HAPPY BOBDAY, MR. MARLEY

On February 6, the day Bob Marley would have been 63, I was in his home town of Kingston, Jamaica experiencing some Tardis moments (and if you don't get it, ask Doctor Who). It was fascinating that Jamaica gets all Christmas-y on the Big Man's birthday (or Earth Day, as Rastas say.) Of course, it's also a government and a Christian holiday, but it was amazing to see the whole town so still. People were going round saying "Happy Bob's Birthday" to each other, which I cut to "Happy Bobday."

 

Actually, I was in the middle of an extended Marley moment anyway, as I was in Kingston to do readings both uptown and downtown: with founder/director Rozylyn Elison and librarian "Happy" Howell at the Trenchtown Reading Centre, that ghetto jewel, and at the University of the West Indies, where my "The Book of Exodus" on Bob and his Wailers' album got its Caribbean launch, courtesy the University of the West Indies Professor and Director of the Reggae Studies Unit, Carolyn Cooper, a pioneer in Caribbean music academia.

 

 

My Bobday was spent with some kind folks from the psychedelic Japanese travel magazine, Trip. Their Bob story's being shot by New York/ Jamaican photographer, Nigel Scott, who has four framed portraits of Bob in the show at the Bob Marley Museum, on loan from the Jamaican National Gallery, along with a Bob surfboard he made. Thanks to Nigel for all of these Bobday pics and watch out for his in-the-works book, "Thank You, Mr. Marley."

 

 

 

Nigel Scott's surfboard of Marley in the current exhibition 

 

My cunning plan was to try and squeeze into the sold-out premiere of "Africa Unite", the new documentary on the Marleys' trip to Ethiopia directed by Stephanie Black, who also made a must-see doc on Jamaica called Life & Debt that explains a lot about the mess the island is still trying to pull out of.

Instead, here's a report from our Spy, the witty Gleaner journalist Mel Cook, who I met at my UWI reading: "I was knocked out because it's far more than a music film. There's not just extremely rare Bob footage, it's the way Black pulled different parts of history into a cohesive whole -- the Marleys visiting Ethiopia, the Rasta homeland, for the first time, along with the whole history of Africa's division and then independence."

For director Stephanie Black, "The trip was very emotional because I was able to see Ethiopia through the eyes of my old friend 74 year old Bongo Tawney, a Rastafarian Elder who was a bred'ren of Bob's, as well as my own. It's been his dream his whole life to reach Ethiopia, so when the Bob Marley Foundation invited him, that was really heartwarming."

 

But I got sidetracked in a way even Stephanie herself approved of -- at a Rasta drumming session of Bob's songs. Actually, it was a rehearsal over on the verandah at top guitarist Earl "Chinna" Smith's house. He was working with the Mystic Revealers, an old-school "nyabinghi" drumming and chanting group -- the real rich roots of Bob Marley's music, onto which any other vibes were grafted. Chinna was an unofficial Wailer who played with them often over the years. One of Jamaica's most respected musicians, bandleaders and arrangers, even he deferred to the blind singer of the Revealers, who's a very regal Elder. Standing on Chinna's garden path with the Japanese posse and a journalist from France, (Chinna makes friends wherever he goes!) it was like being in Rasta Temple. Of course, Chinna knows that material inside out, and it was great to watch him show everyone the subtle chord changes at the intro to the Wailers classic, "Dem Belly Full (But We Hungry); they're quite complex! They also played what Chinna called "The Anthem" -- "One Love". The drummers started after lunch and went on all afternoon. Frankly, the bit that got me weepy was "Fly Away Home," the old gospel song about life and death, that the original Wailers trio used to sing.

 

 

 

The Mystic Revelation Vibration rehearse chez Chinna, Bobday.

l to r:  Herbie, Jahman, Negus and Chinna

Image courtesy Vivien Goldman aka The Punk Professor 

 

That night, we all hung out at the Bob Marley Birthday Celebration at Strawberry Hill, a unique mini-village of a hotel up in the Blue Mountains behind Kingston, where Rita Marley and Danny Glover were celebrating Bob's birthday and "Africa Unite."

 

l to r: Danny Glover, Babsy Grange, Judy Mowatt, Marcis Griffiths, MC Tommy Cowan,  PM Bruce Golding and Rita Marley cut Bob's 63rd birthday cake at
Strawberry Hill.

 

 
The quaint cottages of Strawberry Hill -- they call them huts -- are one of the greatest places you can ever stay if you like luxuriating on stunning mountaintops. That night the lawn was full of elite Kingstonians - including Bob's widow, Rita Marley and her fellow songbirds in the I Three, Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt, plus Olivia "Babsy" Grange, the very busy Minister of Information, Sports, Culture Youth and Women's Affairs and the Prime Minister, the Hon. Bruce Golding. Truly the furthest possible cry from Bob's rural village of Nine Miles, or the Trench Town ghetto where he was a teenager -- but not as distant from Mr. Marley as you might think.

 

 

 

l to r: The I Three:  Marcia Griffiths Rita Marley Judy Mowatt

enchant the crowd at Strawberry Hill on Bob Marley's birthday

Image courtesy of Nigel Scott

 

 

 

The Punk Professor, Minister Olivia "Babsy" Grange and Sallie Henzell, widow of the Harder They Come director, Perry

 

 

Before Strawberry Hill was a hotel, I used to stay there as a young journalist - OK, I was six, right? -- and in my Tardis moment I looked round the elegant uptown crowd and remembered the long-gone little wooden hut that used to be right there, which I shared with photographer Kate Simon. The whisper would go round the big house that Bob was coming up to stay in the hut next door with then galpal, Cindy Breakspeare, Miss World 1977, (now also known as Damian Marley's Mum.) Those tropical evenings are surprisingly noisy with the sound of insects, but late at night we'd hear one solitary car parking outside and know that at least someone was having fun (the Marley marriage was unconventional but lasting.)

