Speaking of bass culture, (and contrary to popular belief) it needs to be said that White Man in Hammersmith Palais was neither The Clash‘s first reggae song (that was Police + Thieves), nor its best (probably something from Sandinista). But it was the first one they actually wrote, Joe Strummer to be specific, slipping out of his punk mindset long enough to wax poetic on politics and music, Robin Hood and Hitler, black and white, everything really.
Skull rattling dub poetry c/o Linton Kwesi Johnson makes it clear that reggae music is mostly about the bass, the way it makes a body (and thus a whole culture) move. The drums, they just keep things rock steady. The guitars, keyboards, horns etc – they’re just along for the ride. It’s the bass that’s going places, and sometimes the poetry, “like a righteous harm, giving off wild like madness.”
“I’d heard dub before I heard UB40’s Present Arms in Dub. I just didn’t know it was a thing – this notion that now every song and/or album could have both its official version and its VERSION version. Some were crying rip-off, of course, accusing labels and artists of double-dipping (or whatever). But there are always loud idiots when something cool and new hits. In the case of Present Arms (the dub version), that equaled an album that was better than the original (and probably anything else UB40 would ever do) because like Sun Ra said (and Hawkwind too for that matter), space is the place, and where there’s a version, there’s always more space – for your mind, your imagination, your soul, room to move and groove, perchance to grow.” (Philip Random)
Joe Higgs (the man who taught Bob Marley how to sing) delivers yet another sort of lost hit from way back when, that murky part of the 1970s when reggae still hadn’t really been discovered by the rest of the world and yet, no coincidence, was probably at its best.
George Dekker (straight outa Jamaica) delivers a timeless anthem of rather uplifting despair, if such is possible. Because things are always getting worse, just turn on the news, which is no reason to stop moving. “I remember a work friend whose younger brother was dying of Hodgkin’s. She loved this song. I’d ask her how things were. She’d raise a triumphant fist and declare, Things Are Getting Worse.” (Philip Random)
“I’m pretty sure Toots + the Maytals were the first reggae band I ever consciously heard. It was their cover of John Denver’s Take Me Home Country Roads, which showed up on local radio in around 1976. I would’ve been sixteen or seventeen at the time, and I hated it. The man couldn’t sing and the rest of the band were just wrong somehow, seeming to have no idea how to play proper funk. But jump ahead to 1983 and I was naming Funky Kingston as one of my fave all time party albums. And I was right. It really is right up there. Which gets us to teenagers. When they’re wrong about something, they’re at least comprehensive about it.” (Philip Random)
Randophonic 