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Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: Jah-ly 23, 2022 – Selassie Birthday Tribute!

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Greetings,

Did a search on Discogs.com

  • Rasta – 8000 titles
  • Jah – over 35,000! titles
  • Selassie – 2500 titles

Who is the man Ras Tafari Makonnen?

To millions of devotees Mr. Makonnen became Emperor of Ethiopia and revealed as the embodiment of Christ – Haile Selassie I

The Negusa Negast, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Elect of God ever living God. Earth’s Rightful Ruler. The Head Creator and Power of the Trinity.

Smile Jamaica celebrates his life and legacy in song every week. But especially noted on his birthday: July 23, 1892.

For 34 years, more than half of every song featured on Smile Jamaica are Rastafari* gospel tributes.

*Not Rastafarians – that is an ism and schism

<Happy Birthday Haile Selassie I; 1 min. 43 sec.>

In a far flung province of Harar in Ethiopia a child was born. Ethiopia. Ancient Axum and Abyssinia of antiquity. In the Horn of Africa where Arabia meets Africa.

Selassie’s royal lineage goes all the way back to the Old Testament by virtue of his father’s mother.

<Royal Birth; 32 sec.>

Youthman Ras Tafari Makonnen. Inspired Rasta worship and launched Reggae music into the world

The Hebrew King of the Jews Solomon linked up with an Arabian princess in the ancient province of Sheba. (Most likely in Yemen). Often called the Queen of Sheba, her name was Makeda.

<Haile Selassie – From the line of King Solomon and Queen Makeda of Sheba; 55 sec.>

After some palace intrigues, the young Makonnen commanded an army from the provinces and marched on the capitol of Addis Ababa. The Empress, Zewditu, either “died of diabetes” or was poisoned, making way for the 38 year old prince to become Emperor – Haile Selassie I – Power of the Trinity. First of his name.

Not bad for a governor warrior of a minor province, commanding armies at only 5 foot 2. From victory to rule in two short years (1928-30)

<From Ras Tafari Makonnen to Haile Selassie I; Nov. 2, 1930; 39 sec.>

Nov. 2, 1930 – coronation ceremony of Haile Selassie I

Known as the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, he led his people into modernity. Fought off a cruel invasion and occupation by Fascist Italy from 1935-1941 and eventually became an inspiration to those in Jamaica yearning for a return to the glories of Africa after 400 Years in Babylon.

<Honorifics of His Imperial Majesty; 26 sec.>

And true to his nickname, Selassie had pet lions. Some of which rode in automobiles with HIM (His Imperial Majesty).

<Selassie owned 26 pet lions!; 43 sec.>

***

Wheel it back to Jamaica. The black nationalist, Marcus Garvey, was trying to initiate a movement of impoverished Caribbeans  to leave the West and return to Africa. Make reverse passage out of the diaspora to build lives and industry in the Mother Continent.

The prophet Garvey said, “look to Africa where a King will be crowned as the symbol to begin repatriation.” Within years that prophecy was fulfilled.

Jamaicans, especially in the slums around Kingston, took to this notion and merged bedrock Christianity, mixed with Hindu ideals of reincarnation, into a syncretic religion that became known as Rastafarianism or Rastafari worship if we aren’t abiding “isms and schisms”

Jamaican Pan-Africanist, Marcus Garvey: “Look to the East, where a black King will be crowned”

Why Hindus and reincarnation? After slavery was abolished in 1830 in Jamaica, freed blacks didn’t want to work the plantations. They were content to be small farmers.

So the British plantation owners hired workers from India to do the brutal work of cutting sugar cane. Living by blacks, Hindus brought some important ingredients to Rastafari workship

  1. Collie = cannabis from India venerated the Hindu Goddess Kali. Jamaica’s great soil allowed for a bountiful harvest of the seven leaf. Great after a day of hard labor in the fields.
  2. Reincarnation – Haile Selassie I became the embodiment of Jesus Christ. Instead of a white god, downtrodden Jamaicans had a Black Jesus to worship.
  3. Dreadlocks. The Hindu sadhus wore dreads. Rastas invoked the Nazarite Vow as an Old Testament sign of observed faith.
  • Drink no wine
  • Grow the locks upon your head, never cut nor crease the flesh (no piercings, no tattoos)
  • Avoid anything dead. Vegetarianism and even avoiding funerals.

<Dreadlocks and the Nazarite Vow; 53 sec.>

If you want to read the best book on the Rastas, it is Leonard Barrett’s The Rastafarians.

Alas, Haile Selassie I met an unfortunate end. During the 70’s a terrible famine took hold in East Africa. The 80 year old Emperor was out of touch in the capitol, while thousands were starving to death in the provinces. Even though his governors and courtiers told him everything was fine. Plenty of food. “Two negative growth cycles in a row are not a recession”

That sort of gaslighting doesn’t work now and didn’t work then. In an era of world wide revolutionary movements, Ethiopian Communists – armed to the teeth by the Soviet Union – overthrew HIM in 1974.

Imprisoned in the basement of the palace, never to be seen again. And Ethiopia has been at constant war ever since. Right now a war in Ethiopia, every bit as vicious as Russia v. Ukraine, is killings thousands.

<The Communists – The Dergue overthrow HIM; 62 sec.>

The Dergue – Ethiopian Marxists who unleashed a brutal dictatorship in place of Imperial rule

Of course, to Rastas in the early years of Reggae, were devastated and refused to believe the news. “You can’t kill God!”.

Through that I ‘n’ I celebrate that legacy through Bob Marley’s “Jah Live” to Burning Spear’s “Jah No Dead”

bless, Bobbylon

Jah Live – 7″ commentary on Selassie’s demise.

Jah live! Children yeah
Jah Jah live! Children yeah
Jah live! Children yeah
Jah Jah live! Children yeah
The truth is an offense but not a sin
Is he who laugh last, children, is he who win
Is a foolish dog, bark at a flying bird
One sheep must learn, children, to respect the shepherd
Jah live! Children yeah
Jah Jah live! Children yeah
Jah live! Children yeah
Jah Jah live! Children yeah, Jah
Fools saying in their heart
Rasta, your God is dead
But I and I know Jah Jah
Dreaded it shall be dreaded and dread
Jah live! Children yeah
Jah Jah live! Children yeah
Jah live! Children yeah
Jah Jah live! Children yeah
Let Jah a-rise
Now that the enemies are scattered
Let Jah a-rise
The enemies, the enemies are scattered
Jah live! Children yeah
Jah Jah live! Children yeah

Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: July 23, 2022 – Haile Selassie Birthday

Set 1:

  • Black Uhuru – I Love King Selassie; 10″ (Jammy$) ’77
  • Culture – Calling Rastafari; Calling Rastafari (Nighthawk) ’82 comp.
  • Rita Marley – Thank You Jah; Who Feels It Knows It (Shanachie) ’80
  • Gideon Jah Rubbaal – Love Rasta; Free Us Now (ACL) ’77
  • Chalawa – Jah Collie Weed; Capture Land (Green Weenie) ’78 Oshawa, Ont. Canada 4:20 vinyl
  • Jacob Miller – Who Say Jah No Dread; Who Say Jah No Dread (Greensleeves)
  • Jah Shaka – In the Beginning Dub; Jah Dub Creator: Commandments of Dub Part 5 (Jah Shaka) ’85 UK vinyl dub album of  the hour

Set 2:

  • Aisha Morrison – Ethiopia; Stay Red (Esoldun) ’77? Lee “Scratch” Perry Black Ark prod’n
  • Linval Thompson –  Jah Jah the Conqueror; Cool Down (Culture Press) ’75
  • Diego & the Sons of Jah – Jah Jah Ital; Babylon a Fall Down (Trojan) ’77 comp.
  • Keith Hudson – Rasta Country; Rasta Communication (Greensleeves) ’78
  • Mikey Dread – The Voice of Jah; Dread at the Controls (Dread at the Controls) ’79
  • Leroy Smart – Jahovah; Channel One Hitbound (Heartbeat) ’77 comp.

Set 3:

  • Althea & Donna – If You Don’t Love Jah; Uptown Top Ranking (Virgin Front Line) ’78
  • Barrington Levy – Jah Life; Bounty Hunter (Cactus) ’79
  • Hugh Mundell – Jah Fire; Jah Fire (Black Arrow) ’80
  • Johnny Osbourne – Jah Promise; Truths & Rights (Studio One) ’80
  • Bim Sherman – Lamb of Judah; Bim Sherman Meets Horace Andy & U Black in a Rub-a-Dub Style (Original) ’79
  • Aggrovators – None Shall Escape the Dub; Rasta ’76 (Attack) Dub Album of the Hour

Set 4:

  • Judy Mowatt –  King of Kings; Only a Woman (Shanachie) ’82
  • The Morwells – Jah Lion; Best of (Nighthawk) ’81
  • Freddie McGregor – Rastaman Camp; Bobby Bobylon (Heartbeat/Studio One) ’75 comp.

Set 5: Vinyl is Vital Set

  • Jah Mel – Jah Is My King; Watchful Eyes (Iroko) ’83 Fr. vinyl: 
  • Reggae Regular – Praise Jah Love; Ghetto Rock (Greensleeves) ’84 UK
  • Vivian Jones – Who Is On Jah Side; Jah Works (Jah Shaka) ’87 UK
  • African Princess – Jah Children Cry; Hits From the House of Shaka (Jah Shaka) ’80 UK

Set 6:

  • Zion Family – Jesus is a Nazarite;
  • Cedric Myton & the Congos – Where He Leads Me; Face the Music (VP) ’81
  • Wailing Souls – They Don’t Know Jah; Very Best of (Greensleeves) ’82 comp.
  • Bad Brains – Rally Round Jah Throne; Rock for  Light (Caroline) ’83
  • Don Carlos – Jah Jah Hear My Plea; Prophecy (Blue Moon)

Set 7:

  • Jimmy Cliff – The Lion Awakes; Club Paradise Soundtrack (Sony) ’86
  • The Love Joys – Wherever Jah Send Me; Reggae Vibes (Wackies) ’81
  • Haile Selassie I – War; War Album (Culture Press) UN speech = Bob Marley War

Set 8:

  • Bob Marley & the Wailers – Jah Live; Songs of Freedom (Tuff Gong) ’75
  • Twinkle Brothers – Since I Threw the Comb Away; Countrymen (Virgin Frontline) ’80
  • Aisha – The Creator; High Priestess (Ariwa) ‘88
  • Cocoa Tea – Jah Made Them All; Rocking Dolly (RAS) ’83 to Michael Jackson’s Human Nature
  • Sister Carol – Jah Is Mine; Black Cinderella (Jah Life/Heartbeat) ’84 to Jackson & McCarney The Girl is  Mine
  • Burning Spear – Jah No Dead (Discomix); Spear Burning (Pressure Sounds) ’79 comp.

Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: Jah-ly 2, 2022 – 34 Years of Reggae Vinyl!

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Greetings,

Imagine a time long ago. Before Facebook, Netflix and Itunes. Ronald Wilson Reagan in the White House.

Last Sunday of June 1988. Salt Lake City, Utah. Hot summer. Middle of the Night. A callow youth from Montana debuted on the late night airwaves of community radio station KRCL.

The show was called: 3 O’clock Roadblock – after the Bob Marley tune.  Reggae with a mix of Ska and World Beat.

I ‘n’ I had been doing a little Reggae show on the Univ. of  Utah campus  station called Positive Vibrations (also Bob Marley). My roommate and I were in the Pie Pizzeria and they had KRCL on the Hi Fi. We heard a call out for new volunteers. And they were looking for a late night Reggae mix show. I ‘n’ I was selected, six weeks of trainings and started fumbling on the airwaves for late night insomniacs, cab drivers, graveyard shifters, cat burglars and night owls.

Thirty four years later. Trodding on prime time with Smile Jamaica

<34 Years of Reggae Radio: on KRCL; 2 min.>

I ‘n’ I had discovered the gem that  is KRCL. Non commercial music. No commercials. No slick presentation. (Early 1987). And the station had two really great  Reggae shows: Smile Jamaica, with my mentor, Rutabaga Reese. And Nite Roots with Papa Pilgrim. I ‘n’ I would listen intently, especially on Saturdays (1 to 4pm in those days; not 4-7). Great roots gems spun by Rutabaga. He taught I ‘n I about ON U Sound – What I ‘n’ I re-invented as the music genre Mutant Dub.