 

 

 

 

The Punk Professor Vivien Goldman and Miss World Cindy Breakspeare at
the Book of Exodus UWI launch. Image courtesy of Floyd Morris 

 

 
Strawberry Hill is also where Bob, Rita and the band went to re-group after gunmen tried to kill him at his Hope Road house, now the Bob Marley Museum. So when "supers" (VIPs) spoke, like Danny Glover quoting poet Langston Hughes, and Prime Minister Golding saying, "we must work to further Bob Marley's spirit," I did feel that Bob's spirit was very much there. Though the crowd was extremely far from being the actual oppressed underclass whose voice he was, you don't have to be an officially designated sufferer to know pain and lean on Bob Marley.

 

 

I'm not a betting person, but I have no doubt that had he still been around, Bob would have enjoyed that event -- and then headed all the way down to Trench Town where the Rastafarian "nyabinghi" drumming went on till past dawn, all the way up from First Street where he used to live and the Culture Yard is now, to Seventh Street, the roads he sings about in "Talking Blues".

 

 

The performances at Strawberry Hill were particularly great, seeing young Jamaican artists come up directly influenced by Marley in so many ways, and in the case of the energetic, soulful young Djavan, being groomed by the camp of Marley's sons Damian and Stephen. Everyone was backed by Lloyd Parkes' We The People Band, who've actually backed everyone for many decades, very well; and it was also superb to see one of my very favorite young singers, Etana perform. She used to be in a group in Miami whose big attraction was wearing not very much and who made her straighten her hair. Then she decided to move back to Jamaica, make the music she really loved, grow dreadlocks and wear comfy clothes. Her earthy, vibrant voice and style as well as her great songwriting made her an instant hit over here in Jamaica and the rest of the planet will soon follow.

 

 

 

The Marleys perform at Africa Unite

Image Courtesy of Palm Pictures 

 

 

The stars of the night, of course, were Etana's clear influences, the I Three, who used to back Bob and the Wailers. They're really a Jamaican vocal supergroup consisting of Rita Marley, Judy Mowatt and Marcia Griffiths. To hear those lush voices melding again on a medley of "Three Little Birds" and "Buffalo Soldier" and the Griffiths-penned, "He's A Legend," surrounded by the dark hills twinkling with the lights of tiny villages, was mesmerizing.

 

 

 

 

Etana, Jamaica's soulful, rootsy new singer, with the Punk Professor 

 

 

SINCE WE LAST MET....

 

You can't keep a good Slit down and after being THE prototypical punk girl group since the 1970s, with all too little overground recognition, it seems that once again, their time is now. We'll have more about the Slits tour that starts in March, but for now here's a Janette Beckman shot of Arri from the Slits at NY's Webster Hall party for Chloe Sevigny's new fashion line for Opening Ceremony. Yes, there were celebs... the Yeah Yeah Yeahs among 'em. Remember how you read here first, that subtle style-setter Chloe was backstage with the Slits last summer in Brooklyn? THIS is the result.

 

 

 

Arri and the Slits wow everyone at Chloe Sevigny's party

Image courtesy of Janette Beckman

 

 

Chloe sent us an email saying, "The slits have been a long time favorite of mine. When I was 19 I painted the back of a jacket with their logo, this jacket sparked friendships with several of my still closest friends. When planning my party for opening ceremony they immediately came to mind. They are strong, talented women with some of the best style I have ever seen. Their early photos and video footage have been a huge inspiration to me and many others, the new ep I might even say is better than anything they recorded in their heyday!!!!!!! Ahhhh, attack of the killer slits!"

 

 

 

Arri holds up Chloe's dress, with bassie Tessa 

 

 
On Janette's pic you can see how Arri tried to put on one of Chloe's dresses onstage -- but it was too small! At the end of the song, the dress caught on her fishnets and she walked offstage with the dress dangling from her leg. That's Arri stylee!

 

Opening Ceremony, a fashion store in SoHo, is currently selling both Chloe's line and limited edition hand-printed Slits t-shirts.

 

 

Also…Vivienne Westwood on her new line Red-Circus: The great lady, actually OBE! said, "Dressing up is a way of

showing concern about the world... you should be sustainable, not buy too many when you see something you really want and it really suits you, you should buy it and wear it every day. VW's orange crop blended brilliantly with her purple outfit.. "An attitude is great" concluded Westwood after objecting to fashion's pressure to be size sub-Zero...

Opening Ceremony: http://www.openingceremony.us/

Nigel Scott's web site:  http://www.n4nigelscott.com

 

PUNK PROFESSOR GOES TO JAMAICA

How Clean Is Your Ghetto?

Josh Kane: I was wondering how the punk scene of today is compared to the punk scene of the (first) punk era.

