The Deltones were an eleven piece ska/bluebeat outfit formed in London back in the early/mid 80’s, and they featured former members of The Bodysnatchers. They were an all female band, apart from the drummer who was a male. The group also recorded a Peel Session for Radio 1 and a session for Capital Radio during the late eighties, and they were well known on the London gig circuit. They were also extremely popular in France, and they also appeared on Saturday morning TV in Britain performing the single, Stay Where You Are. The group decided to call it a day in the mid nineties, but by this time the line – up had changed considerably and they had moved on to playing pop – indie music rather than ska , although some of their ska tunes where performed during their set list at their latter concerts.
Peel first saw the band in 1986 when they performed in Soho to celebrate 6 years of Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues night at the Gossip’s nightcluv. He mentioned seeing them in the Observer, published on 4th May 1986 and described that he was a fan when they first struck up:
“From the moment they struck up I was a fan. Since a typically untidy adolescence, I have suspected that women know something we men do not, that they can have an understanding and co-operative spirit that combative men can rarely, if ever, match. I’m limping through minefields here, I know, but I cannot imagine 11 men playing together on stage with the sense of community radiated by the Deltones.” [1]
A month later, the band did a session for Peel’s show, despite not having a record deal at that time and in the late 80’s, when the group were signed to an indie label, he played some tracks from the band’s only solo album, Nana Choc Choc In Paris, on his programmes.
The Pyramids aka Symarip are a Ska and Reggae band from the United Kingdom, originating in the early 1960s, when Frank Pitter and Michael Thomas founded the band as The Bees. The band’s name was originally spelled Simaryp, which is an approximate reversal of the word pyramids. Consisting of members of West Indian Jamaican immigrants to London, Simaryp is widely marked as the first skinhead reggae bands, to target skinheads as an audience, after playing backing band with Laurel Aitkin started to witness a growing Skinhead following. Their hits included “Skinhead Girl”, “Skinhead Jamboree” and “Skinhead Moonstomp”, the latter
of which was based on the Derrick Morgan song, “Moon Hop”. After the release of Skinhead Moonstomp album in 1970 and a sell out gig at wembley marred with teenage violence. Reggae was deemed too dangerous for the Conservative Britain of the time, so the band were sent to Europe to spread the Ska and Reggae music on the mainland. The band officially split in 1985 after releasing the album Drunk & Disorderly as The Pyramids. In April 2008, they headlined the Ska Splash Festival in Lincolnshire as Symarip, and later performed at the Endorse-It and Fordham Festivals. Since 2019 they are back and playing as The Pyramids Symarip across the world to mark 50+ years of Trojan records. Appearing at The Great Skinhead Reunion Brighton, Stone Valley, Skabour
NOW BOOKING: THE LEGENDARY ETHIOPIANS: PIONEERS IN SKA, ROCKSTEADY & CLASSIC ROOTS REGGAE Entertainment with Ethiopian Music Production “The Ethiopians” (Originally “The Ethiopian Children”) were one of Jamaica’s most influential vocal groups during the golden age of Jamaican music, not only did the original quartet (Leonard Dillon, Wally Booker, Harold Bishop & Neville Duncan) spearhead the transition between Ska and Rocksteady, Dillon’s heavily Rastafarian lyrics also paved the way for the socially conscious Roots Reggae era that was to come. Neville Duncan was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica August 5, 1949. It was during his High School years that he met Harold Bishop (aka Junior). His uncle Arbry Walters (aka Tony Valdes) had a dance group called Tony Valdes and Company. This group consisted of the late Alva Watts, keyboardist and professor of music the late Prof. Rex Nettleford, Neville Black, the late Cedrick Brooks, Abnor Horn and many more singers and Ballet dancers. From the age of seven Neville started traveling around Jamaica with his uncle’s dance company. In 1962 Neville Performed at the Jamaica Independence Celebration in Port Antonio with the dance company for the first time. In 1963 Neville Duncan’s uncle (Tony Valdes) put on a concert, this is where Neville met Leonard Dillon (aka Sparrow) and Wally Bucker (aka Wally B). They all sang covers as well as originals. After the concert Wally Bucker suggested they form a singing group called “Ethiopian Children”. The new group performed every where Neville’s uncle promoted a show, In 1966 the group name was changed to The Ethiopians.
Three classic songs from the group which ironically became huge hits after Neville left the group for the first time. “Everything crash”, “Bad to worse” and “Owner fi di yard” were written by Neville Duncan, Leonard Dillon and Harold Bishop. There were giants in the earth in those early days of SKA, Monty Morris, The Ethiopians, Ska-talites, Drumbago, Millie Smalls, Prince Buster, Stranger Cole, Doreen Shaffer; and also after that, when the sons & daughters of Ska came in unto the sons & daughters of Rocksteady, and they bore children: Classic Roots, Culture Reggae, Lovers Rock, Dub, Dancehall, Hip- hop, Reggaeton, Bluebeat and Dubstep unto to them, the same became mighty music which were descended from of old, music of renown. Incredibly today some of these legendary giants still walk the earth, such as Neville “Ethiopian” Duncan, his musical career encompasses the entire history of reggae from SKA, ROCKSTEADY to CLASSIC ROOTS REGGAE through a genuine and DIRECT MUSICAL LINEAGE. NEVILLE “ETHIOPIAN” DUNCAN is one of the ORIGINAL FOUNDING MEMBERS of the ETHIOPIANS,
As with many early Reggae artists uneducated in the skullduggery world of music. Writers were very often left off of the credits, and therefore been buried in time and no records or royalties paid.
He is now the current lead vocalist via direct MUSICAL SUCCESSION through the late great LEONARD “SPARROW” DILLON. The Ethiopians are connected to a DIRECT MUSICAL LINEAGE that goes back to LEONARD DILLON, MILLIE SMALLS, DRUMBAGO, JAH JERRY, TOMMY MCcCOOK, PRINCE BUSTER, SKA-TALITES, STRANGER COLE, ERNIE RANGLIN, DERRICK MORGAN, JIMMY CLIFF, THEOPHILIUS BECKFORD, ROLAND ALPHONSO, DON DRUMMONDS, LLOYED BREVETT, THE WAILERS, TOOTS & THE MAYTALS, JOHNNY MOORE, BYRON LEE & THE DRAGONAIRES, LLOYD KNIBBS and many more! Booking Agent subcultz@gmail.com +447-733-096571(Symond Lawes) Ethiopians
Symarip (also known at various stages of their career as The Bees, The Pyramids, Seven Letters and Zubaba) were a British ska and reggaeband, originating in the late 1960s, when Frank Pitter and Michael Thomas founded the band as The Bees. The band’s name was originally spelled Simaryp, which is an approximate reversal of the word pyramids. Consisting of members from West Indies , Home of the legends of Jamaican Reggae Simaryp is widely marked as one of the first skinhead reggae bands, being one of the first to target skinheads as an audience. Their hits included “Skinhead Girl”, “Skinhead Jamboree” and “Skinhead Moonstomp“, the latter based on the Derrick Morgan song, “Moon Hop“.[2]
Symarip Pyramid Ltd edition 7″ Vinyl released on Subcultz Records
Landing as young immigrants into London from Jamaica in 1962 joining into the growing South London Reggae culture, spearheading the blending of black migrant and white London youth. Mods being the subculture of the time who followed RnB American Modern Jazz before the Skinheads replaced them towards the late 60’s, the band formed as the Bees to back leading singers Prince Buster and Laural Aitkin
Releasing the first and only pure Skinhead Reggae concept album Skinhead Moonstomp in 1970 with Trojan records
Skinhead Moonstomp Released on Trojan Records 1970.
They moved to Germany in 1971, performing reggae and Afro-rock under the name Zubaba. In 1980, the single “Skinhead Moonstomp” was re-issued in the wake of the 2 Tone craze, hitting No. 54 on the UK Singles Chart. The band officially split in 1985 after releasing the album Drunk & Disorderly as The Pyramids. The album was released by Ariola Records and was produced by Stevie B.
Pitter and Ellis moved back to England, where Ellis continued performing as a solo artist, sometimes using the stage name ‘Mr. Symarip’. Mike Thomas met a Finnish woman while living in Switzerland and relocated to Finland doing the groundwork for the Finnish reggae culture through his band ‘Mike T. Saganor’. Monty Neysmith moved to the United States, where he toured as a solo artist.
In 2004, Trojan Records released a best of album including a new single by Neysmith and Ellis, “Back From the Moon”. In 2005, Neysmith and Ellis performed together at Club Ska in England, and a recording of the concert was released on Moon Ska Records as Symarip – Live at Club Ska. In April 2008, they headlined the Ska Splash Festival in Lincolnshire as Symarip, and later performed at the Endorse-It and Fordham Festivals. Pitter and Thomas now perform in a different band as Symarip Pyramid. Their Back From The Moon Tour 2008–2009 was with The Pioneers. In 2009, to celebrate the rebirth of the band and the reunion of the two original members, Trojan Records released a compilation album, Ultimate Collection. Pitter holds all copyright and trademark rights for the name ‘Symarip Pyramid’.
To book the band and any further information subcultz@gmail.com
Skinheads streaming out of Camden Town underground tonight look hard and they know it. The crop is the style, but it can also be the weapon: it’ll nut you if you look too long or you don’t step out of the way, if you’re wearing the wrong uniform or follow the wrong team. Outside the Electric Ballroom four Special Patrol Group men stand staring at the line of skinheads waiting to pay £3.00 to see UB40, staring at the anti-fashion parade.
The smart look is sta-press trousers, Ben Sherman shirts and polished Dr Martens. The tougher look is a short-sleeved shirt displaying the tattoos, bleached Levis with the braces hanging loose round the legs. The real hard cases have tattoos on their faces. One has a small cross on each cheek. Most of the girl skins look really young, about 13, and are dressed like the boys in shirts, jeans and boots. But some wear short skirts, like one black skinhead girl who’s got brown monkey boots over black fishnet tights.
The police point and giggle at all the girls in mini-skirts. Now and again they try to show who the real tough guys are by frogmarching the odd skinhead to the back of the queue.
Skins: the image is white convict, the music is black. (Remember Norman Mailer’s article on the cult of hip, ‘The white Negro’?) Groups like UB40 – the name comes from the DHSS code for the unemployed – are now called two-tone because they put black and white musicians together to play ska, an early form of reggae coming out of Jamaica, and popular with the first wave of British skinheads in the 1960s.
It is not just skinheads who are into two-tone. Punks, Rastas, rude boys (skins in mohair suits), and a few long-hairs, are here too. But inside the Electric Ballroom, this huge and airless hall, it’s the skinheads who make the atmosphere charged . . . . There’s a loud crack and heads turn. But it’s just a skin who’s finished his can of Coke and smashed it on the floor.
A skinhead tries to make an art form out of machismo. He walks chin out military style, with a duck-splayed swagger. He sucks hard on his cigarette, chews his gum with a vengeance. He doesn’t smile too much, unless he’s with his mates at the bar. The only time a skin looks somehow vulnerable is when he’s dancing – never with a girl, always either alone or with other skins – with his eyes half-closed, dipping his shoulders rhythmically. Skinheads are great dancers.
‘It’s just fashion, innit?’ says a 16-year-old from South London, watching his mate zap the Space Invaders in the bar, rocking gently to the reggae of Reality, the warm-up band. Two girls – one has MINI-SKIN N4 DODGER painted on the back of her army-green jacket – run full-tilt through the bar; scant regard for drink or bodies. Skin girls aim to be as street-tough as the boys. They strut to the front of the queue at the women’s toilets. No one complains.
Although skin boys don’t hang out with the skin girls, every now and again a boy will just waltz up to a girl, kiss her violently for a couple of minutes, before moving off wordlessly. Girls are okay for kissing and fucking, but you don’t talk to them, not in public anyhow. These boys, with their POW haircuts and markings, their enamel Union Jack badges, their polished boots – these boys don’t get too upset if they’re taken for fascists. Fascism is a laugh.
A boy in a red Fred Perry tennis shirt greets his friend with a Nazi salute, grinning. Another skinhead wandering round the bar has WHITE POWER written in blue on his T-shirt. A black roadie for UB40 stops and scowls at him, but the white supremacist ignores the challenge, walks on by.
At 10.30, UB40 come on stage and there’s a rush from the bars as the skins make for the front of the hall. Two Rastafarians and six whites in this band. ‘This is one of our Rock Against Thatcher numbers,’ says the frontman. A few half-hearted cheers. ‘Are there only 50 people here into Rock Against Thatcher?’ He gets a bigger cheer. A drunk skinhead staggers through the packed dance floor, trying to kick the guy running away from him, before giving up the chase and collapsing on the floor. Everyone ignores him. Be cool.
The final encore over, the lights come on, and the plastic pint pots are ceremoniously crunched. West Ham skins sing ‘Wembley’ (pronounced Wemballee) on their way out, throwing down the gauntlet to the Arsenal.
It’s not picked up. It’s been a quiet night, after all. Police are back on duty outside as the dancers spill out, dripping with sweat this warm night, and traipse down the street for the underground train home. Home to their parents, most of them, though there is one last pleasure to be squeezed out the night: to chant and sing and look tough on the tube. Scaring the straights is half the fun.
It always has been. Seat-slashing Teds, mass-rioting mods and rockers, football thugs, skinheads, drug-taking hippies, foul-mouthed punks . . . Sub-editors write headlines, politicians fire moralism from the hip, youth movements come and go.
Skinhead first arrived in the late 1960s. It was a sort of male working-class backlash against mods grown too narcissistic, effeminate and arty. Football fans discovered a style. I remember 4,000 Manchester United skinheads on the terraces at Elland Road, Leeds, in 1968. They all wore bleached Levis, Dr Martens, a short scarf tied cravat-style, cropped hair. They looked like an army and, after the game, went into action like one.
Skinheads never really disappeared from the football terraces. But the clothes, like skinhead music (soul, ska, home-grown rabble-rousers like Slade), went out of fashion, until the punk movement turned style inside out, starting in late 1976. A new generation of skins started following the band called Sham ’69. ‘If punks are about anarchy, then skinheads are the most anarchist going,’ Jimmy Pursey, the band’s frontman, once told me in his Hersham flat, above a bookie’s. ‘They fight, run riot, don’t give a fuck about anything.’ Pursey withdrew from the Rock Against Racism carnival in Brixton later that year because he feared that his supporters might smash the whole thing up. Sham ’69 folded the next year.
Mark Dumsday never liked Sham ’69 anyway. He has been a skinhead for two years, he is 18, and moved to London a years ago after working on a fairground in Southend, his home town. He now lives in a short-life ex-council flat in King’s Cross. He gets £23 a week from social security.
It’s five in the afternoon. We’re sitting in front of a black and white portable TV, here in the living room of this fourth-floor flat in Midhope House. Mark says he usually gets up around two, watches television, then goes out for a drink, or to a gig, or whatever. His father is a welder. His mother works for Avon cosmetics.
‘When I was at home,’ he says, ‘I didn’t get on very well with them. Now it’s sweet. All right now. They don’t mind me being a skin. They quite like it, like the haircut, think it’s tidy.’ He’s looking at the TV. Shots of bikini-clad women on Caribbean beaches. The Eversun commercial.
Why did Mark first get his crop? ‘I dunno. I used to hang around with bikers, the Southend Hell’s Angels. In August ’78, when I came off the fair, I had a crop. It was something different at the time. At Southend there was only about ten of us. Now there’s loads of ’em.’
The tattoo on his right arm is a caricature of a skinhead. ‘Most skins have got this one,’ he says, pointing to it. ‘Or a lot of the BM [British Movement] skins have got the phoenix bird.’ Pictures of Debbie Harry and Olivia Newton-John on one wall, and of the West Indian reggae artist, Peter Tosh, smoking a joint on another. ‘Yeah, I like a blow. I don’t know any skinheads who don’t.’
