It takes quite a lot to tempt me out of DJ retirement these days, but Heatwave have very kindly asked me to return to the decks for their 8th Birthday Party. I could hardly refuse although it’s a pity I’ll be without Droid at my side this time – our last encounter at the same venue is now the stuff of legend:
A cruel depiction of my last time playing at the Big Chill House by Martin of Beyond The Implode
I would hazard a guess that with a line up like that I’m going to be on early, so come down and grab a beer for some warm up skanking.
UK reggae has seemed increasingly detached from current affairs in recent years, but anyone who’s checked my eighties mixes will know it hasn’t always been this way. I guess the focus has moved to a more international market which means the particularities of life in specific areas of London or Birmingham don’t get a look in.
Plus of course, music is shaped by the society and economics around it. Perhaps Dan Hancox’s excellent article about Grime and the riots marks the beginning of a cultural shift (or perhaps it’s wishful thinking by youthful lefties like Dan, and knackered old ones like me).
Either way, I’ve been looking out for songs about recent events and have collected some of the better efforts below for your delectation. These are mainly thanks to the good people of the Blood and Fire board. I’ve not had much luck looking for things myself, but there do seem to be a bunch of people re-tagging their tunes on Youtube to tie them into the recent disturbances.
(Any further tips on 2011 riots tunes would be much appreciated, especially if they are any good – leave suggestions in the comments box if you find any…)
A skippy upful roots stepper, with suprisingly incisive lyrics (dissing Cameron for being on holiday), some good Darcus Howe samples and pretty great video.
Mournful, and melodic with a nice xylophone thingy. Reminds me a bit of Manasseh’s recent productions, which is a high compliment. Some different Darcus Howe and an articulate member of the public get sampled.
Dub Investigation are from Dublin, incidentally – a city with worries and troubles of its own. Indeed, the fucked up economy of the Republic of Ireland is one of the main reasons for Woofah not coming out and for its esteemed editor having to paddle twice as fast just to keep his head above water.
3. The Blackstones – Heat In The Streets
Languid one drop, in which the youth are instructed in no uncertain terms not to disrespect their culture or skimp on education. I think the Blackstones were a UK group who recorded at Studio One, but not entirely sure. Please note I have avoided googling them to bolster my credibility!
(Apparently this actually came out two weeks before the riots, so cue lots of “prophecy fulfil” type of talk… don’t call it a cash-in!)
4. Big Youth – London’s Burning
Mad Professor production – nice to see some legends stepping up but this isn’t my favourite by any means. Looking forward to checking the dub though!
5. Fresharda – 2011
Some contemporary dancehall, complete with vocoder! I actually quite like this – consciousness wins though I guess.
Dan Hancox linked to this from his ace Guardian piece, but I’ve included it here for completeness. I think Fresharda was probably first out of the blocks in terms of riot songs, but the lyrics are quite general so he may have had it in the can already…
6. King Hammond – Riot In London Town
And finally, the ridiculous King Hammond with a tune recorded in March. A perfect pastiche of 1969 Skinhead Reggae which gets huge points for namechecking Clissold Park, Stamford Hill and Manor House as well as many other London haunts. Well cheeky, this one makes me smile a lot.
Bubbling under
From the not quite as good, to the downright cringeworthy. Includes some jaw-droppingly bad lyrics, but also the occasional genius moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y8tG6zbhok
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX7gOPqYTOA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iql2BvkuOTY
Incidentally, that old William Burroughs quote “riot sounds produce riots” – that’s been rendered a bit redundant in the era of 24 hour media overkill, hasn’t it? Old Bill reckoned a group of you could wander about with cassettes of riot noises playing and people would get so agitated that they would actually riot themselves. But everyone in the UK has now heard more riot sounds than they know what to do with on the telly, with mainly zero result.
In the more innocent days of 1989, some courageous souls tried out Burroughs’ idea every day at The Festival of Plagiarism in Glasgow, “with mixed results”.