 

Dear Josh - There are so many differences between now and then, and we are communicating via one of them -- the internet. Although it's done a good job of shattering the music industry, there's no doubt the internet functions like one big punk fanzine, in terms of enabling people to communicate and share music more freely than ever before. Back then was also a far less controlled time -- London where so much wild stuff started now has perhaps the highest concentration of surveillance cameras in the world. Also, in punk's Round One, there was the innocence you get from inventing something that feels and is quite new. Now the punk mantra of harder - faster - louder coupled with insignia like tattoos or lurid Mohicans with shaved sides is almost nostalgia. Where will rebel rage go from here in music and style? You tell me, Fierce Readers.

 

 

************************************

 

How Clean Is Your Ghetto? I asked myself while in Kingston, Jamaica's Trench Town neighborhood, made famous by Bob Marley and the Wailers. From the crude barricades dividing off neighboring blocks that weren't on speaking terms because of long-time political grudges, to the heaps of garbage round the corner being thoughtfully chewed by some healthy looking goats, the scene seemed to cry out for Our Ladies of the Mop, the ones who put the saint into sanitation -- Kim Woodburn and Aggie McKenzie.

I must confess to an addiction. I love watching the BBC America shows like How Clean Is Your House and You Are What You Eat. In these times of non-stop bombardment by images of “perfect" celebs in immaculate Cribs, it's quite refreshing to see the transformation of everyday schlubbs who are even messier and unhealthier than me. In regular American self-help shows, even the “Befores” seem pretty well put together. But get the likes of Aggie and Kim down in Kingston's tenement yards, and you’d see those rubber gloves scrub a challenge worth the feathers (and if you don't get that gag, watch the show.) Would lemon and salt work on that oily debris in the gully? The Trench Town residents would love to know.

 

Of course, there wouldn't be much point in transplanting You Are What You Eat to Trench Town -- people here don't have enough food. Not much fun in that, unless Gillian McKeith, the show's stern but fair holistic nutritionist, was planning to fatten kids up.

 

I was in Jamaica on assignment for Culture and Travel magazine, writing a story about the Revival of Downtown Kingston, which includes the Trenchtown Reading Centre, an amazing indie library in the middle of the slums that gives the local youth access to books in a clean well-lit space.

 

Lo and behold, there, following in the footsteps of so many UK punks before him (John Lydon, the Clash and the list goes on,) was Sheffield, England's very own Punk Poet, (OK, he's a bit more electro than punk, but he's punky in spirit,) Jon McClure of Reverend and the Makers. He was being shot -- and in a good way, as opposed to with a gun -- by Rick Elgood, a dreadlocked British director who was pioneering punk cinéast Don Letts' frequent partner before moving to Jamaica and becoming one of the island's top film-makers. Thanks to Rick and his doc for the accompanying pictures. McClure's career was kick-started by his friendship with one of the biggest British bands, fellow Sheffield-ers the Arctic Monkeys. "I was the poet who was around the music, shooting my mouth off -- but not about nothing," he told me. Gradually the poems became lyrics, the musician pals became collaborators, and now Reverend and the Makers are a UK rave.

 

His mates called him The Reverend because he was a sensible and forceful talker; and McClure's honest, critical but compassionate and funny take on human nature on the album, "The State of Things" with songs like "Heavyweight Champion of the World" is being hailed as something of a relief, as, unlike most pop stars, Mr. McC's lyrics are worth your attention.

 

 

 

Trench Town Rocks! Photo courtesy of Rick Elgood

 

 

What drew the good Reverend to Trench Town? "I grew up in a Jamaican area of Sheffield and I was exposed to all that great music. What I love about Jamaican music is it keeps on evolving," said McClure. "Not like British indie guitar music, which has definitely stagnated and not really evolved for twenty years, to be honest. It's stalled but over here the music continually re-invents itself."

 

 

The Reverend blesses Kingston. Photo courtesy of Rick Elgood

 

 

McClure got down with Jamaica by learning the latest dancehall step, the Popitoff. He loved the Reading Centre and plans to send down books -- and hopes to translate his passion for those island sounds by working with some islanders. Watch this space.

 

 

More UK poetry came my way
When I was in Jamaica the other day
Linton Kwesi Johnson the Brixton bard
Showed the University he's still "well hard"

(and that's a Jamaican compliment for good.)

 

 

 

 

 

In other words, the prototypical "dub poet" Johnson, aka LKJ, joined fellow dubby versifiers Mutabaruka and Jean "Binta" Breeze at a University of the West Indies tribute to the late Miss Lou, the gutsy, folksy champion of Jamaican patois poetry and legend. I've been a huge fan of LKJ since his first record, "Dread Beat and Blood," back in the protozoal Punky Reggae era. Now he's one of Britain's most revered artists, with no compromise. Hearing beloved poems like "Reggae Fi Dada," his elegy for his father, in the place his family came from, was pretty moving. One of LKJ's classics is 'Sonny's Lettah' which details how police harassment led to a young man killing a cop to protect his kid brother. I liked how the packed audience chuckled softly when LKJ was explaining the background to the poem, a law called "Suss" that in the first punk wave was a great excuse for arresting mostly young black males on "suspicion" of intending to commit a crime. The crowd's oddly cheery response seemed to be a mix of amazement that such a dodgy law could be -- and recognition that though the law's name may change, the young and the broke are still a target, everywhere.

 

 

Poet Jean "Binta" Breeze channels Jamaican legend, Miss Lou.