I ‘n’ I would keep a notebook of classic albums to fill up my collection before I could ever think of committing to a weekly radio show.

<Reggae Radio mentors at KRCL; 40  sec.>

The original KRCL radio Reggae thank you gift

Fall 1986 I moved from Bozeman, MT to SLC to attend the Univ. of Utah. I ‘n’ I had always been a music collector. And in 1986 I discovered the compact disk.

In the dorms I met a Jewish engineering student named Neal. He had a rich kid’s stereo and in the concrete block dorm rooms, sound really reverberated. We traded disks back and forth. One night we listened to the group Black Uhuru.

Heavy electronic 80’s era Sly & Robbie; Michael Rose’s Afro-Arab vocals and balanced harmonies: Puma Jones (roots dawta) and Ducky Simpson (Rasta dread.)

I ‘n’ I had about a dozen Reggae CDs but Black Uhuru “Anthem” was the epiphany moment. I became a Reggae obsessive after that!

In gratitude to Black Uhuru, I used to start each late night 3 O’clock  Roadblock with a Black Uhuru tune.

<Black Uhuru and Reggae Fanaticism; 63 sec.>

Not the first Reggae album for I ‘n’ I. But THE one that made me a Reggae Fanatic for life.

Now that I ‘n’ I had the show, I needed to expand my Reggae collection through the unintended, and probably unwilling President at the time:

Ronald

Wilson

Reagan – 666 as the Rastas say.

<Funder of the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives Ronald Wilson Reagan; 37 sec.>

Not quite: Ronald Wilson Reggae – 666

Hey, I ‘n I bear no grudges against the man. Back in the mid 80’s there were more grants that loans. I would take a big fat Ronnie check and deposit into savings. Then either around the Holidays or Summer I would scour the Bay Area record shops. Dozens of them, large and small, back before digital killed the record hut.

  • San Francisco
  • East Bay: Oakland, Berkeley, El Cerrito
  • Mill Valley – Marin county
  • Sacramento and Reno if I ‘n’ I was driving.

<Bay Area cratedig circuit; 44 sec.>

Village Music – Mill Walley, CA. North on the Golden Gate Bridge

I used to stay at a Travelodge on Columbus and Bay. Right across from the Tower Records. Or couch surf at an Aunt’s apartment over by San Francisco State U.

I would descend like a plague of locusts in the shops. CDs (new). LPs bargains as people sold vinyl for the CDs. Cheap and plentiful.

$4 dollar records cast off in 1989 can go for hundreds today on Ebay and Discogs.

<That effort became the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives; 51 sec>

Jews have the Wailing Wall. Muslims have the Kaaba. I ‘n’ I had Tower Records San Francisco

Salt Lake City was well represented in good record stores, before digital set in, during the mid 80’s. I used to deliver mail and had to use my own car. So the gas reimbursement was usually enough to buy two new disks every two weeks at the late lamented Smokey’s Records. Other gems at places like Randy’s (still in business) and Cosmic Aeroplane, Raspberry Records and Mad Platter (all gone to that record hut in the sky)

Quick Smokey’s story: Near the end of the store’s life, the owner Smokey Koelsch,  started giving me the hairy eyeball. Why? Thieves kept breaking to Smokey’s shop to steal all the Reggae cds.

And those are the stories I ‘n’ I collect and share for 34 years.

Forward ever, backwards never1

bless, Bobbylon

<Cratedigging in SLC; 47 sec.>

Used to spend my Post Office gas reimbursement here, Summer 1987

Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: July 2, 2022 – 34 Years of Reggae Radio (Vinyl)

Set 1

  • Prince Far I & the Arabs – The Message; Cry Tuff Dub Encounter Chapter 1 (ROIR) ’78 Dub album of the hour
  • Black Uhuru – Party Next Door; Anthem (Island) ’84 US
  • I Roy – Deck of Love Many Moods of I Roy (Trojan0 ’74 UK
  • Inner Circle – Burial; Blame It on the Sun (Trojan) ’75 UK Peter Tosh Cover
  • Arthur Louis – Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door; This Is Reggae Music vol. 2 (Island) ’75 US comp.
  • Burning Spear – Lion; Man in the Hills (Mango) ’76 US
  • Rita Marley – One Draw; 12″ (Shanachie) ’82 US – 4:20 Cannabis Service Announcement
Teacher Rita schooled about the One Draw by students: Herbie, Smokey, Little Milla (as in Sensimilla!)

Set 2:

  • Marcia Griffiths – Feel Like Jumping; Feel Like Jumping (Receiver) ’68 UK comp.
  • The Heptones – Cool Rasta; Cool Rasta (Trojan) ’76 UK
  • Lion Zion – Gas Guzzler; Reggae in America (House of Natty) ’76 Oakland; Lee “Scratch” Perry prod’n
  • Ras Michael & the Sons of Negus – Rasta Liveth; Tribute to the Emperor (Trojan) ’76 UK
  • Bob Marley & the Wailers – Punky Reggae Party; 12″ (Tuff Gong) ’77 JA
No boring old farts at the Punky Reggae Party

Set 3:

  • Judy Mowatt – Mr. Dee Jay; Mr. Dee Jay (Ashandan) ’75 JA
  • Big Youth – Hurting Inside;  Progress (Nichola Delita) ’78 JA Bob Marley cover
  • Dennis Brown – Malcolm X; Visions (Blue Moon) ’78 UK
  • Keith Hudson – Musicology; Rasta Communication (Greensleeves) ’78
  • The Gayladds – Little Candle; Love & Understanding (Ballistic) ’79 UK
Autobiographical – Mr. Dee-J for 34 years!

Set 4:

  • Matumbi – Music in the Air; Seven Seals (Harvest) ’79 UK green vinyl
  • Linton Kwesi Johnson – Inglan Is a Bitch; Bass Culture
  • Soul Syndicate – There’s a Fire; Was, Is & Always (Epiphany) ’80 Santa Cruz, CA; Gaylads cover
  • African Princess – Jah Children Cry; Hits From the House of Shaka (Jah Shaka) ’85 UK

 

Set 5:

  • Bunny Wailer – Mellow Mood; Sings the Wailers (Mango) ’80 US – rock steady covers
  • Desmond Dekker – Moving On; Black & Dekker (Stiff) ’81 UK
  • Akimbo – So Long Trouble; So Long Trouble EP (Forward Sounds) ’85 UK
  • Johnnie Osbourne – Love Comes and Goes; Reggae on Broadway (Cha Cha) ’81 UK

Set 6:

  • Peter Tosh – Reggae Myelitis; Wanted, Dread & Alive (EMI America) ’81 US
  • Toots & the Maytals – Beautiful Woman; Knock Out! (Mango) ’81 US
  • Casselberry & DuPree – Take It to the Limit; City Down (Icebergg) ’86 Milwaukee, Wi; two women cover the Eagles
Very first addition to the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: Xmas ’81. Thanks Mom!

Set 7:

  • Singers & Players feat. Prince Far I – Quante Jubila; War of Words (ON U Sound) ’81 UK
  • Twinkle Brothers – Since I Threw the Comb Away (Sunsplash) 8/7/82 Montego Bay
  • Don Carlos – Lazer Beam; Spread Out (Burning Sounds) ’83 UK
  • Lilian Allen – Conditions Critical; Conditions Critical (Redwood) ’87 Emeryville, CA; Toronto dub poet
Reggae mentor Rutabaga Reese hyped me to Adrian Sherwood/ON U Sound. The dub/electronic crossover I started calling Mutant Dub

Set 8:

  • Singers & Players feat. Sister P – Holy Scripture; Vacuum Pumping (ON U Sound) ’88 UK
  • Caribbean All Stars – Snake in de Grass; Live & Direct (Raw Life) ’84 Oakland
  • Krieger-Densmore Reggae Bonanza – Get Up Stand Up; 12″ (Rhino) ’83 US Wailers cover
  • Ruffy & Tuffy – Third World War Is a Must; Climax (Black Star) ’88 Finland
First live Reggae concert: Summer 1987. Caribbean Allstars open for Third World

Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: Jah-tember 4, 2021 – Lee “Scratch” Perry Black Ark Legacy!

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Greetings,

KRCL is building a new studio and so all Summer we have been building shows from home. I ‘n’ I was putting together an entirely different Smile Jamaica. It was a beautiful Sunday morning and I caught an alert on my phone from Rolling Stone Magazine:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lee-scratch-perry-dead-obit-1045198/

Damn. First U Roy. Then Bunny Wailer. Now Lee. For me, Lee “Scratch” Perry epitomized what I loved about Reggae music. He was there at the beginning of ska. Brought the Wailers their riddim section and he was a giant in the Reggae mythos via his Black Ark studio.

A mad genius who marched to his own drummer.  In the Secret History of Reggae music, that label took on mythic undertones without sacrificing the impeccable quality of 70’s Roots Reggae.

In fact, when I ‘n’ I upload these Reggae Radio showcases I can them the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives in a backwards tribute to him.

The Black Ark. From the Hebrew Ark of the Covenant buried in a church in Ethiopia. Beyond cool!

In Reggae, we collector obsessives are often more interested in labels and producers than performers. When I ‘n’ I started building my collection in the late 80’s, it became very easy to just automatically add Perry’s productions/performances as the epitome of quality.

Especially through the Mango label, the penultimate releases from the likes of Junior Murvin (Police & Thieves), Max Romeo (War in a Babylon) and The Congos (Heart of the Congos).

It had everything that originally attracted I ‘n’ I to Reggae music: great lyrics about Rastafari love, the story of downtrodden  Jamaicans living in the Diaspora (Babylon) and this throbbing bass.

At the Black Ark, Perry was notorious for dumping all of his instruments onto one track. It overloaded everything to the point that your monitors were over-bassed. Then he would cut that murky sound with a slicing high hat and cymbal crash.  It had a sort of “stone skipping on water” buoyancy.

The vocals were on the second track. How he captured that sound on primitive Jamaican recording equipment speaks to his prowess as a producer/engineer.

There was often times when I ‘n’ I would purchase a new disk or LP and hear that trademark cavernous sound and think, “That’s a Black Ark recording.” And sure enough, even if the LP was produced by another label. Engineering credit was Lee’s

Recorded at the Black Ark. Mixed by Lee “Scratch” Perry

Another of his hallmarks was the “moaning cow”. He would do some strange flange technique that would approximate that groaning bovine.  I’ve pulled the clip for you to hear:

<Lee Perry’s Moaning Cow; 21 sec.>

Lee definitely had some mental health/paranoia issues and eventually the hanger’s ons, the skylarkers,  the follow fashion dreads who would hang out and shift coke and eat pork made him destroy the Black Ark Studio to get away from that bad mojo. He painted black X’s over everything. The console, the monitor speakers, the walls. Eventually I think the studio, located behind Lee’s house, burned down.

That lead to about 15 years in the wilderness. Middling releases. A lot of stream of consciousness jive with forgettable Reggae players.

Lee was sued by Chris Blackwell for calling him a vampire who killed Bob Marley for his royalties.

I am stud! I do not drink blood!

He got his second act with three major events

  1. The return to glory with ON U Sound producer Adrian Sherwood and the album From the Secret Laboratory (another backward tribute as I ‘n’ I often call the Smile Jamaica Ark-ives the Secret Dubratory.)
  2. Blood and Fire Label’s massive reissue of The Congos Heart of the Congos.
  3. The Beastie Boys cover tribute from their boutique magazine Grand Royal
Perhaps I ‘n’ I favorite Reggae LP of all time. Reissued and expanded

In the wake of the Blood & Fire reissue, a lot of legit and gray market Black Ark disks and LP’s flooded the shops. Lee moved to Switzerland married a wealthy Swiss gal decades younger.