I was up there, but the experiment was too early in the morning for me, so I missed my opportunity to see it all for myself, as did the wonderful people I was staying with. But this did have the unexpected bonus value of us all being slagged off by Stewart Home for being “bohemians”, the first and I think only time that word has been used in connection with me.
Second issue of this great zine – now out, bigger and even better than the debut! Same bad-ass bashment attitude!
Great interviews with Dr Carolyn Cooper (author of the book “Sound Clash: Jamaican Dancehall Culture At Large”) on her lucidly academic take on bashment, Solo Banton on working with Jahtari, Ward 21 on starting out with King Jammy and then making mad riddim. There’s even an extended interview with Sizzla that attempts to get to grips with things like his Mugabe sponsored appearance in Zimbabwe.
But I think what really makes NICS stand out is the combination of great articles with smaller, more “ziney” things. This issue you can learn how to do the “Willie Bounce”, hear Gabriel Heatwave‘s fave moments from the awesome Stageshow event, take a trip down Nostrand Ave in Brooklyn to look at the record shops, and even get a primer in Japanese Dancehall acts.
I’ve contributed a three-pager myself on an obscure JA cop TV show from the eighties…
Plus supeber graphics and that whole hand-printed, hand collated DIY vibe.
No Ice Cream Sound is available NOW, from here. I would advise getting one sooner rather than later – they’ve printed so few that “limited edition” doesn’t even say it. (The Shimmy Shimmy crew will now share in the zine editor’s curse of having people ask you if you have any copies of your first issues left, for YEARS after you sold it out… *cackle*)
Stamford Hill is right at the northern end of the London Borough of Hackney, bordering Haringey/Tottenham. I’ve lived around there for about 15 years now and have always had an interest in its history.
Last May, Richie (Maharishi Hi-Fi / Musical Fever) hosted another one of his excellent nights, this time at the Mascara Bar (previously Panagea Project, opposite Morrisons Supermarket). I’m no die-hard Ska or Rocksteady expert, but Richie’s nights are always excellent (see reviews here and here). I’ll happily leave the selections to Richie and his favoured DJs any time – an amazing night for the old and young is standard.
Riche also has an uncanny habit of organising great events within about 2 minutes of my flat, which is most definitely to his credit. This time one of my favourite reggae writers of all time, Penny Reel, was on the bill – and there was a local history angle. I was sold.
It was an education, musically and socially. I had the pleasure of meeting Nick Kimberley, who published the world’s first reggae fanzine, Pressure Drop, with Penny Reel in 1974. I get very excited about things like that and the connections/differences with Woofah. Before that night I didn’t know anything about the R&B Records operation. Naturally there were tunes aplenty and further help was on hand in the form of a text produced especially for the night by Malcolm Imrie, who has kindly allowed me to republish it here:
R&B Records 1959-1984
Bunny Lee: “The main t’ree people was when I come a Englan’ forty odd years ago, right, was who now. . .? Mrs King. . . and. . . husband name Benny. Benny use’ to come a Jamaica too, yunno, an’ put out — a get record. Him use’ to put out anyt’ing wha Ken Lack [Caltone imprint] make, Rita an’ Benny, y’understan…”
Rita and Benny King, R&B Records?
“Yes, Rita an’ Benny, right. Them did ‘aye a big distributing place from — dem was powerful people inna the business. Mrs King was a force to reckon with. Them use’ to have a place inna Stamford Hill. If she na sell the record is better yu come outta the business.”
In 1959, Stamford Hill was a lot livelier than it is today. A good place to be a teenager. Full of cafes, like the popular E&A salt beef bar on the corner of Clapton Common and Stamford Hill or Carmel’s kosher restaurant a few doors further down on the other side of the street (oddly, the newish shop there is still called Carmel). Even Windus Road (just round the corner from the Mascara Bar) had three milk bars — you can still see the sign of one of them outside what is now a Hassidic pizza takeaway.