 

 

*********

 

And so to the Slits, who synchronistically for this column, share a producer with LKJ, Dennis Bovell. They're the top girl punk band who paved the way for everyone from Madonna to Avril Lavigne and M.I.A. The Slits had/have not only The Look and The Attitude, but the songs, too. Anyway, as we've reported before, their quality keeps on getting them generations of new fans (Check out the photo gallery for pics of Chloe Sevigny with Arri Up and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth)

 

 

Our Spy Zoe and the reunited Slits Tessa (l.) and Viv (r.)

Image courtesy of Dylan Howe

 

 

Our London Spy, author and DJ Zoë Street Howe, aka punky reggae DJ Zoë Paranoë, who's writing a book on the Slits, is here to tell us about a momentous encounter that happened Since We Last Met.... Now over to Zoë in London: Mick Jones’ current band Carbon / Silicon launched their club night Carbon Casino in Ladbroke Grove, West London last week – and it proved to be more momentous than anyone expected …

 

 

The incomparable Mick Jones and crew

 

 

 

Big moment no.1: The legendary Topper Headon turned up to play drums with Mick for the first time in 25 years! (Don Letts was on hand to film the action). They played some vintage Clash – including ‘Train In Vain’: an appropriate choice seeing as the subject of that song – Ms. Viv Albertine – had turned up that night to watch, and to meet fellow Slit Tessa Pollitt…

 

Big moment no.2: … this was especially amazing because Viv lost contact with the rest of the Slits since the band split in the 1980s, and she made her way as a director.

 

 

Don the Dread Director

shot them back when and here they all are again.

 

 

But I managed to bring the pair together for the first time in 20 years on this potently punky occasion. As you can see from the pictures, they were like a bunch of excited schoolgirls. Nothing changes …

 

*******************

And don't you change, except like your socks and stuff, until we meet again....

Have yourself a punky little Winter Solstice

From Drew S.
How would you define the differences between Punk and Ska, both the music and the lifestyles?

Hey Drew S.,
You've got the Jamaica/UK connection that people in the US don't generally know as much about, because it was such a U.K. thing. But reggae was the original soundtrack to punk basically because it was the most happening sound around back then, and they were both kinda rebel music from the underclass. Ska, the music that kicked off Jamaican Independence in the early 1960s, was known for its "rude boys", loosely equivalent of punks or, arguably, gangstas. Right after Punk's first wave of Pistols, Clash, Slits, Stranglers, etc, ska really came to the forefront of mass consciousness. Those Two Tone bands like the Specials and Madness who used lots of black and white in their artwork, were often racially mixed and wore the sort of pork pie hat Brad Pitt goes for, all played ska.

Punk and ska could possibly be seen as a bit alike, just 'cos they're both way up in the BPMs, and their speed makes them both perennials among kids with energy to pogo. But you make an interesting point, Drew, when you refer to the punk lifestyle. Now that means something -- often living somewhat outside of society or even off the grid altogether; trying to act communally to change the problems you see around you. But the "ska lifestyle" as such doesn't exist to the best of my knowledge, other than as maybe an upbeat mentality, or a tendency to dance all night and look sharp in a monochrome wardrobe that always co-ordinates. If you, fierce reader, know of a jumpin' ska lifestyle I've been missing out on, please write so us BBC Americans can all get together and do the ska! ska! ska! Thanks, rude boy! Or is that rude girl?

 

From Tee Bob:

Lady V,
The term "bottom line" is most often used in business to mean goals based on strict accounting criteria. Is this concept in tune or in conflict with punk ethics and punk business practices? What is the punk business ethic and where does it stop?
Love and Donuts, Neonsandwich

Dear Neonsandwich,
You're basically asking a very Christmas question: how much is enough? Obviously, that's the problem with rampant and unbridled capitalism; the greedy mentality that Bob Marley described as the big fish that eat small fish, who "would do anything to materialize their every wish" in his song 'Guiltiness'. But it seems that so-called socialism in action often fares little better, leading one to think that maybe no system works and humans are doomed to lurch from one misguided attempt at a functioning society to another. Personally I'm a simple liberal humanist with no economic background, but you inspired me to look up "compassionate capitalism" and found that there's lots about it online. Major companies are now becoming aware that giving back to the community is both good PR and a great way of establishing brand loyalty. So it may be in a slightly twisted way, but punk ideas are filtering through the system it kicks against.

When pioneering punk indie label Rough Trade Records started out, they operated a 50/50 system with their artists, and their publishing company gave an unusually generous royalty to their songwriters (who included me.) It was an unprecedented business angle that earned a lot of loyalty; but sadly for the indie spirit, didn't stop their publishing catalog from winding up as yet another asset of the mega-multinational, Universal. But the favorable publishing splits they gave to artists weren't why that incarnation of Rough Trade went down; and their "No Rip Off!" spirit still serves as a good ethical guideline for punky entrepreneurs.

The bottom line is that 'cos it's designed to deal with reality, punk is all about the bottom line.

Love and tofu cheesecake to Neonsandwich, who wants you to check his music and ideas online, please.


Since we last met....

Pioneering trip-hoppers Portishead broke a decade's silence to play at A Nightmare Before Christmas at a kitschy British holiday camp in the seaside resort of Minehead... and Carbon/Silicon finally played NY...

The Clash were one of the main UK punk bands to support hip-hop. Post-Clash, guitarist and songwriter Mick Jones has had other bands, but in his new combo who we've talked about before, Carbon/Silicon, he reunites with one of his oldest mates, Tony "TJ" James. Our Spy at NY's High Line Ballroom was Jody Worth, writer/producer (Deadwood, NYPD Blue) and ex-lead singer of Blow-Up (www.blowupband.com). OK, he's a mate of the band's -- but the man's punk enough to tell us if they were awful!