If you check him on discogs, he issued dozens of LPs and CDs  of middling quality: some techno, a lot of Mutant Dub, a lot profane rhyming couplets. He definitely was the eminence grise of Reggae music and enjoyed his notoriety.

I ‘n’ I have a few stories I could tell that don’t put in a good light, but those imperfections make him human and flawed like all of us.

If you still buy those round aluminum coaster thingees. Here is the epitome of his best Black Ark work of classics and obscurities.

Jah’s Heavenly Choir has a new mixing board and you can hear Lee’s maniacal cackle lively up the place.

Bless, Bobbylon

Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: Sept. 4, 20201 Playlist

Set 1:

  • Lee “Scratch” Perry – I Got the Groove; From the Secret Laboratory (ON U Sound) ‘90
  • Prince Jazzbo – Live Good Today; Ital Corner (Clocktower) ‘76
  • Candy McKenzie – Jah Knows; Lee “Scratch” Perry Presents (Trojan) mid 70’s
  • Lee “Scratch” Perry – Free Up the Weed; Roast Fish, Collie Weed & Cornbread (Upsetter) ’78 4:20 Cannabis Service Announcement
  • The Heptones – Garden of Life; Disco Devil (Trojan) ’79 comp.

Set 2:

  • Junior Murvin & Jah Lion – Police & Thieves; 12” (Mango) ‘76
  • Max Romeo – One Step Forward; One Step Forward (Mango) ‘76
  • Prince Jazzbo – Ital Corner; Ital Corner (Clocktower) ’76 dj to Max Romeo
  • Susan Cadogan – Fever; Susan Cadogan (Trojan) ’76 Little Willie John/Peggy Lee cover
  • Twin Roots – Know Love; Disco Devil (Trojan) ’77 comp.

Set 3:

  • Aisha Morrison – Ethiopia; Stay Red (Esoldun) mid 70’s comp.
  • Jah Lion – Black Lion; Colombia Colly (Mango) ‘76
  • Ras Michael & the Sons of Negus – Little David; Love Thy Neighbor (Live & Learn) ‘79
  • Errol Walker – John Public; Arkology (Island) mid 70’s comp.
  • Flying Sensation – Shoulder to the Wheel; Lost Treasures of the Ark (Orchid) mid 70’s comp.
  • The Meditations – Much Smarter; Deeper Roots (Heartbeat) ’78  comp.

Set 4:

  • George Faith – I’ve Got the Groove; To Be a Lover (Mango) ‘77
  • The Upsetters feat. Prince Jazzbo – Croaking Lizard; Super Ape (Mango) ‘76
  • William Clarke – Be Thankful; Shocks of Mighty (Attack) early 70’s comp.;William DeVaughan soul cover
  • Martha Velez – Get Up Stand Up; Escape From Babylon (Sire) ’76 Wailers cover
  • Bunny Livingstone & The Wailers – Dreamland; Soul Rebels (Trojan) ‘71
  • The Diamonds – Talk About It + Yam a Ky; Open the Gate (Trojan) ’75 comp.

Set 5:

  • The Congos – Children Crying; Heart of the Congos (Blood & Fire) ‘77
  • Denzil Dennis – Women and Money; 7” (Upsetter) ‘74
  • Lee Perry – Soul Man; Double Seven (Trojan) ’73 Isaac Hayes cover
  • Roots – Mash Down; Voodooism (Pressure Sounds) ’77 comp.
  • Lion Zion – Gas Guzzler; Reggae in America (House of Natty) ’76 Oakland artist
  • Mikey Dread – Dread at the Mantrol; Arkology (Island) late 70’s comp.;dj to Lee Perry Dreadlocks in Moonlight
  • Debra Keese – Travelling; Build the Ark (Trojan)  ’77 comp.

Set 6:

  • Lee “Scratch” Perry – Train to Doomsville; Pay It All Back vol. 2 (ON U Sond) ‘88
  • Robert Palmer – Love Can Run Faster; Double Fun (Island) ‘78
  • Aura Lewis & Full Experience – Young Gifted and Broke; Full Experience EP (Blue Moon) mid 70’s female vox
  • The Bluebells – Come Along; Cutting Razor (Heartbeat) mid 70’s comp.
  • Junior Byles & the Versatiles – The Thanks We Get; Curly Locks (Heartbeat) ’74 comp.
  • Bob Marley & the Wailers – Punky Reggae Party; 12” (Tuff Gong) ‘77

smile Jamaica Ark-Ives July 10, 2021 – Unidentified Aerial Phemonena a Gwaan!

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Greetings,

Let’s just launch (pun intended) into the Pentagon admitted UFO’s. I mean Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

Pentagon releases Unidentified Aerial Phenomena videos

These videos by our best fighter pilots were recorded with Alien technology: Forward Looking Infrared Radar. Naked to the human eye. Cloaked just like Star Trek. But they were there.

The Pentagon vetted these videos for public release and Tom DeLonge of Blink-182 issued them as part of his Astro-non-profit: To the Stars – Academy of Arts & Science

  • Gimbal video – In 2015 the USS Roosevelt encountered a UAP which when the FA 18 Hornet pilot locked on darted horizontally at speeds that would rip a pilot’s spine through his back hole.
  • Tic Tac video – In 2004 the USS Nimitz off San Diego captured footage of an oblong UAP (shaped like the breath mint). Once the fighter pilot locks on for an extended length the Tic Tac zooms horizontally at breakneck speed.
  • Go Fast – In 2015 the USS Roosevelt; of the eastern seaboard near Florida. You hear them exclaim, “what is that thing?”

There are no explanations for these kinds of speed achieved. Neither the Russians, nor the Chinese have this flight capability. Pilots could not sustain the G force of the acceleration. Drone technology is not that advanced.

3D Rendering of alien spaceship and drones above Earth

I suspect the Navy released these as the usual “we’re falling behind Alien weaponization, so give us even more money.”

How it must feel for the most advanced Navy on the planet to be helpless to a swarm of UAP’s

USS Omaha: (2019); Off the coast of San Diego

I’m more of an Ancient Astronaut Theorist (Sumerian “sky gods” as interplanetary travellers), but for modern UAP/UFO enthusiasts, be sure to watch two programs

Unidentified – With guys like Lu Elizondo (part of the UAP military investigation force funded by Congress), Tom DeLonge, Bob Bigelow (aerospace cut out for the US military in private space development)

Unidentified – Inside Amerca’s UFO investigation

The Discovery channel did a 3 hour panel show called UFOs Declassified. Interviews with reporter George Knapp, who outed Area 51, Nick Pope who headed up the UK’s UFO investigations and several physicists and deep state spooks working this territory.

UFOs Declassified Live

Biggest take away? These UAPs travel at G forces of up to 5000 G. Human pilots can only with stand up to 9 G, for a limited time. So whatever is buzzing us. It ain’t human….

And why not read for yourself what Congress wrote. 22 million gets you 9 pages. That’s pretty good for the wasteful government!

Click to access Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf

So in conclusion, what does this have to do with Reggae music, Smile Jamaica and community radio?

Nothing. I just wanted to celebrate the Roswell NM UFO crash the Bobbylon way: UFO songs, UFO movie trailers, UFO soundbytes.

A few days later the Air Force walked back Flying Saucers to a bullshit weather balloon explanation. Pathetic!

My Roswell connection. My brother in law used to sell high tech pipe in New Mexico. Roswell was a territory. He was having lunch with a client and just curiously asked, “what’s the deal with the UFO crash.”

The crusty old rancher he was having lunch with said that the local coroner was visited by the Air Force and asked to bring 3 child size coffins to the Air Field. The rancher said that he was no tin foil hatter and total straight shooter.

That’s all the proof I need to know that Aliens are here! Aliens are coming!

Richard Nixon showed 50’s comedian and UFO buff Jackie Gleason the Alien corpses downed at Roswell

There ain’t nothing we can do to stop them coming. We are like bugs to them. In return for Alien tech like FLIR, velcro, Teflon, stealth flight, GPS and the drink Tang, they probe a few of us and mutilate some cattle.

Alien technology

If they decide we are a menace, and go for the Alien invasion, here is my advice for the last days…

Good luck humans!

bless, Bobbylon

Set 1:

  • Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra – Also Sprach Zarathustra; 2001 Space Odyssey Soundtrack (MGM) ‘68
  • Theme from Star Trek
  • The Police – Walking on the Moon; Reggata de Blanc (A & M) ‘79
  • Laurel Aitken –  Apollo 12; The Pama Years (Grover) ’69 comp.
  • Anjali –  Space Lust in the Space Dust; Anjali (Wiiija) 2000 UK Hindi dawta
  • Kingman + Jonah feat. Claudious Linton – Star Wars; Sign of the Times (Sunking) 2008

Set 2:

  • Derrick Morgan – Man Pon Moon; Moon Hop (Pama) ‘69
  • Dennis Alcapone – Flying Machines (The Sky’s the Limit); Guns Don’t Argue (Trojan) ’72 comp.
  • Lee “Scratch” Perry & Dub Syndicate – African Hitchhiker; From the Secret Laboratory (Mango) ‘90
  • Nicky Thomas – Doing the Moonwalk; Doing the Moonwalk (Trojan) ’70 comp.
  • Cornell Campbell – Stars; Silver Jubilee (Rhino UK) ’82 comp.
  • Prince Jammy – Conspiracy on Neptune; Destroys the Invaders (Greensleeves) ‘82

Set 3:

  • Bob Marley & the Wailers – So Much Trouble in the World (Survival) ‘79
  • Audio Active – Space Children; We Are Tokyo Space Cowboys (ON U Sound) ’95 Jah-pon
  • Symarip – Skinhead Moonstomp; Skinhead Moonstomp (Trojan) ‘70
  • AIR –  Surfing on a Rocket; Talkie Walkie (Virgin) 2003 Fr. Lounge

Set 4:

  • King Horror – Creature From the Moon; Do the Moon Rock (Trojan) ’70? Comp.
  • Root 1 – Roots Rocket; Roots Trade (Road Communications) ’93 Austin, TV
  • Thievery Corporation – Stargazer; Culture of Fear (ESL) 2011 DC dubbers
  • The Kingstonians –  Come We Go Moon Walk; Sufferer (Trojan) ‘70
  • Leonard Nimoy – Alien; Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space (Dot) ‘67
  • I.D.S. – J’s Space Flight; International Dub System (Red Arrow) ’95 Germ.

Set 5:

  • John Williams & London Symphony Orchestra – Cantina Band; Star Wars Soundtrack (20th Century) ‘77
  • Sister Carol – Lost in Space; Jah Disciple (RAS) ‘89
  • U Roy – Your Ace From Space; Version Galore (Treasure Isle) ‘68
  • The Byrds – Mr. Spaceman (Smile Jamaica rmx)
  • Lincoln Thompson & the Rasses – Spaceship; Natural Wild (United Artists) ‘80
  • Pink Floyd – Interstellar Overdrive; Piper at the Gates of Dawn (Columbia) ‘67

Set 6:

  • Tena Stelin – UFO; Lion Symbol (Jah Warrior) ‘99
  • Systemwide – Gilgamesh; Live at the Festival de Jazz Montreal (BSI) 2002 Portland, OR
  • Devin tha Dude – Zeldar; Just Tryin’ ta Live (Rap-a-Lot) 2002 hip hop
  • Mighty Sparrow – Russian Satellite; Bob Dylan – Radio Radio vol. 5 (Music Melon) ’58 calypso comp.
  • Alpha & Omega – The Dub is Out There; Serious Joke (Alpha & Omega) 2002 X-Files theme
  • Spiritual Rez – Let’s Go Out With a Bang; Apocalypse Whenever (Spiritual Rez) 2014 Boston, MA

Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: June 26, 2021 – 33 Years of Reggae Radio!

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A third of a century of Reggae Radio

Greetings,

Everyone has an origin story. Here is mine. I ‘n’ I had moved to Salt Lake City, Fall of 1986 to attend the University of  Utah. Left Bozeman, Montana (Montana State) and brought with me a good stereo system. Laser turntable, Bose 301 speakers, cassette deck and amp.