A lot of people would hang out and play pinball in “the Schtip”, the Yiddish name (I think it means ‘taking money’) everyone used for the amusement arcade almost next door to the E&A (it’s still there, with a different name and no pinball). As well as the grand Regent (where Sainsbury’s now stands), soon to be the Gaumont and finally the Odeon, you could take your pick of around eight other cinemas within half a mile.
Three years earlier, ten-year-old local girl Helen Shapiro was singing in a group called Susie and the Hula Hoops, along with a boy called Markie Feld, later to change his name to Marc Bolan. Two years on, in 1962, she’d have two number one hits. In ’59 she and Markie were both members of Stamford Hill Boys and Girls Club in Montefiore House (now replaced by a block of flats just south of Holmleigh Road), as were Alan Sugar, one day to get knighted for services to himself, and Malcolm Edwards, soon to become Malcolm McLaren.
And in only a few months’ time, they are about to get the first ten-pin bowling alley in Europe (watch its gala opening here or below)
Exciting times.
All that was missing was a good record shop, and in 1959 a Jewish couple called Rita and Benny Isen who had just changed their surname to King decided to open one. Rita and Benny: R&B Records. I read somewhere that earlier they sold records from a stall in Petticoat Lane but have no idea whether it’s true. For the first ‘few years the shop was at 282 Stamford Hill (now a builder’s merchants), and then it moved a few doors up to 260 (now Top Pizza). By about 1963/64 they weren’t just selling records, they were releasing them on their own labels — first the parent label, R&B, and then a whole sprawling family of others, including Giant, King, Ska Beat, Hillcrest, Caltone, Jolly, and Port-O-Jam. Their most bizarre label was surely Prima MagnaGroove, devoted exclusively to the output of the Italo-American swing artist Louis Prima (slogan: Stay on the Move, With Prima MagnaGroove). That’s Louis singing ‘I Wanna Be Like You’ in Jungle Book — the king of the swingers.
At first their catalogue was an odd mixture. Their only big hit in the UK was Irish c&w Larry Cunningham’s ‘Tribute to Jim Reeves’ in 1964. They did a bit of gentle pop, including “His Girl” by the Canadian band The Guess Who? which managed to get to number 45 in 1966:
It’s been claimed they even released surf music but I haven’t found any trace of it.
But that isn’t why they were so special. What was really important about R&B Records was that Rita and Benny were among the very first to release Jamaican music in Britain. Ska and rock steady. Scores of great records on pretty much all their labels, from 1964 onwards. Artists included: Laurel Aitken, Dandy Livingstone, Jeanette Simpson, Junior Smith, The Itals, The Wailers, The Wrigglers, Jackie Opel, The Maytals, The Skatalites, Lee Perry, The Blue Flames, The Clarendonians, Delroy Wilson, Derrick Morgan, Don Drummond, Stranger Cole… and many, many more. You can find the (incomplete) catalogues of some of their labels on www.discogs.com [and Tapir’s site – JE]. While Benny looked after the shop, Rita traveled to Jamaica to meet the musicians and buy the tapes.
Until the late 1960s there were very few places in Britain where you could buy records of Jamaican music, and R&B on Stamford Hill had all the new releases, and not just on their own labels. So their shop became a mecca for young blacks, not just from Hackney but from all over London and well beyond. Barry Service, who worked in the shop from 1970 to 1980, says that when he started there the place was packed on Friday evenings and all day Saturday, with people buying music and listening to music — it seemed like a club as much as a shop. And Rita, with her beehive haircut, presided over it all, like a queen. The shop also became very popular — because they liked ska — with the early Mods. Penny Reel, who grew up here, convincingly claims that Stamford Hill was the birthplace of Mod:
“The grandfathers of these young stylists [Markie Feld and his friends] toiled in the tailoring sweatshops of Fashion Street fifty years earlier and their fathers own small outfitters in Kingsland Waste, so it is not at all surprising that their clothes are at the forefront of fashion and in the most modern Italian and French styles. In fact, this crowd refer to themselves as “modernists” and they are the forerunners of the gentile “mods” who emerge over the next few years with their sharp bri-nylon anoraks, scooters and op art imagery, and cause headlines at the Easter weekend holiday in Clacton in 1964.”