Says Jody:
"First visit to Highline Ballroom, and what better reason? Mick Jones's first appearance on a New York stage in 12 years -- Tony James' in 17. This show is sold out too, punters ranging from teens to 60s. When the band hit the stage it's hard to tell who's happier, the crowd to see them, or Mick and Tony to be there. Two geezers, each in smart, dark suits, like a punk rock version of the Kray Twins. Mick smiled and joked, "What are you cheering for? We haven't done anything yet!"

 

 

A job well done! Carbon/Silicon rock the house.

Image courtesy of Astralwerks

 

Opening with "Magic Suitcase," the connection is instant, and the band rides the wave. Two (loud) guitars and a powerhouse rhythm section comprised of drummer Dominic Greensmith (Reef) and ex-B.A.D. bassist Leo "Ee-zy-kill" Williams, sans samples or DJ. Live, it's definitely more Carbon than Silicon. James and Jones are all smiles, old friends having a blast. One guy out front shouts "This is real rock and roll! This is not bullshit!" Mick, who would never say such a thing himself, grinned widely and pointed, commenting, "That guy! What he said!" The crowd, including ex-Ramones' manager Danny Fields, Gabby Glaser, photographer Bob Gruen, Josh Cheuse, Chris and Tina from Talking Heads and ex-B.A.D. keyboardist Andre Shapps, roar in agreement.

 

 

Still magic after all these years - Mick Jones and Tony James.

Image courtesy of Astralwerks

 

MJ and TJ have forged a classic axe tandem à la Richards/Jones, or Thunders/Sylvain, even staging mock guitar duels. There were no Clash or Gen X covers, but with Mick serving as M.C. and stand-up comic throughout the 90-minute set, the band aired lively, spontaneous versions of most of their new CD, The Last Post, including "War On Culture," "Really The Blues," ("for Mezz Mezzrow") and "The News." Back for the encore, Mick half-joked they were afraid the crowd might have dispersed while they're chilling backstage. The encore "What The F**k!" burns with a familiar scorching Who-derived riff that formed the basis for much of the early Clash catalogue."

An American tour is penciled in for March/April.

P.S: Jody sez check out Brendan Mullen's new book Live at the Masque: Nightmare in Punk Alley.

 

Carbon/Silicon emerge from the download world.

Image courtesy of Astralwerks

It's a stone fact that as the Clash pointed out, punk and hip-hop are umbilically connected. My key compadre covering British music back in the day was the vivacious photographer Janette Beckman, who became the premiere portraitist of early NY hip-hop, as captured in her new book, "The Breaks: Stylin' and Profilin' 1982-1990" (PowerHouse Books)

 

 

Look This Way.

Image courtesy of Janette Beckman

 

"In London I had spent six years documenting the youthful tribes of punks, skins, rockabillies and ska kids. When I moved to New York in 1982, hip-hop was just beginning," recalls Janette, aka JB. "The Roxy Club was bringing the uptown Bronx rap, graffiti artists, DJs and scratchers to the hip downtown art scene and it was starting to be noticed by the world. Just like the British punk movement which came from working class kids, hip-hop came from the American kids on the streets, who were inventing their new renaissance of music, fashion, dance, style and attitude.

 

 

A Hip-Hop-A-Bibbidee-Bop

Image courtesy of Janette Beckman

 

"Instead of safety pins and Mohawks, hip-hop had gold chains and fades. Instead of letters cut from newspaper headlines like on the Sex Pistols posters, hip-hop had spray-paint graffiti to express its rebellion. Instead of pogo there was break dancing and double dutch. But hip-hop and punk musicians both performed songs about rebellion and criticized the world around them, from the Clash's "London's Burning" to Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five's powerful anthem "The Message'".

I happened to be in JB's Lafayette Street studio in NYC when she shot this picture of Slick Rick. He's holding guns, but I remember how he was extremely twitchy that day, so they obviously weren't making him feel more confident. In his essay for 'The Breaks', writer Tom Terrell describes the rapper: "Slick Rick; black eye patch, bejeweled velvet crown, and rakish gold-toothed grin, gold dookie/rope/link chains around his neck, each diamond encrusted silver ringed hand clutching a gold gat..."

 

Don't let the photo fool ya. Guns didn't really cheer him up.

Image courtesy of Janette Beckman

 

Tom's singular text, with its juicy African-American flavor, has become even more precious as along with his lauded liner notes for the recent Miles Davis six CD box set of "On The Corner," they were his last published words; my inspirational friend Li'l Tommy Tee died on Dec 6 aged 57, of prostate cancer.

So this column is dedicated - or livicated as the Rastas say -- to Tom.

The Hope Business

The Hope Business means people who make it their business to spread hope.

Cynicism is the weapon of the weak, someone said, and happily, since we last met. I have been exposed to heavy doses of hope. "I prophesy that before too long, HIV will be RIP!" Bono flamboyantly announced onstage at the AIDS charity Keep A Child Alive's star-studded Black Ball in NY's Hammerstein Ballroom. The Irish shaman was being honored alongside  Dr. Pasquine Ogunsanya of Uganda's Alive Medical Services, and Nick Reding, a British actor who moved to Kenya and founded SAFE (Sponsored Arts for Education.)

 

The incomparable and tireless Bono

The Black Ball is known for red-hot music -- and that night was blazing, right from the first foot stomps of a South African dance troupe, Juxtapower, and the intense harmony of South Africa's Agape Choir of AIDS orphans.

