No One Else

At 83, Lee 'Scratch' Perry is still alive and kicking, recording and gigging. And that's cool of course. But as I prefer the early output of the wizard producer from Kendal, Jamaica, let's skank to a trio of deep cuts from the Upsetter years today. "I am the avenger, you'll never get away from me..."

Lee 'King' Perry - I Am The Upsetter
The Upsetters - French Connection Chapter 2
The Upsetters - Bad Lamp

Elephant Stone

Horns and jungle drums unite as Scratch & company dub it up dreader than dread. Trust me, this is upsetting. Find it on Blackboard Jungle Dub, a true reggae masterpiece. This one goes out to Marlon James by the way, first Jamaican to win the Man Booker prize. Can't wait to start reading his Brief History Of Seven Killings, my brethren.

The Upsetters - Elephant Rock

Fa Ya Rights

"Get up and fight for your rights, my brother, get up and fight for your rights, my sister..." Let's lighten up the weekend with a righteous six pack of the roots variety. Seek and you will find, amigos da musica.

The Abyssinians - Declaration Of Rights
Johnny Osbourne - Truths & Rights
Jah Lion & The Upsetters - Truths And Rights
The Defenders - Our Rights
The Mighty Diamonds - Go Seek Your Rights
The Upsetters - Dub Fa Yah Rights

What You Shall Reap

Rejoice Jah people, for once more the sublime folks over at Pressure Sounds have managed to dig up some hitherto unreleased material from the Lee Perry vaults. Roaring Lion, subtitled 16 Untamed Black Art Masters & Dub Plates, is yet another wonderful showcase of the genius they call Scratch. Rarities galore, featuring Junior Byles, Augustus Pablo, Jah Lion, and the Fantels, an ensemble I had never even heard of before. Their Stand And Look shimmers just right.

The Fantels - Stand And Look

El Salvador

If you're even remotely interested in reggae music, pick up Lloyd Bradley's indispensable book Bass Culture. Guy knows what he's talking about. Here's he is on Lee Perry's dub masterpiece Super Ape for instance: "...a jungle of a soundscape so thick you need a machete to hack through the undergrowth, while the vines and creepers continually swing back and hit you in the face. Like nothing else at the time, it shows how far roots reggae could have gone, as it explores roots both thematically as well as musically, Rastafari, righteousness and repatriation from a perspective so skewed it comes back into line as the absolutely spiritual. This man is the Salvador Dalí of dub."

Scratch & The Upsetters - Croaking Lizard

Unitone Skank

Skanking easy today with a genuine Jamaican ten pack, so turn up that bass if you please. Gotta keep on moving, y'all. This one's massive.

Augustus Pablo - Skanking Easy
Ray I - Weatherman Skank
Joe Gibbs & The Professionals - Ghetto Skank
Shorty The President - Yamaha Skank
Erroll Brown - Sky Nation Skank
The Silvertones - Rejoicing Skank
Little Joe - Tradition Skank
The  Upsetters - Kentucky Skank
Dr. Alimantado - Unitone Skank
The Revolutionaries - Rema Skank

Foshan To Hong Kong

This in honour of Wong Kar Wai's amazing new arthouse kung fu flic The Grandmaster. Took his Foshan to Hong Kong trip a couple of days back and was totally bowled over. Granted, the story line was a bit confusing at times, but with this kind of superb photography and mesmerizing choreography, who cares? If deadpan fortune cookie one-liners and the most badass slomo's ever are your thing, too, don't hesitate. Alternative soundtrack by Scratch the mighty Upsetter, a surprising fellow aficionado of the genre.

Lee 'Scratch' Perry & The Upsetters - Kung Fu Warrior
Lee 'Scratch' Perry & The Upsetters - Deathly Hands
The Mighty Upsetter - Black Belt
The Mighty Upsetter - Kung Fu Man

Rasta Pon Top

"May the roads rise to meet you, and the wind be always at your backs..." Getting mighty desperate for some real summer ambiance, so let's try and soften up the weather gods with a tropical soundtrack of sorts. Which should be a roots reggae one of course, my brethren. Presenting yet another red, green, and gold ten pack. Take warning, but swing easy.