Certainly there were a lot of Mods, Jewish and gentile, in and around Stamford Hill. They would go to music venues further up towards Tottenham, like Loyola Hall (now some sort of Christian mission centre) where The Who played early on, and the Club Noreik at Seven Sisters, as you can see at the end of this clip of Unit 4+1 playing there in ’66:
Rita and Benny’s shop lasted for 25 years. They finally closed it in 1984, partly, it seems, because of ill-health. Barry Service kept in touch with them for a short while but doesn’t know what became of them. Nor do I. There’s only one photo I’ve found of Rita, thanks to Penny Reel, and one of her and Benny with Larry Cunningham in Billboard magazine’s archives. I’d like to know more. Black music in Britain owes quite a lot to them, and it is about time they were celebrated. Stars of Stamford Hill. One day there should be a Blue Plaque outside Top Pizza…
Saturday 13th August Assemble Gillet Square, Dalston, N16 at 1pm.
March to Tottenham Green, N15
Our communities need a united response to both the riots and the causes of despair and frustration that can result in riots.
We call for:
• A Culture of valuing, not demonising youth and unemployed people.
• Support for those affected by the rioting, including the immediate re-housing of people made homeless as well as grants for affected small businesses.
• Community led regeneration and restoration of damaged areas.
• Reversal of all cuts to youth services in our boroughs.
• No cuts to public services! Instead, investment into and regeneration of our communities, including housing, jobs, education and sports facilities.
• An independent community inquiry into policing methods in our boroughs, and an end to discriminatory stop and search.
• Availability of legal support for all those arrested by police -young people face potential sentences that will affect them, their families and their wider communities for years to come. Recommended solicitors are: Bindmans 02078334433, Hodge Jones & Allen: 07659111192
We are responding to the events of the last few days, in particular the Tottenham protest over the killing of Mark Duggan and the riots that followed in Tottenham and Hackney.
By coming together and calling for unity we want to encourage all sections of our local communities, young and old, black and white, residents and workers, to work together to find solutions to some of our long-standing problems.
We know there are all kinds of strong feelings and differing views. We do not claim to represent the whole community, but merely seek to promote unity in the communities in which we live.
Simply labelling rioters as opportunistic criminals does little to relieve tensions and provides a poor explanation for the worst riots in decades. While the shooting of Mark Duggan provided the trigger, against a background of oppressive policing, especially towards ethnic minorities, the root causes are deeper.
Our communities have been blighted by high levels of deprivation, poverty and lack of opportunity for decades. Inequality is growing and recent funding cuts to local services, particularly youth facilities, along with rising unemployment, and cuts to EMA and benefits have exacerbated the conditions in which sections of frustrated young people turned to rioting, which unfortunately has resulted in people losing their homes and small/family businesses losing their livelihoods.
Britain is a wealthy country, but with deep inequality. The economic crisis created by greedy bankers and financial speculators is further impoverishing already poor areas like Tottenham and Hackney. The £390 billion of combined wealth of the richest 1,000 people in Britain should be redirected to fund the services we all need.
In the last few months we have seen mass local protests against cuts, student occupations to defend free education, a half-a-million-strong demonstration on March 26, and 800,000 public service workers out on strike on June 30th.
We need to build on these and other inspiring local and national struggles. Let’s work together for a decent society, based not on greed, inequality and poor conditions, but on justice, freedom, sharing and cooperation.
North London Unity Demonstration supported by:
The Haringey Alliance for Public Services, Hackney Alliance to Defend Public Services, Day-Mer (Turkish and Kurdish Community Centre), NLCH (North London Community Centre), Day-Mer Youth, Alevi Cultural Centre, Fed-Bir: , Kurdish Community Centre: Roj Women, Halkevi, Gik-Der (Refugee Workers Cultural Association), Britania Peace Council: Hundred Flowers Cultural Centre, TOHUM, Socialist Party, Youth Fight For Jobs, Right To Work, Red Pepper.