 

Juxtapower - Got Zulu?

 

 

The charity's co-founder and global spokesperson is the ludicrously talented Alicia Keys. Unlike many charity-hopping celebs, Keys' is hands-on at KCA's twelve clinics and orphan care sites in seven countries in Africa and India, experiences that have clearly transformed her. No wonder she has a great crew of musical girlfriends, who showed up in force that night -- Sheryl Crow and Gwen Stefani, all in top form.

 

 

Image courtesy of Keep A Child Alive

Alicia always hits the right note

 

 

from l to r: Sheryl Crow, Bono and Gwen Stefani

 

 

 

Gwen Stefani lost in the song

 

 

The music was outstanding. An easy joy flashed between them as they relished jiving and jamming with sisters of equally formidable powers. They tore up tunes like Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues", Sheryl's "Winding Road", U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday,"  Gwen's "Watcha Waiting For" and Alicia was tender in her delivery of "Like You'll never See Me Again" and Bob Marley's "Turn The Lights Down Low." Keys said, "You don't know what this voice does to me," as she introduced opera singer Kathleen Battle and together they tore up U2's "Miss Sarajevo".

 

KCA need all the help they can get, and find innovative ways to bring it on, from their original Dollar A Day program to their new Good Cents Initiative.

 

Nelson Mandela and Bono both big-upped my old friend and hero, Nick Reding, who switched from acting (though you can see him in "Blood Diamond"!) to found SAFE. Perhaps only Nick could have made it happen -- three traveling theatre troupes on the Coast, in Nairobi slums and the wild Masai highlands, performing original plays that make the audience laugh till their hardness to AIDS sufferers crumbles. You may have seen their audacious street theatre in "The Constant Gardener." Truly, Nick's work lives up to SAFE's motto - Compassion, Solidarity and Hope.

 

Top music at a KCA event is no surprise, as spunky, punky founder Leigh Blake, was a CBGB's regular and Talking Heads cohort in the first punk days. Serious artists gravitate to her work because plebs or celebs, Leigh infects everyone with the feeling they can -- and will - make a difference.

 

 

From l to r: Padma Lakshmi, Leigh Blake, Ali Hewson, Bono and Alicia Keys

 

Hope is the mission of my mate Mariane Pearl, too. She recently had the (slightly surreal) experience of being played by Angelina Jolie in the film version of her book, "A Mighty Heart", which chronicles  her search for her missing husband Wall Street journalist, Danny Pearl, and dealing with the grim discovery of his video execution by Al Qaeda. She was just in New York to promote her new book,  "In Search of Hope", and to receive Glamour's Woman of the Year award alongside luminaries including Toni Morrison. It gathers her articles Glamour published over  an extraordinary year spent chronicling little-known local heroines on the front lines of Global Warming, the child sex slave trade, and many other flashpoints. Mariane's series received an overwhelming response from American women, whose urge to understand and act on life's inequities has been seriously underestimated. The grandes dames of Mariane's vivid reportage grab their grim fate and shake it till it recedes and is replaced by a positive future.

What's always attracted me to punk is its inclusionary, activist sense of community, and I agree with Leigh and Nick, who both said that when you have service in your life, things get better, and Mariane's positivity proves it.

 

In signing off, here's a summons from Bono -- "Love thy neighbor is not advice -- it's a command." How punk is that!

London calling and more from reggae central

Here's This Week's Big Question --

 

From S.W.

Firstly, a great thank you for turning me onto some great music when I was at school (eg 'Jeannot Ou Est Le Serieux.) Re: NME (the UK music weekly,) when it was putting Sun Ra, etc. on the cover -- do you think that punk can take any credibility for opening up some of this other 'world music' to a wider public, music which seems again to be ignored. The question there somewhere was about Punk's relation to other music, or the music presses brief period of openness. -Question (b) what about music (punky) that you didn't personally like, for example, I don't know Siouxsie and the Banshees? How do you feel about them in retrospect? And is it possible to like the punk ethic (D.I.Y.) and think the Pistols were miserable and wonder why John Lydon always has to sound eternally bored when he opens his mouth. Something to do with Punk's acquired habit of nihilism..? Also, I loved your record with Chantage. Was it a one off?

Hey S.W, I don't know who or where you are, but your letter does strike a chord that zings in my heart. It's so nice you remember that long gone moment when the music press was really experimental, and having a mass youth audience, there was a way that information about stuff you might never have even thought to look for, snuck into your consciousness. Now it's all split up into niche marketing, special interest groups (which can be good), and there are sites like afropop.com and calabash.com serving world music fans; but you miss out on that random quality of stumbling across some totally unexpected life changing groove in a style you didn't know you liked.

Just like you, it really was the D.I.Y. punk ethic that got me, babe; though that Rotten snarl trademarked a moment, still gives the chills, and did the job of grating up the charts like nails scraping the paintjob of a new Humvee, Rotten himself was more likely to chill out at home with a wicked dub than a punk 45, and so was/am I. Having said that, "Oh Bondage Up Yours" by X Ray Spex is still a disc to live by/with/for, and the same goes for many punk gems.

The point you make about punk and world music is a good one -- certainly the more complex sounds of post-punk, like Gang of Four or the Raincoats, say, aren't shy to be jazzy; and of course, punk interacted profoundly with reggae, which was the "world music" of the time, as African and other non-Anglophone musics were rarely around. I reckon the rather sad tag of "world music" loosely means stuff that it isn't sung in American or British English.

