July 2, 1988 was when I ‘n’ I debuted at 3AM on a hot summer night late Sunday/early Monday on radio station KRCL. The name of the show was 3 o’clock Roadblock named after the Bob Marley song.
That started a 3 decade journey of 29 years of Reggae Radio. After a year or so I moved from early morning graveyard shift to the big show: Smile Jamaica.
Saturdays 1-4 PM in 1989-1990 and then moved back to 4pm. Planted my flag and never left.
If I figure I average about 45 shows a year (with time away for cratedigging on the weekends). That amounts to 1305 + shows. Almost 4000 hours of Reggae.
I celebrated with all vinyl a couple weeks back. Took last Saturday off and cooked up a CD best of 29 years in my Secret Dubratory.
Thanks for the musical memories!
bless, robt
If I remember correctly: Black Uhuru’s What Is Life was the first song I played on Reggae Radio: 3AM July 2, 1088
0-30 min.
Naturalites – Picture on the Wall; Rub a Dubble vol. 2 (CSA) ’88 UK
Rita Marley – Beauty of God’s Plan; Who Feels It Knows It (Shanachie) ‘80
Bob Marley & the Wailers – Brainwashing; African Herbsman (Trojan) ’71 nursery rhyme
Peter Tosh – Recruiting Soldiers; Mystic Man (EMI America) ‘79
Al Leon kicking the bong around. Spaceship kind a cloudy!
<Prince Lincoln: The Aliens gonna whip you and put you in your rightful place!; 10 sec.>
Greetings,
If you have listened to Smile Jamaica regularly over the past 5 years or so you will notice that one of my musical fascinations is UFO tunes.
I used to do political interviews on KRCL. When the Radioactive program was changed by an odious new station manager, (who has since ignominiously resigned), to a lightweight news show as opposed to hard news format, I quit doing it. I charitably said I “retired” from political interviews.
That left me with a whole heap of time to explore other pursuits. Based on recommendations from a couple of my coffee buddies, I started watching the Ancient Aliens show on History Channel.
Giorgio Tsoukalos the Bob Marley of Ancient Aliens
The gist of the show is that Ancient civilizations were impacted by travelling space visitors who helped create mankind to do their bidding: mining gold to repair their damaged atmosphere on their home world of Nibiru.
The 12th Planet that exists at the outside of our solar system.
Nibiru loops around on its elliptical orbit and approaches earth every 3600 years
The show tracks mostly Sumerian, Egyptian and Mayan stories and myths. I’m one half Assyrian – from the land of the two rivers (North of ancient Sumer.) So I was fascinated by the connection between one man’s mythology and an alternative world cosmology
Sumerian Tree of Life is a double helixThe Anunnaki created us from DNA of their creation
<Cosmology vs. Mythology; 3 sec.>
One of the things I noticed, especially in Mutant Dub, was the number of Reggae and Dub tunes devoted to space travel, aliens and UFOs. Add in several dozen Rock examples and you have enough for a 3 hour showcase on Smile Jamaica. I got to nearly 300 on my Itunes UFOria playlist. A Smile Jamaica episode averages about 35 songs in 3 hours.
Ground control to Major Tom
Since so much of Rastafari Reggae is devoted to the Bible, I could connect the dots between Sumerian Cosmology of the Anunnaki – Those who came from the sky and UFO’s in the Bible and other ancient stories.
Noah’s Ark – No: Ziusudra in his submarine or Utnapishtim in his Tesseract (spaceship)
Burning Bush – Spaceship
Ezekiel’s Wheel – Spaceship
Jacob’s Ladder and the Stairway to Heaven – Spaceship
Elijah’s Chariot of Fire – Spaceship
Enoch (Noah’s great grandfather) – “walked with God and then was not”. Taken to the Heavens via Spaceship
Magic Carpet Ride – from the Arabian A Thousand and One Nights – Spaceship
Vimanas from Hindu theology – flying spaceships who fought battles in the skies
Lot’s wife was not turned into a pillar of salt. That is the wrong Hebrew word. She was turned into a pillar of smoke after a nuclear attack to destroy the Sinai spaceport.
Jacob’s ladder: From the ground to a waiting Spaceship
Even Led Zeppelin would agree:
There’s a lady who’s sure All that glitters is gold And she’s buying a stairway to heaven. When she gets there she knows If the stores are all closed With a word she can get what she came for.
The idea that space travellers from hundreds of thousands of years ago had the capacity to see Earth as a habitat to exploit seems far fetched. But is it any less fantastical than the Bible, Greek myths or Hindu stories?