The Hackney One Carnival was due to commence at midday with a parade from Ridley Road Market to Clissold Park. We met some friends en route and saw stewards but no sign of the parade. One of the stewards told us he’d just been informed that the whole thing had been cancelled by the police.
The Hackney Gazette later reported that the police feared “that certain elements were planning on attending the Hackney Carnival intent on a repeat of last night’s violence”. Certainly there seems to have been some noise on facebook about it, but it’s impossible to say whether this was just testosterone fuelled bravado or not.
We went to the park anyway and had our picnic. The tents, stages and stalls for the carnival had clearly all been set up, but were now being dismantled. We sat by the new skateboard park and watched as four or five policemen stopped and searched every male teenager in the vicinity. No arrests were made while we were there, so presumably they found nothing of interest. It started raining, so we headed to the pub.
That night there was some disorder in Dalston, with the Argos being looted. This was generally eclipsed in the media by coverage of events in Enfield.
Rumours started circulating from around midday that trouble was brewing. Shops closed up all over the borough on police advice and council staff were sent home.
There were reports of young people from the Pembury Estate gathering around Hackney Central, The Narrow Way etc. The Pembury is notorious and was the site of huge dawn raids earlier this month, which I can only assume some people are still pissed off about.
Seems like nothing much happened until about 4pm when a stop and search of two black men aggravated the situation and then damage was done to a police car under the railway bridge at the top of Mare Street:
After this there was some damage to shops, minor looting, stuff chucked at the police etc. This was all clearly visible to me via the helicopter footage live BBC news feed which I watched at work whilst trying to figure out my route home. I took the long way round via Finsbury Park and saw this on the bus shelter:
There’s a lot of coverage of what happened next over at The Guardian. More looting, a few vehicles on fire, people pushed by police away from the top of Mare Street back to the Pembury Estate or down south towards Cambridge Heath.
Twitter went mental, suggesting there were gangs and rioters on virtually every inch of the borough. Someone said the off licence at the end of my road was being looted, then said 20 people had rushed it and left without paying, then said the whole thing had been a misunderstanding and in fact they had been tweeting things their friend had been telling them, wrongly.
People love talking these things up. Earlier this year I was outside Hackney Town Hall at a protest against the budget being set. It was a reasonably peaceful protest with a lot of standing around, but some passersby took great pleasure in tweeting that they had “ended up in the middle of a riot in Hackney”. Then it looked silly, but this week these exaggerations became distinctly unhelpful.
The net is littered with people saying there are riots happening all over the UK where there aren’t, saying that shops are closing down on police advice when in fact they are closing because of internet rumours. There is a further rumour that the Tottenham rioters on Saturday were circulating the rumour that Mark Duggan had been executed by the police. I’m not sure what this means.
I’d be pretty surprised if anyone managed to give my local offy a going over. They are great guys in there, but hard as nails also. A few years back some crackhead tried it on with a replica handgun, but it seems they recognised it as being a fake and leapt over the counter for a full and frank discussion before the police turned up. The Turkish community in Dalston were out in force on Monday to defend their shops, apparently telling the police that everything was under control and no assistance was needed:
There seemed to be scattered outbursts of disorder in places like Clapton and other parts of Hackney, but nothing too major. Elsewhere things seemed to be much worse, with shops and flats being burned out in Peckham and footage of a huge fire in Croydon looping endlessly on the TV.
In Clapham, the fancy dress/party supplies shop right next to Dub Vendor went up in flames:
Fortunately their lovely staff are all OK and the shop itself doesn’t seem to have fared too badly either.
If you see others with a focus on Hackney, please leave a link in the comments box below.