I also brought with me this new fangled gadget called the CD player. In Montana I had always been a music obsessive and I ‘n’ I was probably the first on the block to purchase a CD player. Well, Mom got it for me Xmas 1985. Fisher model you would get at Montgomery Wards. So low frills all it displayed was the track number.

Vintage!

Salt Lake City had great independent record stores when I arrived in 1986. (Most are gone today). I had switched over from vinyl to the aluminum coaster thingees that were pretty expensive. $18 in 80’s money must be about $30 dollars today.

I had met some people in the dorms and one of them was a Jewish trust fund kid named Neil Copperman. I was in that sort of mid 80’s rut where all my favorite groups were flogging a synth drum excess that I wasn’t into. The Clash fell apart. My favorite college rock band was Minutemen and their frontman, D. Boon died in a car accident.

I ‘n’ I was looking for a new genre to collect. Bought some blues. Dabbled in world. Nothing really sunk in. Neil and I would trade disks and make cassette copies. One day we were in his room: small concrete bunkers. His stereo was better than mine. He brought out a CD by a group that looked like Prince with dreadlocks: Michael Rose, Ducky Simpson and black beauty Puma Jones.

Dropped the disk in the player, itched up the volume and BLAM. The heavens parted, trumpets blared. It was Black Uhuru meets Sly & Robbie. That synth drum crap I hated on the Rolling Stones records was massive on this Reggae outing.

Anthem. Indeed!

80’s fashion meets synth drum bombast inna rub a dub style!

That disk lit the fuse and I ‘n’ I never looked back. Spring of 1987 I was involved in a campus radio station called K-UTE. I programmed, if you could call it that, a Reggae show called Positive Vibration named after the Bob Marley tune.

Spring 1988 my college roommate and I were in the Pie Pizzeria. They were listening to the community station called KRCL. I had discovered their two mainstay programs devoted to Reggae: Smile Jamaica (Sat. 1-4pm) hosted by Rutabaga Reese. Wednesday nights was Nite Roots with Papa Pilgrim.

I ‘n’ I would listen to Smile Jamaica with a note pad and jot down all these great albums that Rutabaga was playing: Ini Kamoze, Don Carlos, Wailing Souls, Mighty Diamonds. Bliss. Saturday afternoons became “my college for musical knowledge” with the Dub Professor, Rutabaga Reese.

That night in the pizza joint we heard a call out for new volunteers. Roomie wanted to do 80’s college rock (they were set for that.) I was selected to do a late night/early morning show called 3 O’clock Roadblock (another Bob tune.) The weekend before I debuted, June 26, 1988 I ‘n’ I roadtripped to San Francisco and scoured the city spending my student loan cash to front music for the new show: night owls, insomniacs, 7-11 workers and cat burglars.

Super hot summer. Great way to learn the ropes.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, as the Rastas remind us: The founder of the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives via the Student Loan program

I programmed late nights from end of June 1988 to August 1989. A couple months later I went from the minor leagues to prime time, Saturday afternoons, Oct. 1989 to share Smile Jamaica with Rutabaga. But that’s a story for another day…

Thank you KRCL for granting me the privilege to juggle the black wax and spin the aluminum for the masses for an incredible 1/3 of a century. In media that streak is almost unheard of.

bless, Bobbylon

All that is left of KRCL station…

Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives June 26, 2021 Playlist – 33 Years of Reggae Radio

Set 1:

  • Black Uhuru – Party Next Door; Anthem (Island) ’83 – E.T. Thorngren rmx
  • I Roy – Heart Don’t Leap; Keep on Coming Through the Door (Trojan)  ’71 comp.
  • Phyllis Dillon – Midnight Confessions; Midnight Confessions (Treasure Isle) ‘72
  • Dr. Alimantado – Oil Crisis; Born For a  Purpose (Greensleeves) ’73 comp.
  • Jimmy Cliff – No Woman No Cry; Music For My Mind (Warner Bros.) ’74 Bob Marley cover
  • Peter Tosh – Legalize It; Legalize It (Columbai) ’76 4:20 Cannabis Service Announcement
18 down, 32 to go! Welcome Connecticut to the Seven Leaf Club!

Set 2:

  • Judy Mowatt – Black Woman; Black Woman (Shanachie) ‘76
  • Lambert Douglas – Jah Jah No New; Babylon a Fall Down (Trojan) ‘77
  • Wailing Souls – War; Very Best of (Greensleeves) ‘78
  • Aswad – Playing Games; Hulet (Mango) ‘79
  • Culture – Natty Dread Naw Run (Shanachie) ‘79                              
  • Carlton & the Shoes – Love Me Forever + version (Studio One) ‘79
1 of I Three

Set 3:

  • Marcia Griffiths – Steppin’ Out of Babylon; Steppin’ (Shanachie) ‘79
  • Junior Delgado – Row Fisherman Row; Sisters and Brothers (Magnum) ‘79
  • I Kong – Life’s Road; The Way It Is (VP)  ‘79
  • Misty in Roots – See Them a Come; Live at the Counter Eurovision (Kaz) ‘79
  • The Morwells feat. Bingy Bunny – Cut Them Down; Kingston 12 Toughie (RAS) ‘79
  • Mikey Dread – Barber Saloon; Evolutionary Rockers (Dread at the Controls) ‘79
2 of I Three

Set 4:

  • Rita Marley – Who Feels It Knows It; Who Feels It Knows It (Shanachie) ’80 Bunny Wailer cover
  • Bob Marley & the Wailers – Coming in From the Cold; Uprising (Tuff Gong) ‘80
  • Bunny Wailer – Mellow Mood; Sings the Wailers (Mango) ’80 Bob Marley cover
  • Steel Pulse – Jah Pickney (R.A.R.); Tribute to the Martyrs (Mango) ‘80
  • Sisters Jam – People of This World; Rockers International (Greensleeves) ’80 female duo
  • The Skulls & the Mercenarys – Third World + Third World Shuffle; Black Slavery Days (Clappers) ’80 comp.
3 of I Three

Set 5:

  • The Love Joys – Wherever Jah Send Me; Reggae Vibes (Wackies) ’81 female duo
  • Cedric Myton & the Congos – Where He Leads Me; Face the Music (VP) ‘81
  • Garland Jeffreys – We the People; Escape Artist (Epic) ’81 NY rocker
  • Twinkle Brothers – Longing For You; Me No You (Twinkle) ‘81
  • African Head Charge – Stebeni’s Theme; My Life in a Hole in the Ground (ON U Sound) ’81 Afro-dub w/ female vox
  • Lacksley Castell – Government Man; Morning Glory (Negus Roots) ’82
  • Gregory Isaacs – Cool Down the Pace; Night Nurse (Mango) ‘82

Set 6:

  • Musical Youth – Pass the Dutchie; 12” (MCA) ‘82
  • Bad Brains – The Meek; Rock For Light (Caroline) ’83 DC punk/reggae
  • Sister Carol – Jah Is Mine; Black Cinderella (Jah Life) ’84 update of McCartney & Jackson Girl is Mine
  • Burning Spear – Jah Is My Driver; Farover (Heartbeat) ‘83
  • Peter Tosh – Reggaemyelitis; Wanted Dread & Alive (Rolling Stone) ‘81
I call bullshit on this Delta Variant

Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives June 12, 2021 – Mango Records Retrospective

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Greetings,

 

As I’n’ I mentioned on-air: KRCL is building a new studio and we had to vacate our old space to make way for another four story apartment complex on the Northwest side of Salt Lake City.

That means, just like The Covid 2020, I’m back to building Smile Jamaica episodes from the cloudy living room of the Ark-Ives.

So that means it’s all digital for the summer. The black wax will have to wait. That takes about half of the usual selection out of rotation.

So I ‘n’ I decided I would do specialty Reggae programs for the interim:

  • Father’s Day
  • Roswell UFOria anniversary (July ’47)
  • 33 Year Reggae Radio Anniversary (end of June)
  • Summer of Dub
  • Happy Birthday Haile Selassie (July)

And what I ‘n’ I played last Saturday: A chronological sampling of the Mango Records Reggae release catalog.

Our story starts with Chris Blackwell.  Son of a British food producer father and a Sephardic-Jewish mother. Born in England, the family moved to Jamaica where Chris’s father was in the colonial army.

Chris Blackwell b. 1937

Instead of leaving Jamaica for a life in England, Blackwell stayed in Jamaica and started out managing jukeboxes throughout the Island. Of course, that brought him into contact with  regular Jamaicans he encountered in bars and restaurants and absorbed their folk music traditions of mento, calypso and eventually horn-based ska.

If you have ever seen the movie Countryman, it incorporates part of Blackwell’s transition into Rasta cultural awareness. Chris was shipwrecked, rescued and nurtured back to health by a Rasta fisherman.

That same year (1958) Blackwell was gifted $10,000 dollars and started his Island Records label. Jamaican ska ‘n’ b, production assistant on the James Bond movie, Dr. No, which was filmed in Jamaica. Within a couple years he moved to England to become one of the first successful independent record producers.

He hit pay dirt right off the bat with Jamaican teenager Millie Small who recorded a ska version of a pop tune by Barbie Gaye entitled “My Boy Lollypop”. The record sold 6 million copies and introduced Jamaican music to the radio mainstream.

In the early to mid 60’s Island Records was a successful label releasing records from Traffic,  King Crimson, Cat Stevens, Jethro Tull, Richard Thompson and many more. Quality rock and roll that sold millions of records.

Blackwell never forgot his Jamaican roots and was a major distributor of Reggae music from Jamaica into the UK.

Around 1972 he encountered the Wailers. They had been working with Lee “Scratch” Perry for his Upsetter label and many people think that was the group’s musical water shed.

Blackwell loaned the group enough money to record their first album: Catch a Fire.  Catch a Fire is a foundation release.  Nine tracks (six Rasta/protest tunes, three love songs.) Many of these songs were re-worked from the group’s ska era. But it is hard Jamaican, Rasta roots to the bone.

Problem was, Blackwell thought it was too “legit” for his rock audience. He wanted to sell not only to the Jamaican music scene in the UK. He wanted to treat the group like any of his rock acts.

So, he brought in some Nashville session musicians, who played on Traffic records, as sidemen.  They added some psychedelic guitar and organ flourishes that really rock-i-fied their sound.

Blackwell invested in an expensive packaging release on the initial pressing. A fold-up record that opened like a Zippo lighter. Catch a Fire, geddit?

That album was one half of what introduced Reggae music to the UK rock buying public and college kid Americans in 1973.

The other catalyst moment for Reggae’s crossover was also connected to Blackwell: The Harder They Come.

Jimmy Cliff plays Ivan: a kid from the Jamaican bush who winds up in the city and turns to a life of crime. Filmed in Jamaica with a boisterous Reggae soundtrack, it is essentially a  Jamaican Western showcasing the grim reality and majestic beauty of the island.

Ivan is killed in a glorious shootout and that movie made its wRay through Berkeley, Cambridge, Columbus and East Lansing college towns making a market for that inverted “chucka chucka” Reggae sound. Dreadlocks and ganja were every bit as culturally enticing as hippies and LSD were in the mid 60’s.

So, The Harder They Come (1972) and Catch a Fire (1973) allowed Blackwell to carve out a Reggae niche to fit this market. Rather than seeing Reggae lost in the promotional mix of his larger rock acts, he created the Mango Records imprint.

That label defined the non-Jamaican Reggae market: Toots & the Maytals, Burning Spear, Steel Pulse, Third World. Singers like Justin Hinds, Max Romeo, George Faith. He brought Lee “Scratch” Perry’s non-commercial, mythical and brooding Black Ark studio recordings into record huts across the globe.

***

But in the end, he was still a businessman. With The Wailers it became apparent that a trio wasn’t going to transcend out of the Reggae niche into the hockey arenas and soccer stadiums. Concerts made money and sold records.

So, alas, it became Bob Marley & the Wailers. In the secret history of Reggae music race always plays a part. Peter Tosh was too tall, too black too militant.  Bunny Wailer, also too black, was too mystical. He hated touring cold cities and he bailed out on the tour after Burnin’ was released at the tail end of ’73 to cash in on the immediate success of Catch a Fire.

