are dozens and dozens of producers who regularly churn out riddims no less "experimental" to my ears than anything Lee, Niney, Ruby, Pablo were knocking out in '73.)

isn't elephant man the fellow who wrote the offensive song advocating violence against gay people? i associate that song with the genre, for some reason.

Yes, "Log On". It's also a dance though! Although I think the dance sadly may be about stomping on gay people....

ha well several of the guys Alex names missed the memo about gay people not deserving to die

A couple actually think giving a woman head is an executable offense.

Cecile seems like a really nice person though! If you want to pick one dancehall artist to bring home to meet your easily offended friends, I definitely would pick her.

ha well several of the guys Alex names missed the memo about gay people not deserving to die

largely why i dislike the genre. but i don't like gangsta rap much either, with a few exceptions (ghostface).

(mentioned b/c of the connection drawn b/w dancehall-gangsta rap above).

A couple actually think giving a woman head is an executable offense.

this makes me so mad

While there is an unfortunate sub-genre of anti-gay dancehall songs, it's not really that pervasive (there was a big of a spike at early part of the last decade, but still it wasn't like themed albums were getting released). I mean it's not great that these dudes believe this, but I guarantee you that Bob Marley or whomever wasn't any less of a homophobe than Vybz Kartel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmj-kjl6X6U

"don't eat your girls like they are pie"

I eat pie with a fork so that approach was already...wait for it...OFF THE MENU am I right

Where to start with this stale argument? Talk about recycling; any serious dancehall fan has heard this many times likely going back to the day after Sleng Teng broke. As usual Alex is otm about many things here guys. It's actually not that difficult to avoid the homophobic songs, and while I'm not going to make excuses for them and I do think their existence should be highlighted, I think the idea that dancehall/ragga is pervasively anti-gay is as much of a distortion as dismissing all hip-hop as being about selling drugs. And if gender politics really matter to you then good luck finding much of use in the roots era; after rocksteady, women largely disappear from Jamaican music until the early 80s.

Beyond those admittedly important issues, crustaceanrebel is making some reductive generalizations about 35 years of music-making. Just listing some late 80s Jammys songs I'm currently listening to "Police Inna England", "Pumpkin Belly", "Hog Inna Minty" etc for days are neither slackness nor watered down roots--and they're really fun to listen to. If you can't hear the musical invention in "Tempo" or stuff like the Diwali rhythm to name one among hundreds, let alone early 80s Junjo Lawes stuff since crustaceanrebel is locating this further back than most people usually do, then I feel a little sorry for you.

I apologize for basically combining different people's arguments here, but as a reggae listener who also spent a long time avoiding dancehall, I think there's a good chance you guys could find stuff to like.

BTW, this Ce'cile song is pro-cunnilingus if you're looking for an antidote for that particular trope:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdyAS_2A8NY

rob otm

the nitty to get is 'turbo charged'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvsR1TOFEpc

and this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCD-dyepTmQ

I'd love to know more about dancehall, but like many reggae fans, my knowledge and passion for it trails off around '83, picks up a little bit around the dancehall boom of '03 and, well apart from a few select tracks, that's it. I'm not entirely sure I understand riddim culture - I mean, the Diwali riddim is great and that, but would I want to listen to it over dozens of songs and rhymes? Also agree that, for all my trying, I do prefer the overall vibe and message of pre-dancehall reggae to the hip-hop influenced thug-vibes and rap-parodies of a lot of dancehall. That's not to say I don't care for it - there's plenty of tunes by Ward21, Elephant Man, Sizzla, Alozade & Hollow Point and countless others that I do really enjoy. Just wish I could get into it more..

I like a bunch of 80s dancehall. kinda started to give less of a shit the closer it got to the sonics of American hip hop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy4JJUKYUHo

for a long time, this was the only dancehall I had, it is awesome: http://www.amazon.com/Dancehall-Stylee-Best-Reggae-Music/dp/B000000CF7

yeah, even the '80s stuff I have a bit more time for, but admittedly I don't got lots of it. Would love a POX or a compilation recommendation of '80s, '90s and '00s.

I understand and sympathize dog latin. I've been thinking of starting a thread on the early digital era (roughly 84-92) as that's the stuff I found easiest to get into once I decided to venture past '83, though am0n's suggestions are both good choices. Beth Lesser's book "Dancehall" published by Soul Jazz a while back is a good resource for getting a sense of the culture and people of the era; it spans the whole 80s, is written from the perspective of an outsider who lived through it, and has tons of her awesome photographs.

I think there's a good chance you guys could find stuff to like.

probably, but contrast that with "nothing but gold" coming out of JA in and around the 70s.

I was trying to accommodate for other people's tastes. The sonic palette shifts dramatically post-Sleng Teng and it does require adjusting your ears. IMO there isn't really this massive drop-off in quality, and there's plenty of boring filler from the 70s too. I don't want to make a list of terrible '70s JA songs (I really love all that stuff too), but it wouldn't be impossible. My point is simply that if JA music excites you, isn't it worth taking the time to figure out if you like more of it?

ITT: late 80s, early digital dancehall

Beth Lesser's book "Dancehall" published by Soul Jazz a while back is a good resource for getting a sense of the culture and people of the era; it spans the whole 80s, is written from the perspective of an outsider who lived through it, and has tons of her awesome photographs.