Tuesday
More rumours, more boarded up shops, but not much happening. I saw sporadic and unverified reports last night of things being set on fire in Tottenham again. Indeed, a friend who is a fireman reckoned last night was one of the worst times he’s ever seen – lots of relatively small fires to put out, all over the place.
I’ve tried to stick to the basics of what happened and when, there are already far too many people commenting on why it all happened and what should be done about it.
There’s too much happening to make much sense of it all right now. I’ll try to write about Hackney soon.
I mentioned the death of Mark Duggan, shot by police in Tottenham, in my last post.
Thursday
There have been mixed reports about the circumstances of his death. Rumours circulated that Duggan was shot whilst on the ground, execution style.
A “non-police issue handgun” was collected from the scene. The media reported that a bullet had lodged itself in a police radio. It now seems that this bullet may have originated in a police handgun. There has been a lot of discussion about how many shots were fired, and by whom.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission has been quick to deny the “execution” allegation. They are promising a ballistics report on the incident very soon.
Saturday
On Saturday afternoon some friends and relatives of Mark staged a protest outside Tottenham Police Station. They wanted answers and didn’t get them. It has been suggested that a sixteen year old girl was batoned by the police and this lead to the subsequent riots.
Stafford Scott, Tottenham resident and community activist gives the background and wider context in this interview:
LONDON — As political and social protests grip the Middle East, are growing in Europe and a riot exploded in north London this weekend, here’s a sad truth, expressed by a Londoner when asked by a television reporter: Is rioting the correct way to express your discontent?
“Yes,” said the young man. “You wouldn’t be talking to me now if we didn’t riot, would you?”
The TV reporter from Britain’s ITV had no response. So the young man pressed his advantage. “Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you.”
Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere.
I wrote quite a lot about UK policing earlier in the year in relation to the failure of policing (at best) that lead to the death of Smiley Culture. News about that case was always going to ebb and flow, not least because it is now in the bureaucratic hands of the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
But… it was never just about Smiley Culture. Since Smiley’s death a number of other people have died in suspicious circumstances in police custody. Many questions are being asked about heavy handed policing at demonstrations against the austerity measures being introduced by the UK government to pay for the banking crisis. In recent weeks London’s Metropolitan Police have been implicated in the “Hackgate” News International scandal.
Jody McIntyre’s series of films touches on some of the issues, asking the right questions and making the right links. The first episode is above and includes involvement from Benjamin Zephaniah, Merlin Emanuel (both of who have lost family members in police custody) and victims of police crime. The soundtrack includes contributions from grime artists Ghetts, Logic, Mic Righteous and DVS. A future episode will deal with the coalition government’s budget cuts.
The terrible truth is that hard times can bring people together. Four years ago it would have been inconceivable that student protestors and grime artists would find common ground.
More seriously, Mark Duggan was fatally shot by the police in Tottenham last night, about a mile away from where I am typing this. Unusually, the IPCC were on the scene within hours – perhaps as a result of the scrutiny they have found themselves under this year?
First up some sweet FREE madness in Kings Cross organised by Whydelila and The Large. Great line up with foundation UK dancehall represented by Saxon and a more contemporary take on those sounds by the man like Wrongtom amongst many others. I would hazard a guess that tunes old and new will be played. Should be ace.
Secondly, east London sees the launch party for the second issue of No Ice Cream Sound fanzine.
A great line up once again, not sure if there’s a door tax or not though. There’s probably more info on the facebook page if you’re on facebook.
The zine itself is said to feature:
Exclusive interviews with SIZZLA, WARD 21, SOLO BANTON and CAROLYN COOPER
A special look into Japanese Dancehall from our JP correspondent
Exclusive illustrations from Gabe (seen-site.com), Smutlee (YoYo) and Karen
Cazabon (HDD)
A huge dancehall chart from Al Fingers
Gabriel Heatwave’s exclusive review of Showtime!
AND MORE! 50 pages of dancehall badness!
Oh and a modest piece by me, if it made it though the rigorous editorial panel…