Bob Marley: Black Jamaican mother. White, (absent) English father. His lighter skin and angular features, especially as his dreads began to grow, made him look almost Mediterranean.  He could be a brother to late 60’s era Carlos Santana

Blackwell saw in Bob an undeniable charisma. Men wanted to smoke a spliff with the dread. Women wanted to have his babies.

So, Catch a Fire and Burnin’ are credited to the Wailers but by 1974’s Natty Dread it was Bob Marley & the Wailers.  Remove Bunny and Peter and supplant with the female backing of the I-Three. By the 1975 Live album, Bob Marley & the Wailers were a rock sensation selling out celebrity filled arenas and clubs across America, the UK, Europe and Japan.

Wailers’ guitarist Junior Marvin, Bob Marley, Jacob Miller, Chris Blackwell

Here is another story for the secret history. When Bob had a toe injury while playing soccer, it turned gangrenous. At one point he was advised that he should have part of his foot amputated.

But the pressure to continue releasing records and mounting his Babylon By Bus tours, Bob chose not to come off the road and have the surgery. Bob stalked the stage like a lion, how could he continue that playing guitar and moving about with a cane?

Alas, Bob died of melanoma, the ultimate gift from his absent white father, on May 11th, 1981. Some (irrationally) blame Blackwell for his passive aggressive pressure to keep building that audience of white fans and at the end he had finally crossed over into the black awareness as disco petered out in 1980.

Had Bob survived into the 80’s he would have been right there with Bruce Springsteen, Madonna and U2.

Peter Tosh called Chris Blackwell. “White worst.” Lee “Scratch” Perry was sued for defamation for claiming in his song, Judgement in a Babylon, that Blackwell  was a vampire who killed Bob Marley to steal his royalties.

At the end of the day it is still a cut-throat business and Blackwell committed to Reggae music through Mango up until the Roots era of studio based, band crafted Reggae gave way to the digital electronic era of dancehall and slackness lyrics around 1985. Sporadic releases continued until Blackwell sold his record fortune to Polygram at the end of the 80’s.

But from 1972-1984, Mango Records was perhaps the best and consistently successful Reggae catalog that forms the foundation of the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives.

So I ‘n’ I went to discogs.com and sorted the releases in chronological order: From 1972’s the Harder They Come to UK group’s 1979 magnum opus Tribute to the Martyrs.

That fills 3 hours of some of the best Reggae music that I ‘n’ I (the royal Rasta we) will ever hear.

So, thanks Chris. Without your instincts and ruthless business acumen Reggae might never have left the Island

bless, Bobbylon 

Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: June 12, 2021 Playlist

Set 1:

  • Jimmy Cliff – The Harder They Come; The Harder They Come Soundtrack (Mango) ‘72
  • Jimmy Cliff – Better Days are Coming; Struggling Man (Mango) ‘73
  • Lorna Bennett – Breakfast in Bed; This is Reggae Music vol. 1 (Mango) ’74 Dusty Springfield cover
  • Scotty – Skank in Bed; This is Reggae Music vol. 2 (Mango) ’75 dj to Lorna Bennett
  • Toots & the Maytals – Country Roads; Funky Kingston (Mango) ’75 John Denver cover
  • Burning Spear – Marcus Garvey; Marcus Garvey (Mango) ‘75
  • Toots & the Maytals – Reggae Got Soul; Reggae Got Soul (Mango) ‘76
  • The Heptones – Book of Rules; Night Food (Mango) ‘76

Set 2:

  • Burning Spear – Brain Food; Garvey’s Ghost (Mango) ’75 dub to Marcus Garvey LP vox
  • Dillinger – Buckingham Palace; CB 200 (Mango) ‘76
  • Jah Lion – Wisdom; Colombia Colly (Mango) ‘76
  • Lee “Scratch” Perry – Roast Fish Corn Bread; This is Reggae Music vol. 3 (Mango) ‘76
  • Aswad – Natural Progression; Aswad (Mango) ‘76
  • Burning Spear – Man in the Hills (Mango) ‘76
  • Bunny Wailer – Blackheart Man; Blackheart Man (Mango) ‘76

Set 3:

  • Justin Hinds & the Dominoes – Natty Take Over; Jezebel (Mango) ‘76
  • The Upsetters – Dread Lion; Super Ape (Mango) ‘76
  • Dillinger – Ragnampiza; Bionic Dread (Mango) ‘76
  • Rico Rodriguez – Africa; Man From Wareika (Mango) ’76 trombonist
  • Burning Spear – Black Disciples; Dry &  Heavy (Mango) ‘77
  • Third World – 1865 (96 Degrees in the Shade); 96 Degrees in the Shade (Mango) ‘77

Set 4:

  • The Heptones – I Shall Be Released; Party Time (Mango) ’77 Bob Dylan cover
  • Junior Murvin – Roots Train; Police & Thieves (Mango) ‘77
  • Max Romeo – Melt Away; Reconstruction (Mango) ‘77
  • George Faith – In the Midnight Hour/Ya Ya; To Be a Lover (Mango) ’77 Wilson Pickett/
  • Bunny Wailer – Follow Fashion Monkey; Protest (Mango) ‘77

Set 5:

  • Steel Pulse – Macka Splaff; Handsworth Revolution (Mango) ’78 herbtune
  • Ijahman Levi – Jah Heavy Load; Haile I Hymn (Mango) ‘78
  • Justin Hinds – Let’s Rock; Just in Time (Mango) ‘78
  • Zap Pow – Bubbling Over; Zap Pow (Mango) ‘78
  • Wailing Souls – Feel the Spirit; Wild Suspense (Mango) ‘79
  • Roland Alphonso – James Bond; Intensified! (Mango) ’79 comp.; 007 sax
  • Bob Marley & the Wailers – Exodus; One Big Happy Family (Mango)  ’79 comp.

Set 6:

  • Toots & the Maytals – Get Up Stand Up; Pass the Pipe (Mango) ‘79
  • Ijahman Levi – Are We a Warrior; Are We a Warrior (Mango) ‘79
  • Linton Kwesi Johnson – Fite Dem Back (Mango) ‘79
  • Steel Pulse – Babylon Makes the Rules; Tribute to the Martyrs (Mango) ‘79

Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives June 5, 2021 – Beware the Mainstreaming of UFO’s!

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Because they’re here! And they are coming!

Greetings,

You heard it here first….on a community radio Reggae program of all places!

On June 25, 2021, Congress is going  to announce a reckoning on UFO’s and their obvious legitimacy.

No more bullshit about weather balloons,  swamp gas or ball lightning.

The gaslighting ends and the truth will emerge. Selah!

Doesn’t get any more mainstream than USA Today

Joe Rogan doesn’t scoff!

Ever since Pres. Eisenhower was whisked up into a space craft in 1954, the American government has known and held back the truth. UFO’s piloted by Extra Terrestrials have emerged since the world achieved nuclear weapons.

Apparently, no more lame denials. Prepare yourself that we are not alone.

What’s that you say? Another tin foil conspiracy from binging on Ancient Aliens eps during the Covid Lockdown?

Au contraire. How about the Washington Post.   

Ike was supposed to go golfing and then slipped his security detail. He went up into an alien spacecraft and signed an intergalactic treaty.  He claimed to have had a “dental emergency”. Why no Secret Service?

Basically in return for advanced technology like velcro, teflon,  GPS, aerial stealth/anti-radar and Tang, the aliens would have free range to probe (humans) and mutilate (cattle).

Alien technology

I ‘n’ I was getting cross eyed with my bredrin Aquaboy and he mentioned an article in The New Yorker, of all places: The U.FO. Papers

Here is the teaser on the cover:

For decades, believers have felt that evidence of alien visitations has been dismissed by the U.S. government. With formation of an official task force, is the Pentagon taking flying saucers seriously?

It is basically the story of UFO investigator Leslie Kean and her trials and tribulations sifting out the unexplained from the hoaxes and disinformation. How the Pentagon resisted any Congressional oversight and tried to quash the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena* being reported and filmed with alien, infrared technology, by US Naval Pilots.

* Unidentified Flying Objects

UFO researcher Leslie Kean

Called Tic Tacs, from the capsule shaped breath mint, the rate of speeds these crafts could achieve would have sucked a human pilot’s spine out of his asshole. Now that’ a probin’!

 

The geriatrics at 60 Minutes did a UAP study.  British paper, the Telegraph, has also done stories. But hang on a second.

I think it was either Bob Marley or Woody Allen who said that “I ‘n’ I don’t want to be in a club that would have me as a member.”

Now that UAPhoria(?). Nah, now that UFOria is mainstream. When even the old codgers who watch 60 Minutes are coming aboard, I’m suspicious.

RT is a regular source I ‘n’ I go to for Alien runnings. Maybe because Russia’s leader looks like an alien: Vladimir Putin.

Australian blogger, Caitlin Johnstone, offers a caution.

The crescendo of UAP/UFO legitimacy has an ulterior motive. It is to show that the American military is incapable of defending us from these Tic Tacs and thus needs trillions more for weapons development.

Washington Post, Pravda on the Potomac, and all the rest love war. Congress loves military aid to their districts.  If the New York Times is for it, you should scoff. Their admission of alien space craft has more to do with China and Russia.

Wars and rumors of war. Dempublican or Republicrat, it never ends. As Keith Poppin laments, “Same Things For Breakfast”

And as I ‘n’ I read in the New Yorker article. All the discussion was on the crafts themselves. Not who or what is behind piloting these UAP’s. So I think that is what is being missed.

<Smile Jamaica: UFO’s and Christopher Columbus>

What is gonna happen when they touch down in our fields, parks and dispensaries? They are gonna drop down right on the White House lawn. And we will have to take it.

Are people gonna be fixated on the craft they arrived in? Do you think the Native Americans who greeted Columbus at Plymouth Rock in his three ships the Nino, Pinto and the Santa Clara*

*Listener emailed me who didn’t get my joke from Animal House: “Did America give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”

Do you think the Taino tribe who first encountered Columbus in what is today the Bahamas were fixated on the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria – his three ships?

No, they were in wonderment at these strange men with four legs (on horseback) and wooly faced encased in a shiny shell.

Well, we better be ready for the same experience. “Who are these little green people with bulbous eyes, long fingers, and teardrop heads?”

Let us hope the Aliens are a tad more benevolent to the “natives” than the conquistadors were to the indigenous peoples of the New World.

Don’t forget, Eisenhower sold us out for probes and mutilations. Doesn’t bode well. For I’n’ I.

Let’s hope the Aliens are “probing” us not for malicious intent, but because of our weed.

<Unidentified Aerial Phenomena kinda cloudy!; 19 sec.>

Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon kinda cloudy!

bless, Bobbylon

Smile Jamaica June 5, 2021 playlist

Set 1:

  • Aswad – Hey Jah Children; Babylon (EMI) ’80 Soundtrack
  • Kiddus I  – A Prayer; Kiddus I Inna de Yard (Maskasound) 2007 acoustic
  • Barrington Levy – Teach Me Culture; Teach Me Culture (Live & Learn) ‘83
  • The Selecter – My Collie; Out on the Streets (Receiver) ’91 live ska herbtune
  • The Silvertones – Take a Little Love; Rare Reggae Grooves From Studio One (Heartbeat/Studio One) ‘79

Set 2:

  • Toots Hibbert – Freedom Train; Toots in Memphis (Mango) ‘88
  • Benjamin Zephaniah – History; Us an Dem (Mango) ’90 UK dub poet
  • Nora Dean – Ay, Ay, Ay; Grounation: The Indomitable Spirit of Rastafari (Nascente) ‘80
  • Big Youth – A Luta Continua; A Luta Continua (Heartbeat) ’85 “the struggle continues”
  • Burning Spear – Lion; Man in the Hills (Mango) ‘76
  • Culture – Mister Music + Version; Nighthawk Recordings (Nighthawk) ’82 unreleased
Damn you Covid!