This is a really good point. Perhaps the reason reggae, particularly roots, is so popular is that it has a strong visually documented presence - mostly clichéd ganja smoking dread-leaf lion stuff, but also (thanks to documentaries about Marley and Perry) the classic image of Jamaica, from dub studios being built in shanty towns to Nyabinghi drumming in the Jamaican hills etc - it's all quite romantic really, especially with the peace and love message preached by roots musicians. Dancehall's imagery is firmly set in a gritty and dangerous urban context with all the trappings that come with it - guns, crime, homophobia, commodity fetishism etc - and to a Westerner, that's not so easy to parse especially when any thuglife escapism can be satiated through hiphop anyway. So a true visual context might well help me understand the culture behind dancehall.

i've tried, believe me. i'd love to love more recent stuff!
anyway, gregory isaacs is missing from all these lists

Gregory Isaacs - Cool Down the Pace

xp that makes a lot of sense DL. Here is a slideshow of some of the images from the book: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/gallery/2008/nov/27/beth-lesser-dancehall.

The first one of Isaacs in front of his record store is a personal favorite.

yeah, even the '80s stuff I have a bit more time for, but admittedly I don't got lots of it. Would love a POX or a compilation recommendation of '80s, '90s and '00s.

― the Sandalled Vandal (dog latin), Wednesday, June 22, 2011 11:40 AM

Dancehall: The Rise Of Jamaican Dancehall Culture book and double cd comp. on Soul Jazz

and

http://www.ebreggae.com/reggae-images/front/Vinyl/127412/USED-ITEM-Various-Biggest-Dancehall-Anthems-19791982-Part-1-2-LP-ORIGINAL-PRESS.jpg

this is a rly good 90s comp/mix

http://cf.mp-cdn.net/69/02/ade4d2ad73c139e0348441e53a45.jpg

that Dancehall book is absolutely great & worth the price tag

I'm always going to think overcorrecting on the side of "it's just a few songs" etc is a mistake & kinda...weird? like, the only racist song of Axl Rose's is "One in a Million," but it's still racist bullshit worth calling out; "this is stale" seems a strange response. At an Elephant Man/Mavado/Wayne Marshall concert in March of this year, per the Jamaica Observer, Elephant Man and Mavado all voiced expressions of violence as a means to rev-up the thick crowd. The favourite target of the selectors and Elephant Man were gays - this not from a handwringing liberal muso but from the local paper. Amnesty Int'l agrees that homophobia in Jamaica is if not uniquely virulent (the entire Caribbean shares to some extent in it) then at least worth addressing specifically. I dig that being awake/alert to the possibility of oversimplified reduction/alarmism is a vigilance worth keeping, but I mean - JFLAG's news page & plenty of other sources seem to clearly indicate that homophobia in Jamaica is a big problem; dancehall may only reflect prevalent attitudes, but reflect them it does, and it's grotesque, and that's fair to say.

("it's grotesque" i.e. the reflection of homophobic attitudes within dancehall, not dancehall itself, I'd hope obviously)

I don't think any rational person could argue with anything you said aero, and I hope what I wrote didn't sound like I was minimizing the problem. Basically what I'm trying to say is if you want to listen to dancehall but this stuff repels you, you can still listen to some dancehall. Of course that doesn't excuse you from having to think through the ethics of it, and you should be even more aware of the extent of homophobia in the music than non-fans.

yeah you are right of course - if anybody comes away with the idea that you just plain can't listen to dancehall and not be soaking up ugly stuff, that's not the case. I get really stereotypically-aerosmith about this stuff because it really bothers me and makes me sad.

this newly-discovered keith hudson compilation sounds near-perfect to me now

http://www.thegoldbrick.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/The-Hudson-Affair-Keith-Hudson-and-Friends.jpg

That's the expanded version of the comp I was talking about way up above.

Your welcome. Amusingly twenty years ago I barely listened to reggae at all. I associated it almost entirely with dudes I couldn't stand who had Bob Marley posters in their dorm rooms and appeared not to have bathed since the Reagan years. So I should probably thank the dude who played me Keith Hudson & Friends constantly at the record/book store I worked at.

i felt precisely the same way about reggae when i was in school; it was party music for privileged or entitled nincompoops. not sure i will ever be able to appreciate bob marley for this reason. the feeling isn't restricted to this one genre; i have feel the same way about the eagles and the grateful dead.

I've long since gotten over the Marley thing. The stuff with Perry is amazing and the first two Island albums are almost as great.

Yeah, there's some wonderful Marley stuff out there beyond Legend, especially Lee Perry cuts like "I Know A Place" (seriously, one of the most underrated reggae songs of all time). Is Duppy Conqueror on Legend?

it's an Island comp, so nothing before he signed w/them is on it.

That Hudson comp is magnificent. The only Marley I really listen to is Trojan's African Herbsman, a comp of Lee Perry produced tracks.

I have the Trojan six CD boxed set which has basically everything. Also Tosh and Bunny Wailer are great too (even if the former's albums are a bit produced for my taste.)

Alex OTM re the first two Marley Island albums + the Perry stuff. Mr. Brown!