This is the land of knee-tremblers and wee bastards

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Churchill personally pressured Jamaica to destroy the ganja trade

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Without Marguerita Mahfood, it might have stayed hidden in the ghetto. Marguerita was an international rumba dancer, them call belly dancers in Jamaica. She is a Syrian you know, born in Jamaica. I hear her family come from Honduras. Now Marguerita danced at Vere Johns’s talent show. She used to come to us because she liked the drums. The African riddim had her doing a different thing. So Marguerita had two shows, one at Ward Theater and one at Carib. It was at that time that Norman Manley had said, “Anywhere you see Rastaman, you have to lock them up.” The show was being conducted by Vere Johns Jr. She told him that she wants to dance to Count Ossie. So we all went to the Ward Theater, the best house in Jamaica, and let me tell you! It was like the whole place crashed! People got crazy about the new sound. OK, so we supposed to leave from there now and go to Carib to do the other leg of the show. And when we get there, Vere Johns says no, it won’t work. “Oh, you are going on with a whole heap of Rastaman? You are prepared to disgrace us!” She says, “Mr. Johns if these people not going to play, I not going to dance.” And he says, alright then, we’re going to play, but he is not going to put the light on the stage where we are. He put us in the corner, in the back. When the drums started to play, everybody in the crowd: “Wha? Who dat? We want to see the musicians!” One man hollered out, “Is Count dat, you know!” People were howling, so then the man ’pon the light put the spotlight on our corner, and the whole thing went up. Maggie caused quite a stir, because, man—she could dance. And Count say to himself, “What is dark must come to light!”

THE MAGAZINE THAT DOESN’T KNOW WHEN TO QUIT!

pdfs of all issues - 1GB! - here

Slash: Tell us about the clubs in N.Y.

Lux: CBGB's is really the only club.

Slash: What about the "downtown bands"?

Lux: My personal opinion is, I think it's a good thing to keep those damned art-rock bands separated some place where they can drop out of art school and work out their neuroses! They don't know anything about rock 'n' roll. You can't dance to their music and I couldn't care less about it. I'm not interested in music you can't dance to. Get them out of the bars and put them in a loft!

Ivy: There are a lot of bands trying to get in at CBGBs but the art bands are keeping them out, they're cluttering up the place. They should call their music what it is. They should play for the artists in Soho. 

Lux: This "new wave," I don't know what it is. When rock 'n' roll changed to rock, it became acceptable. When punk rock changed to new wave it became acceptable and all these muck people started moving in.  Robert Christgau from the Village Voice despises us, so he won't write anything about us except snotty remarks and put-downs. He does not understand a goddam thing on what this band is about in the least. A hundred people told me the show we did at CBGB's was the best they'd ever seen and the review in the Village Voice called it "calculated ... sterile ... boring ... "

a chaos of quiffs, leather jackets, brothel creepers and winkle pickers

 

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For whatever reason, the inevitable glut of articles gleefully denouncing the latest punk outrage was counterbalanced by an equal number of items devoted to the small details of punk family life. For instance, the 15 October 1977 issue of Woman’s Own carried an article entitled ‘Punks and Mothers’ which stressed the classless, fancy dress aspects of punk. Photographs depicting punks with smiling mothers, reclining next to the family pool, playing with the family dog, were placed above a text which dwelt on the ordinariness of individual punks: ‘It’s not as rocky horror as it appears’ . . . ‘punk can be a family affair’ . . . ‘punks as it happens are non-political’, and, most insidiously, albeit accurately, ‘Johnny Rotten is as big a household name as Hughie Green’. Throughout the summer of 1977, the People and the News of the World ran items on punk babies, punk brothers, and punk-ted weddings. All these articles served to minimize the Otherness so stridently proclaimed in punk style, and defined the subculture in precisely those terms which it sought most vehemently to resist and deny.

Derrick Morgan got his first exposure, doing his Little Richard imitations

free pdf at the authors website, search it out

The early sound system was functioning as a kind of ‘live and direct’ radio program with the ‘selector’ in the role of the disc jockey. In front of a live audience, the selector would spin the top songs of the day. The format was modeled on the radio stations in New Orleans that played the R&B Jamaicans loved. To imitate the radio jocks, the selector would introduce the records with a little jive talk. He might follow that with hoots and hollers, rhythmic interjections - Hep! Hep! Hep! or Yupyup Yupyup. Like the jazz ‘scat’ singers, they used nonsense syllables - ‘ska ba do, ska ba dooba day…’ The deejay wanted people up on the floor and dancing themselves into a great thirst so they would ‘buy out the bar’, making the whole undertaking a financial success. This practice was referred to as “toasting”, as in public speaking or the act of offering up a few words on behalf of someone before sharing a drink. It was mostly introduction with the instrumental following. Many people consider the first toaster to really ‘deejay’ on a sound to have been Count Machuki. Count Matchuki, like many other reggae legends, started his public life as a dancer but, by 1950, he was working as a selector for Tom the Great Sebastian. He had that little flavour in him, and he brought it on with a lot of style, Clive Chin remembers him carrying around a particular book. “There was one he said he bought out of Beverly’s [record shop] back in the ‘60s. The book was called The Jives of Dr. Hepcat and it had sort of slangs, slurs in it and he was reading it, looking it over, and he found that it would be something that he could explore and study, so he took that book and it helped him.”