Twinkle Brothers - Barabas
Soul Vendors - Swing Easy
Ralph Haughton & The Ebony Sisters - Take Warning
Little Roy - Hardest Fighter
Bongo Gene - Skyjack
Pablo Moses - One People
Herman's Allstars - Nightmare
Jimmy Riley - Living In Fear
David Isaacs & The Upsetters - We Are Neighbours
Tetrack - I'm Not Satisfied

Chasin' The Bird

"The midnight cry of a blood red bird brought this sleeplessness on..." Presenting part two of a feathered six pack. Bird is the word. Collage once again by the mighty Tinca. Buy some of her exquisite art why don't you.

Smog - Blood Red Bird

The Holy Modal Rounders - Bird Song
The Anomoanon - Bird Child
Fun Things - When The Birdmen Fly

The Upsetters - Bird In Hand

Ornette Coleman - Bird Food

To Babylonians Head

"It sipple out deh..." Presenting a red hot Babylonian ten pack for the weekend, dreader than dread. Go down & keep cool.

Max Romeo & The Upsetters - War Ina Babylon

The Prophets - Babylon A Fall

Junior Byles - Beat Down Babylon
The Meditations - Babylon Trap Them

Desmond Irie - Babylon You Must Go Down

Tappa Zukie - Don't Deal With Babylon

The Heptones/The Upsetters - Babylon Falling/Version

Ras Michael & The Sons Of Negus - Keep Cool Babylon
Brent Dowe - Down Here In Babylon
Zeddie Bailey - Dub To Babylonians Head

From The High Plains

Where other reggae reissue labels slowly fade away or have just plain given up, the mighty Pressure Sounds refuses to knuckle under. What's more: it digs deeper still. Just when I thought the Scratch vaults were all but empty, here's High Plains Drifter, a wicked collection of pre-Black Ark Lee Perry productions of 45's only issued in Jamaica.

The Ethiopians - Awake

The Faithful Brothers - Iniquity Workers

Wild Weekend Vol. 62

A not-so-sunny Sunday brings us edition 62 of Wild Weekend, which this time around features two brand new acts, a reggae classic complete with mondegreen, and a lost lofi Dutchman to boot. Is that wild or what?

Gonna start with the gorgeous Bettye LaVette though, as I just bought a much recommended collection of the soul diva's late sixties Memphis recordings with the Dixie Flyers. Thirteen songs and not a dud between them, with We Got To Slip Around my current fave. "You've got another woman, and I've got another man..." To think it wasn't even released at the time, because the version by its author Charles Hodges utilized the same backing track. Roots reggae up next. A good friend asked me recently if I was familiar with Max Romeo's War Ina Babylon album. The answer was a clear yes of course, as I've treasured that Lee Perry produced classic more or less since it came out in the year of our Jah 1976. This pal also told me that when he was young, he always thought Maxi sang "I'm gonna put on an Ajax shirt" in I Chase The Devil. And that's a mondegreen that even puts Hendrix's "Scuse me while I kiss this guy" to shame...

Bettye LaVette - We Gotta Slip Around MP3

Max Romeo & The Upsetters - I Chase The Devil MP3

Two new bands up now, as it's certainly not all old, mothbally stuff around here. The Zermatts hail from smoggy LA, do the lofi pop thing, and use a cool organ to boot. Ramshackle and fun, so worth keeping an eye on I'd say. God bless, you guys. Mount Moriah from North Carolina stumble around in Americana territory, and they do it well. They have a fine singer in Heather McEntire, plus a guitar player who definitely treasures some Crazy Horse and Allmans in his record collection. And since they proclaim in the lovely Only Way Out that "the only way to love something is to give it away...", here you go.

The Zermatts - The Babes In The Woods MP3

Mount Moriah - Only Way Out MP3

Most bands from the noisy Amphetamine Reptile records stable always sounded a bit the same to me, but I make an exception for the Cows. They certainly were loud and uncompromising, too, but used a certain neurotic weirdness to differentiate themselves from the pack. Try their ingeniously titled Cunning Stunts album from '92 to see what I mean and don't look back. And it's closing time with someone who once was the lofi pride of Holland: Joost Visser. He made headway with De Artsen, but missed out when the rest of that band hit the big time with Bettie Serveert. Visser soon made a rather uneven solo album, on which highlights like Fingers In The Wind were promising to say the least, but it seems he has withdrawn from music altogether since then. Come on man, it's comeback time already.