He left school at 16 without taking any exams. ‘I was hardly ever there. Used to bunk off all the time.’ He’s thought about getting a job as a despatch rider, but he’s happy enough on the dole. He has no girl friend. ‘I don’t bother going out with them,’ he grins. I ask him why it is that skinheads always hang out in all-male groups. Is it that they don’t know how to talk to girls? ‘That’s rubbish,’ he says. ‘Anyone can pick up a bird. Anybody.’ But Mark has never picked up a skin girl. ‘I think a girl with a crop looks silly.’
Skinhead isn’t fashion, he says; but he’s not sure what it is at all. What does he get out of it? ‘Not a lot.’ Two young Glaswegian women, both with dyed blonde hair and one of them tattooed, arrive with shopping bags. ‘They’re just staying here,’ says Mark. ‘Ain’t got nowhere else to go . . . ‘ No, the only thing that’s kept skinheads going is it’s not commercial, like punk was and mods are. I want to stay one till I’m 21.’ Why? ‘Dunno. Stuck it out two years. Might as well make it five. If I quit, I’ll probably turn biker.’
A lot of the skins who used to live on this estate are now inside, but Mark has stayed pretty clean. ‘I only have one offence against me. For possession.’ Of drugs, that is – ‘speed’, amphetamines. ‘I’ll have it occasionally, not very often. A lot of skins are into glue, but I’ve never done that. If you can’t afford the right stuff, don’t do that.’ The television picture distorts. Mark gets up, fiddles around with the aerial, which is stuck in the grille of a gas fire. One of the Glaswegians notices a mark on the back of his head. She asks him what it is. ‘Scar,’ he says. A woman on the box, now in focus, reckons the boa constrictors are very popular pets now. Mark sits down again.
Life here, the way he tells it, is one long struggle against the law. ‘The Old Bill were up here the other night. Took me curtains away to analyse them. Went right through the place. They went downstairs and asked this geezer, “Is that bloke upstairs a nutter?”
A prostitute who lived on this estate was murdered. Most of her body was found in Epping Forest; police expected to find the rest here, in Midhope House. ‘The cop was saying, “You did it, didn’t you? I think you done it.” I just laughed.’ Mark says he did know the prostitute. ‘Didn’t like her either.’ A sudden strong smell of varnish as the two women start painting their nails.
‘Yeah,’ Mark continues. ‘You do get a lot of aggravation from the Old Bill. In Southend I’ve been nicked twice for things I never done. My mate kicked in a rockabilly and I got put in a cell for 24 hours for that . . . and here they just stop you on the street, RO you. Give it all out on the radio. See if they’ve got warrants out for your arrest.
‘I’ve been beaten up the Old Bill. There was me and another guy, me mate, he ran away. They took me home, found a starting pistol. Then they got me in the back of the car. Twisting my neck and punching my mouth. Bastards they are . . . and you get a lot of DS [drug squad] at gigs. Round here the DS are easy to spot, just old geezers. But at gigs some of ’em are really young. I was at Dingwalls [also in Camden Town] the other night and suddenly the DS was all around us.’
Mark, the letters of his name tattooed on his four fingers, flicks a hand over his crop, asks me if I want a cup of tea? Skinhead crops come in four categories, from grade one to grade four. Mark’s is grade one, the shortest. He has to get it cut every three weeks.
Over the tea Mark says he has no time for mods (‘just a load of wimps’), Teds, rockabillies or Asians. Why Asians? ‘I don’t like Pakis and I don’t know any skinheads who do. Pakis just don’t mix. You’ll see one of them,’ he points to the Peter Tosh poster, ‘with a white man. Never see a Paki with one. Paki-bashing is all part of the cult anyway.’
There is an Asian band in south London called Alien Kulture who take gangs of Asian youth with them wherever they play. Mark had said he thought ‘niggers are okay, I like the music.’ But he just shakes his head about Alien Kulture: ‘I don’t think they’ll last. I don’t think they’ll last five minutes. A Paki band? I never heard of such a thing.’
Tonight Mark is going to see Madness, the all-white ska band, at the Lyceum. Madness are darlings of the British Movement and National Front skins: somebody’s going to get hurt tonight. Mark himself says he isn’t into fascism, and he isn’t into violence. ‘I don’t fight unless someone provokes me.’ But what is it then that provokes skins to punch, kick, nut and razor? ‘It’s just the cult. Skins are trouble, aggro, Paki-bashing, the lot. The cult is trouble.’
Choose your own cult and live inside it. Skinhead is trouble. The cult is big in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester. In Glasgow and Belfast, punk is still the biggest youth movement. In the country as a whole, the ‘heavy metal’ revival is in the ascendant (loud rock from the likes of Saxon, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard). No one is really too sure what is happening in the youth culture. Fascist skins, left-wing skins, and yet more skins who just like the clothes and the music? A psychedelia revivial, a rhythm-and-blues revival? Black skins and white rude boys? Asian rock bands?
I take a train up to Bradford. Bad Manners are playing at the university. Bad Manners are from Stoke Newington. All white apart from the drummer, they say they got to know ska sounds hanging out in the local black clubs. The lead singer, Doug, has been a skinhead since the first time round, in 1968. ‘I’m the leader,’ he says, elongating the vowels to fake dumbness. ‘I’m the one who encourages all the violence at the gigs. I think you haven’t had a good gig unless you’ve had a good punch-up’. He smacks his ample fist into his palm and laughs.
The accent, like the clothing, is constructed from the cartoon worker, the Jak navvie. Skinhead style takes the bourgeois caricature of its class (dumb and violent) and makes it yet more extreme. Shave off the hair to emphasise brainlessness and criminality, make the head ugly and lumpen. Wear boots to emphasise drudgery and violence. A donkey jacket, like the one that Doug wear on stage, completes the look.
Active in a housing co-op in Stoke Newington, Doug is smart all right, he knows all about the parody and he has no time for racist gig-wreckers, but what can he do except make jokes about it? Trapped by his chosen style, the farthest he can go is to say, ‘Well, anyone who votes NF, they’re not too clever.’
The band are changing and tuning up in a lecture room. The tables are littered with empty bottles of Stella Artois, the remains of pasties. ‘I’m tough, I’m rough’, shouts out one of the band, sub-Clint Eastwood. ‘I’m mean, I’m clean’, screams someone else.
The boys from Stoke Newington, living on £25 a week and touring the country, are having a good time. After an American football-style huddle they rush out to play. No violence, of course, at a college gig. Bradford seems a lot further than 200 miles from London where, the next day, I have an appointment with the National Front.
I ring the bell and the front door is opened cagily by a fat man with greased back hair and an army-surplus jumper. Joe Pearce, the organiser for the Young National Front, and editor of their magazine, Bulldog, shows up. He looks every inch like a college boy, which he was till he was forced to abandon his course on polymer technology at the South Bank poly. His medium-length brown hair is well groomed. He wears a green car-coat and beige flares. He says he’s told the NF skins to meet us down at the pub. We live Excalibur House, the National Front’s Shoreditch headquarters.
Proud of the Front’s impact in the youth culture, Joe Pearce boasts of widespread support among heavy metal fans and mods, as well as skins. ‘Like the mod movement in the East End is NF. There’s a link between the glory boys and the NF, the gang that used to follow Secret Affair and now follows the Cockney Rejects. They’re the ones that have mod tattooed in the inside if their lip.’
The first skin to arrive is Gary Munford from Ealing YNF. He was first a skinhead in 1970, when he was twelve. Since then, he’s been a suedehead and a soul-boy. ‘I used to go down the discos, wear pegs and American bowling shirts. It was such a posy scene. I was spending about £30 a week on clothes. And then there was all the niggers at the discos and white slags hanging about with them.’
The few black people in this bar start finishing off their drinks. Another crophead sits down at the table. He’s wearing an army-camouflage flying jacket. I ask him what he does for a living? ‘Demolition,’ he says, with a mechanical chuckle. His name is Alex Barbour.
The recent National Front march in Lewisham was 80 per cent skinhead. What’s happened to the older support? ‘More important you have the young support. Look at the police running away, like they did at Bristol. Older people aren’t prepared to take that violence. Young people have got the bottle to go out there and . . . ‘ Gary Munford clenches his fist, adorned with punching rings.
‘If there’s going to be a ruck, skins’ll be the first ones in, they’ll steam in. Except I do disagree with them going down to Brighton and Southend and beating the shit out of each other, when they could be beating shit out of more constructive people, mentioning no names.’ His friends laugh.
Tony Duck and Rita Hope, from Haringey YNF branch, finally turns up. He is an unemployed electrician, and she works at Swan and Edgar on Piccadilly. He thinks a lot of recent skin converts are ‘just a bunch of wallies who’ve learnt how to chant Sieg Geil at gigs. They’re the sort of people who’ll grow their hair and start going round with blacks again.’ Tony says that, in his branch, there are two full paid-up black members. ‘It’s because they really want to go home.’
Gary Munford says his girl friend is in the Front. ‘She;s been on marches with me. But a lot of the time the blokes tell the birds not to come. There’s gonna be a riot.’
‘Half of us can look after ourselves just as good as you lot anyway,’ says Rita Hope. Even here, in the backwoods of the NF, some cracked reflection of a women’s movement: a woman’s right to ruck.
Jeering at this notion of physical equality, Gary Munford recalls a time he arrived at a march with 14 skins, to find 200 Anti-Nazis blocking their path: ‘We got all the girls behind us, said keep walking, then just ran at them shouting, “White youth unite.” They all just turned and ran. Whatever anyone says, our blokes have got more bottle.’
‘The birds of the reds are worst,’ says Rita Hope.
There is a vicious feel to those East End streets, where all the white boys are skins, which is absent in Somers Town: the small triangle between St Pancras, Euston and Camden. There is no reason to go through Somers Town, unless you happen to live in one of those blocks of council flats that comprise the neighbourhood. At around a quarter to four, boys are pouring out of the local school, Sir William Collins, an all-boy comprehensive. The blacks walk home with the blacks, the whites with the whites. Two white skins, Andy Sophocleous and Steve Rawlinson, both 13, say that out of 165 boys in their year, about 70 are skins. They reckon the school is all right: ‘Same as all schools really. Some parts you like, and some you don’t.’ What is it they don’t? ‘Some of the teachers. Some of ’em are grumpy. Don’t let you have any fun in class. Kids work best if you can have a laugh, too.’
The Great Skinhead Reunion annual event in Brighton
Andy is carrying a school-supplied acoustic guitar. ‘I want to be in a band when I’m a bit older.’ I ask him what his parents said about him becoming a skin? ‘Well,’ he pauses. ‘I walked in after my first crop. and my Dad goes, “Oh, what? You think you’re a trouble-maker now?” And our teacher, Mr Malinson, he sort of goes to me and him,’ pointing to Steve, “‘If I saw you two on the street, if I was a cop, I’d pick you up before two normal kids.” For sus, like. People can get the wrong idea because of the hair.’
‘My mum don’t like it,’ Steve says. ‘Thinks you’re going out just for trouble . . . Best ti be normal if you think about it. Then you don’t get beaten up by no one.’ Steve and Andy aim to keep out of trouble. That’s why they don’t go to gigs. ‘There’s trouble on the train. They won’t let you on ‘cos they think you’ll vandalise everything. On buses they can make you sit downstairs.’
Moved on, stopped, questioned, denied entrance – skinheads these boys reckon, have a lot to put up with. ‘Yeah, they get a hard time, especially from the police, and quite a few teachers. One teacher suspended a skin. He had a swastika shaved into his head. I think that’s bad as well,’ Andy says. ‘I think he should have gone home. He would have got into a lot of trouble with the coloured kids, anyway. He would’ve got beaten up. The school’s roughly half and half, a few more whites . . . ‘
They’re getting a bit fidgety. It’s 4.20 and the football is on, live from Rome, at 4.30.
Down through Somers Town, over the Euston Road (a territorial divide for the gangs round here), and again on into King’s Cross. Just down the road from the Midhope House, where Mark Dumsday lives, is a youth club called the Tonbridge Club. Open 6 to 10, six days a week, it’s the hang-out for local kids too young or too poor to go drinking and dancing. They come here to play table tennis, snooker and pinball, listen to records. Most of the boys here, too, are skinheads. One of them, Michael, tells me he’s up in court next week for not going to school. He’s 15. Why did he get a crop? ‘Dunno. Just like the music, reggae and ska. And I’m into me own band, play bass. Get the name of the band down. It’s called Youth Cult.’
Another skin, Eric McQueen, takes Bob Marley off the turntable and puts on the Sex Pistols single, Anarchy in the UK. Eric is living in a hostel for juvenile delinquents in Westbourne Grove. ‘Well, it started at primary school, see,’ he says. ‘I used to fight all the time. I went to a hostel in Chapel Market and then they put me in Stratford House, a remand home, for six months. From there I went to a community house. Spent a year there, and then I got a job. I’ve had seven jobs since I left school, in shops, factories, decorating, everything.’
And what’s the idea of this place he’s in now? ‘Sort your life out,’ he smiles. ‘It’s all right. Ain’t got many rules, except you got to be in by 12 on Saturdays.’ Eric is 18. He has only had his crop, which is dyed blond, for two months.
Eric tells a couple of young girls who’ve sidled up that he gets about £8 a day from his social worker. They look impressed. I ask him how he got the scar on his left ear? ‘Some nutter.’
Hugh Byrne, who’s also 18, has a crop which is starting to grow out. He’s out of work. ‘He’s a good artist,’ says one of the girls standing by a bar which sells Kit-Kats and Coke. ‘Skinhead is just the thing round this area,’ High says, with the air of someone bored with the whole idea. ‘Used to be a lot of mods round here too, ‘cos the star of Quadrophenia, Philip Daniels, used to live round here. Half the skins round here used to be punks or mods.’
One local skin gang, about 40 strong, have recently given it all up, Hugh says.’They’ve all changed to normal ‘cos they were always getting picked on and that. I used to get picked up by the Old Bill a lot.’ Is that why he’s letting his hair grow? ‘No. Not really. It’s only been two months. I can’t be bothered to get it cut.’
Post-skins. like Hugh, and his friend, Tony French, all describe themselves as having gone ‘normal’ once they’ve let their grow out. Tony French, who now looks like a King’s Road smoothie, used to be involved in all the gang feuds round here. ‘No reason,’ he says. ‘Something to do.’
Reasons? Anyone interested in reasons (for skins, for punks, for Rastas) should take a walk through the meaner city streets, then turn on the TV. ‘We want a riot.’ You must have heard the skinhead chants. ‘We are evil.’ The straight world, the Rastas call it Babylon, is threatened with style: a sneer, a strut, a beat that has soul . . .
The teenagers at the Tonbridge Club start drifting off home at around nine. Youth Cult are playing London Calling down in the basement.
Event promoter, band manager and actor banned from facebook.
Since yesterday morning 8/6/2020 a mass of Facebook profiles have been taken down. This seems to be based on the keyword, as it has nothing to do with any personal views on the current protest movements, as this includes Jamaican musicians within the Skinhead subculture, a young mother living in Brazil Favela, event promoters in UK, Germany, band members, tattooists, people of all ages and backgrounds right across the world.
Facebook has no customer service number or ways to contact them, but have all our personal data stored. Many people have become reliant on the platform for their businesses, personal diaries, addressbook and many more things. This is a serious infringement by the corporation
Among those names pulled down are Jamaican legend Monty Neysmith. 2tone artist of the Specials Neville Staple. Skinhead Reunion promoter and ex manager of Xray SpexSymond Lawes.