The original dreads
But one man’s Skygod is another man’s Ancient Astronaut. According to Ancient Aliens, man’s evolution and creation is connected to the very same DNA that contains mysteries we mere humans can not yet comprehend.
Noah’s Ark is unbelievable. 2 of every animal on a ricketty ass wooden boat? 70 cubits is 105 feet. Less than a modern Aircraft carrier. So you’re gonna fit elephants, giraffes, hippos and rhinos etc? Plus all the smaller creatures. No way.
How you gonna keep the lion from eating the lamb?
Space ship or submarine? Makes more sense. And if the Anunnaki could travel from the outer reaches of our Solar System, they would have the advancement to use the DNA they developed to re-create the animal and plant kingdom from seed banks and DNA repositories they housed on board their space craft.
Modern day physicists believe that the Tesseract space ship could flex time to enable space travel. It was how Utnapishtim left earth for the skies during the Great Flood
Modern technology we can’t even hope to approach in 2017 in an era of primitive Earth history. What local Sumerians, Arabs, Hebrews, Mayans and Hindus saw as chariots, or flying carpets or ladders we would immediately recognize as space craft.
The Anunnaki – see his wristwatch
Listen to my description and Tena Stelin’s song paying tribute to the Ancient Astronauts coming down from the sky…
<The Anunnaki phenomenon>
***
In America, UFOs are most connected with the July 1947 Roswell New Mexico crash. Wasn’t swamp gas or weather balloons until military censorship
July 8, 1947: RAAF – Roswell Army Air Field
Long story short: In early July 1947, a ranch foreman named William Brazel discovered debris of a downed space craft. He recovered bits of the material and took it home. When he crinkled the metallic material it resumed its smooth, flattened exterior.
The Air Force bullied him into giving up his souvenirs. The Air Force investigator, Jesse Marcel, was also finessed into claiming what he found was nothing more innocuous than a weather balloon.
Fake news 1947: DENVER – UNDATED: Major Jesse Marcel from the Roswell Army Air Field with debris found 75 miles north west of Roswell, NM, in June 1947. The debris has been identified as that of a radar target. The Air Force released a report on 24 June debunking reports of a UFO crash near Roswell, NM, in 1947. (Photo by: UNITED STATES AIR FORCE/AFP/Getty Images)
I have a personal connection to what happened in Roswell that day. My brother in law, Michael, sells high tech pipe to computer companies. He is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
<Robert’s Roswell Recap; 1 min. 14 sec.>
He was in Roswell selling high tech pipe to local salsa manufacturers. He was having lunch in the local cafe with one of his clients. He innocuously asked, “What’s the deal with Roswell and UFOs?”
His lunch mate said that the coroner was instructed by the Air Force to bring 3 child size coffins to the Base. “You don’t need coffins for a weather balloon.” The coroner was total salt of the earth, rural roots and no big city conspiracy nut.
That was enough for me! Do not scoff, Look to the skies!
<Coffins for a weather balloon?>
bless, robt
Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: July 8, 2017 Tracklist: 70th Anniversary of Roswell UFO Crash: 1 min. 17 sec.
Set 1
Ancient Astronauts – From the Sky (ESL) 2009 Roswell UFO 70th Anniv. Show
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra – Also Sprach Zarathustra; 2001 Space Odyssey (MGM) ’68
Jimi Hendrix Experience – EXP; Axis: Bold as Love (Reprise) ’67
Kingstonians – Come We go Moonwalk; Sufferer (Attack) ’70
Dubadelic – MIB; Bass Invaders (ROIR) ’98 Men in Black
Dennis Alcapone – The Sky Is the Limit (Flying Machine); Guns Don’t Argue (Trojan) ’70
WordSound I Powa – Intro; Live From Planet Crooklyn (ROIR) ’96 – Aliens looking for weed; 14 sec.
The Herbaliser – Moon Sequence; Road of Many Signs EP (Ninja Tunes) ’99 UK space chatter
Laurence Harvey – First Came the Sky Chariots; Ancient Astronauts (Laurence Harvey) 2008
The champion of UFOria movies
Set 2:
Kraftwerk – Spacelab; Man Machine (Capitol) ’78
Dubblestandart feat. Devon D – We All Have to Get High; Immigration Dub (Collision) 2007 Jah-stria – quoting Jim Morrison – out here on the perimeter there are no stars, we is stoned immaculate; 15 sec.
Transcend – 2002; Earthrise.ntone.1 (Instinct) ’95 space chatter
Anubian Lights; Outer Space Music; Naz Bar (Crippled Dick Hot Wax) 2001 Ezekiel UFO
Fall of 1986. Moved from Bozeman, Montana to SLC for University. Met a guy in the dorms from Baltimore with a kick ass stereo. CDs were new. I was looking for a new music form (mid 80’s synthesizers weren’t cutting it for I ‘n’ I). Dabbled in blues and world looking for a sound.
