having a fab time combing through all this. lots of incredible sounding recommendations presented with that unmistakably Jimmy Dread touch. just in time for the holidays _________________ A Variety of Artists
The year is 1992. Rave has gone overground and 'toytown' techno is all the rage, at least for the kids watching Top Of The Pops. Whilst the genre has its occasional high moments (and despite what others may think, I still rate The Prodigy's "Charley" up there with the best of them), dire tracks by the likes of the Smart Es ("Sesame's Treat") and Shaft ("Roobarb & Custard") start to infect the minds of teenyboppers who probably think that this kind of music is commonplace in warehouses up and down the land. Luckily I was a little bit more savvy by this point, listening to Orbital (see previous entries), Beltram, LFO and the like. But nevertheless shoehorning references to British kids TV programmes was considered fair game for chart-bound house/techno-lite in the early 90s, and in many ways mimicked the nods to childhood that were prevalent in British psych during the First Summer of Love. Only with Lewis Carroll replaced by a cartoon character narrated by Richard Briers.
Given the uptempo vibe, BP, record label (XL - also home to the Prodigy) and timing (not the mention the break, featuring an electric piano and siren during the middle eight), SL2's "On A Ragga Tip" fitted in nicely to the scene, although Slipmatt and Lime (the SL in SL2, and not a reference to the postcode for the post part of Slough, as I later discovered) had already released the anthemic "DJs Take Control" by this point, so were hardly Johnny-Come-Latelys to the party. The hook however wasn't the frenetic breakbeat or the synths, but rather the sample that opened the track: Ay Ay ba day, Ba waddli-die day, Im ba day ba day, Ba waddli-die day... GWAN.
Fast-forward 10 years or so and with my teenage rave days consigned to my musical memory bank (in fact, I'd lobbed a lot of my Rave CDs out by then, for some unbeknown reason that probably felt perfectly rational at the time) and I'd fallen for 'reggae' in a big way. Regular trips to Soho's Daddy Kool and a nascent Sounds of the Universe yielded Trojan reissues and Studio One classics (on vinyl, of course), I'd ditched Britpop and started pushing the envelope of my tastes to such an extent that the glue came unstuck. Soul Jazz compilations were instrumental in this, and still to this day I get excited whenever I see them bringing something new out (by the way, their latest - "Black Riot", which is a set of early jungle and hardcore tracks - is highly recommended). After devouring the Dynamite series (100% Dynamite being my favourite VA compy of all-time) I eventually stumbled across their set of British MCs - "An England Story". Listening to it for the first time, with the likes of General Levy and Tenor Fly, I'd already heard enough killers to make it worth my while. And then... track 10... I've heard this sample before... THAT'S BLOODY SL2 M8.
"Walk And Skank" still makes me dance around like a loon no matter how many times I hear it. It's the soundtrack to a trip from Brixton tube, past Lambeth Town Hall and down Acre Lane to Supertone. It's rocking down Electric Avenue to Coldharbour Lane to check out Blacker Dread's wares. It's a life-affirming, head-nodding ride on the top deck of a Routemaster bus down the Old Kent Road. It's the dancefloor filler that'll get the whole damn crowd 'pon di floor. It's so fuckin' London it hurts.
Built around the Never Let Go (aka Answer) Riddim that first featured on a Slim Smith track for Studio One (and if you've read my Studio One Top 50 earlier in this diary you know how highly I rate that combination), "Walk And Skank" had the authentic JA dancehall DNA but a pure London style, and interestingly shared the same riddim as Smiley Culture's "Police Officer", which originated out of Dub Vendor's Fashion stable/sound system. With "Walk And Skank" coming out of Brixton's Blacker Dread shop and Sir Coxsone's system, it was almost a retread of the Duke Reid/Coxsone Dodd days of the 60s.
If there's one track guaranteed to get every fucker out of their seat, this is it. It's also the only 12" I've got two copies of, the second of which - in some divine twist of fate - has "On A Ragga Trip" on the flip.
Has it really been 4 years since I posted anything here? That can't be right, surely...
Regardless of where the time's gone (and I swear, as I near half a century on this planet, the days just blend into one another), and all the pressures of life/work/parenthood, music stays constant in my life, as indeed it has since I received The Hits Tape almost 40 years ago to the day in my Christmas stocking as a wee bairn. So whilst (semi) (ir)regular readers may have wondered where the enigmatic teddy bear with glowsticks went (did they ever replace Plug.dj?) I was always here, either spiritually or lurking in the ether.
I have now concluded the vast majority of 'new music' isn't for me. I'm getting old, everything's starting to sound the same, and to underline this there's a pair of slippers on my Christmas list (Ugg ones though - I've got to retain some modicum of style, even if comfort and warmth is the main driver). See, I'm stuck in my ways. I'm notorious at work as being 'the guy who doesn't have Spotify'. Most of the stuff I listen to digitally is via Bandcamp, and then mostly compilations of soul music that no-one knows and the like. I probably spend just as much time cleaning records these days as I do listening to them. And this year I discovered that my personality veers towards the 'geeky' (like they were telling me something I didn't already know - I've always been a cataloguer and arranger of things, from badges and stamps when I was a kid to even having my shirts sorted into colour and pattern order in my wardrobe).
And yet, I'm still buying records by the truckload, as well as cursing myself why I ended up getting so much stuff on CD in the 90s. I'm also selling more stuff than ever, an exercise in collection rotation whereby I ditch the stuff that's gathering dust (for a profit) to reinvest in some new discovery or other. It's turning out to be quite a lucrative enterprise, in fact my record record sale is nigh-on $2000 for an original copy of Pussy Plays by Pussy to some chap in North Carolina. Quite a story behind that, which I'll bore you with some other time.
So as we close 2024, what's been my highlights of the year? Recording these mostly for posterity, but for your entertainment:
1. Buying a collection of house/techno 12"s and making a c.£2000 profit on selling them
2. Adding a sub to my system - it sounds fuckin' ace, and I'd highly recommend it
3. Finally getting my hands on an original of In Sides by Orbital and the repress of Selected Ambient Works Volume II by Aphex Twin
4. The awesome Prince Philip dubplates compy - best album of the year by a country mile, and straight into my 'reggae' chart when I can be arsed to update it.
5. My son deciding he wants to be a drummer. Cue father-and-child rhythm section. We could be the next Sly and Robbie. If we were any good.
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