Isabelle Pradel Skinhead Girl, Sao Paulo Brazil banned from Facebook
Instagram is awash with people banned from Facebook
Instagram is full of people talking about losing their facebook profiles
Skinhead subculture started out as the first youth culture to bring jamaican youth and white British youth together in the mid 1960’s The favourite music of the time being ska reggae. In 1979 2tone then blended punk and reggae together to create the biggest boom of skinheads. Since then right wing groups have tried and failed to recruit. as the years have progressed the skinhead subculture is overwhelmingly a multi racial subculture spread as far away as South America and Indonesia which brings people of all backgrounds together. An example is the Sao Paulo scooter scene
Skinheads in Sao Paulo Brazil
15/06/20 Update. Although most accounts were restored within a few days, some are still banned. Symond Lawes has another full month ban for no apparent reason, he shared a BBC published photo of a protest, which included no hate speech
ONCE AGAIN AMERICAN MEDIA AND CORPORATIONS TAR US ALL WITH THE SAME BRUSH Hundreds of anti-racist skinheads are reporting that Facebook has purged their accounts for allegedly violating its community standards. This week, members of ska, reggae, and SHARP (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice) communities that oppose white supremacy are accusing the platform of wrongfully targeting them. Many believe that.
Facebook has mistakenly conflated their subculture with neo-Nazi groups because of the term “skinhead.” The suspensions occurred days after Facebook removed 200 accounts connected to white supremacist groups and as Mark Zuckerberg continues to be scrutinized for his selective moderation of hate speech. “We apologize to those affected by this issue,” a Facebook spokesperson told OneZero following the publication of our report. “These accounts were removed in error and have been reinstated. We are reviewing what happened in this case and are taking steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.” It’s unclear exactly how many accounts and Pages were disabled. British journalist Garry Bushell, who is also a musician and former manager of the punk band Cockney Rejects, tweeted on Monday that hundreds of Facebook profiles in the United Kingdom were taken down. On Reddit, members of the punk subreddit complained of a “Facebook Skinhead/Punk/Oi Mega-Ban,” theorizing that simply liking or following SHARP and other non-racist skinhead Facebook pages caused people to be locked out of their accounts. On Twitter, dozens if not hundreds of people reported the same — from users in the U.K., United States, Canada, Brazil, Chile, and Costa Rica. Since the subculture intersects with various music scenes, bands and musicians were affected as well. That includes Neville Staple, Jamaica-born frontman of the well-known ska band The Specials. Staple has been referred to as the “original rude boy,” and is known for his legacy in the 2-tone ska community — a diverse musical genre with roots in Jamaica. “Please look into things before doing a general cull,” Staple tweeted on Tuesday. Staple regularly performs live music sets on Facebook, according to The Sun. (Facebook told OneZero on Wednesday that it has restored access to Staple’s personal account.) Skinhead subculture emerged in 1960s working-class London, and has witnessed numerous waves and movements. There is no doubt that whiteness, racism, and fascism are associated with skinheads, and it is a fact that heinous acts of violence and murder have been committed by racists who associate with the subculture. At the same time, the Southern Poverty Law Center notes that “skinhead style first emerged as part of a non-racist and multiracial scene” and shares its DNA with ska, dancehall, and reggae — a heritage to which bands like The Specials are a testimony. Skinheads owe their heritage to Jamaican music traditions, and the subculture’s later adoption by white supremacists is viewed as antithetical to its origins. As such, there are two distinct skinhead subcultures alive today. The account of Clara Byrne, singer of Brighton hard reggae band Dakka Skanks and a musician of color, was also temporarily disabled. Byrne’s most recent Facebook posts support Black Lives Matter and the uprisings against police brutality. “The irony of banning [individuals such as Staple] on the grounds of suspected right-wing or racist promotion or support is particularly galling, and shows a complete lack of knowledge (and understanding) of British music in general, especially the multicultural 2-Tone movement,” said Guy Shankland, a British journalist at music magazine Vive Le Rock whose Facebook account was also disabled for 24 hours on Tuesday. Facebook notified people that their accounts were disabled in a vague message, which OneZero reviewed. “You can’t use Facebook because your account, or activity on it, doesn’t follow our Community Standards,” it said. Several people told OneZero that Facebook asked them to confirm their identities. In a separate message, Facebook said, “To help us check that this account belongs to you, we need a photo of your official ID.” In May, the company announced that it would begin checking the identities of accounts suspected of “inauthentic behavior,” which encompasses a host of violations such as harassment, using a fake account, and artificially promoting content. “They wanted to see my ID before they would give me my account back,” said James of Brighton, England. “I refused — I don’t want Facebook having my driving license on file — and I consider myself apolitical within the skinhead scene, but overall I’m avidly anti-racist and so are my friends.” However, some users report their accounts were reinstated without such verification. Andy Laidlaw, a member of Edinburgh ska bandBig Fat Panda said his account was disabled on Monday and subsequently reinstated without him providing identification. (Though he did receive Facebook’s prompt to submit a form of ID.) “I’ve always been a fan of Facebook, but if there is no explanation I will definitely use it less,” Laidlaw said. “I still think [the ban] is to do with the term ‘skinhead.’ But not all skinheads are racist. Quite the opposite for the majority.” Some of those impacted said they were relatively unbothered by the suspensions. “As far as I’m concerned, it was a mild inconvenience and most people I know took it in stride and were joking about it after,” said Montreal musician Karl St-Pierre, who recently began fundraising for the DESTA Black Youth Network. “Compared to all of the events unfolding in North America and beyond right now, let’s just say having your Facebook disabled by mistake is of much less importance, y’know?” Still, the suspensions speak to the fraught moment Facebook now finds itself in. Last Friday, the company removed 200 accounts reportedly linked to the Proud Boys and American Guard, which are white supremacy groups. Facebook said these accounts intended to ambush protests against the police murder of George Floyd. Earlier in the week, Facebook also removed “a handful” of accounts affiliated with Identity Evropa, another white supremacy group, for creating fake Antifa Twitter accounts. The company’s content moderation system is notoriously porous, so it’s unclear whether, in an effort to scrub bad actors, it failed to distinguish the subcultures. “I’m in skinhead Facebook groups because I share a love of Jamaican ska, reggae, and 2-tone music, however, the admin are pretty quick on stopping political conversations or anyone being hateful from what I’ve seen,” an individual whose account was removed by Facebook, and who requested to remain anonymous, told OneZero. “I think what Facebook has done is try to get rid of racists (which I absolutely agree with), but gotten rid of good people because we like similar music.” This person also noted that, in recent days, they had posted support for Black Lives Matter on Facebook. Black Facebook users have previously accused the platform of deleting posts that discuss racism and locking their accounts what it incorrectly deems hate speech. On Tuesday, a private skinhead Facebook Group with nearly 11,000 members changed its name to no longer contain the term “skinhead.” An admin of the group said in a post that the change is temporary, and is a response to Facebook’s mass suspension of accounts. Even Facebook users who do not identify as anti-racist skinheads, but are affiliated with the music scene, say they were affected. “It does seem that the ones who were disabled were all fans of the 2-tone/ska movement and on skinhead pages,” said Andy Davarias of Sutton, Surrey. “I myself am not a skinhead but I do love the culture and the music.” Civil liberties groups like Southern Poverty Law Center define “racist skinheads” as a “frequently violent and criminal subculture… typically imbued with neo-Nazi beliefs.” They are separate, however, from the SHARP community or anti-racist skinheads who staunchly disavow white supremacist beliefs. “If you look deep enough, you will find Facebook sites dedicated to [neo-Nazi] bands such as Skrewdriver, and some right-wing supporters still follow the 2-Tone, punk, and Trojan [Records] bands across social media, and still attend gigs,” said Shankland. “The ironic double standards of loving Jamaican ska while hating the very people who gave it to us still makes my skull spin.” “We consider ourselves to have a different approach to what we term ‘Boneheads’ who seem to love extremist right-wing views,” said Essex DJ Pete Lacey, who is part of the SHARP community. “Racism is abhorrent to the skinhead culture.”
One of the biggest skinhead scenes now is in Bogota Colombia
“To all friends of Jaelee, Jaelee has asked me to write this and I do so with the heaviest of hearts. Earlier this afternoon Jaelee’s mum, the beautiful and vivacious spirit that was Millie Small passed away. Millie suffered a stroke over the weekend after a suffering a serious haemorrhage in her brain and was taken to Charing Cross Hospital in London on Saturday. Unfortunately the haemorrhage was such that team at the hospital was unable to remove the liquid around her brain and her condition has unfortunately been in decline since Saturday. Earlier today her doctors took the decision to take her off life support as there was no chance of a recovery and she passed away this afternoon. The team at the hospital did a fantastic job to make sure she was comfortable and peaceful in her last few days and Jaelee was at her side until the very last moments. I saw Millie briefly at the start of lockdown from a safe distance when I dropped off some supplies for her; she was her usual effervescent self, full of warmth, smiles and life so this has come as a real shock. I’m sure Jaelee will want some time and space to come to terms with everything so if you have a message for her let me know and I will pass it on.”
Milie Small with husband and child
Millie Small a legend of Jamaican Ska and Reggae
My Boy Lollypop was a favourite for many Skinheads in the UK a song many thought dedicated to them and sung by girls to their Skinhead Boyfriend for decades
The star was most famous for her hit single My Boy Lollipop, which reached number two in both the US and the UK in 1964.
It remains one of the biggest-selling ska songs of all time, with more than seven million sales.
Island Records founder Chris Blackwell announced her death and remembered her as “a sweet person… really special”.
It was Blackwell who brought Small to London in 1963 and produced her version of My Boy Lollipop, showcasing her childlike, high-pitched vocals.
“I would say she’s the person who took ska international because it was her first hit record,” he told the Jamaica Observer.
“It became a hit pretty much everywhere in the world. I went with her around the world because each of the territories wanted her to turn up and do TV shows and such, and it was just incredible how she handled it.
“She was such a sweet person, really a sweet person. Very funny, great sense of humour. She was really special,” said Blackwell.Skip Youtube post by El enano trapecista
Born Millicent Small in Clarendon, south Jamaica, she was one of seven brothers and five sisters, raised on the sugar plantation where her father was an overseer.
At the age of 12, she won a talent contest at the Palladium Theatre in Montego Bay; and by her teens, she was recording for Sir Coxone Dodd’s Studio One label in Kingston.
There, she teamed up with reggae singer Roy Panton, and they became one of the island’s most prolific duos, scoring a major hit with We’ll Meet.
Blackwell took an interest in the singer after releasing some of those records in the UK on his fledgling record label, Island, and brought her to London in 1963.
Small was enrolled at the Italia Conti Stage School for speech training and dancing lessons; and she toured the UK before cutting My Boy Lollipop with a group of London session musicians (Small claimed Rod Stewart played the harmonica solo, but he has denied being present at the recording).
Released in February 1964, it made her an international star, and helped popularise ska music around the world.
“It is the ska equivalent of Elvis’ Heartbreak Hotel or the Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen – the disc that popularised a sound previously considered to be on the margins of mainstream consciousness,” wrote music historian Laurence Cane-Honeysett in Record Collector magazine.
Millie Small was given a hero’s welcome when she returned to Jamaica after the success of My Boy Lollipop
However, Small was unable to replicate the success of My Boy Lollipop, scoring only one further hit, a soundalike called Sweet William, later the same year.
But she continued to tour and record, and appeared frequently on 1960s pop shows like Juke Box Jury and Ready Steady Go.
“My life seemed very normal to me – even though I was only 17, I took fame in its stride,” she told the Express in 2016.
After leaving Island in 1970, she recorded for legendary reggae label Trojan Records, where her first single was a cover of Nick Drake’s Mayfair.
However, it was the b-side that attracted greater attention. Called Enoch Power, it was a defiant response to Enoch Powell’s inflammatory, anti-immigration “Rivers of Blood” speech that captured the mood of the UK’s Caribbean population.Skip Youtube post by lanman31337
Soon after that single, and the accompanying album Time Will Tell, Small stepped away from music, saying “it was the end of the dream and it felt like the right time”.
In later years, she lived in Singapore and New Zealand before returning to London, where she concentrated on writing, painting and raising her daughter.
When My Boy Lollipop was re-released in 1987 to mark Island Records’ 25th anniversary, the singer gave a rare interview to Thames TV, where she revealed she had, at one point, been penniless and sleeping rough in London.
However, she took the hard times in good grace, explaining: “That’s all experience. It was great. I didn’t worry because I knew what I was doing.
“I saw how the other half live. It’s something I chose to do.”
In 2011, Jamaica’s Governor-General made Small a Commander in the Order of Distinction for her contribution to the Jamaican music industry.
The singer is survived by her daughter, Joan, who is also a musician based in London.
Legends of British Ska, King Hammond and The Rude Boy Mafia confirmed for the Great Skinhead Reunion, Brighton.
As we like to have a real mixed genre bag every day of the Great Skinhead Reunion, We are pleased to announce King Hammond will be hot tailing down to Brighton for our Sunday night Knees up session, to play out 2016.
* Nick played his first professional (paid!) gig in July 1977 at The Roxy Club in London where his band The Dead shared a bill with Cocksparrer & Dead Fingers Talk. The same week he was pictured on the front of the Melody Maker under the headline “Teds Versus Punks”!
SULTAN ALI (Sonofprincebuster) aka #TheSultanofSKA Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Sultan has honed his craft performing in Los Angeles since the late eighties. His father is the legendary ska originator Prince Buster, who changed the face of Jamaican music forever and inspired generations of ska revivalists as well as producing greats like Toots and the Maytals and paving the way for international reggae. Sultan recently appeared onstage with Prince Buster at the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival. With this two-song teaser you’ll hear the music that’s been welling up inside of Sultan since childhood burst forth with a full-tilt pedal-to-the-metal intensity, all pistons firing. In his voice you will hear passion, urgency, commitment, heart and hope: the voice of a new generation drawing from the roots to create a new sound. Few Jamaicans or Americans would dare to cover Marvin Gaye, whose “Pride and Joy” Sultan delivers in an upbeat, driving style. “Beautiful Angel” is an original whose melodic and infectious chorus will stay with you long enough to make you want to hear it again and again. The music melds ska, rock steady reggae with contemporary dancehall and rhythm and blues. These cuts preview a forthcoming full-length release which should now be eagerly awaited by a growing number of fans.– Chuck Foster, host of KPFK-LA’s “Reggae Central” andauthor of Roots Rock Reggae (Billboard Books). In the influence of his father, Sultan performs many of the legendary songs written by his father, a rare chance to hear such great tunes performed live. For all enquiries and European bookings , please contact subcultz@gmail.com
Arrived in Brighton around 1.30 with my mate Steve Aller holding high expectations of what the weekend had in store. I was not to be disappointed as this years reunion was even better than the 2013 event. After checking in at the Adelaide hotel, we made our way to the Volks where we met up with many old mates, Dave Ryan and his son Sid, Dave Nash, Lisa Sumner, Lynda Scarpellini, Jo Barnett, Steve Parish, and many more. The vibe was good as we all sat around chatting outside in the sun whilst the music blasted out. First band on were ”Grade 2” who performed well above anything I had anticipated. This band made up of 3 lads all still at school showed a confidence well above their years. Sid the vocalist showing no nerves at all. I was straight on the dancefloor throwing myself about like a spider on acid. Loved every second of their set. Then it was back to the fresh air of Brighton to cool myself down. Saw a old flame from the past, [11 years to be exact!] Ana, and straight away we connected. The relationship blossomed over the w/e. Back to the bands and next on were Swedish Oi band ”Agent Bulldog” who had brought with them a large Swedish contingent. Although I could not understand the lyrics to their songs, I still enjoyed their set very much and had a jump around. Last band of the night were ”The Downsetters” who I had seen earlier in the year at Skamouth. The masses obviously enjoyed these lads as the dance floor filled. Their set included a combination of covers and their own material, which was very good. They even did a ska version of the Sex Pistols Pretty Vacant, which I was not sure about! By around 10ish the bands had finished. But for many the night was just beginning as the crowds headed for the next venue [which I cannot remember the name of!] After a short walk we arrived to hear old Trojan sounds blasting out, and so the dancing continued into the early hours. By around 1 o clock this old boy was done in, my bed was calling.
