11.15.12 - Sound Digital Sound

LISTEN TO THE ARCHIVE AT JAMAICAROCK.COM

I've always loved the Steely & Cleevie version of Rockfort Rock on the album above, as well as the sound boy killing tracks. The hardest one being "We A Di Don" by the dancehall godfather Johnny Osbourne. For this show I decided to start off with this very track and base the show around some of my favorite sound, digital and dancehall tunes. Check the playlist and archive above.

11.08.12 - For The Love Of Covers

LISTEN TO THE ARCHIVE AT JAMAICAROCK.COM

There has been a lot going on here in NYC lately. I hope everyone is doing okay from the storm that crushed the East Coast, parts of the Caribbean and also put the East Village Radio studio in the dark for almost a week. Big ups to all of the people around here helping each other out, and of course you can donate to the Red Cross or Occupy Sandy.  I needed some fun songs to play for myself and of course for you the listeners. I am a huge fan of cover songs so I decided to go for an all-covers show, hoping they would make you as happy as they make me. One reason why I love reggae covers of songs that I like is because I feel it connects me with that reggae artist - "hey I like that song too!". I'm sure you are aware that there are some very bad covers out there, but I think I chose some of the best. Enjoy!

10.25.12 - Vampires, Duppies & Haunted Riddims

LISTEN TO THE ARCHIVE AT JAMAICAROCK.COM

I have always been a fan of Halloween, there's is something exciting to me about the anonymity and mischief in the air (not into the free candy because I don't have a sweet tooth). For this week's show I decided to pull together some songs about vampires, ghosts and other darkness. I missed last week due to a CMJ preemption (if you tuned in, thanks) and that was also the late great Peter Tosh's birthday. So I included some songs on this tip from him too. Of course, there are the lighter more straightforward vampire tunes like Barnabus Collins by Lone Ranger and then there are the deeper vampire tunes such as the ones by Tosh. Vampires can basically be a metaphor for any evil force sucking the good out of you. For the second hour I decided to play some dark dancehall tunes for you since I have not done a later dancehall set in a while, inspired by one of my favorite riddims, the Haunted riddim. Enjoy... if you dare. Muah ha ha ha...

10.11.12 - Joe Gibbs Hour + Brother Culture LIVE

LISTEN TO THE ARCHIVE AT JAMAICAROCK.COM

Joe Gibbs was born on October 14th, 1942 in Montego Bay and the first hour of this show is dedicated to him as it falls the Thursday before his birthday. One of my favorite producers, he has worked with producers such as Coxsone Dodd, Lee Perry, Niney, Errol T and artists such as Delroy Wilson, Dennis Brown, Jacob Miller, Gregory Isaacs and many many others. Joe Gibbs proved he could adapt his talent during his prolific career, going from big rocksteady and early reggae hits to rockers, dub and beyond. He was also a big influence to the 70s UK scene, probably most notably The Clash. He sadly passed in February of 2008, survived by 12 children - one of whom is Rocky Gibbs who has the label of the same name that has updated and put out some of his father's classic tunes.

Brother Culture is one of UK's most renowned reggae MC's. Based in Brixton, London, he first started chanting on Jah Revelation Muzik Sound System way back in 1982 and spent much of the 80s touring around the UK, the US, Canada and the Caribbean. In the 90s, UK reggae began expanding into the sounds of Drum & Bass and he proved adept at adapting his unique style to an ever-expanding audience which has made him a fixture in the revived UK Dub and Roots scene.

DJ Q-Mastah is part of the Sound Liberation Front crew that promote bass-heavy sound system culture throughout NYC and beyond. This Friday will be the launch of Dub Stuy Records and also the unveiling of Sound Liberation Front'sTower of Sound (a custom built 10,000W Sound System) that will be used to blast the sounds of Brother Culture live alongside members of Dutty Artz, Dub Is A Weapon and others at the Paper Box in Brooklyn.

Check the archive and the video above - vibes!

10.04.12 - Delroy Wilson & Love Songs

LISTEN TO THE ARCHIVE AT JAMAICAROCK.COM

Delroy Wilson

This show goes out to the late great Delroy Wilson, born October 5th 1948. His albums were some of the first ones in my record collection and his voice will always be a special remembrance of those times for me. He recorded his first tune in 1961 for Coxsone Dodd at the age of thirteen and had many of his hits on the Studio One label, but also enjoyed plenty of success throughout the 70s with other legendary producers such as Lloyd Charmers, Keith Hudson, Joe Gibbs, Niney and Harry J. You can check out the killer video above of him doing a take of "Dancing Mood" in Bunny Lee's studio with Jammy at the controls. Since I often play Delroy Wilson tunes on the show, I tried to focus on ones that I may not have played recently or as often as the others, though I did want to play some of his top songs as well. Inspired by his song "True Believer In Love" I also wanted to showcase love songs and lovers rock by some other artists like John Holt, Slim Smith and even Beres Hammond and Super Cat.

09.27.12 - Rhythm n Blues, Rocksteady n Ska

LISTEN TO THE ARCHIVE AT JAMAICAROCK.COM

Prince Buster

Having recently picked up a new (old) 45 of Dave Barker's "Set Me Free", it got me into listening to his other songs and led me into an RnB and rocksteady n ska type of mood. Dave Barker is a beautiful singer that was born in Kingston, JA. Having started out doing some recordings for Harry J and Coxsone while working at the Studio One pressing plant, he then joined Winston Riley for a bit singing with The Techniques but hit the most success partnered up with Ansel Collins for their big track "Double Barrel". I have also included a song or two by Prince Buster, Ken Parker, Laurel Aitken and The Skatalites. There are also some lovely songs by Rita Marley in here and of course (as I do love them) some great cover songs as well. You can check the playlist above, though for some reason the EVR playlists run out of room for me and so then some songs at the end will be listed at the top, fyi...

09.20.12 - Dubwise / Roots Radics Selections

LISTEN TO THE ARCHIVE AT JAMAICAROCK.COM

Emch, Style Scott, QM

A convenient continuation of the previous week's Keith Hudson show, this show features other dub pioneers such as King Tubby, Lee Scratch Perry, Scientist and more. The Dub Champions Festival that has just happened this weekend was inspiration to get me listening to more dub than I have in a long time. Which, obviously, is a good thing.

The Dub Champions Festival (www.DubChampions.com) was put on by Subatomic Sound, and lucky for us Emch from Subatomic was in a studio not too far from the EVR studio and managed to drop by towards the end of the show to talk a bit about the festival. An even luckier surprise was that he had Style Scott of the mega-band Roots Radics with him! What a very nice and cool guy, I would love to have him on again to talk about some more history with us. Hope you got to check them all out this weekend, Roots Radics played "Rids the World Of The Evil Curse Of The Vampires" with none other than Scientist himself! And Johnny Osbourne! Killer show. I missed the Lee Perry one (caught him with Emch last time though) and I am sure that was great too. Big ups to Subatomic Sound for helping bring more dub events to NYC.