Set 3:

  • Desmond Dekker – Reggae Recipe; Rockin’ Steady (Rhino) early 60’s
  • Souljah Fyah – Positive Vibe; Souljah Fyah (Souljah Fyah) 2010 Edmonton Canada w/ female vox
  • Dennis Brown – Concrete Castle King; Visions (Shanachie) ‘81
  • Eek a Mouse – Operation Eradication; Wa Do Dem (Greensleeves) anti-ganja plan in JA
  • Freddie McGregor – Push Comes to Shove; All in the Same Boat (RAS) ‘87
  • We Roots – Universal Speakers; We Roots (Catch Me Time) 2012? SoCal roots dawtas

Set 4: Rockers do Reggae

  • Ben Harper – With My Own Two Hands; CD Single (Virgin) 2003
  • Yesca – Searchin’; Up in Smoke Soundtrack (Warner Bros.) ’78 Coasters cover/herbtune
  • Cyril Neville – Spirits in the Material World; Spirits in the Material World (Shanachie) 2008 The Police/Sting covers
  • Eddy Grant – Can’t Get Enough; Going For Broke (Portrait) ’84 Barbados
  • Fishbone – Cholly; In Your Face (Colombia) ’86 LA ska/funk
  • Eric Clapton – Swing Low Sweet Chariot; There’s One in Every Crowd (RSO) ’75 Reggae spiritual cover
  • Bobby & the Midnites – Book of Rules; Bobby & the Midnites (Arista) ‘81 Heptones cover
  • Sinead O’Connor – Rivers of Babylon; Theology (Koch) 2007 Melodians cover

Set 5: Wailers Family Tree

  • Bob Marley & the Wailing Wailers – Stir It Up; Wail ‘N Soul ‘M Singles (JAD) ’67 
  • 3rd & 4th Generation aka Peter Tosh & the Soul Mates – Rudies Medley; Arise Blackman (Trojan) ’71 (Punch A side) comp.
  • Judy Mowatt – King of Kings; Only a Woman (Shanachie) ‘82
  • Ziggy Marley & the Melody Makers – Mama; Joy and Blues (Virgin) ‘93
  • Bunny Wailer – Armagideon; Blackheart Man (Mango) ‘76
  • Solomonic Reggae-stra – Armageddon Dub; Dubd’sco vol. 1 (Solomonic) ‘78

Set 6: UFOria

  • The Toyes – Waiting For the Aliens; Strange Animals (CD Tunes) ’99 LA
  • Steppenwolf – Magic Carpet Ride (Smile Jamaica Destroy All Humans Rmx)
  • Root 1 – Roots Rocket;  Root 1; Austin Texas
  • Nina Hagen – UFOs; Nunsexmonkrock (Columbia) ’82 Germany
  • Derrick Morgan – Do the Moon Hop; Doing the Moonwalk (Trojan) ‘69
  • Devin the Dude – Zeldar; Just Tryin’ ta Live (Rap-a-Lot) 2002 hip hop

Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: may 22, 2021 – End of an Era at KRCL!

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Precious cargo!

Greetings,

WTF? Why is my new Soob ding, ding, dinging at me? I ‘n’ I don’t have time for this. Have to get to the last in-person Smile Jamaica at KRCL.

As usual, running late and lugged this massive crate (from whence the term cratedigging…) and huffed it onto the front car seat. Soob computer thought it was an unbelted child.

So, running out of time. I just pulled over and latched my “child” safely and motored over to North Temple and 1800 West in Salt Lake City.

What do you mean the last Smile Jamaica? Salt Lake City is awash in 4 story high rise condos/apartments. Over by the airport, when the Park ‘n’ Jet next door was sold to property developers, the station is  stranded in the middle and was encouraged to find  alternate digs.

Luckily we did find a good spot but it isn’t developed  yet. So this show will be the last live Smile Jamaica for the summer while our new home is being constructed.

The Temple of Sound: 2000-2021

For I ‘n’ I, the classic KRCL location was over on 800 South/200 West. Back in the 80’s and 90’s when community radio didn’t have as many media competitors and had a  true sense of connection between station volunteers, (who did all the programming), and listeners.

But I ‘n’ I liked the North Temple spot well enough. Just give me two turntables and a mic and I’ll do Smile Jamaica anywhere.

True story:  When KRCL first announced at the end of the 90’s our new location, Dave Santivasi – long time host of Saturday Sage rock mornings –  drove by the North Temple spot we are now vacating.

That location has always been full of night crawlers. Dave pulled in and was looking around. All of a sudden, his passenger door flew open and a lady of the evening jumped in. She assumed Dave was looking for a “date!”

***

So, while I ‘n’ I go back to Living Room Kinda Cloudy home built Smile Jamaica’s, like I did during The Covid last March-May, enjoy this Reggae vinyl bash blowout and some pics of The Temple of Sound being de-constructed.

It was real. It was fun. Sometimes it was real fun.

Forward ever, backwards never. Soon come to a new Temple of Sound!

bless, Bobbylon

 

CD Library
Common Space
Production Studio
Performance Space

Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: May 22, 2021 Playlist

Set 1:

  • Zap Pow – Nice Nice Time; Trojan Story (Trojan) ’73 comp.
  • Burning Spear/Black Disciples – Garvey’s Ghost (Mango) ’76 dub album of the hour
  • Quasar – Knock on Wood; Fresh (LASN) ’88 soul cover
  • Peter Culture – Simmer Down; Behold (Top Beat) 2000 UK 10 LP
  • Casselberry – DuPree – Positive Vibration; City Down (Icebergg) ’86 Milwaukee, WI Marley cover
  • Keith Hudson – Rasta Country; Rasta Communication (Greensleeves) ‘78
  • John Holt – Police in Helicopter; 12” (Holt) ’82 JA 4:20 Cannabis Service Announcement
KRCL moving out of its studio. 21 Years of Nice Nice Time

 

Set 2:

  • Vivian Jones – Give Jah Praise; Jah Works (Jah Shaka) ’87 UK
  • The Melodians – Too Young to Fall in Love; Sweet Sensation (Mango)
  • Clive Natural – Down in Babylon; Shine the Light (Wamco) JA
  • Johnny Osbourne – Smiling Faces; Johnny Osbourne (Lix) Undisputed Truth soul cover
  • Marcia Aitken & Ranking Joe – Let Me Go Boy + Long Time Gal; 12” (Joe Gibbs) cover of Roy Shirley “Hold Them”
In England, Vivian can be either a male or female name

Set 3:

  • Maxine Miller – How Many Times; Showcase (Wackies) ’80 Bronx: Bob Marley cover
  • Papa Levi – Mi God Mi King; Trouble in Africa (Jah) ’85 UK speed rapper
  • Charlie Chaplin – Jamaican Collie; Chaplin Chant (Tamoki Wambesi) ’82 UK; herbtune to Winston Jarrett herbtune
  • Prince Al – Fly Away Home; 12” (Kaya) early 80’s Wailers Rastaman Chant
  • Jah Shaka/Aswad – Addis Ababa; Jah Shaka Meets Aswad in Addis Ababa Studio (Jah Shaka) ’85 dub album of the hour
Autorgraphed copy in the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives

Set 4:

  • Ras Michael & the Sons of Negus feat. Jazzboe Abubaka – Gabrail al Alma; Tribute to the Emperor (Trojan) ’76 UK
  • The Willin’ Prophets – Reggae Music; Resurrection EP (1U) ’87 Los Angeles
  • Sir Coxsone – Bower Dub; King of Dub Rock Part 2 (Tribesman) ’82 UIK
  • 15 16 17 feat. Dennis Brown – Only Sixteen; 12” (DEB) ’78 UK two sisters and a cousin cover Sam Cooke

Set 5:

  • Itals – Jah Glory; Calling Rastafari (Nighthawk) ’82 St. Louis, MO
  • Inner Circle – I Shot the Sheriffi; Blame It on the Sun (Trojan) ’74 UK Wailers cover
  • The Cimarons – Mull of Kintyre; Reggaeblity (PIckwick) ’81 UK Paul McCartney cover
  • Althea Ranking – Just Rocking; 12” (Go Deh Jockey) ’81 JA

Set 6: Wailers Family Tree

  • Bob Marley & the Wailers – Punky Reggae Party; 12” (Tuff Gong) ’77 UK picture sleeve; Lee “Scratch” Perry prod’n
  • Bunny Wailer – Boderation; 12” (Solomonic) ’83 JA
  • Judy Mowatt – Mr. Dee-J; Mr. Dee-Jay (Ashandan) ’81 JA
  • Peter Tosh – In My Song; 12” (Parlophone) ’87 Italy Picture sleeve
  • Sly & the Revolutionaries/Bill Laswell – Dub Master Chapter One (Trojan) 2005 dub rmx/dub album of the hour
No boring old farts will be there!

Set 7: 80th Birthday Bob Dylan Reggae Set

  • Bob Dylan – Man Gave Names to All the Animals; Slow Train Coming (Colombia) ’78 – 
  • Bob Dylan – I and I; Infidels (Colombia) ‘81
  • Bob Dylan – Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door; At Budokan (Colombia) ’79 live in Japan
  • Arthur Louis – Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door; This is Reggae Music vol. 2 (Island) ’74 US cover
  • Sister Carol & Scion Success – Mandela’s Release; 12” (RAS) ’90 DC – over Bob’s I Shall Be Released
Happy 80th Birthday to the man from Hibbing

Set 8: Mutant Dub

  • Alpha & Omega – Mankind See; King & Queen (A & O) ’89 UK female vox/trance dub
  • Bim Sherman – Gold & Silver; Haunting Ground (RDL) ’86 UK
  • Singers & Players feat. Prince Far I – Quante Jubila; War of Words (ON U Sound) ’81 UK
  • Tena Stelin – Cosmic Session; 10” (Roots Hi-Tek) 2006 UK UFO-ria

Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives May 15, 2021 – Small Axe!

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Greetings,

You are the big tree, we are the small axe. Sharpened to cut you down — The Wailers

Last month I ‘n’ I drove my parents from Arizona back home to Fort Benton, Montana (see previous blog post.)

When you make that journey, it is wise to build in some weather time. Spring in Montana lasts about a week. I remember as a youth snow storms in August.

So once we got settled I had about three days with not much to do.

Spring in Montana: Memorial Day to June 1

I ‘n’ I had been carving out some time to watch a series on Amazon Prime called Small Axe.

This is an ambitious five movie anthology put together by UK producer/director Steve McQueen. (No relation to the American actor who died of cancer in the early 80’s.)

McQueen is most known for his movie adaptation of 12 Years a Slave. Born in London to West Indian immigrants, Small Axe chronicles the lives of the Caribbean immigrants into English inner cities and the trials and tribulations that they face.

The films are not connected like a television mini series but stand on their own. Here is my audio review clipped from this episode of Smile Jamaica:

<Smile Jamaica reviews Small Axe>

UK film director/producer Steve McQueen
  • Mangrove

The Mangrove was a West Indian hangout and restaurant set in Notting Hill London. A place where people could play dominos, eat Island food and build community liaisons against the unremitting hostility from local cops.

Those cops didn’t see The Mangrove as a commercial community center. Instead they assumed it was a den of iniquity: gambling, drug dealing and prostitution. The bobbies (London white cops) would periodically descend on the spot and demolish the interior, roust the patrons and harass the owner. A man named Frank Critchlow.

Finally with help from the local chapter of the Black Panthers and sympathetic liberal white barristers, the club sued and was able to exist as a social, commercial pillar of Notting Hill’s black community.

The unremitting racism was very reminiscent of last summer’s Black Lives Matters protests in the US with the amplifier of 60’s and 70’s British hostility directed at immigrants.

The music was terrific late era 60’s and early 70’s Reggae and Rock Steady.

  • Lovers Rock

This featured the Caribbean youth phenomenon of the shebeen in London. House parties where people would gather and listen to the UK variant of Reggae called Lovers Rock. Pay a little entry fee, have some West Indian food and alcohol. Inside would be a small Reggae sound system, complete with toaster MC.

Young women were a major commercial force in the local Reggae scene. They didn’t want to hear dread and Rasta, they wanted smooth love tunes sung by Reggae songbirds like Janet Kay, the family trio 15, 16, 17 and Brown Sugar. The guys didn’t mind because it was mostly slow dances where they could “rub up a dawta.”