SATURDAY. Up early to hit the breakfast table, so after a shower and a squirt of Steves chanel deodorant, off we toddled. We eventually hit the Volks around 1ish on another scorching day. Gutted that I had missed Ken and Bobbi’s wedding do.Already the place was heaving with skinheads slowly getting pissed. As a non drinker it was J20s all the way, kinda funny seeing most getting pissed whilst I remained sober. The music is my alcohol! The Dr Martens photo booth was in big demand as many queued for a free photo. First band on today were ”Lineside” who I must apologise to for missing. I took a break from reunion activities for a walk along Brighton pier with the Latina Ana, where we got more reacquainted, and indulged in a ice cream. Back to the Volks just in time to catch Linesides last number. They actually sounded very good indeed. Next band up were the 2-Tones, who I thoroughly enjoyed from last years reunion. Again, they blew the roof off with the dance floor packed as they belted out cover after cover of our favourite ska/Trojan sounds. A hour or so later it was time for Saturdays headlining band ”The Feckin Ejits” a band I had not seen since the 1980’s. Really enjoyed this set as the crowd went mental to ”You gotta kick a picket or two”. Top marks Mr Sterling! Then at 10-30 it was off to the ?????? for more dancing. My poor feet were done in, the dms are certainly better than brogues for jumping about in. Again by 1ish I was cream crackered and pestered Steve to go back to the hotel. [He had the solitary key!]. And so endeth day 2.
SUNDAY Up early, due to my mate Steve singing Judge Dredd songs whilst I was trying to sleep. Down for brekky, then it was more sleep. Got to the Volks to find it still packed, regardless of many having headed home for work commitments. Only 2 bands tonight. ”Jack the Lad” with Gunk from Condemned 84 who did a complete set of Oi covers, and jolly good fun it was too! Once again I jumped about like a loony on day release. Finally it was the highlight of the w/e [not including meeting Ana again] the band I had really came to see ”The Last Resort”, having not seen them for a few years I was really psyched up. And what a energetic set it was. All the old favourites, mixed in with newer stuff like Never get a job, and the superb We are invincible. The floor was a mass of boots, muscle and sweat [with a couple of females amongst the nutters, well done Jo Barnett and Tash] . After 2 encores that was it, no more bands. But certainly not the end of the night as Ana and I strolled romantically along the beach with the lit up pier and big wheel in the background. Awww how nice. Still made it back to the volks for the last hour or so of music. The djs incidentally have been superb. Top marks to them all. Also the bar staff who were kept on their toes. Gotta say a massive thank you to everyone that made this w/e such a great event. It is what you make it to a point, but after all is said and done it would not be happening without Symond. Sod the haters. Roll on 2015s Reunion. Oi oi that’s yer lot Dave Webster. Could have wrote much more, but have left my personal details out. Ha ha.
Symarip (also known at various stages of their career as The Bees, The Pyramids, Seven Letters and Zubaba) were a ska and reggaeband from the United Kingdom, originating in the late 1960s, when Frank Pitter and Michael Thomas founded the band as The Bees. The band’s name was originally spelled Simaryp, which is an approximate reversal of the word pyramids.[1] Consisting of members of West Indian descent, Simaryp is widely marked as one of the first skinhead reggae bands, being one of the first to target skinheads as an audience. Their hits included “Skinhead Girl”, “Skinhead Jamboree” and “Skinhead Moonstomp“, the latter of which was based on the Derrick Morgansong, “Moon Hop“.
They moved to Germany in 1971, performing reggae and Afro-rock in Germany under the name Zubaba. In 1980, the single “Skinhead Moonstomp” was re-issued in the wake of the 2 Tone craze, hitting #54 on the UK Singles Chart.[2][3] The band officially split in 1985 after releasing the album Drunk & Disorderly as The Pyramids. The album was released by Ariola Records and was produced by Stevie B.
Pitter and Ellis eventually moved back to England, where Ellis continued performing as a solo artist, sometimes using the stage name Mr. Symarip. Mike Thomas, who had moved to Switzerland and met a Finnish girl there, moved to Finland where he worked as a musician, doing the groundwork for the Finnish reggae culture through his band Mike T. Saganor. Monty Neysmith moved to the United States, where he toured as a solo artist.
In 2004, Trojan Records released a best of album that included a new single by Neysmith and Ellis, “Back From the Moon”. In 2005, Neysmith and Ellis performed together at Club Ska in England, and a recording of the concert was released on Moon Ska Records as Symarip – Live at Club Ska. In April 2008, they headlined the Ska Splash Festival inLincolnshire as Symarip, and later performed at the Endorse-It and Fordham Festivals. Pitter and Thomas now perform in a different band as Symarip Pyramid. Their Back From The Moon Tour 2008-2009 was with The Pioneers. In 2009, to celebrate the rebirth of the band and the reunion of the two original members, Trojan Records released a compilation album, Ultimate Collection. Pitter holds all copyright and trademark rights for the name Symarip Pyramid.
Monty Montgomery was born In Port Antonio, Jamaica. This talented and charismatic singer started to write and create music in his early years. While studying in London, England, Monty met with fellow Jamaican musicians on the weekends.
This led to the creation of the worldwide known
SYMARIP / PYRAMIDS
With hits like: Skinhead Moonstomp, Traintour To Rainbow City, Skinhead Girl, Mexican Moonlight,
All Change On The Bakerloo Line, Must Catch A Train to Night, etc.
This band reached the British Charts and toured all over Europe. Monty collaborated with the legendary “Godfather of SKA” Laurel Aitken and Eddie Grant.
Monty holds numerous awards and is listed in the Guiness Book Of British Hit Singles. Voted as one of Top Reggae Artists of all times by Billboard magazine. Monty’s versatile songwriting genius is his biggest asset. His many years of performing all over Europe, USA, Africa and the Caribbean, including the annual Sun -Splash in Jamaica, has given him the experience and skills that makes him the ultimate professional that he is today. Several of his songs have become staples on the list of many young SKA bands around the world. Sharon Woodward’s “Thank you, Skinhead Girl”, a documentary film made in the UK, includes Monty’s penned “Skinhead Girl”. Monty Montgomery’s albums: Seeds, Massive Are You Ready , Crucial Vibes andBack To Jump Street established him as a solo artist in the reggae world.
Miss Goosy (Audio and Video) is an ideal party mix and the video is very funny. It is now available @ CDBaby.com
Monty also was a finalist in 2008 Jamaica’s Festival with the song “My Jamaica”.
Now his latest work “Yah Mon” ranges from SKA to Reggae, and will with no doubt stand out. Songs like “Yah Mon”, Sweet Suzie”, “It’s time again” and “Kingston City”, just to name a few.
Monty’s latest single “The Freak In Me” was produced and arranged by Grub Cooper, from the number one band in Jamaica, known as FAB 5.
Monty and Jump up Records teamed up to release four new titles on vinyl. “Spirit Of 69 ” is a must to listen and dance to.
Monty’s live shows are engaging and energetic, and he always leaves his audiences feeling positive and happily skanking, begging for more.
FORTIS FOREVER
Monty is now a stand alone artist playing both the Symarip classics and his own work written over his years as a reggae legend
for bookings please contact Symond at subcultz@gmail.com
The Great Skinhead Reunion Brighton Every Year, the first weekend of June, Skinheads come from across the globe to Brighton seafront. for full event details go to www.subcultz.com
FULL 3 DAYS EVENT, YOUR WRISTBAND IS VALID THROUGH OUT, YOU CAN USE IT FOR AS LITTLE, OR AS MUCH AS YOU WANT. THE EVENT WILL SELL OUT, AND THERE WILL BE NO ADVANCE DAY TICKETS AT A REDUCED DAILY RATE , IN ADVANCE.
The line-up maybe subject to change, as so many band members and dj’s are involved. Babies coming along, alcohol, world wars and famine can be unforeseen, but the Great Skinhead Reunion, is more about coming to Brighton to see all your friends and making some more, for 3 full days of mayhem.
SKINHEAD ONLY HOTELS .
Add to your experience, by getting a room in our Skinhead only hotels. Conveniently located, with a short walk to the venue, and no moaning neighbours to worry about. The rooms vary in size and cost, to fit your needs. all within an easy walk to the skinhead reunion venue. We have hotels exclusive to the Great Skinhead Reunion guests and bands. Party party !! please email subcultz@gmail.com with your requirements, to be booked into the Skinhead Hotels
For those on a low budget, its worth checking Hostels and campsites, but my advice, is to get in the reserved hotels, for a nice stress free, clean and comfortable holiday in Brighton.
TRAVEL INFORMATION
Brighton is situated on the south coast of England, approximately one hour from London. London Gatwick is the nearest airport. There are regular direct trains and National Express buses. The next nearest is Heathrow, There are also direct trains from Luton Airport . Its advised not to fly to Stansted, as this is a long way, and you risk losing valuable drinking time
The nearest ferry port serving mainland Europe is Newhaven -Dieppe . Newhaven is about 20 min drive to Brighton. Dover is about 2 hours to Brighton
PARKING ZONES – one of the worst aspects of Brighton, is a lack of affordable parking. my advice is to use street parking on the suburbs of Brighton, its a reasonably safe place. a good bus service will take you into brighton centre (churchill square) and a short walk from there to the sea front. worth allowing the extra hours work, to save yourself serious parking charges
All Event Enquiries email Symond at subcultz@gmail.com. phone (uk) 07733096571
This event is now done, but we are back for 2016 on 3-4-5th June on Brighton beach again, for The Great Skinhead Reunion big 6. we will be putting things together as we go, finding the very best bands on the scene, organising DJ’s, sorting out peoples tickets and hotels. To make the big 6 even bigger. Massive thanks to everyone who has supported the skinhead subculture, and the reunion. see you all soon.
Bands and DJ’s wishing to perform, all info and enquiries, contact Symond at subcultz@gmail.com
Details below are the 2015, New bands will be performing for 2016.But i will leave this link up, to give you the idea, of what the reunion is all about
Video made in 2013
THE TICKETS ARE £40 EACH, WHICH IS FOR THE FULL 3 DAYS EVENT, YOUR WRISTBAND IS VALID THROUGH OUT, YOU CAN USE IT FOR AS LITTLE, OR AS MUCH AS YOU WANT. THE EVENT WILL SELL OUT, AND THERE WILL BE NO ADVANCE DAY TICKETS AT A REDUCED DAILY RATE , IN ADVANCE.
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The line-up maybe subject to change, as so many band members and dj’s are involved. Babies coming along, alcohol, world wars and famine can be unforeseen, but the great skinhead reunion, is more about coming to Brighton to see all your friends and making some more, for 3 full days of mayhem.
DISCOUNTED HOTEL RATES QUOTE REFERENCE SUB001 When making a booking Hotel rooms, of all sizes. 3 hotels available to fit your requirements email Ed at info@granvillehotel.co.uk or phone 0044 1273 326302. You must quote the reference SUB001 to get your rooms. The rooms vary in size and cost, to fit your needs. all within an easy walk to the skinhead reunion venue. These hotels are exclusive to the Great Skinhead Reunion guests and bands. So no public to worry about. party party !!
YOU CAN NOT BOOK THESE HOTEL ROOMS VIA THE HOTEL WEBSITE, YOU NEED TO CONTACT THEM DIRECTLY, AND GIVE THE CODE, AND SAY YOU ARE ATTENDING THE SKINHEAD REUNION
For those on a low budget, its worth checking Hostels and campsites, but my advice, is to get in the reserved hotels, for a nice stress free holiday in Brighton
PARKING ZONES – one of the worst aspects of Brighton, is a lack of affordable parking. my advice is to use street parking on the suburbs of brighton, its a reasonably safe place. a good bus service will take you into brighton centre (churchill square) and a short walk from there to the sea front. worth allowing the extra hours work, to save yourself serious parking charges
All Event Enquiries email Symond at subcultz@gmail.com. phone (uk) 07733096571
Brighton can lay claim to being a big part of the birth of Skinheads. During the Mods and Rockers battles of the 1960’s when London lads would descend on the South Coast for bank holidays to Peacock and cause ‘Bovver’ the term Skinhead was born, to describe the short haired Mods.
Becoming probably the biggest and longest standing of all the youth fashion subcultures, Skinhead has matured and now become a worldwide community. Distinctly recognized by almost military shaven head, boots and braces. The real skinhead is a working class product of the British council estate ‘salt of the earth character’ fiercely proud of his identity,with an obsession for clothing, style and music, equaled only with his love of beer.
On the first weekend of every June, since 2011, Brighton has seen an ever increasing number of Skinheads and their lovely Skinhead Girls invade Brighton. Boots, Braces, pristine clothing and a cheeky smile. Attracting scene members from right across the globe, to Madeira Drive, overlooking the beach. A full three days of Skinhead related entertainment is laid on. DJ’s playing hyper rare vinyl, from the early days of Jamaican Ska, through to modern day Street Punk and Oi. Live bands hit the stage of the Volks bar each night. With various aftershows happening until the early hours, to keep the party buzzing.
Acts appearing so far booked
Peter and The Test Tube Babies
Make no mistake! Peter And The Test Tube babies have written some of the best punk songs ever. In the early ’80s they stood out, above all other bands to emerge, with their tales of the hazards of being young punks in Brighton – “Banned From The Pubs”, “Intensive care”, “Run Like hell”, the list goes on…all had the Test Tubes hallmark, combining personal experiences, real cool tunes and, most important of all, maintaining a great sense of humour.
At the time, their gigs were fun filled events with electrifying tunes and plenty of entertainment. Harmless humour of those early gigs was captured on their debut album, “Pissed And Proud“. From those early gems, the Test Tubes just got better and better. The next crop of songs, “Jinx”, “Blown Out Again” and “September” all featured on “The Mating Sounds Of South American Frogs“, which stayed at number one for four months at the top of the independent charts. A US tour followed, climaxing with a 4,000 capacity sell out show at the Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium.
The mid ’90s saw the release of “Supermodels” and the departure from the band of Trapper and Ogs (bass and drums), excellent musicians. The band brought in fresh blood, the young and dynamic Rum and AD on bass and drums respectively. To promote the Supermodels album the band then went on a 25 date tour of Germany, Holland and Switzerland.
On their 20th anniversary in 1998 the band flew to Germany to record the “Alien Pubduction” album, their first with AD and Rum. The band also undertook a massive US and Canadian tour that lasted five weeks, lots of UK gigs and of course the annual German Christmas tour.
Rum quit in 1999 due to the punishing tour schedule. Paul ‘H’ Henrickson, known to the band and a Brighton stalwart, took over on bass. The band hit the road with renewed vigour touring repeatedly throughout the UK, Germany, Ireland, USA, France and making an impact on the summer festival circuits. Early in 2001, after years of taking punk to the masses, the pressure took its toll and A.D. left the band. Harp playing Christophe from Paris took over on the drums, beating other hopefuls to the job in hard fought auditions. The band were soon back on the road touring all over the world including a visit to The Shetland Islands!
Drums rolled again in 2003 as Christophe yielded the role to Dave ‘Caveman Dave’ O’Brien. Christophe joined Peter and Del in the studio to aid with their creation of vibrant Test Tube material for the twenty first century.
