Salt Lake City. Some call it Inversion. I call it mutant pollution
Greetings,
Brutal. Absolutely brutal. The air in Utah since I got back from Holiday has been beyond atrocious. “Inversion”. Sounds so innocuous. How about death inducing pollution. Killer smog. Climate change up front and center.
It got me too. I have lived in Salt Lake City since Fall of 1986. The winter pollution gets geometrically worse every year.
I work on the hill at the University of Utah. Driving on my way home (mea culpa!), I can’t believe that orange toxic shit is going into my lungs and a million others. I know several people who have had to go to the emergency room with triggered asthma.
For me, it’s a near bronchial hack and wheeze. (Coughed so hard I thought I broke a rib.) Add to that, my congestion doesn’t settle in my sinuses. But right between my ears.
I am mostly deaf until I clear it out. I was in search committee meetings this week and could not hear the candidates talk.
The Smile Jamaica hearing aid. Found at Bed, Bath and Beyond
And as a deejay that is not ideal either. Tough to find the queue point on the vinyl when I can hear/feel only low end bass.
This takes precision hearing to queue a record
So I was hoping that the heavy bass of Smile Jamaica blasting through KRCL’s monitor speakers would do what Mucinex could not. Blow out my ear tubes. Acoustic levitation in a Irie meditation?
FAIL!
<Inversion vs. Bass; 27 sec.>
Green smoke nah work neither. FAIL!
<Green smoke vs. lung butter; 20 s ec.>
If you are homebound and can’t venture out into the toxic smog, Smile Jamaica works wonders against cabin fever.
Not the naughty or nice list. Who’s getting probed list.
Greetings,
Eff Bing Crosby! Bob Marley’s White Christmas.Fiyah bun Nat King Cole or Sinatra! Let’s hear Jacob Miller Deck the Halls with Boughs of Collie. Pa rum, pu-pum pum!
As a Sumerian Fundamentalist who knows that Ancient Astronaut Theory suggests Santa was an Alien*, I wish all my Bredrins and Sistrins a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
*Sleigh = spaceship. Rudolph’s Red Nose? Tracking beacon
<Santa Claus – Space Alien; 30 sec.>
Don’t take my word for it…listen to John Holt –A Spaceman Came Travelling
Spin this Yuletide podcast crafted in my Secret Dubratory while opening your gifts, slogging down Rum fortiied Egg Nog and sparking up the “christmas tree”.
bless, Bobbylon
0 – 30 min.
Bob Marley & the Wailers – White Christmas; Christmas at Studio One (Heartbeat/Studio One) ’65
Kiddus I – Love Child; Natty & Nice (Rhino) 70’s era
Jacob Miller & Ray I – All I Want For Ismas; Natty Christmas (RAS) ’78 All I want for Ismas is my collie herb
Coco Tea – Christmas is Coming; Badd Santa (Stones Throw) ‘84
Trinity – Santa Claus Comes Once a Year; Big Big Man (Esoldun) ‘84
Tennessee Brown & the Silvertones – Little Drummer Boy; Reggae Christmas From Studio One (Heartbeat/Studio One)
Zia Records on West Sahara in Las Vegas. Great source for black wax
Greetings,
2017 was a topsy turvy year for the Smile Jamaica Ark-ives. Massive home remodel was supposed to start Nov. 2016. Alas, weather, Questar natural gas company and Salt Lake City zoning couldn’t agree on when to move my gas line. WHICH WAS UNDER MY HOUSE!
Stones Throw’ record label brags about “my vinyl weighs a ton!”Mine actually did. I had so many records packed into my Record Room that it sunk the floor below the baseboards.
Surprised a racoon or Burmese python didn’t come in through the hole in my floor, sunk below the baseboard!
So the depressing and frustrating delays didn’t even start until March 2017. Seven months of building out an actual physical archive. No more storing boxes of CDs in the bathroom, bedroom, garage and hallway!
Like any home remodel it was a daily grind of aggravation and interruption to my routine. (If you see me ask me about the bong and the Koran story.)
But once it was done, $25k in over-runs regardless, it has been awesome! New roof, new garage, new AC/furnace/gasline, siding.
I’m no longer that house on the block that looks like a shack with strange smells and jungle drums booming to the street!
Before….…After
***
From my usual cratedig excusion during Thanksgiving Week to Las Vegas 2016 through Fall 2017, I had done a moratorium on cratedigging. Didn’t see the point in just stacking up new titles til my Archive was finished.
During any major remodel, you can’t really leave the city in case the workmen need a decision. My house was built in 1901. A half ass renovation conducted in the early 90’s and I bought it in 1995.
So there were a lot of problems that needed construction troubleshooting.
Once I paid my final tab to my contractor: $5,059. Ouch! I was stoked to make up for lost time and hit Vegas with a vengeance.
And as I said on Smile Jamaica last week. Glad to be only a cliche’ and not a criminal in the land of 8 down!
bless, Bobbylon
Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: Dec. 2, 2017 Annotated Playlist: 69 sec.
Set 1: 4:20 Set
Cornell Campbell – Stalowatt; Stalowatt (Third World) ’76 UK
<Stalowatt = stalwart; 10 sec.>
Scientist – 11 Guava Road Dub; King of Dub (Kingdom) ’81 Dub Album of the Hour
Mungo’s Hi-Fi & Soom T – I Need Weed; 10” EP (Scotch Bonnet) 2013 UK picture sleeve; female weedstepper
Spent Thanksgiving Week cratedigging and vaping my way across Las Vegas. Nice to be only a cliche’ and not a criminal in the land of 8 down!
Mesquite, Nevada.
Just like Evanston on a Friday afternoon, 80% of the cars in the parking lot had Utah plates.
Well fortified, I hit Vegas and cratedug the city’s good record shops (Zia is the place in Vegas and Phoenix for good vinyl.) Their several vinyl only shops (Moondog Records, 11th Street Records). Video poker and black jack.
Moondog Records. Helped the owner price out some rare Reggae black wax. Nice to be remembered when I only get there once a year.
Watched Green Bay play awful in a Green Bay bar in North Las Vegas. Red beers (beer + tomato juice at 10am.) Caught Blade Runner 2049 on the big screen.
Good week except my laptop became a craptop. It died on me just as I was trying to upload this Digital Dubplate devoted to Lee “Scratch” Perry and his mythic Black Ark Studios.
Lee “Scratch” Perry chasing the devil away some heavy bass!
From 1974-1979 when he destroyed it, some of spookiest and thickest Reggae was crafted here. Listen for the mooing cow! Everybody of note made their best Reggae albums in that studio: Max Romeo, Junior Murvin, Prince Jazzbo, George Faith. Even Marley’s Punky Reggae Party, recorded in England, had that throbbing Black Ark sound leavened with some shimmering high end.
At high volumes, I guarantee this will chase the mice away and knock the cobwebs off your walls!
Watty Burnett – I Man Free; Produced and Directed by the Upsetter (Pressure Sounds) ‘74
Lloyd & Devon – Wolf Out Deh; Voodooism (Pressure Sounds) ’77
Smile Jamaica is hosted by Robert Nelson on 90.9 FM KRCL in Salt Lake City, Utah (Saturdays, 4-7 p.m. MT). Ark-ives available weekly here at the Smile Jamaica blog.
Smile Jamaica 