Neal my music pal, played for me a tough looking Reggae group called Black Uhuru. Anthem was the name of the album. On his massive stereo in the cinder block dorm rooms it was like an epiphany.
That’s the sound I am looking for! Went out and bought the LP the next day. (Couldn’t find the CD locally.) That lit the fuse to 29 years of Reggae Radio. 66 sec.
Wasn’t Bob, Peter, Jimmy or UB40. It was Michael Rose, Puma Jones and Duckie Simpson
Wheel it forward to Spring of 1988. The local community radio station ran ads looking for late night volunteers. My roommate and I were in the Pie Pizzeria near the U of U campus. We had both been doing little shows running in the Student Union on something called K-UTE. My show was called Positive Vibration (after the Bob song.)
Roomie wanted to do 80’s indie. KRCL had plenty of that. But accepted me for late Sunday/early Monday – 3 o’Clock Roadblock (Also Bobness.) Six weeks of training before I debuted July 2, 1988. 84 sec.
Once I got the show, it gave me a reason to begin expanding the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives. Jah forbid, I play the same album two weeks in a row. So I would take my student loan check, thanks Ronald Reagan, bank it in a savings account. And then once or twice a year, drive or fly to the Bay Area and scour the plentiful record stores.
The secret? CDs are half as wide as an LP. So you could fit twice as many, at nearly double the cost, in each rack.
As consumers started selling vinyl for seed cash for CDs, I swooped in and vacuumed up all the great Reggae for dirty cheap. I would get UK albums that sell for $100 on Ebay in 2017 for around $4. I rarely paid more than $10 for an album.
That’s how you get to this three decades later….
The permanent home of the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: June 2017
<Smile Jamaica’s Cratedig itinerary: Reno, Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, El Cerrito, Mill Valley; 26 sec.>
Drive across the Golden Gate Bridge to Mill Valley. Village Music was worth the trip. No longer in business
So on July 1, 2017 – I celebrate 29 years of juggling black wax!
bless, robt
Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: Annotated Playlist July 1, 2017 – 29th Anniversary All Vinyl Showcase; 85 sec.
Set 1:
Zap Pow – This Is Reggae Music; Reggae Rules! (Rhino) ’80 US
Alien Dread – Firstlight; Cosmic Dub Clash (Log On) 2009 UK Dub Album of the Hour
The Meditations – There Must Be a First Time; Message From the Meditations (United Artists) ’76 US – Lee Perry prod’n
ILive – Natty Dread on the Mountain Top; Jah Guide (Out of Many, One) ’90 San Fran female singer
Crutches & D. Brown – Wackie Fence Skank; Java Java Dub (Impact!) ’72 UK studio labrish
Desi Roots – Weedfields; Weedfields (Hawkeye) ’80 UK 4:20 Cannabis Service Announcement
<Burning the weed fields killed the Jamaican middle class; 25 sec.>
Kojak & Liza – Black Skin; Showcase (Nigger Kojak) ’80 JA
Ronald Wilson Reagan: Funded the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives – GOOD; Insisted Jamaica burn its weed fields – BAD
Set 2:
Soul Syndicate – King’s Highway; High Times All Star Explosion (Alligator) ’85 Chicago blues label
I Roy – Commandment II; Ten Commandments (Virgin) ’80 UK yellow, picture sleeve – to Bob Marley’s Heathen
Sister Carol – Spidla-Ding; Black Cinderella (Jah Life) ’84 Brooklyn singjay
President Raygun regrets funding the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives through the Student Loan Program
<Livicated to Ronald Reagan; 10 sec.>
Greetings,
The Rastas called him:
Ronald
Wilson
Reagan – 666
I pay tribute to his legacy in funding the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives through the 80’s student loan program. 30 years ago it was more Pell Grants than 9% Loans.
So I would take the check, put in a savings account and once in the summer and usually once during the Holidays, I would travel to the Bay Area and descend upon the plentiful record stores from Reno to San Jose.
So it is hard not be nostalgic after I have been moving into my 400+ square foot Ark-Ive: 31 sec.
From the Garage:
To the Ark-Ive:
Spent 2k on CD towers to empty out the cardboard boxes and onto shelving. Every Saturday before Smile Jamaica since New Year’s I have prepared for this move.
Now that I am inside the house, I have to make sensi of the entropy. A journey of a thousand miles begins with unloading a single box.
A luta continua – The struggle continues
bless, robt
He did alright for I ‘n’ I
Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: June 24, 2017: Annotated Playlist: 40 sec.