In 2005, after a seven year hiatus, the band released “A Foot Full of Bullets“, recorded at Ford Lane Studios, Ford, West Sussex. The album was definitely worth the long wait demonstrating a familiar core sound matched with smart self assurance gained from decades of experience. Storming on with characteristic vigour, the Test Tubes gained praise as “the best band of the weekend” (Lars Friedrickson) at the WASTED festival before closing the year with the annual German Xmas Tour 2005.
A remix of “A Foot Full of Bullets” was produced with contributions from Campino (Die Toten Hosen) and Olga (The Toy Dolls) at the start of 2006. “For a Few Bullets More” was released in August. Not long after, web master Dr Nigel announced he was bowing out of the band’s website after years of valued service. The band are all indebted to Nigel and wish him all the best. Creating a new web presence took the band through to the next big tour date…The band flew down under in September to play Australia and New Zealand for the first time.
The Test Tubes remain one of the best punk bands to come out of Europe. Appearing on the first Oi! albums in the early 80’s, The Test tubes have remained a favourite for many of us, ever since. See them live at the Great Skinhead Reunion
The Rough Kutz where formed by Hazza (Hammond organ), Brigga (vocals) and Rat (guitar) in 1994. The band changed the band line-up over the years, the current line-up consists of four other members; Mucka (vocals), Tony (bass), Sean (lead guitar) and yatesy(drums). The first studio album, A Bit O’ Rough was released in 1998 on Antwerp-based ska label Skanky ‘Lil Records. After this release the band began touring Europe. They released second album Welcome to our World in 2002 and, in 2006, followed with Another Week Another War. On this album Roddy Radiation from The Specials played guest lead guitar.[1] In 2006, they also performed a European tour with Radiation on guitar.in 2010 the Rough Kutz released their fourth album gangsters playground on Rk records.in 2012 the Rough Kutz recorded a version of the specials song Rude Boys Outa Jail, for the specialized charity album in aid of the teenage cancer trust.they performed live at the cd launch gig in the home of Two tone records, Coventry.
The Crack. Although they are best remembered as being members of the Oi! punk movement, the Crack were actually closer to the musical stylings of punk popsters 999 and mod rockers the Chords than any of their Oi! brethren (the Business, Cockney Rejects, etc.). On the musical scene since 1982, often compared to Slade, in their musical sound. They won a national televised battle of the bands, probably one of the only skinhead bands to have gained any positive recognition on British Televisions history. the Crack didn’t release this debut album until 1989. Like many bands of the era, as the main skinhead culture nose dived in the UK. The Crack, together with Argy Bargy and Cock Sparrer fought the hard times in Europe, to bridge the gap, and keep the flame burning, taking Skinhead and Oi music worldwide.
Franky Flame. A legend of the Skinhead culture. Franky will be there for his one man Cockney Joanna ‘Pie n Mash’ knees up
In the scene for many years,with his band superyob, Franky plays a traditional london dancehall version of oi tunes, making a great sing a long, beer filled malarkey
For a long time now Aarhus has been Denmarks Oi! capitol and Last Seen Laughing is another band in that tradition, which we are proud to belong to!
Last Seen Laughing is a 3 piece band, with members who all come from OI/Punk/Hardcore musical backgrounds. We’ve all played in various bands over the last approx. 20-30 years. We have played together about 4 years and had our debut in our hometown of Aarhus, Denmark in Dec. 2008.
The Line-up is:
Steen – Bass, Chorus : Frontman, leadsinger & guitarist in legendary Danish punk band The Zero Point still goin’ strong since 1979. Drummer in Hardcore outfit War of Destruction.
JP – Drums, Chorus : Drummer in Oi! band The Hoolies. Singer in Oi! Band The Outfit. Drummer in 80’s punk band Dayli Kaos and 90’s punk band deFuldeprofeter (The Drunken Prophets).
Kres – Guitar, leadvocal : Guitarplayer in 90’s Hardcore band Toe Tag, bassplayer in 90’s Hardcore band Tiny Toons. Guitar in 90’s punk band deFuldeprofeter and Guitar in The Hoolies and The Outfit.
After The Outfit decided to call it a day, Kres as being the main idea holder of the band, had tons of unused material, decided to start on his own along with brother JP on Bass. Back then we called ourselves The Jutland Muster. Jutland being the part of Denmark where we live. After about 8 months JP couldn’t find the extra time to play music, but Kres kept on with various bass players and drummers (very hard to find musicians that want to play or know oi music in Denmark). It was always kept as a 3 piece band to keep it minimalistic, aggressive and tight. After approx. 2 years of practicing and creating songs JP decided to join back in and took over the drums. 3 months later in late 2008 we hi-jacked Steen to play bass and Last Seen Laughing was born.
In late 2009 we went into the studio to record a demo with 3-4 songs, but ended up with recording 9 songs! We sent out the material to different labels and negotiated with especially one of them. Things dragged on and time went by and we played more and more shows both at home and abroad, and we kept on writing more material until we by the end of 2010 was ready to hit the studio again. This time we recorded 5 songs. 1 song was for a local comp which hasen’t been released yet and the 4 remaining songs was together with the 9 previously recorded songs was going to be our debut album. Suddenly we were contacted by Randale Records in Germany, who had received our 9 song cd earlier, and they wanted to do an album with us. We seized the opportunity and accepted their offer after a bit of negotiating with both them and the other label we had talked to earlier. That resulted in our debut album being released in June 2011. The vast majority of people who have heard it are very pleased with it and reviews of the album are all in all very positive.
Then later that year we landed ourselves a part of a christmas comp. That song brought about the idea of a split christmas Ep together with fellow hometown band The Guv’nors. It’s a picture Ep in the shape of a christmas tree. It has to be the ugliest record you’ve ever seen!!!
We recorded material for the next album & an EP in 2012. The EP containing a teaser from the new album and a song that’s solely on this release. It was available from Randale Records on dec. 20’th 2012. It sparked the interest for the new album to come and the response was really good. The plan was that the new album should be released a couple of months later but due to circumstances it was delayed untill October 2013. The titel of our second album is “As true as it gets” and it’s also released by Randale Records. The impact of this album has really lifted the band to a new level and made our name more well known.
Last Seen Laughing is inspirered by the second wave of Oi! from the 80’s as well as the Oi! Revival of the 90’s. We take bits and pieces from many different bands and mix it into our own sound. The style is aggressive, minimalistic and catchy! Last Seen Laughing has already made quite an impact on the scene in Denmark especially with the song ”Tæsk” (translates Beating or more precise ”to get your head kicked in”), which is somewhat of a hit or anthem in the underground. These last couple of years has also seen a very fast growing interest for Last Seen Laughing from abroad and we’ve already been to England, Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands and Germany to play gigs. So far Last Seen Laughing has played a lot of concerts in Europe and we still have more to come. The future for Last Seen Laughing looks remarkably bright if you look upon the bands history so far!
A new young band from The heart of Ireland. The amazing vocal talents of female vocalist, Shannon Doyle, Playing their own original Reggae /Ska songs. already kicking up a storm, right across the ska scene in Ireland and the UK. We are very excited to see what they can pull off infront of a full house of skinhead veterans, at Brighton.
Gerry Lane (Guitar),
Ciaran White(Drums)
Alan Daly (Bass)
Robbie Collins: Trumpet
Andy Mullan: Saxophone.
Skinheads from across the pond, Minneapolis, USA
Degeneration is Oi! with a capital “O!” These boys have been having a laugh and having their say for 20 years. The band formed in 1994 in Minneapolis, where the music scene was not to favorable for a bunch of skins to be shining out. But they carried on, despite the negative press skinheads were having at the time. The band storms the stage and play unrelenting music, with scorching guitars, heavy bass, and growling vocals. They know what they what needs to be done and then proceed to get it done.
The boys released their first single “Blind.” in 96. They played hundreds of gigs and then put out “Oi! For the Kids”, where they had their first success. They quickly followed that up with a new drummer, who’s still here today, and 2 more 7”s. “Boots and Braces-Studs & Chains” and the “Young Life EP”. Going from strength to strength, they put out their first cd “Carry The Torch”.
Moving forward, always staying true to their Oi! roots the band, continued on. They recorded a few songs for compilations, and things slowed down. They stepped away from the stage and raised some families. Never forgetting the music they love, they knew it was time to let the world know that they were still standing tall!
Their new LP “Standing Tall” will be released on 11/11/15 and they will be coming to Europe for the first time to play both old and new songs. What a better place for a bunch of skinheads to hear them then at the Great Skinhead Reunion!
Degeneration is
Jason is Lead GuitarGreg on DrumsPhil “Ox” on BassMe VocalsChris “Joker” Rhythm GuitarOi OI Music
SKAbretta, is a 6 piece band that takes you through the years of SKA and Reggae from the early Blue Beat sounds of Prince Buster to the 80’s revival, covering everything in between. Created in mid 2012 they have quickly become a local favourite as there blend of old and new styles caters for every taste whether your in to 2-tone or the more traditional Trojan groove you are in for a night to remember.
In less then a year Skabretta have gone from playing local boozers and clubs to playing venues such as the 12 bar Club in Denmark Street, Folkstone SKAfest and the iconic 100 Club on Oxford Street. With a packed diary and gigs coming in up and down the country, they will be coming to a town near you soon.
Our DJ’s are selected like a fine wine, from around the world of skinheads. Each DJ has a strong history. They all come and play the best music you are ever likely to hear, and most run their own nights elsewhere. so please support these guys and girls, who are the backbone, of the Skinhead Reunion and the scene overall
Gary Olas, The Upsetter
Olas has been hosting our Friday nights since the first Reunion.Old school vinyl sound system playing the best in all types of reggae with gigs all over the world. This is also runs the OLAS BOSS REGGAE RADIO SHOW. Twice a week OLAS BOSS does two internet radio shows, Wednesday at 7pm until 9pm playing the very best in roots and dub reggae across all time dates. The later Wednesday, from 9pm till midnight, show is boss reggae/rocksteady/ska – two tone at ten for fifteen minutes – then at 11pm, the world famous Dabble Under the Duvet. An hour of the finest old school lovers rock. All genres of reggae are covered over the two shows. You can also listen again at any time. the radio site iswww.channelradio.co.uk. OLAS BOSS REGGAE RADIO SHOW.
Barry ‘Bmore Mcvowty’
From the Wycombe skinheads, been active in the skinhead scene since 1979. One of the very best DJ’s, with a wide knowledge of eclectic music. Dont miss Bmore performing as he spins. And dont be surprised with what hits the decks, Bmore plays from the soul!
Skavoovie
SkavooVie! .. Infectious SKA Beats and Killer Diller Rocksteady rhythms. WHERE? Currently enjoying a monthly residency at Upstairs at the Mez, 4th Saturday of the month. Serious SKA choons on original 45’s from the vinyl vaults of Blue Beat, Studio One, Dr. Bird, Top Deck, Treasure Isle and many more…Scorchers!!!
A regular and key player in Brighton, with a record collection, most DJ’s would die for.
Weekend tickets are available at www.subcultz.com
Lee Evans. Has been around the London scene, longer than red buses. From the Wycombe Skinheads, Lee was a well known face DJ’ing around London in the 80’s with bands like the Riffs and Hotknives, Desmond Dekker and Laural Aitkin shows, to his credit. Now running regular DRC nights
Martin Long..I’d like to welcome Martin Long from Portsmouth, to our list of guest DJ’s at the Great Skinhead Reunion 5. Martin has been a long term skinhead and very active in the skinhead and scooter scene for many years, and its a pleasure to have him play for us in 2015
Rob ‘Double Barrell’ Powell. Is active on the London circuit and Carnaby Street skins, and Elephants head meet ups of the modern day. And his only fools and scooters events. Playing a cross section of skinhead related tunes
Fuxy AKA The Hungarian’s Boss Sounds
Active on the Dublin scene, Live and direct from Hungary.
Playing, punk, Oi! and Boss sounds
Skashack Toast, will be back in residence for 2015, playing his saturday setS
CHESTERTON, IND.—Songbirds: Pioneering Women in Jamaican Music by Heather Augustyn has been published by Half Pint Press and is now available. The book is a comprehensive look at Jamaican vocalists, instrumentalists, record producers, dancers, wives, mothers, and deejays who helped to shape the course of Jamaican music on the island and worldwide. Songbirds: Pioneering Women in Jamaican Music is the fourth book from Augustyn on Jamaican music and culture.
The book features dozens of interviews with women who found a way share their talent in a culture and industry that was marked by brazen displays of masculinity. They endured harassment and received little or no pay to perform as backup or alongside or in front of the male musicians. They sacrificed family and home for a life in the spotlight, or they brought their babies with them on the road. They took over the studio and made it their own, or they suffered unimaginable violence, even murder. They changed the course of music all over the world. The book also features over 100 exclusive photographs and memorabilia that supplements personal narratives and archival material.
Heather Augustyn spent two years researching and talking to such women as Millie Small of “My Boy Lollipop” fame who rarely grants interviews, and she obtained photographs from her personal photo album. Others include Enid Cumberland of Keith & Enid who is now in her mid-80s; Janet Enright, the country’s first female guitarist who performed jazz in the 1950s; Marcia Griffiths of the I-Threes, Bob Marley’s backup singers, and vocalist for the Electric Slide, the staple of every wedding reception; members of the first all-girl ska band, the Carnations, featuring the parents of Tessanne Chin, winner of The Voice; Doreen Shaffer of the Skatalites; Patsy Todd of Derrick & Patsy and Stranger & Patsy; Althea & Donna, and dozens of others.
Augustyn is also author of Don Drummond: The Genius and Tragedy of the World’s Greatest Trombonist, McFarland 2013; Ska: An Oral History, McFarland 2010; and Ska: The Rhythm of Liberation, Scarecrow Press 2013. She is a correspondent for The Times of Northwest Indiana and an adjunct professor at Purdue University’s North Calumet campus. She lives with her husband and two boys in Chesterton, Indiana. Songbirds Pioneering Women in Jamaican Music is available at Here and amazon.com.
From April 26, 1964–”Something had to come after the Twist and it appears to be the ‘Jamaica Ska,’ just imported from the Caribbean island by dance lovers of New York’s jet set. Here, at Shepheard’s night spot, where the infectious new dance made its U.S. debut, lovely Carol Joan Crawford (left), Miss World of 1964, pays close attention to the dancers. The ‘Ska’ may be simply described as ‘up-beat blues with a shuffle rhythm.’ Its name evolved out of the sound of the guitar’s up-beat stroke. Miss Crawford, who also hails from Jamaica, is currently touring the U.S. for the first time.”
The premiere of the ska in America was controversial then, as it is now. I recently found an article from 1964 called “Dissension in the Ska Camp” that shows even when musicians were in the thick of it, it was a contested issue of who was included and who was excluded, who created it first and who was following suit. So I today I share this article that appeared in the Sunday Gleaner, April 26, 1964 that shows these topics were just as relevant and talked about then as they are now, even more so. The article has no byline so it is not evident who wrote the piece, but Ronnie Nasralla and Prince Buster chime in with their opinions.
First, let’s set the scene. Referenced in this article is the event at Shepheard’s Club, seen above in the photo. This nightclub was located in the Drake Hotel on Park Avenue in Manhattan. It was a hotspot. It was hip and posh and cool. Big stars stayed at the Drake, including Frank Sinatra and Muhammad Ali and later Led Zeppelin and Slade. But Shepheard’s was also swanky and the hot dances of the day, like the Frug, were not only danced here, but unveiled here. So too was the Ska. Shepheard’s even produced a flyer called, “How to Do the Newest Discotheque Dances at Shepheard’s in New York’s Drake Hotel” with step-by-step instructions to dance the Jerk, Watusi, Frug and the Monkey.