Gang of Four's - I Love A Man in Uniform 

P.S. S.W. -- I love that you remember "Jeannot Ou Est Le Sérieux" and my old Chantage record, "It's Only Money" both from the early 80s! Yes, that twelve inch was our one and only. Maybe me and my mysterious partner in our duo, Moona, should unleash it on the world again. How ever did you find it?

QUESTIONS FROM MY READERS FOR NEXT TIME...BE SURE TO STOP BACK BY FOR THE ANSWERS

From Drew S.
How would you define the differences between Punk and Ska, both the music and the lifestyles?

From Tee Bob
Lady V, The term "bottom line" is most often used in business usually to achieve goals derived from a strict accounting criterion. How is this concept in tune and in conflict with punk ethic and punk business practices? What is the punk business ethic and where does it stop?
Love and Donuts, Neonsandwich

Since We Last Met:

The Stranglers performed at Camden Town, London's legendary Roundhouse - 30 years to the day since they last played the venue...the Bush Tetras played NY after almost as long away...and arguably the biggest re-reunion of all, the Sex Pistols did LA and London... and here are special reports from our Spies...  

The Stranglers - Midnight Summer Dream

The Bush Tetras - Too Many Creeps 

 

London:

When I labored at punk-rock weekly SOUNDS in London, one of our bright writers was Pete Silverton who went on to co-author "I was a Teenage Sex Pistol" with Glen Matlock, the Tuneful Pistol.

Glen Matlock

 

Pete Silverton - Our man at the Sex Pistols homecoming happening

Pete reports from London:  "They were the Sex Pistols. They played every song they knew and recorded. It was everything you wanted. It was loud and fun and noisy and familial in a strange kind of way. My son wore my original 1970s black leather Schott jacket, the Ramones one. It was a typical moment of the evening. The audience was far too acute to complain that this was a show rather than the frightening, unstable upheaval of a 1976 Pistols 'performance'. I didn't pay, of course. But I would have."

L.A.:

Jamaican scene maker Wayne Jobson, aka Native Wayne, is a film-maker and top reggae DJ on the West Coast's Indie 103.1. Back in the classic punk time in London, he was a real reggae regular on the scene and had a band back home called Native, together with his wonderful brother Brian. Their daring, haunting album "Rockstone", produced by dubmaster general Lee "Scratch" Perry, is just reissued on the groovy UK label Pressure Sounds. Wayne reports from the Pistols' LA show -- where old cohort John Lydon bigged him up from the stage!

Rare reggae groove from the fabulous Jobson Brothers

"I have seen the future of punk music, and it is the past!" The Sex Pistols stepped onstage at the Roxy in Los Angeles and showed all the clones to the throne like Green Day that they are all still green and that their day has not yet come! Easily one of the greatest front men in history, Johnny Rotten put all the impostors in their place, even reminding the audience that it was the Pistols that started the revolution and not the Ramones! Steve Jones attacked his axe like the crazed Jack in The Shining. Paul Cook and Glen Matlock showed us why they are still "the tightest rhythm section in punk music."

And more from Reggae Central. You want to play for hours, opening the wee envelope flaps to discover the mini-CDs and memorabilia of "Reggae Scrapbook" (Insight Editions), a very personal statement from actor/broadcaster/archivist and Marley specialist, Roger Steffens of Reggae and African Beat magazine, and photographer Peter Simon. They ransack their visual and memory stash to deliver a glorious, very touchable coffee table book of tricks and tales.

Reggae Scrapbook cover by Roger Steffens and Peter Simon Chocka with reggae tchotchkes.

A last word on New Identity Dance Music: By starting the weekly Basement Bhangra parties in Manhattan in 1997, DJ Rekha became godmother to a global movement that made the thundering throb of the traditional tall dhal drum a regular sound on Ibiza dance floors. Guests at Rekha's album launch at writer/producer/actor/siren Tanya Selvaratnam's Lower East Side pad cheered this long-awaited long-player, which features collaboes with Wyclef Jean and remixes by all the bhangra biggies -- Bally Sagoo, Apache Indian, Punjabi MC.

From l to r: DJ Rekha, Tanya Selvaratnam, Vivien Goldman at the Basement Bhangra bash

Marc Bolan's 60th Birthday Party

From Ron Ramone:

Dear Punk Professor,

Part of your response to the question "Is the UK cooler than the USA"? struck a chord with me. You wrote, "One distinction that I have observed: the English generally tend to prize eccentricity more than Americans, which partly explains why punk flourished there." Let us not forget that punk in the UK was way more a political statement than it was in the US. The Ramones were not singing about anarchy or dead-end jobs like the Pistols & the Clash were. In the US it was driven by boredom with the status quo, how corporate rock music was and how conservative society had become. In the UK it was also more of a fashion statement & in the US it was more of an anti-fashion statement. That said; I believe that you'd see that the East & West Coast of the US prized eccentricity more than the South & Midwest. That is why the punk communities in places such as Boston, New York & LA flourished. So I guess I really don't have a question.