The women wore their best finery. The men dressed up as dandies. Same era in America as Saturday Night Fever. People hooking up, breaking up and cooling out. Highlight was a  scene where the pretty song by  Janet Kay runs out of the groove and  the entire party breaks out the lyrics in acapella.

  • Red, White and Blue

Local youth breaks through the racism and lack of connections to receive a Ph. D. and work as a researcher. However, his community is being devastated because of the constant beat down of young black men by viciously racist and cruel white cops.

Therefore he decides to give up his scientific career to become one of the first black bobbies (cops) in England. The locals see him as a traitor while the white cops use passive aggression and provocation to undermine his policing to the point of not backing him up in a violent criminal confrontation.

Reminiscent of American baseball player Jackie Robinson. A proud and determined black man who broke the color barrier and was called every foul name in the book. He had the strength to let it roll off his back and not let his anger fight back physically or verbally.

You can sense the seething in the young cop about how many more times is he expected to turn the other cheek.

  • Alex Wheatle

Black foster kid from the countryside is dropped off in big city. Is initiated into petty crime and turns to Reggae music for salvation. His goal is to create his own sound system. Taking his weekly “winnings” to a local record shop to buy the latest Reggae singles and 12″ disco mix.

My Mom happened into the living room while there was all this great music bumping. On the wall was the usual offering of 70’s Reggae LPs imported from Jamaica.

She asked, “Do you have any of those records?” I paused the movie and counted. Yep. I had every record but one.

Wheatle eventually winds up in prison after the 1981 Brixton riots. His cellmate is a Rasta who introduces him to literature. Eventually Wheatle became a successful novelist in Britain.

  • Education

The consistent theme through Small Axe is the unrelenting beat down that working class blacks face, in this instance England. Racism, poverty, lack of job opportunities, disjointed families, educational discrimination. Murder and assassination: Birthday parties firebombed,

In this movie a young boy who might have a learning disability or maybe because his parents work night shifts and odd hours he never learned to read.

There was no interdiction at that time. So the youth was sent to a euphemistically titled School for the Educationally Subnormal. Black children with heavy West Indian accents were assumed to be, what would have been called then, retarded. So these kids were dumped into a nightmarish “education” environment with children who had serious developmentally disabled white kids.

Of course the kids were not retarded, and were bored silly. Left to their own devices with teachers who were either absent or wasted  time playing half assed folk songs on the guitar. To be cast into those “schools” meant that those kids had no chance to advance into the work force upon “graduation.” The poverty of racism and discrimination was  their fate.

The not so subtle educational segregation only served to perpetuate the lack of opportunity for West Indians and their children for a generational cycle of misery and despair that we unfortunately still deal with in America.

With 2020’s Summer of Rage after the George Floyd murder, this anthology was a perfect complement on the UK experience.

In sum: I definitely will want to watch Mangrove, Lovers Rock and Alex Wheatle at home on my Hi Fi. I think I blew out my Dad’s hearing aid battery. “Jesus Christ, do you have to listen to it so loud?”

Yes, Dad. I do!

bless, Bobbylon

Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives: May 15, 2021

Set 1:

  • Peter Broggs – Rastafari Liveth!; Rastafari Liveth! (RAS) ’82 DC vinyl
  • Black Uhuru feat. Sly & Robbie – Ion Storm; Dub Factor (Mango) ’83 US vinyl dub album of the hour
  • Alpha Blondy – Cocody Rock; Cocody Rock (Shanachie) ’84 Ivory Coast West Africa
  • Carlene Davis – Don’t You Stop the Music; 15 Classic (Sonic) early 80’s
  • The Ethiopians – Everything Crash; Original Hit Reggae Sound (Trojan) ’68 comp.
  • Daweh Congo – Ganja Baby; Ghetto Skyline (Goldheart) 2008 4:20 Cannabis Service Announcement
  • 4th Street Orchestra – Dubb; 10” (Rama) ’77 UK; Beatles “And I Love Her” dub

Set 2:

  • Afro Omega – Pick Up the Pieces; Pick Up the Pieces EP (Afro Omega) 2006 SLC w/ female vox
  • Tenor Saw – Ring the Alarm; Joey & Norman Jay MBE; Good Times 3 (React) ’85 UK deejay comp.
  • Stranger Cole & Ken Boothe – Artibella; Ska Bonanza (Heartbeat/Studio One) ’61 comp.
  • The Melodians – Sweet Sensation; Reggae Pulse 3 (RAS) ’68 comp.
  • Sel Wheeler – Out of Rome; 12” (City Line) ’77 Bronx dub
Salt Lake Roots Dawta

Set 3:

  • Ringo – Push Lady Push; Black & White Story (Black & White) ’81 Mother’s Day tune
  • Cedric ‘Im Brooks & the Light of Saba; Lambs Bread Collie; Light of Saba (Honest Jon’s) ’76 trombone herbtune
  • Gracy & the Herbman Band – Losing Your Mind; See Mi Yah (Funfundvierzig) ’91 Germ. w/ female vox
  • Papa Levi – Militancy; 12” (Jah) ’86 UK pic sleeve; speed rapper
Every day is Mother’s Day on Smile Jamaica

Set 4: Holdover Mother’s Day 7” Jamaican Jukebox 

  • Dennis Brown – Song My Mother Used to Sing; 7” (Aquarius) ’71 
  • Barry Brown – Thank You Mama; 7” (Observer) ‘83
  • The Chantells – Baby Mother; 7” (Communating) ‘74
  • Leroy Smart – Mother Liza; 7” (Fe Me Time) ‘75
  • Lone Ranger – Labour Ward; 7” (Busy) ‘82
  • Sheriff Lindo & the Hammer – Sky Dubbing; Ten Dubs That Shook the World (Creative Vibes) ’88 Australia dub album of the hour

Set 5: Vinyl is Vital Set

  • Trinity – I Love Mama; Bad Card (Joe Gibbs) dj to Dennis Brown “Oh Mother”
  • Kemi – Even Though You’re Gone; Lovers Delight (Ariwa) ’93 UK roots dawta; Jacksons cover
  • Chris Wayne – Plant Mi Plant; Progress (Heartbeat) ’88 Cambridge, MA herbtune
  • Dave Robinson – Alligator Tears; Family Album (Jah Life) ’80 NY
  • Lennox Miller & Jah Caller – Better Must Come + Jah Caller Speaks His Mind; Jack Ruby Hi-Fi (Clappers) ‘ Bronx

Set 6: Wailers Family Tree Set

  • Bob Marley & the Wailing Wailers – Bus Dem Shut; Wail ‘N Soul ‘M Singles (JAD) ’67: 
  • Peter Tosh – Four Hundred Years; Arise Blackman (Trojan) ’69 comp.
  • The I Three – Many Are Called; Roots Daughters (Shanachie) ’78 comp.: Rita, Judy, Marcia
  • Bunny Wailer – Roots, Radics, Rockers, Reggae; Roots, Radics, Rockers Reggae (Shanachie) ‘78
  • Solomonic Players – Roots Raddics – Dubd’sco vol. 1 (Solomonic) ‘78
  • Sly & the Revolutionaries – Burn Pipe Dub; Sensi Dub Vol. 1 (Original) dub album of the hour

Set 7: Smile Jamaica 31+ Years Set

  • Linton Kwesi Johnson – New Crass Massakah; Making History (Mango) ’84 UK dub poet
  • Charlie Chaplin – Boyie, Boyie; 12” (Winner) ’85 UK
  • Sophia George – Girlie, Girlie; 12” (Winner) ’85 UK answer to Charlie Chaplin
New Cross Massacre. Covered in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe film anthology

Set 8: Mutant Dub

  • Blackalicious feat. Nikki Giovanni – Ego Trip; Nia (Mo Wax) ’99 female dub poet
  • Rockers Hi-Fi/Groove Corporation – Push Push (Underwater World of Jah Cousteau Mix); King Size Dub vol. 7 (Echo Beach) 2001 Germ. comp.
  • Dry & Heavy – King Cobra; 10” EP (Green Tea) 2000 UK; Jah-pon dubbers
  • Bush Chemists – Marijuana Defender; Dub Fire Blazing (Dubhead) 2001 UK herbal dub
  • Seke Molenga, Kalo Kawongolo, Lee “Scratch” Perry – African Roots; From the Heart of the Congo (RUNNetherlands) ’79 Zairean duo at the Black Ark

Smile Jamaica Ark-ives: Robert’s Reggae Roadtrip in Rona-ville!

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“We will throw your sorry ass off this plane!”

Greetings,

<Robert’s Rona Roadtrip Diary; 2 min. 20 sec.>

Every time….

“You’re getting on a plane?

Yep.

“Wow. Seems risky.”

Ok, Karen. I ‘n’ I have no choice. I’m the eldest and tasked with the responsibility of helping my Mom with my Dad. (Temporarily dain bramaged from a build up of excess spinal fluid. Called NPH.)

Brain surgery to install a shunt drain of excess spinal fluid that flows down a tube and is absorbed harmlessly into the stomach lining.

Since the Rona Pandemic of 2020 I ‘n’ I have boarded/de-planed 10 different planes. At first they were mostly empty. Now they are packed to the rafters. Guess I’ll take my chances with a 99% recovery rate and hope for the best.

So far so good: Bobbylon 43 The Covid 0

Here’s a diary of my  trip.

  • Day 1: SLC to Denver to Phoenix

I ‘n’ I love the cattle car of Southwest Airlines. Pay 15 bucks extra for Early Bird boarding and aim for the back corner of the plane. Didn’t matter. Both legs of the journey were full. In the airport and on the plane I felt the flight staff were more strict on mask compliance than last year or during Xmas 2020. It seems like the more people are vaxxed the stricter they have become.

I wear my mask b/c it’s a bitch when you are scolded for pulling it down to take a sip of anything. It’s ridiculous anyway b/c they make you take down your mask at TSA checkpoint. So I pass on my gamboo to the security person and he/she gives me their cooties. Lovely.

  • Day 2: Cratedigging

Phoenix has great record shops. Several boutique vinyl mostly shops. Their local CD/Vinyl/DVD chain is called Zia and they are terrific. Didn’t find a whole lot this time, except at one store called In the Groove. Snagged about a dozen rare Greensleeves label 12″ vinyl records. Yes I!

Spent $200 filling in gaps for the Smile Jamaica Ark-Ives. Keep the vinyl shops alive before, during and after The Covid

The other thing? Mask optional. Where some stores had finally opened back up to actual “digging” as opposed to “curbside delivery”, the staff at In the Groove weren’t wearing a mask and there was no “No Mask, No Service” sign on the door

So neither did I’n’ I. I do the old hang off the ear just in case. It was strangely self conscious and exhilarating at the same time. Wow, how quickly we have been accustomed to breathing in our own carbon dioxide and huffing microscopic boogers that accumulate on those face diapers*

*My Pops: “Jesus Christ, would you quit calling masks a face diaper.” So good to have the old cantankerous dad back in the fold which we missed for almost two years!

Pops was days away from one of Cuomo’s Nursing Home/Covid Death Houses and battled back to flash the Hairy Eyeball directed at his ingrate first born!

Except stay six feet apart and keep wearing your face diaper

That was 2020 for I ‘n’ I. Keeping my Pops dodging the Covid. Thanks to Ishtar, the Granter of Wishes! Others weren’t as fortunate.

15,000+
  • Day 3: 420 on 4/20; 107 sec.

Arizona legalized the hippie lettuce in 2020. They didn’t waste any time converting medical only Weed Huts into rec stores. There is a terrific shop in Sun City West that helped my Pops with CBD cream for his neuropathy, 1:1 vape cartridges for my Mom – restless leg syndrome.

Got Mom a nice vape pen for Mother’s Day* since I ‘n’ I broke hers in Dec. (For some reason I am lethal on vape pens, either lose them somewhere or they quit charging.)

*I have always been a good son!

Hey Mom! Charging you an Uber fee for our Roadtrip thru Rona-ville!

I ‘n’ I figured April 20th is like Black Friday for potheads. So I called early. Found out they opened at 8am that sacred day. Sale of 40% off cartridges. Got there by 8:20AM.