The event at Shepheard’s Club was prior to the World’s Fair. This event was held in April, whereas the World’s Fair wasn’t until August of 1964. However, Jamaica’s tourism efforts began before the World’s Fair in anticipation of creating a buzz and capitalizing on the dance craze trend. You may remember the photo I posted with Arthur Murray’s wife and Ronnie Nasralla from this evening at the Shepheard’s Club, and above is another rare gem.
Without further ado, the article:
National sound hits New York but now the argument flares as to what it is and who started it!
DISSENSION IN THE SKA CAMP
LIKE a raging fire, the promotional tour of the Jamaican National Sound, the Ska, has started a smoldering in the underbrush of the Kingston music world from which this distinctive brand of music was born.
Everyone wants to prove who is the true exponent of the Ska and who originated it? What is the authentic style of the Ska dancing? Successful though the promotional tour to the U.S. was, enthusiastic though the reports which came back treat the appearance of a Jamaican troupe of dancers and artistes at the Shepheard’s Club, there is dissension in the camp.
Some artistes who made the trip say their sound was not promoted as much as certain other sounds. Some of the artistes say that some of the other artistes didn’t have a clue about Ska dancing and in fact did the Monkey, the Wobble, the Twist . . . anything but true Ska.
Reports from the other side say that the moves done at Shepheard’s were moves decided on and rehearsed for several nights, together, before the team left the island.
To the accusation that other records were promoted over others, we discover from Mr. Winston Stona of the Jamaican Tourist Board, a co-sponsor of the promotional venture that:
The junket to the Shepheard’s Ska dancing, backed up over recorded music. Shepheard’s is one of a current crop of New York Clubs called discotheques. In this night spot feature entertainment comes from records played on a large turntable, from an amplification booth much like the Jamaican sound system of the dance halls.
According to the Tourist Board spokesman, the promotional venture for the Ska, as suggested by Henri Paul Marshall and Roland Rennie, the music promotion experts who came to the island last month on the invitation of the Ministry of Development and Welfare, was that Ska records and not personal performances by the artistes, would be projected.
The records which were taken to Shepheard’s therefore, were a selection made on the suggestion of the experts who, on their visit to the island, listened to the work of various Ska exponents. The records chosen for promotion were the ones which the experts deemed most likely to catch on with the American public.
These records included the works of Prince Buster, Derryck Morgan, Eric Morris, and others known to the local Ska followers.
Why should there be dissension? Among the tunes featured at Shepheard’s was “Sammy Dead,” the old Jamaican folk tune restyled as Ska by Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, featuring the voice of Eric Morris. Certain members of the troupe to Shepheard’s say “Sammy Dead” was promoted over other tunes.
According to Mr. Stona, “Sammy Dead” was actually played twice at the beginning and at the end of the programme of Ska records which he presented to the Shepheard’s audience.
It was also revealed that “Sammy Dead” which is to be released on a Capitol label in the States was specifically promoted on the request of Capitol records.
Prince Buster and the other early devotees of the Ska say this should not be so. And they throw in the argument that in their opinion “Sammy Dead” is not a true Ska tune and why should it be played even one more time than any of the others, which are reorganized as real Ska by the real Ska fans?
Prince Buster, who took the Ska to England where it is known now as the Blue Beat, was very expressive about this. He says he is one of the originators of the Ska and sees no reason why he and others, who worked together on the National Sound, should not have got as big billing.
But who really originated the Ska? As Buster tells it, it was back in 1958 that he, Derryck Morgan, Eric Morris and others used to meet on top of an old house situated on Charles Street near Orange Street. The meetings were inspired because “as boys together, we were looking at making a brand.”
He points out that a number of Jamaican musicians had tried adopting American shuffle sounds to their own style, but it didn’t really work. There was need for “our own sound.” So those meetings on top of the house was to find out just how to make things work, how to find a Jamaican sound which the fans would go for.
Down on the ground you might say the big sound system operators Duke Reid and Coxson were evolving their own sound. It was an adaptation of certain American shuffle tunes re-recorded for the sound system dance audiences. It is said that when the experimenters offered Duke Reid and Coxson the new Jamaican sound they would have nothing to do with it.
According to Buster, the new sound when it was evolved was referred to with great disdain by other musicians and by the public as the Boop-Boop. He even earned the name Boop. And when he and Derryck Morgan, for a promotional stunt, launched Boop-Boop songs deriding each other the public really went for their skins.
But out West, the thump of the Boop, later is to be called Sca, then Ska, was catching on. Musicians who had “boxed around” in various musical combos began to be reorganized as “Ska beaters.” Out west and on the east, they could tell you and still tell you about Drumbago who played the drums and Ja Jerry, Theophilus Beckford, and Raymond Harper, Rupert “Blues” Miller, and Stanley Notice.
These according to the fans and on Orange Street and (unreadable) where sound boxes thump through the Saturday night of every week were the original ska men.
As the craze progressed, getting popularity most of all on JBC’s Teenage Dance Party, other musicians joined the parade, cut dies, met for sessions, helped the sound to grow.
The fans began to acclaim Baba Brooks, Roland Alphonso, Lloyd Brevet, Lloyd Tate, Don Drummond, Lester Sterling, Johnny Moore, Lloyd Knibb and the men whose full names nobody remembers but rather a name like Jackie, Charlie, and Campbell. Later they were joined by the acclaimed pure jazz, tenor man, Tommy McCook.
The Ska caught on, spread and grew, most of all in the Saturday night sound system headquarters such as Forrester’s Hall, Jubilee Tile Gardens, Carnival and Gold Coast on Sundays.
Sound system operators worked feverishly to get the latest biscuits on disc. Early on release, they bore no labels, but the dance hall spies got the names eventually and the sound system which didn’t have the new biscuit last week, acquired it this week, to draw the fans.
It is interesting to find a parallel in the discotheques which began in Paris and spread to London and New York.
In the process of finding who should get credit for what, it is eye opening to hear Prince Buster saying that Louise Bennett played her part in the promotion of this peculiarly Jamaican sound and dance. He says that Louise’s life work of keeping alive the folk songs and rhythms of Jamaica is responsible for many of them coming back into popularity, set against the Ska beat.
Many of the musicians and artistes associated with the Ska movement are fairly young men. However, one of the acknowledged originators and Dean of the Sound has been playing music in Kingston for 46 years.
He is Drumbago the drummer who also plays a flute. His real name is Arkland Parks and (unreadable) Mapletoft Poulle and Frankie Bonnitto.
Drumbago, a mild mannered gentleman, says he and Rupert Miller, a bass player for 36 years, were in on the original search to find the sound which came to be called Ska. He explains their best arrangement of the sound as being basically four beats to the bar in eight or twelve measures.
“You get the sound according to how you invert the beats,” says Drumbago.
Another exponent of Ska and its various offshoots feel that the dance called Wash Wash has every claim to being truly Jamaican, for it is inspired by one of the basic Jamaican show dances … the wash day scene. This is a standard with many nightclub rhumba dancers, with many folk lore troupes.
So what constitutes Ska dancing? According to the fanatics, true Ska motions are the wash wash, the peculiar washing motion of either clothes or the body, the press along, in which the dancer thumps out the rhythm with his arms at shoulder level, the move (for which we found no
name) of spiraling down to floor level and back up, the one in which you moved the hips and pumped the arms in the opposite direction to the press along.
The fans say that while the extempore movements are allowed dancing the Ska, these are the definite basic movements which one must know to be IN.
Dissenters from the troupe which performed at Shepheard’s say these movements were not used fully or enough and that at one stage they heard a critic saying that what was being done was nothing new, it looked like a first cousin to the Twist. And that the Monkey and the Pony movements which were done were recognized as old hat immediately.
Mr. Stona says this accusation is not true. He found nothing but satisfaction for the presentation at Shepheard’s and is optimistic for the future of Ska promotion in the United States.
We contacted a spokesman for the Byron Lee and the Dragonaires outfit who made “Sammy Dead.”
He told of having heard the feeling expressed by some of the original Ska sound makers that certain orchestras now playing the sound were only cashing in and didn’t know how the sound began.
The Byron Lee spokesman—Mr. Ronnie Nasralla—says:
“For Byron Lee and the Dragonaires it’s not just cashing in. I know Byron feels that it is full time Ska was organized and promoted so that the best can be got out of it for the benefit of the artistes and Jamaica.”
According to Mr. Nasralla:
“Many Ska artistes were not properly protected or organized before Byron Lee has signed up several artistes for recordings and appearances and we’re taking all steps to see that they’re properly presented.”
“I’ve heard that some people say that Byron Lee is just promoting his orchestra. It’s not true. Sure, as a businessman he will look out for his investments, but let us stop quarrelling among ourselves and promote the sound not only for the good of one band but for all Jamaica.”
Whatever comes of it, Ska is going to be a talking point for many more months. Ironically, like most things, it was an art without honour in its own country until it was discovered somewhere else.
Stay tuned for next week’s blog when I will post a response to this article that appeared in the Daily Gleaner the following Sunday. Apparently the comments made by Ronnie Nasralla and Prince Buster struck a chord and a number of musicians responded with their thoughts, including Eric Monty Morris, Roy Panton, Ronnie Nasralla again, Alphanso Castro, Sir Lord Comic, and Roy Willis who respond with comments of their own.
From April 26, 1964–”Something had to come after the Twist and it appears to be the ‘Jamaica Ska,’ just imported from the Caribbean island by dance lovers of New York’s jet set. Here, at Shepheard’s night spot, where the infectious new dance made its U.S. debut, lovely Carol Joan Crawford (left), Miss World of 1964, pays close attention to the dancers. The ‘Ska’ may be simply described as ‘up-beat blues with a shuffle rhythm.’ Its name evolved out of the sound of the guitar’s up-beat stroke. Miss Crawford, who also hails from Jamaica, is currently touring the U.S. for the first time.”
The premiere of the ska in America was controversial then, as it is now. I recently found an article from 1964 called “Dissension in the Ska Camp” that shows even when musicians were in the thick of it, it was a contested issue of who was included and who was excluded, who created it first and who was following suit. So I today I share this article that appeared in the Sunday Gleaner, April 26, 1964 that shows these topics were just as relevant and talked about then as they are now, even more so. The article has no byline so it is not evident who wrote the piece, but Ronnie Nasralla and Prince Buster chime in with their opinions.
First, let’s set the scene. Referenced in this article is the event at Shepheard’s Club, seen above in the photo. This nightclub was located in the Drake Hotel on Park Avenue in Manhattan. It was a hotspot. It was hip and posh and cool. Big stars stayed at the Drake, including Frank Sinatra and Muhammad Ali and later Led Zeppelin and Slade. But Shepheard’s was also swanky and the hot dances of the day, like the Frug, were not only danced here, but unveiled here. So too was the Ska. Shepheard’s even produced a flyer called, “How to Do the Newest Discotheque Dances at Shepheard’s in New York’s Drake Hotel” with step-by-step instructions to dance the Jerk, Watusi, Frug and the Monkey.
The event at Shepheard’s Club was prior to the World’s Fair. This event was held in April, whereas the World’s Fair wasn’t until August of 1964. However, Jamaica’s tourism efforts began before the World’s Fair in anticipation of creating a buzz and capitalizing on the dance craze trend. You may remember the photo I posted with Arthur Murray’s wife and Ronnie Nasralla from this evening at the Shepheard’s Club, and above is another rare gem.
Without further ado, the article:
National sound hits New York but now the argument flares as to what it is and who started it!
DISSENSION IN THE SKA CAMP
LIKE a raging fire, the promotional tour of the Jamaican National Sound, the Ska, has started a smoldering in the underbrush of the Kingston music world from which this distinctive brand of music was born.
Everyone wants to prove who is the true exponent of the Ska and who originated it? What is the authentic style of the Ska dancing? Successful though the promotional tour to the U.S. was, enthusiastic though the reports which came back treat the appearance of a Jamaican troupe of dancers and artistes at the Shepheard’s Club, there is dissension in the camp.
Some artistes who made the trip say their sound was not promoted as much as certain other sounds. Some of the artistes say that some of the other artistes didn’t have a clue about Ska dancing and in fact did the Monkey, the Wobble, the Twist . . . anything but true Ska.
Reports from the other side say that the moves done at Shepheard’s were moves decided on and rehearsed for several nights, together, before the team left the island.
To the accusation that other records were promoted over others, we discover from Mr. Winston Stona of the Jamaican Tourist Board, a co-sponsor of the promotional venture that:
The junket to the Shepheard’s Ska dancing, backed up over recorded music. Shepheard’s is one of a current crop of New York Clubs called discotheques. In this night spot feature entertainment comes from records played on a large turntable, from an amplification booth much like the Jamaican sound system of the dance halls.
According to the Tourist Board spokesman, the promotional venture for the Ska, as suggested by Henri Paul Marshall and Roland Rennie, the music promotion experts who came to the island last month on the invitation of the Ministry of Development and Welfare, was that Ska records and not personal performances by the artistes, would be projected.
The records which were taken to Shepheard’s therefore, were a selection made on the suggestion of the experts who, on their visit to the island, listened to the work of various Ska exponents. The records chosen for promotion were the ones which the experts deemed most likely to catch on with the American public.
These records included the works of Prince Buster, Derryck Morgan, Eric Morris, and others known to the local Ska followers.
Why should there be dissension? Among the tunes featured at Shepheard’s was “Sammy Dead,” the old Jamaican folk tune restyled as Ska by Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, featuring the voice of Eric Morris. Certain members of the troupe to Shepheard’s say “Sammy Dead” was promoted over other tunes.
According to Mr. Stona, “Sammy Dead” was actually played twice at the beginning and at the end of the programme of Ska records which he presented to the Shepheard’s audience.
It was also revealed that “Sammy Dead” which is to be released on a Capitol label in the States was specifically promoted on the request of Capitol records.
Prince Buster and the other early devotees of the Ska say this should not be so. And they throw in the argument that in their opinion “Sammy Dead” is not a true Ska tune and why should it be played even one more time than any of the others, which are reorganized as real Ska by the real Ska fans?
Prince Buster, who took the Ska to England where it is known now as the Blue Beat, was very expressive about this. He says he is one of the originators of the Ska and sees no reason why he and others, who worked together on the National Sound, should not have got as big billing.
But who really originated the Ska? As Buster tells it, it was back in 1958 that he, Derryck Morgan, Eric Morris and others used to meet on top of an old house situated on Charles Street near Orange Street. The meetings were inspired because “as boys together, we were looking at making a brand.”
He points out that a number of Jamaican musicians had tried adopting American shuffle sounds to their own style, but it didn’t really work. There was need for “our own sound.” So those meetings on top of the house was to find out just how to make things work, how to find a Jamaican sound which the fans would go for.
Down on the ground you might say the big sound system operators Duke Reid and Coxson were evolving their own sound. It was an adaptation of certain American shuffle tunes re-recorded for the sound system dance audiences. It is said that when the experimenters offered Duke Reid and Coxson the new Jamaican sound they would have nothing to do with it.
According to Buster, the new sound when it was evolved was referred to with great disdain by other musicians and by the public as the Boop-Boop. He even earned the name Boop. And when he and Derryck Morgan, for a promotional stunt, launched Boop-Boop songs deriding each other the public really went for their skins.
But out West, the thump of the Boop, later is to be called Sca, then Ska, was catching on. Musicians who had “boxed around” in various musical combos began to be reorganized as “Ska beaters.” Out west and on the east, they could tell you and still tell you about Drumbago who played the drums and Ja Jerry, Theophilus Beckford, and Raymond Harper, Rupert “Blues” Miller, and Stanley Notice.
These according to the fans and on Orange Street and (unreadable) where sound boxes thump through the Saturday night of every week were the original ska men.