"He's sort of the Roky Erickson of Reggae"

pdf or cbr, originally from the great but now sadly dormant Darwination Scans

Lee Perry, also known as "Little," "King," "Scratch," "The Upsetter," "Super Ape," "Pipecock Jackxon," "Kojak," "Dr. On-The-Go," "Inspector Gadget," "Kimble the Nimble," "Boss Kid Flash," "The Sundance Kid," "Mr. Music," "Mr. Grimmer," "Charles Atlas," "Jack Lightning," "William Shakespeare," "Spooky Scratchy," "Jah X," "Black Sun Jesse," "Lord Thunder Black," "The Red Ninja," "The Last Dustbinman," "The Firmament Computer," "The Gong," "The Harp, Sam Sharpe," "Mister P the Weather Bee," "Dr. Syntax," "Super Chin from Castle Grey Bed," "Duppy Air Ace Marshall," "World Marshall," "Emmanuel King Perry," "Westminster Bank Perry," "President Abraham Perry," "The Hebrew King," "King of the Jews," "The Black Jew," "Gabriel the Archangel," "Jesus H. Christ," "Wizzy Wizzy," "Psych-ee," "Santa," "Paul Getty," and "The King of Mess" is beyond dope, he's super dope. Super Ape. And here's why, tough guy.

This was city music, cafe music, the music of pleasure and fleshly delight

 

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Like the cult film of the same name, The Harder They Come is based on the life and exploits of Rhygin, the legendary gunman and songwriter who lived in and around Kingston, Jamaica in the late 1950's. The story begins with Rhygin's childhood in the mountains overlooking the sea. His world is bounded by the rhythms of nature, the bounty of the earth, the stories and moralities of the elders as they repeat them to the new generation.

Drawn by visions of wealth and fame, Rhygin goes to Kingston - the vibrant, squalid, rip-off city - where his innocence is rudely lost. There, hounded by the hard-driving rhythm of reggae, the ritualised violence of the streets, the hypocrisy of religion and the utopian dreamings of the Ras Tafarians, Rhygin reforms into the mythical urban hero: reggae star, stud, ganja trader and gunman. In one stunning image, we find Rhygin dodging his police pursuers as his number one hit song 'The Harder They Come' plays on radios accross the country.

 

 

"Dreamah? Dreamah?" He was almost shrieking with disappointment and outrage. "Me? Dreamah? Is who go to church an' talk about milk an' honey in de sky? An' wan' call me dreamah? Well me nah look fe no milk an' honey in the sky, is right down yahso I deh look mine. Fe me an' you. You know what? I better lef' dis rahtid place, y'know, sah."

Talk about a pie up in the sky

Waiting for me when I die

But sure as the sun will shine

I'm gonna get mine, what's mine

The joint was gummy wid presshah, yaah, an' rocking under a steady, steady reggae roots beat. And crowded! Yea, thick and deep, a glittering and colorful mass bobbing and pulsing, stomping it out. Shantytown Friday night, yea. Ivan had added a small black tam. Neat, not voluminous like the Dreadlocks wore when they wanted to cover their locks. With the shades and the shirt and vest, he was easily the baddest looking rude-bwai in the place.

late night jam sessions would echo into the night from Rasta camps

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Although live jazz music tended to be more popular with the wealthier sectors of the population, it was the sound system that really captured the majority of the island's music lovers. Sound systems became a fixture of Jamaica's post-World War II economic boom, the first having appeared after Jamaicans returned from periods of work abroad, cutting sugarcane in Florida or picking crops elsewhere in the American south. Custom built in Jamaica or brought back from the USA, the huge portable systems used hefty amplifiers and public address systems to blast music through rows of massive speaker boxes; a lasting impression was inevitably made on the listener through the sheer power and volume of the sound. Set up at dances, many of which were held in the open air, the sound system's selector would spin the hottest American rhythm and blues records to catapult Jamaican dance fans into enthusiastic action, egged on by the over the top microphone commentary from deejays that revelled in comic exhortations of verbal wit, outrageously exaggerated hepcat imitations of black American radio disc jockeys. With an entry price of around two shillings and the ability to penetrate the country towns that did not have proper music venues, sound system dances had a wider appeal to the general Jamaican public and did not carry the same restrictions or elite connotations as much of the live jazz scene.

risque movements take bedroom debauchery right onto the dancefloor

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Eat-unda-table of man who indulges in oral sex.

Fling-it-up wild abandon (of dancing or intercourse) u. she can fling it up.

Low-bite a person of the upper class with a taste for the common.

Monkey-money a small sum thought to be of no real value: u. me nuh have nuh use fi monkey money.

Polish 'n' shine oral sex: u. she polish 'n' shine / she indulges in oral sex.

Run a boat the act of pooling resources to afford and prepare a meal; cooking: u. we a go run a boat.

Season breast women masturbate then smear their fluids over their breasts. When later, as part of foreplay, the unsuspecting man licks, sucks, or nibbles on these tits he's said to be having season breasts.

Telegram-carrier term used (by women) to describe men with no sexual staying power: u. de bwoy a telegram carrier.

Vampire corporate business; government; the Establishment

Yuh waan flap a wing term used to ask someone to dance: u. gal, yuh waan flap a wing?

Caution: These badwuds are viewed as being so offensive that their use can, and often does, lead to heated arguments, fights and bodily harm. Do not use them unless you are very confident that you know (a) the company you are in and (b) the true impression these words convey.

a nocturnal network of illegal drinking, gambling, smoking and sex

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The mods, a widespread, sharp-suited, amphetamine-fuelled, largely working-class white youth cult of the time, adopted ska as a supplement to their soundtrack of imported US soul music. Deadly serious about their music – it made as big a lifestyle statement about them as the correct trouser width or hat angle – increasing numbers of mods were to be found at the Flamingo, the Twenties, or the Marquee. Blue Beat and Island records, plus an impressive number of imported singles, were cropping up at mod clubs and all-nighters, as were a noticeable sprinkling of black mods. Many social commentators of the day pointed out that the physical proximity of the indigenous working-class mods and newly arrived immigrants – on council housing estates and in the workplace – fostered such cultural alliances.