Jumped in the long line assuming that was for recreational customers. Asked the guy in front of me. Nope, that was for Medical. Spun the wheel and won a $10 pre-roll. Nice.

Walked right up to rec line like a celebrity. Got in their system and went to the budtender. Nice young woman named, wait for it!…..Marley. (Last trip thru Vegas my budtender’s name was Kaya.) I ‘n’ I was so excited I violated the six foot rule. But at least I had my face diaper on.

The Natural Mystical way to beat back the Rona

Walked out with a little bit of everything. Indica (for sleep); Sativa (for cratedigging); Hybrid (for everyday life). The most unusual thing was that they took credit cards. I ‘n’ I have bought weed in Washington, Collie-rado, Nevada and now Phoenix. Everywhere else was cash for the kasheesh. How civilized. Just like going to Mall-Wart or Olive Garden.

Well fortified, let’s get on the road….

Doing it for the Vitamin C. Beat back The Vid
  • Day 4: Sun City West, AZ to Mesquite, NV (350 miles)

It’s a three day drive from Phoenix to Fort Benton, Montana (North Central part of the state.) 1296 miles

Early high-light (pun intended) was the Last Chance Rest Stop on an Indian reservation just before you cross from AZ to NV.

Alien gear, weed gear and Trump gear “Still My President”. It’s a little disturbing that I’m obsessed with two of the three. Bought some alien schwag, Area 51 T shirt and a bunch of fridge magnets.

Someone call a Karen. Al Leon is wearing his face diaper below his nose!

Pull in to the Virgin River Casino. Had a nice dinner. Near miss with Pops as he went ass over tea kettle. Dude still needs his cane. Two nice bikers helped my Mom and I get him back on his feet.

Pops safe in his room, Mom and I hit the machines. Video Poker for I ‘n’ I. Headed to the exact spot where I won $1000 last fall.

Royal Flush buys a lot of Vape cartridges and pens!

Nevada is a Karen state. Plexiglass is like gambling in a phone booth. I strategically aimed for an end machine close to the bar. Even then the cocktail server doesn’t venture often into the 25 cent video poker machines.

Of course you have to wear a face diaper. I ‘n’ I fire up my Sativa cart and do a little Dr. Ted recreation. (Vaping through a mask). Mmm. Strawberries.

Alas, lightning did not strike twice. The best I ‘n’ I could muster was 4 8’s (400 quarters.) But I got to play about 90 minutes and only dropped 60 bucks. I was crosseyed exhaling strawberry essence through my face diaper (sorry Pops!)

Someone call a Karen, Jed isn’t vaping THROUGH his mask
  • Day 5: Mesquite NV to Idaho Falls ID (550 miles)

Time to grind out the longest and dullest stretch of the 3 day journey. Since Utah and Idaho are 2/3 thirds of the Mormon Triangle States, there will be no vaping nor gambling.

There was ice cream. It was hilarious watching my parent’s little dog Bella go through a bowl of vanilla ice cream like she was going to the dog pound for the long sleep.

Santaquin, UT. Masks for the employees, didn’t see any on the customers.

Hit Idaho Falls, check into the hotel room (so tired I ‘n’ I forgot my face diaper but didn’t need it. Utah and Idaho are coming out of it and getting on with it.) Pizza Hut in the room and half a Law & Order re-run. One toke from Blueberry Indica and I was in dreamland.

  • Day 6: Idaho Falls ID to Fort Benton MT (401 miles)

It wouldn’t be Montana if you didn’t have to worry about snow in April. Montana’s spring lasts from Memorial Day to June 1st.

The Monida Pass between Idaho and Montana is the stuff of nightmares. BFD. We’re going. Praise Anu, a few snow flurries, some low level fog. I give it a B+ by the usual whiteout conditions I ‘n’ I have been used to. Home sweet home.

 

Fort Benton, MT – aka the Birthplace of Montana….and I ‘n’ I
  • Chillin’ in The Birthplace of Montana

Small Axe Mini-Series, Steve McQueen (Amazon Prime)

When you long haul it that early in the spring, you have to book a few extra days before I ‘n’ I would fly back to SLC. Not much to do, so I had some binge time. My parents have Amazon Prime. I carved out the time to watch a fantastic 5 movie series from UK director Steve McQueen.

Collectively it is called Small Axe.

From the Wailers song: You are the big tree, we are the small axe. Sharpened to cut you down.

Five individual films chronicling the West Indian/UK immigrant experience. Unremitting racism, immigrant mistrust, depression of the daily beat down for the color of your skin, lack of educational opportunity.

After the 2020 BLM protests you could truly see that endemic racism is a global phenomenon that didn’t start with an Orange dude still selling MAGA schwag.

Smile Jamaic’a movie review soon come!
  • Fort Benton down with the hemp

17 down, 33 to go. Montana legalized marijuana in Nov. 2020. They haven’t started recreational sales yet but it is legal to possess. Oct. 2021 retail starts….supposedly.

Fort Benton is a town of about 1500 people. Down from about 1800 when I grew up there. Too cold for industry, kids moving off the farm.

But there isn’t a house to be had because of a local hemp processing plant. Yes, hemp. Not cannabis, but I can imagine that will be on-deck now that legal marijuana will need suppliers. They are employing 35 employees in a huge plant on the hill close to my house. They would be the largest non-school/government employer in the entire county.

Indhemp  are making hemp powder for supplements, oil, seeds, CBD extraction and I understand they have expanded to process hemp fiber.

And I ‘n’ I can’t wait until recreational is legal so I can walk up to the old NAPA auto parts store downtown and buy some vape from the Fat Hippie.

Fort Benton’s local dispensary!

  • Rona in Fort Benton-a

So basically after a week of living out of a suitcase, the day after we get home, I wake up and am not feeling all that great. Achy, feverish, low appetite. Are you kidding me? Is it the Rona?

I’ve been talking shit for a year and now it caught me. On the road, 1300 miles of 99% time spent in a car with people/pets I have herd immunity with. In the house I grew up in?

Is the streak over? Bobbylon 43, The Covid 0. Bad news if the Rona scores at all!

I immediately took a vape hit…..waited…..yes, could it be? Strawberries! I ‘n’ I didn’t lose my sensi (pun) of taste! My Mom said to quit being a wuss and come up and empty the dishwasher.

I

I ‘n’ I didn’t get my jab yet because I knew I had this massive trip in front of me. And I have talked to a couple people who had side effects. One guy had a tingling rash up and down his arms. My sister thinks it caused her outbreak of shingles.

So, a day later a friend of Pops comes over for a beer. He was setting up for a gun show in Great Falls. His tongue felt weird. And then he  had trouble breathing. His tongue was swelling. He high tailed into Instacare. Epi pen. 24 hours in ICU.

He was totally gobsmacked, a week early he had a 24 hour bout of uncontrolled hiccups that was worse than ICU.

I asked him if he had been recently vaccinated? Yep, two plus weeks earlier. Moderna. I asked an innocent question. Could his back to back adverse health incidences –  uncontrolled hiccups, anaphylactic shock – be a consequence of his jab? Oh, no. Take off your tin foil hat and believe the narrative.

And that’s why I’m waiting for the Sputnik V.

bless, Bobbylon

 

Smile Jamaica Playlist: May 1, 2021

  • Jacob Miller – Each One Teach One; Classic Rockers vol. 2 (Rockers) ’89 UK vinyl comp.
  • Sir Coxsone Sound – Black Wars Dub; King of the Dub Rock Part 2 (Tribesman);  ’82 UK vinyl dub Album of the hour
  • The Pioneers – Long Shot; Give and Take (Trojan) ’68 – Kentucky Derby Set
  • The Pioneers – Longshot Kicked the Bucket; In the Beginning (Jet Star) ‘69
  • The Race Fans – Bookieman; 7” (Upset) ’68 JA
  • Dillinger – Race Day; CB 200 (Mango) ‘76
  • Sugar Minott – One Horse Race; 7” (Chris & Squidley)
  • The Special AKA – Skinhead Symphony (Longshot Kick the Bucket); Stereo-typical A’s, B’s and Rarities (EMI) ‘80
  • Mr. Bojangles – Selassie I Cup; 7” (Joe Gibbs Record Globe) ‘77***End of Set 1
  • Roots Gwaan – Good Trees; Exalt H.I.M. (Conscious Riddims) herbtune
  • Hollie Cook feat. Horseman – Cry; Hollie Cook (Mr. Bongo) 2011 UK dawta
  • The Ethiopians – Train to Skaville; Norman & Joey Jay: Good Times 3 (React) ’67 comp.
  • 4th Street Orchestra – Hawaii 5-0; 10” (Rama) ’77 UK TV theme***End of Set 2
  • Slim Smith – Rougher Yet; Full Up (Heartbeat/Studio One) ’67 comp. Best of Smile Jamaica 31+ Years Set
  • Samuel the First – Sounds of Babylon; Keep on Coming Through the Door (Trojan) ’70 comp.
  • Barry Brown – Sensimilla; Far East (Hitbound) ’81 herbtune
  • Hortense Ellis – Jah Mysterious Works; Holding Up Half the Sky (Shanachie) ’80 comp.***End of Set 3
  • The Beat aka The English Beat – Jackpot; I Just Can’t Stop It (Go Feet!) ’80 UK 2 Tone ska
  • Thievery Corporation feat. Perry Farrell – Revolution Solution; CD Single (ESL) DC dubbers
  • K – Right Direction; Nemozian Rasta (I Grade) 2001 female
  • The Congos – Music Maker; 12” (99) ’81 NY***End of Set 4
  • Winston Jarrett – Ishen Galore; Wise Man (Tamoki Wambesi) ’79 UK herbtune: Vinyl is Vital Set
  • Freddie McKay – Settle For Me; Alcatraz (Mr. Tipsy) ’85 JA
  • Devon Russell – People Get Ready; Roots Music (Studio One) ’82 JA
  • Kingpin – Hottest Shot; Lovers Delight (Ariwa) ’93 UK lovers rock
  • Norma King – Hot Child in the City; 12” (Zion Love) ’89 Can. Nick Gilder pop cover***End of Set 5
  • Robert Palmer – Love Can Run Faster; 7” (Island) ’77 Lee “Scratch” Perry prod’n; Rockers do Reggae Set
  • Graham Parker – Howlin’ Wind; Howlin’ Wind (Mercury) ’76
  • Sinead O’Connor – The Glory of Jah; Theology (Koch) 2007
  • The Long Beach Dub All-Stars – Astro-Dub; Sunny Hours EP (Dreamworks) 2001
  • Ja-Man All-Stars – Dub Zone; In the Dub Zone (Blood & Fire) ’77 Dub Album of the Hour***End of Set 6
  • Bob Marley & the Wailing Wailers – Thank You Lord; Wail ‘N Soul ‘M Singles (JAD) ’67: Wailers Family Tree
  • Peter Tosh – Crimson Pirate; Arise Blackman (Trojan) ’69 Jackpot 7” organ instrumental
  • Phyllis Dillon – Long Time No Nice Time; Trojan Bob Marley Tribute Box Set (Trojan) ’72 Wailers cover
  • Bunny Wailer – Rule Dancehall + version; Solomonic Singles vol. 2 (Solomonic) ‘87***End of Set 7
  • Dry & Heavy – Rumble Dub; 10” EP (Green Tea) 2000 UK – Jah-pon: Mutant Dub Set
  • Seeed – Million Dead Tongues; King Size Dub Chapter 6 (Echo Beach) 2000 Germ. comp
  • David Holmes – Slash the Seats; This Film’s Crap Let’s Slash the Seats (Go Disks!) ‘95
  • Ellen Allien feat. Miss Kitten  – Rippin Kitten (BPitch Control) 2004 comp.
  • Kid Loco – Here Copmes the Munchies; Kill Your Darlings (Bella Union) 2001 Fr.
  • Alpha & Omega feat. Lee “Scratch” Perry – Dub Fire;
  • Trample the Eagle and the Bear (Alpha & Omega) 2005 UK trance dubbers
  • Rara Avis – Guyatri Mantra; Essential Lounge: Bombay (UBL) 2005 Hindi dub