Dear Eric,

Thanks for your interesting points, which all make sense. It's very punk of you to "not have a question"! But negative's the flip of positive and your non-question actually extends the debate on the links between US & UK punk -- what do you reckon about it, rough readers? -- and even takes it a stage further. So here's a non-answer to your non-question. You reinforce a general observation that's cropped up quite a bit in chats with NY people who've moved to Miami, where I'm writing this. Everyone agreed that coastal areas around the world, not just in US or UK, are often more receptive and sophisticated than inland regions; maybe because they're so obviously on the edge, just oceans away from Other Cultures. Anyway, Other Cultures are likely to be sitting next to you on the subway, so we're all Other Cultures now. OK, let's hear it from angry landlocked readers!

I wish you glitter, fierce reader, and plenty of it. Like the glitter that twinkled against the dark trees as a motley crew pranced onto the stage at Marc Bolan's (posthumous) 60th Birthday Party at Central Park's Delacorte Theatre on a recent warm Saturday evening. It was like a carnival "by the light of a magical moon" as Marc sang.

Marc Bolan was an enchanted, enlightening figure in 1970's UK pop who went through many mutations -- almost as many as his frenemy David Bowie -- starting out as a mystic hippie bard ("My people were fair and wore stars in their hair...") and switching teams to become the prototypical glam rocker ("Bang a gong/Get it on...") leading an army of swooning schoolgirls, including me. His shocking death in a car crash in 1977 froze him forever young -- a fey, dirty dandy with dark ringlets and intense kohl'ed eyes. Bolan was a bohemian freethinker who punks adore. A true rock icon.

Marc - Always Amazing

 

 

Looking spiffy in a satin waistcoat by designer Zandra Rhodes

In homage, a galaxy of punk rock stars appeared at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park on a warm Saturday night to show respect. Moby happened to be there celebrating his birthday (though he was careful to point out, it wasn't actually his birthday that day,) and joined a mega-jam onstage. "I'm honored to be playing 'Twentieth Century Boy's visceral libidinous, riff," said Moby. The true Metal Guru, American producer Tony Visconti who helped mold both Bolan and Bowie, played with lots of the bands. He spoke tenderly about when he had a flat in London and Bowie and Bolan were always coming round to jam and party as they both still lived at home with their mums.

 

 

Richard Lloyd (Television) 

 Moby, Clem Burke (on drums), and Tony Visconti

Surprise guest Patti Smith took "Children of the Revolution," right to the barricades and over the top. By the power invested in her, Patti chanted Marc's words like a punk preacher, riffing ferociously on "They're trying to take us down, don't be fooled, child!" and relishing my personal fave couplet, "I drive a Rolls Royce/'Cos it's good for my voice."

 

The High Priestess of Punk

An honor roll of NYC's original CBGB's posse brought Marc's music back to its home away from home -- it turns out that Bolan recorded a lot in the Village. Backup through the show and "Born To Boogie" were performed by NYC punk heroines, Tish and Snooky, who used to be in the Stilettoes with Debbie Harry before Blondie. Now, best known for Manic Panic, their vivid line of punk hair dyes, they're still a rainbow riot. The drummer for Blondie, Clem Burke, lived up to his hype by Moby as "the best rock drummer of all time." Richard Lloyd from Television did "Jeepster".

Rocking très glam/trash leopard-skin jeans as he put some passion into "Ballrooms Of Mars," was Ivan Julian, ex-Clash/Richard Hell and the Voidoids. Two of the New York Dolls did two separate sets, Sylvain Sylvain rampaged through "Get It On" and Steve Conte growled "Rip Off." The Bongos' Richard Barone swanned through "Mambo Sun" and Joe Hurley, who was a prime mover in the show along with Joe's Pub and Bill Bragin, gave "Life's A Gas" some spine-tingling vibes. There was also a dazzling version of "Dove" by a barefoot Icelandic flower child called Ragga.

 

NYC punk heroines, Tish and Snooky

 

 

Ivan Julian

 

 

Two New York Dolls get it on again with Tony Shanahan

 

 

Joe Hurley

 

 

Barefoot Icelandic songbird sings a spell

 

A funky living link to Bolan is pop's own Irish eminence grise B.P. Fallon. Like Zelig, the ageless, elfin B.P. has been scene making since pop began. Not so much a publicist as a vibe conjuror, B.P. promoted people like Elvis Costello at one of the original punk indie labels Stiff Records. Now he has three books out, has a globally roving club night called Death Disco with Alan McGee (who founded Creation Records of Oasis fame.) As always, B.P.'s skating merrily along the cutting edge and now he's managing a very tall, very genial bloke called Justin Tranter, of rad glam band Semi Precious Weapons, who looks as good as Grace Jones in his high fetish heels and corset.

Looking dashing in Bolan's own stripey black/silver satin waistcoat by designer Zandra Rhodes (value: $20,000) Justin kindly lent his own silver waistcoat (value: $20.00) to The Scissor Sisters' glam man, Jake Shears, who joined him along with Steve Conte as Justin conveyed Marc's feline ways on "Metal Guru" and led the multitudes through "Hot Love."

 

Jake Shears, Justin Trantor and Steve Conte

From the past, look to the future. Right now B.P and Justin are pushing on through the mist of confusion round the music business. They are giving away their new CD, "We Love You," (and I love "Her Hair Is On Fire,") free in stores like Urban Outfitters, and even Barney's, where Justin sells his SPW glam/punk jewelry line. B.P sees it as a way forward for musicians, though even he agrees it's not much help for broke musicians who are only good at music and want to work at it all the time. These days, the Children of the Revolution gotta multitask.

Semi Precious Weapons' "We Love You" is out October 30 on Precious Records.

 

 

All pix by Kevin Yatarola/Joe's Pub & Bruce Alexander