As the craze progressed, getting popularity most of all on JBC’s Teenage Dance Party, other musicians joined the parade, cut dies, met for sessions, helped the sound to grow.
The fans began to acclaim Baba Brooks, Roland Alphonso, Lloyd Brevet, Lloyd Tate, Don Drummond, Lester Sterling, Johnny Moore, Lloyd Knibb and the men whose full names nobody remembers but rather a name like Jackie, Charlie, and Campbell. Later they were joined by the acclaimed pure jazz, tenor man, Tommy McCook.
The Ska caught on, spread and grew, most of all in the Saturday night sound system headquarters such as Forrester’s Hall, Jubilee Tile Gardens, Carnival and Gold Coast on Sundays.
Sound system operators worked feverishly to get the latest biscuits on disc. Early on release, they bore no labels, but the dance hall spies got the names eventually and the sound system which didn’t have the new biscuit last week, acquired it this week, to draw the fans.
It is interesting to find a parallel in the discotheques which began in Paris and spread to London and New York.
In the process of finding who should get credit for what, it is eye opening to hear Prince Buster saying that Louise Bennett played her part in the promotion of this peculiarly Jamaican sound and dance. He says that Louise’s life work of keeping alive the folk songs and rhythms of Jamaica is responsible for many of them coming back into popularity, set against the Ska beat.
Many of the musicians and artistes associated with the Ska movement are fairly young men. However, one of the acknowledged originators and Dean of the Sound has been playing music in Kingston for 46 years.
He is Drumbago the drummer who also plays a flute. His real name is Arkland Parks and (unreadable) Mapletoft Poulle and Frankie Bonnitto.
Drumbago, a mild mannered gentleman, says he and Rupert Miller, a bass player for 36 years, were in on the original search to find the sound which came to be called Ska. He explains their best arrangement of the sound as being basically four beats to the bar in eight or twelve measures.
“You get the sound according to how you invert the beats,” says Drumbago.
Another exponent of Ska and its various offshoots feel that the dance called Wash Wash has every claim to being truly Jamaican, for it is inspired by one of the basic Jamaican show dances … the wash day scene. This is a standard with many nightclub rhumba dancers, with many folk lore troupes.
So what constitutes Ska dancing? According to the fanatics, true Ska motions are the wash wash, the peculiar washing motion of either clothes or the body, the press along, in which the dancer thumps out the rhythm with his arms at shoulder level, the move (for which we found no
name) of spiraling down to floor level and back up, the one in which you moved the hips and pumped the arms in the opposite direction to the press along.
The fans say that while the extempore movements are allowed dancing the Ska, these are the definite basic movements which one must know to be IN.
Dissenters from the troupe which performed at Shepheard’s say these movements were not used fully or enough and that at one stage they heard a critic saying that what was being done was nothing new, it looked like a first cousin to the Twist. And that the Monkey and the Pony movements which were done were recognized as old hat immediately.
Mr. Stona says this accusation is not true. He found nothing but satisfaction for the presentation at Shepheard’s and is optimistic for the future of Ska promotion in the United States.
We contacted a spokesman for the Byron Lee and the Dragonaires outfit who made “Sammy Dead.”
He told of having heard the feeling expressed by some of the original Ska sound makers that certain orchestras now playing the sound were only cashing in and didn’t know how the sound began.
The Byron Lee spokesman—Mr. Ronnie Nasralla—says:
“For Byron Lee and the Dragonaires it’s not just cashing in. I know Byron feels that it is full time Ska was organized and promoted so that the best can be got out of it for the benefit of the artistes and Jamaica.”
According to Mr. Nasralla:
“Many Ska artistes were not properly protected or organized before Byron Lee has signed up several artistes for recordings and appearances and we’re taking all steps to see that they’re properly presented.”
“I’ve heard that some people say that Byron Lee is just promoting his orchestra. It’s not true. Sure, as a businessman he will look out for his investments, but let us stop quarrelling among ourselves and promote the sound not only for the good of one band but for all Jamaica.”
Whatever comes of it, Ska is going to be a talking point for many more months. Ironically, like most things, it was an art without honour in its own country until it was discovered somewhere else.
Stay tuned for next week’s blog when I will post a response to this article that appeared in the Daily Gleaner the following Sunday. Apparently the comments made by Ronnie Nasralla and Prince Buster struck a chord and a number of musicians responded with their thoughts, including Eric Monty Morris, Roy Panton, Ronnie Nasralla again, Alphanso Castro, Sir Lord Comic, and Roy Willis who respond with comments of their own.
Can you imagine grabbing a Red Stripe and heading into this dance at Shady Grove in 1956? Duke Reid, Coxsone Dodd, Admiral Comic (or here, Kosmic)–what a night this must have been! It was 1956, before ska, so these sound system operators were spinning “rock ‘n roll” as the advertisement states–rhythm and blues secured from American. We know that Duke Reid and Coxsone traveled to the U.S. to obtain their records, but others purchased them from the sailors coming from the states in the ship yard. I wanted to take the opportunity in this blog to talk a little bit about Duke Reid, the one who helped to start it all, and share some advertisements I found from the Daily Gleaner that I find fascinating and hope you will too.
First of all, let me give a little background on Duke Reid, for those who might not be familiar with this Jamaican music hero. This passage from the Jamaica Gleaner, October 1, 1995, was written by journalist Balford Henry:
Arthur Stanley Reid was born in Black Rock, Portland, May 14,1923 [most accounts have his birth as July 21, 1915] . Although his birth certificate shows his mother’s name as Catherine Pearce, there is only a dash where his father’s name was supposed to be. After school, Reid moved to Kingston and joined the police. While in the force he met Lucille Homil and they married. He was kicked out of the police force when his superiors realised that he had moved in with his mother-in-law and was helping to run a grocery on Beeston Street. However, the 30 pounds they paid him off with, turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as he bought a couple of speaker boxes and started playing music outside the store. Friends encouraged him to go into music fully, and he eventually challenged and beat the then sound system King, Tom, the Great Sebastian. Tom moved uptown to the Silver Slipper Club in Cross Roads after this, leaving downtown at the mercy of the new champion sound system -Duke Reid, The Trojan.
Reid beat back the challenge of numerous other sounds, until he was humiliated by a young upstart named Clement “Sir Coxsone Downbeat” Dodd, who had travelled abroad as a farm worker and returned with some exclusives, including Roscoe Brown’s “Mr. Berry,” Coxsone’s virtual theme song. But, Reid also went on a hunt for the songs in the United States. It was difficult because, like other sound system operators, Dodd had scratched the name from the label. This meant that Reid had to listen to thousands of songs until he found it. Anthony (Duke Reid’s son) said that when his father, eventually, found the record in a Philadelphia shop, “he jumped in the air and laughed like a baby.” When he returned to Kingston, Reid threw out a challenge to Dodd, that he could play all his exclusives. The showdown was planned for Forrester’s Hall. Dodd turned up feeling that Reid was only bluffing. At midnight when Reid played “Mr. Berry” eyewitnesses said that Dodd fainted.
Reid returned to the top of the heap, but a disastrous attempt to develop a construction company, which was supposed to have received a contract to help build the Norman Manley Airport but never did, resulted in him having to declare bankruptcy in 1961. Anthony said that his father lost everything, including his sound system. But, he rebounded with a loan obtained through a home owned by his wife on Mountain View Avenue. Reid returned with a vengeance, formed his own labels, built his own studio, and reopened his liquor store after repurchasing 33 Bond Street. When Tab Smith’s “My Mother’s Eyes” was brought to his attention by a friend named “Cho Cho Mouth”, he made it his theme song.
The name Duke Reid and Treasure Isle are still very much identified with the instrumental. Reid died leaving one of the richest local musical legacies, which was still providing entertainment for millions world-wide, excepting that his family isn’t earning anything from all this success.
Duke Reid’s sound system, and Reid himself, was called The Trojan, after the make of his imported kit van he used to shuttle his equipment. Reid hosted his dances at the corner of Beeston Street and Pink Lane in the early days and then on Bond Street and Charles Street, as well as at other venues like the Success Club and Forresters Hall. It is to be noted that in the story relayed above by Anthony Reid to the journalist that Coxsone’s theme song was “Mr. Berry.” Other accounts, which have been corroborated, have that song being “Later For Gator” by Willis “Gatortail” Jackson, which Coxsone renamed Coxsone’s Hop,” and the event is to have taken place at Kingston Jubilee Hall with Prince Buster luring him there.
Reid was flashy and attracted attention everywhere he went. He frequently wore a crown on his head along with a red cape trimmed in ermine, bandoliers crisscrossing his chest and two guns at his side, one a shotgun on his left hip and a .45 on his right hip. Sometimes he even arrived to his dances being carried aloft on a gilded throne by his posse. He was known to fire his guns into the air at his shows in a display of his prowess as well as when he liked a song. He was also known to occasionally play with a live grenade. He presented a radio show on RJR called “Treasure Isle Time,” supplying the records from his sound system, promoting those from his studio, and paying for the airtime. The show was actually hosted by Adrian “Duke” Robinson, a J.B.C. disc jockey. From 1956 to 1959, Reid was the “King of Sound and Blues,” known for his rare, even exclusive 78” tunes he played at the sound system dances.
The sound systems had one function in these early days–to sell liquor. Duke Reid and his family owned a liquor store, so too did Coxsone Dodd and his family. Here is an advertisement that shows the duality of the liquor industry which birthed the music industry. Record collectors, what would you give to travel back in time to go to this sale!!?
I haven’t even talked about the legacy that Duke Reid has left us in the way of recordings, but instead focused here on his early days. Reid produced hundreds of recordings, helping to establish the careers of such greats as Alton Ellis, the Skatalites, Derrick Morgan, Eric Monty Morris, John Holt, Justin Hinds, the Melodians, the Paragons, Phyllis Dillon, the Silvertones, Stranger Cole, the Techniques, Tommy McCook & the Supersonics, and the list goes on and on. Share your memories and thoughts on the legacy of Duke Reid by commenting below. I leave you with this popular photo of Duke Reid in all his glory.
And below is an advertisement for Trojan trucks from the Daily Gleaner, 1959. Duke Reid’s had “Duke Reid – The Trojan King of Sounds” painted on the sides. He not only hauled his sound system equipment and records, but of course, his liquor.
Stanley Motta is always mentioned as an early pioneer in the ska industry since he had the first recording studio on the island, although they were not pressed there–Motta sent the acetates to the U.K. for duplication. But Motta began the recording industry in Jamaica. His recording studio was opened in 1951 on Hanover Street and his label, M.R.S. (Motta’s Recording Studio), recorded mostly calypso and mento. Motta’s first recorded in 1952 with Lord Fly whose birth name was Rupert Lyon. It is to be noted that in his band on these recordings were Bertie King on clarinet, an Alpha Boys School alumnus who would go on to have a successful jazz career in Europe, as well as Mapletoft Poule who had a big band that employed many early ska musicians and Alpha alumni. Motta also recorded artists like Count Lasher, Monty Reynolds, Eddie Brown, Alerth Bedasse, Jellicoe Barker, Lord Composer, Lord Lebby, Lord Messam, Lord Power, and Lord Melody (good Lord!). There is a strong ska connection too. While I originally thought and posted that Baba Motta was Stanley Motta’s little brother and got that misinformation from Brian Keyo (here: www.soulvendors.com/rolandalphonso.html), I have been corrected by mento scholar Daniel Neely, as you will see from his fantastic and helpful comments below. They, in fact, are not related. Baba Motta was a pianist and trumpeter who also played bongos at times. Roland Alphonso performed with Baba Motta and Stanley then employed Roland to play as a studio musician for many of his calypsonians. Baba Motta had his own orchestra based at the Myrtle Bank Hotel. Baba Motta also recorded for his brother Stanley Motta with Ernest Ranglin. And other ska artists who recorded for Stanley Motta include Laurel Aitken and Lord Tanamo. Rico Rodriguez also says he recorded for Stanley Motta. Theophilus Beckford also performed for other calypsonians that Motta recorded, playing piano before he cut his vital tune “Easy Snapping” for Coxsone, the first recognized ska recording. So who was this Stanley Motta character and what was his interest in Jamaican music? Well as most Jamaican residents know, Motta was the owner of his eponymous business that sold electronics, camera equipment, recording equipment, and appliances. They also processed film, if you remember that! Motta started his business in 1932 with just two employees. Motta’s grew to hundreds of employees over the years and they sold products from Radio Shack, Poloroid, Hoover, Nokia, and Nintendo, to name a few. Stanley Motta was born in Kingston on October 5, 1915. He was educated at Munro College and St. George’s College. He was married twice and has four sons, Brian, David, Philip, and Robert. Motta chose to get into recording perhaps because it was a new industry for the island. And as a businessman, he saw that there were tourists who flocked to Jamaica with spending money, and in an effort to capture some of that money, he began recording to send them home with a souvenir. Many of these calypso and mento recordings for MRS were intended to be souvenirs, a take home example of the sounds enjoyed while on the north coast beaches. In fact, later Motta would serve on the board of the Jamaica Tourist Board from 1955 to 1962, so this was a focus for Motta. He recorded 78s, 45s, but also 10 full-length LPs including “Authentic Jamaican Calypsos,” a four volume series targeted at tourists upon which Roland Alphonso is a featured soloist on the song “Reincarnation.” In short, Motta was an entrepreneur, so his interest in recording came from a vision to fill a need, and he quickly moved on into more enterprising endeavors when he saw that need was being met better by others, like Federal Records, a physical pressing plant, and he chose to focus on his retail stores instead, stores which are still in business today. Motta was also involved in broadcast, but not as you might think. In 1941, after viewing a program that was broadcast on NBC, Motta was so moved by the content of the program titled “Highlights of 1941,” that he wrote to NBC to obtain a recording of this broadcast. He secured the one-hour program which he then showed for audiences at the Glass Bucket Club and he used donations from the screening to support war funds. The program dramatized many of the events of the year interspersed with real footage of Pearl Harbor and the milestones leading up to World War II. Motta was likely also a supplier for many sound system operators, as you can see from the advertisement above. He sold amplifiers, speakers, and all types of recording equipment so without his influence, the face of Jamaican music would not be the same, in many ways. Share your stories, memories, and research on Stanley Motta here and keep the dialogue going! Here are a number of links to more information on Stanley Motta and his recording legacy: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1842828http://www.mentomusic.com/1scans.htmhttp://bigmikeydread.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/stanley-motta-mottas-recording-studio-kingston-mrs/
Hello everybody!! We have a record & clothing store in Rochester NH that sells a wide variety of Punk, Oi! & Ska records & clothing. If you are not from the area we do have an online store we have just started up www.skele-tone.com or you can find us on facebook Skeletone Records add us as a friend we do mail order for anything you cant find on our website!!! If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them here or email us asskele_tone@hotmail.com.We hope you like the store we work very hard to support the scene. Cheers!!!
Jamaican producer and musician Harry Zephaniah Johnson, 67, credited with producing what is widely considered the first reggae single “No More Heartaches” by the vocal harmony trio The Beltones, passed away on Wednesday, April 3 in his Westmoreland, Jamaica birthplace, succumbing to complications from diabetes; Johnson leaves four children and three grandchildren.
Born on July 6th, 1945, Johnson, better known as Harry J, initially entered the music business as a bass player with The Virtues prior to becoming the group’s manager. Shortly thereafter, he took a job as an insurance salesman but his love for music continually beckoned. He booked time at producer/sound system owner Coxsone Dodd’s Studio One in 1968 and recorded The Beltones. The resultant debut release on Johnson’s Harry J label, “No More Heartaches,” is considered a defining record heralding the emergence of the reggae beat as distinctive from its rock steady predecessor. (“Nanny Goat”, a 1968 song produced by the better-known Coxsone Dodd and sung by the duo Larry and Alvin is also cited as a transformative record, moving the rock steady tempo into a reggae rhythm).