Cows - Heave Ho MP3

Joost Visser - Fingers In The Wind MP3

The Vampire Blues

"Energy vampires, crawling out of the wall, they want to steal my vitality, they want to drink it all..." A draculian six pack for your listening pleasure. Garlic and crucifixes at the ready, 'cause here they come.

The Upsetters - The Vampire MP3

Captain Beefheart - Making Love To A Vampire With A Monkey On My Knee MP3

Neil Young - Vampire Blues MP3

Peter Hammill - Energy Vampires MP3

Sebadoh - Vampire MP3

Devon Irons & Dr. Alimantado - Vampire MP3

Wild Weekend Vol. 34

Yes... and here we go again. Wild Weekend #34 is here, and the hits just keep on coming. Soul, new wave, garage, reggae: you name it, we´ve got it. Just have another wild one.

Reading Eric Davidson´s inspiring Gunk Punk book found me digging up all kinds of garagey sounds from the wild nineties again. Enter Seattle´s Fall-Outs, whose short, sharp and snotty Here I Come used to be a favorite of mine back in the days. Moving into soul territory now, with an early seventies, Swamp Dogg-produced gem by the obscure Freddie North. If you ever chance upon the slogan 'Freddie loves Mary' somewhere, I bet you five dollars it was him back when he was still young and in love. "Now I write my letters with a fancy pen, but my mind goes back to the chalk every now and then..."

The Fall-Outs - Here I Come MP3

Freddie North - Sidewalks, Fences And Walls MP3

I came rather late to the Black Swans, whose presence on a just-released split single with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy urged me to check out their earlier stuff. And guess what? It didn´t disappoint at all. Au contraire. Try the moody Shake, with a cool Scarlet Rivera-like gypsy violin, to see what I mean. Cover time now, featuring the new wave pride of Swindon. On their second album White Music, XTC surprisingly climbed Dylan´s rickety watchtower, where a forgotten mouthharp lay waiting for them.

The Black Swans - Shake MP3

XTC - All Along The Watchtower MP3

I take it you´re all familiar with that tired old folk warhorse about that whorehouse down in New Orleans, but did you ever catch Frijid Pink´s motor city version? From 1970, with Bonzo-inspired drums and wicked guitarwork. Find it on their eponymous debut, a more or less forgotten classic. And it´s bye bye for now with a track from Sound System Scratch, an excellent new Pressure Sounds release dedicated once more to the great mr. Perry. And here I was thinking the vaults must be empty by now... Locks In The Dublight is a dub version of his classic Dreadlocks In Moonlight: short but very very sweet.

Frijid Pink - House Of The Rising Sun MP3

Lee Perry & The Upsetters - Locks In The Dublight MP3

Keep On Dubbing

Dread at the controls taking over... High time to dub it to the top here a bit. One of my fave musical genres, dub basically means stripped-down, instrumental versions of regular reggae songs. Featuring heavy, heavy bass, snippets of vocals, and tons of added sound effects. From echo, tape delay and reverb to animal sounds, ringing telephones, crying babies, gunfire and blaring sirens... Everything goes really, just as long as it pleases Jah.

The legendary Osbourne Ruddock alias King Tubby remains the undisputed master of dub, but other producers such as Lee "Scratch" Perry, Joe Gibbs, Erroll Brown, Herman Chin Loy and Keith Hudson - to name but a few - mixed some mean ones too in their time. And the realization that all these amazing tracks were made with rather limited means, as Jamaican studios didn´t exactly feature state of the art equipment, makes their soundboard wizardry all the more impressive.

The players vary, but often feature reggae revolutionaries Sly Dunbar on drums and Robbie Shakespeare on bass. Without further ado, here´s a well charged dub ten pack for all you brethren out there. No recent stuff here mind, all strickly roots, ´cause that´s the way I like it. Seen?

Herman Chin Loy - Jah Jah Dub MP3

King Tubby - Satta Dread Dub MP3

Augustus Pablo - Keep On Dubbing MP3

Aggrovators - Rockers Almighty Dub MP3

Upsetters - Black Panta MP3

The Revolutionaries - M.P.L.A. MP3

Joe Gibbs & The Professionals - Freedom Call MP3

Vital Dub - Roof Top Dub MP3

Keith Hudson - Black Right MP3

Scientist - Babylon Fight Dub MP3