Tree House of Horror Stylee – FOX runs the Simpson’s Halloween special after Oct. 31st because of their World Series telecasts: 24 sec.
<Say it with me!>
Greetings,
Some time around 91 or 92 a fellow DJ on KRCL used to do a little segment called 4:20 Funk. Station management told him to stop it. When he told me this, I immediately started doing the 4:20 Cannabis Service Announcements.
In 1993 that led to my first 3 hours Cannabis Service Showcase. Station management was none too pleased and I dared them to challenge me. Smile Jamaica is a cash cow at Radiothon so I knew I had some leverage.
Sometime around 2008 I discovered how to rip audio from CDs to import to Audacity and cut marijuana soundbytes like this:
<Watch out for Johnny Law! 16 sec.>
The cops and sheriff deputies in Fort Benton, MT always had the best dope
For the past ten years my harvest (pun intended) has grown to 107 soundbytes on my Itunes SOUNDBYTES_CANNABIS playlist. Plus I have about 2 dozen I didn’t rip that I found this year.
Whenever I listen to something and a bongrip or herb salutation appears, I play it on Smile Jamaica and then put it on the edit pile for 2018; Jah willing.
The ones I especially love are the 60’s and 70’s anti-marijuana Public Service Announcements (thus my Cannabis Service Announcements).
Let it not be said Smile Jamaica did not give equal time to to the prohibitionists!
<Marty was a good boy til his first joint>
So enjoy this exploration in musical free speech and hope for the day when Pres. Tulsi Gabbard legalizes marijuana in the United States and I can shout to the heavens: 50 D0WN, ZERO TO GO!”
Hawaiian Congresswoman submitted a bill to end federal marijuana criminalization.
bless, robt
Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: 24th Annual 420 Herbal Extravaganza; 52 sec.
<Smile Jamaica’s 107 420 soundbytes between the songs 29 sec>
In the middle of Spring fund drive at your station that rules the nation. So in order to keep fresh roots on the podcast version of Smile Jamaica, I cooked up three hours of my specialty: Mutant Dub.
Requested by a Twitter follower. These are the heavy bass and echo with Jamaican drum ‘n’ bass with modern electronic and echodelia.
Play loud so the bass pulsates!
bless, robt
Princess Leia pon the riddims
Smile Jamaica Digital Dubplate – Mutant Dub Mash-down Playlist:
0-30 min.
Thievery Corporation – Let the Chalice Blaze; The Temple of I & I (ESL) 2017 DC herb instrumental
Afro Omega – Set in the Sky; Love Emergency (Afro Omega) 2008 SLC dubbers w/ female vox
Benga – Light Bulb; Diary of an Afro Warrior (Tempa) 2008 UK
Bass Communion – Ghosts on Magnetic Tape IV; Ghost on Magnetic Tape (Headphone Dust) 2003 UK
The Herbaliser feat. What What; The Blend (Cuban Blend); CD Single ’97 UK feat. Female vox
Thievery Corporation – Temple of I & I – best of 2017
30-60 min
Bentley Rhythm Ace – Do the Christmas Rush (EMI) 2000 UK
Chris Joss – Get With It; Teraphonic Overdubs (ESL) 2007 Fr.
Black Star Liner – Swimmer; Bengali Bantam Youth Experience (Warner) ’99 UK Hindi-dub
Ancient Astronauts feat. Phat Old Mamas – A Hole to Swallow Us; We are to Answer (ESL) 2009 Germ. w/ female vox
Audio Active – Happy Shopper; Happy Happer (ON U Sound) ’95 Jah-pon
Nightmares on Wax – Da Feelin; Thought So… (Warp) 2008 UK
Dubadelic – MIB; Bass Invaders (WordSound) ’98 Men in Black – UFOria
Brooklyn Funk Essentials Everton Sylvester – I Got Cash; Make Them Like It (Shanachie) 2000 NYC dub poet rudeness
Kid Loco – Cocaine Diana; Kill Your Darlings (Division One) 2001 downtro
2 and 1/2 – 3 hr.
Manasseh Meets the Equaliser – Souljah; Dub the Millennium (Acid Jazz) ’96 UK
Word Sound I Powa – Dungeon of Dub; Live From the Planet Crooklyn (ROIR) ’96 Brooklyn
Natacha Atlas – Man’s World; Something Dangerous (Mantra) 2003 Fr. Arabic/Jewish sings James Brown
Jeb Loy & the Oil Wells – Things That Made U.S. – Wild Paarty Sounds (Cherry Red/ON U Sound) ‘81
Natacha Atlas: Belgian, Jewish, Moroccan
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 