“At the time we were under contract with Coxsone Dodd but he wasn’t doing anything for us so a member of a popular group The Cables took us to Harry J; Harry was new to the business and happy to record us so we broke away from Coxsone and went with him,” recalled The Beltones’ former lead singer Trevor Shields told Billboard.biz. “The driving sound on “No More Heartache” was totally different; we were like outsiders starting something new but didn’t know it at the time. The song was No. 1 on the Jamaican charts for about four weeks, which was no easy feat in those days.”
Harry J’s next big hit “Cuss Cuss” by Lloyd Robinson, released in 1969, boasts one of the most recycled reggae rhythms in the voluminous Jamaican music canon. The same year Harry J released a succession of reggae instrumentals credited to the Harry J All Stars, a revolving cast of musicians that included pianist Gladstone “Gladdy” Anderson, keyboardist Winston Wright, bassist Jackie Jackson, drummer Winston Grennan and guitarist Hux Brown. “Smashville,” “Je T’Aime” and “Srpyone” an assortment of Jamaican originals and reggae adaptations of international hits, are just three of the Harry J All Stars’ instrumentals that garnered steady play from Kingston’s sound system selectors.
Their most successful was “Liquidator,” led by Winston Wright’s spirited keyboard solos, which peaked at no. 9 on the UK Singles chart and became an unlikely skinhead anthem there. The song’s opening bassline was subsequently featured on the introduction to The Staple Singers’ 1972 Hot 100 chart topper “Ill Take You There” (Stax Records). According to an April 7 report in the Jamaica Observer newspaper by Howard Campbell, based on a 2000 Observer interview with Johnson, drummer Al Jackson (of Booker T and the MGs, Stax’s in-house band) visited Kingston in 1969 and met Harry J who gave him a copy of “Liquidator”; Johnson was shocked to hear the song used in the Staple Singers’ hit and took aggressive steps to collect royalties from Stax but made little progress.
Following “Liquidator’s” UK success, British reggae label Trojan gave Johnson his own Harry J imprint; his instrumental productions never again reaped the popularity of “Liquidator” but Johnson triumphed working with several of the island’s vocalists commencing with Marcia Griffiths and Bob Andy: their 1970 duets covering Nina Simone’s “Young Gifted and Black” and Crispian St. Peters’ “The Pied Piper” reached the upper tiers of the UK singles charts.
In 1972 Johnson opened a sixteen-track studio at 10 Roosevelt Avenue, Kingston, which revolutionized the reggae capital’s recording industry. “Back then, we were recording two-track and four-track sessions so it took great foresight for someone to go all the way to 16-tracks, which brought us on par with the rest of the world,” engineer/musician/producer Stephen Stewart told Billboard.biz at Harry J studios; there Stewart learned audio engineering in the 1970s while still a teenager, working alongside the late Sylvan Morris. “Because he had the latest in technology Harry J attracted the best artists of the day,” Stewart noted.
A sampling of the classic 1970s roots reggae recordings done at Harry J studios includes: The Heptones’ “Book of Rules,” The Melodians’ “Sweet Sensation,” Toots and the Maytals’ “Reggae Got Soul,” Burning Spear’s “Days of Slavery” and Dennis Brown’s “So Long Rastafari.” Bob Marley and The Wailers also recorded their first four albums for Island Records at Harry J (“Catch a Fire,” “Burnin,” featuring Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh, “Natty Dread,” and “Rastaman Vibration” with the I-Threes); presently, framed gold copies of those Wailers albums adorn the walls of the studio’s main room.
Harry J Studios are featured in the 1978 film “Rockers” (directed by Theodoros Bafaloukos and starring Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace, Gregory Isaacs and Jacob Miller) in a scene that spotlights singer Kiddus I recording “Graduation In Zion” there.
Although the 1970s were Harry J’s production heyday he continued to produce and release hit singles throughout the 1980s including Sheila Hylton’s cover of The Police’s “The Bed’s Too Big Without You”, which reached no. 38 on the UK singles chart. Harry J responded to the massive “Sleng Teng” rhythm released by the King Jammys label in 1984, which jumpstarted Jamaican music’s digital revolution, with his aptly titled “Computer Rule” rhythm that spawned numerous hits for various singers and toasters including Daddy Freddy, Charlie Chaplin, Uglyman, and Little John.
Following a seven-year dormancy during the 1990s, Harry J studios reopened in 2000, under the management of Stephen Stewart who refurbished and re-equipped the facility, with Johnson retaining ownership of the premises. “Harry J pushed the business aspect of the industry, putting deals together and cataloguing his songs (including releases on the Jaywax, Roosevelt, 10 Roosevelt Avenue and Sunset subsidiaries), which were separate from the studio operations,” Stewart offered.
Countless reggae veterans including Toots Hibbert, Burning Spear, Sly and Robbie and Luciano have recorded at Harry J studios in recent years while upstart Jamaican groups Raging Fyah and Di Blueprint Band and an abundance of European reggae acts have each sought out its authentic roots reggae sound. “People come here to capture that live session chemistry where recording is more than just one person using a computer program,” observes Stewart. “The legacy of the musicianship that has come through here makes Harry J studios really special, it’s part of the vision Harry brought to Jamaican music.”
385 Willesden High Road is tucked away behind a row of dilapidated 19th century houses, its entrance obscured by high locked gates and a walled yard. But 385 is a treasure trove of reggae history. It’s called Theorem, Music Village, and it’s where we’re recording several artist interviews for Reggae Britannia. As we arrive, there’s a band in the studio rehearsing a romantic Lovers Rock number, there’s a man up a rickety ladder painting the walls and another mopping up from an all night dance in the ‘functions room’ with its damp lino and garish red felt walls.
T-Jae, the tall soft-spoken proprietor of what was once called BBMC (the Brent Black Music Cooperative) helps us with our camera gear. He’s got coffee brewing in the kitchen beside an open can of condensed milk. Before T-Jae’s time this was a leisure centre filled with rattle of pinball machines and the click of snooker balls – now replaced by the drum ‘n bass of reggae rhythms leaking from the studio.
We’re here to interview Dave Barker, one half of the Dave and Ansell Collins vocal duo who set the teenage mods alight, back in 1971, performing a novelty number called ‘Double Barrel’. Dave’s a quietly spoken man with a hint of a stammer. He tells us how, when he first came to this country (and he stayed here ever after) he peered out through the window of his BOAC plane as it banked over the smoking chimneys of the snow-covered houses below and wondered ‘how come they have so many bakeries in England?’ On the drive from the airport he was shocked at seeing white men digging the road and taking out garbage: ‘Wow man, that was strange, you didn’t see those things in Jamaica’. Nor dogs wearing winter vests, nor steak and kidney pies, nor that little sparrow he spied pecking the top off a milk bottle. He can’t help himself: Dave sings a refrain from Matt Munro’s ‘Born Free’ and segues into ‘Summer Holiday’.
Dave arrived in the U.K exactly ten years before Theorem opened its doors to top British and Jamaican reggae artists passing through. Today, there’s the legendary Max Romeo sitting on bench in the winter sunshine, his grey locks neatly tucked into a woolly beret. In 1969, Max brought his wicked song ‘Wet Dream’ to Britain and its risqué lyrics – which got it banned in clubs and on the BBC – made it an anthem for skinheads in dance halls all across Britain. He sings a few lines, diffidently explaining how it caused an ‘upstir’ among the rebellious youth of the time. He’s a little ashamed of it now because, by the mid 70s, Max had embraced the wisdom of Rastafari. That was when he wrote and recorded some of reggae’s most powerful and memorable music in the Black Ark studio of Lee Scratch Perry: ‘War In A Babylon’ and ‘Chase The Devil’. When those songs arrived here, first as pre-releases and then remixed by Island Records, they inspired our fledgling roots reggae bands and then the punks and then Bob Marley too. Max intones a few lines from ‘Chase The Devil’, an ironic, cautionary tale that has been covered or sampled by dozens of musicians – including Jay-Z in ‘The Black Album’ – and was featured in the video-game Grand Theft Auto.
Dave Barker and Max Romeo – by Irfhan Mirza
‘I’m gonna put on an iron shirt and chase Satan out of earth’ he sings. ‘I’m gonna send him to outer space to find another race’. Max explains: ‘The devil is the negative within the psyche. Chasing the devil means chasing the negative out of your mind.’ There are people wandering in and out while he speaks; musicians carrying drums and guitars into this studio that’s cold as a morgue, or dropping off an amp or a heavyweight speaker, or they’ve come to pay their respects to the master, with a hug or a high-five.
T-Jae comes sauntering by with a piece of carpet under his arm to help our sound recordist dampen the ‘live’ acoustic of the room (yes, we still have a sound recordist on our crew) and he tells me that among the band members in the studio today is none other than Bigga Morrison. Bigga’s not a front man like Max, but a keyboard virtuoso and music director of renown. Reggae royalty. The band take a another break for a smoke in the yard and Bigga, immaculate in pin-striped suit and brogues, describes growing up in this country as a second generation West Indian: ‘My parents had experienced troubles and threats on the streets, back in the ’50s, with the Teddy Boys and such, but they wouldn’t discuss those things because they wanted to keep you free from the pressures. But as we grew up, we took our message and our fight onto the streets with the roots and culture music we played in bands like Steel Pulse and Aswad.’
Later during the interview, I asked Bigga to show us how the British reggae producers, back in the early 1970s, added violins to the Jamaican imports to make them sound ‘more classical’. Unfortunately, he’s lost his glasses and so can’t read the score. Tee Jay’s on hand to send for a replacement pair. Bigga fills in time by playing us a delightful new track by his band the Skatronics, but when the glasses arrive, they’re all wrong for Bigga. He wears them anyway, and peers astigmatically at the music for ‘Young Gifted And Black‘ which is layered in symphonic-style strings. Bigga (educated at Trinity College of Music) explains how Jamaican reggae gradually transformed into a British musical experience, first through the dub sounds and conscious lyrics of hardworking roots groups like Aswad and then by the bands that went platinum: the 2 Tone crowd, UB40 and The Police. Bigga’s being called back to rehearsals now, so we break for a late lunch. It’s a choice of The New Golden Duck Chinese Take Away or the Caribbean place half a mile up the road. We do the walk and settle for salt fish and akee. Or rather, the others do. I choose the goat curry on plantains and soon regret it.
Bigga Morrison
Back in Theorem, Bigga’s at the keyboards and a couple of pretty female vocalists are delivering more saccharine Lovers Rock. And that’s where we see Big Youth, in among them, gyrating his hips to the pounding bass and chugging upbeat of the guitar. He’s chaperoned by a petite Italian lady from an artists’ agency called Roots Rockers. She’s Trish, and she’s exhausted because they’ve only just returned from a nightmare flight from Spain. Trish is a miracle of calm and efficiency in the maelstrom of the struggling reggae business and it’s clear all the artists adore her. Trish has offered us the opportunity to interview Big Youth, the toaster who excited British reggae fans with his revolutionary, rasta-inspired lyrics in the mid ’70s. He’s on top form today, his wiry body twisting and swaying in the interview chair as he sings lines from ‘Hit The Road Jack’, telling me how the great Ray Charles called him up one Christmas-time to admit that Big Youth’s version was just ‘the best’. ‘Big Youth stole the scene,’ he concludes. Modesty isn’t one of Big Youth’s virtues. But I can vouch for his status, and integrity. I first met him insideRandy’s Record shop in Kingston Jamaica back in ’77. He was checking out the sales of his album – visiting these record stores was about the only way an artist could tell how many were selling. He was as big a name as Marley at the time, and revered both on the island and over here. We met again – by chance – in Lagos, Nigeria, when he was on the run from some unscrupulous promoter. He’s older and greyer now, but with no loss of energy, showmanship or sharp humour. And the red, gold and green implants in his front teeth are still there.
The filming days at Theorem haven’t only been productive for our ninety minute programme, they’ve also been enormous fun. Maybe it’s the familiarity and affection the artists have for this building, or maybe it’s what they call ‘the spirits’ of the house: a combination of all those sounds and experiences imbedded in the cracking plaster walls, the creaky floorboards which once the feet of hallowed artists trod, or the reverberating bass you can hear down Theorem’s honeycomb of corridors.
We’ll be back here later in the week to interview the fiery, bubbly Lovers Rock singer Sylvia Tella, from Manchester; and Tippa Irie who came to fame DJing for the Saxon sound system, and maybe Dennis Bovell, the multi-talented producer/song writer and bass player, who did so much to anglicise reggae music in this country. Oh, and Trish says Dennis Alcapone’s coming by, the dapper, bowler-hatted vocalist who brought a whole new style of toasting to these shores with songs like ‘Guns Don’t Argue’: ‘Don’t call me Scarface, my name is Capone, C-A-P-O-N-E!’
For him, we’ll haul our equipment boxes down the dark corridors of Theorem (we never could find the light switches, thriftily hidden away in recesses above door frames). Because we’ll place him in a room, behind the studio, which is every reggae fan’s dream, an Aladdin’s cave of antique tape machines and mixers, and an expansive crimson casting couch. The wood-trim Rainderk desk dates from the early ’70s when Reggae first exploded onto our pop charts with songs like ‘Young Gifted And Black’, bringing an upbeat musical thrill not just to those of Caribbean origin and the packs of skinheads who followed them around the country, but to the whole nation. This mixing desk was donated by Pete Townshend of The Who. It has made history since, recording reggae artists like The Wailers, Gregory Isaacs, Aswad, Janet Kay, Maxi Priest … and so many more.
The traffic’s slow on Willesden High Road as we leave the studios and T- Jae waves us into the evening gridlock and shuts the gates. Back-in-the-day, Theorem would be filling up with dreadlocked musicians and their natty entourage, ready for another all night session. Sometimes it still does, but with the proliferation of cheap home studios and a music industry in crisis, it’s a whole lot quieter now. No sessions tonight. Just the rattling pipes, the whispering corridors, the vacant studio and the ghosts of British reggae history.
My name is Sara Silva and I am Portuguese. I am 29 years old and currently live in the south of Portugal in Faro. After finishing my degree in Graphic Design from the University of Algarve in 2007, started working as a freelancer in design and as a collaborator in the studio of tattoos and piercings Freak Shop, where i currently work as a full time as body piercer. I started drawing as a child, I studied art in high school and went into graphic design. In my illustrations use my main theme is skinhead culture composition, dynamic fruit of my artistic evolution and personal . My inspiration comes from the music I hear, the lifestyle I have, to my personal experience and artitist and my everyday struggle in life. I try to combine traditional design with more digital techniques to create a more personal and current mixture.
My name is Cheryl Cole and I’m originally from Oakland, California, U.S.A. My interest in skinheads goes back to the early 80’s when I was very much into the second wave of ska and mod sounds. I was not a skinhead then, more of a rude girl/mod/new wavey type. I also listened to R&B and oldies, I loved Prince, I loved rap, Run DMC and all that, I don’t know how you would classify me! By the late 80’s I was obsessed with music, mainly punk, metal, glam, some Oi! ska, industrial, rap, soul, anything that was good I got into it. Most of the skinheads I would see back then were hardcore skins, which I love of course but my skinhead love affair was really with the ska end of it. During the 90’s I was very disapointed with the third wave and the new punk that was coming out so I basically spent that decade listening to the music I loved from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Just a few years back I got very involved in the traditional skinhead life and now I am happy to be a part of this amazing vibrant subculture.
I did not study art at school, I had high school art class, and I tried to take a figure drawing course at community college but I hated it so I walked out. My friends and I used to draw and paint all the time, I had friends in the 80’s who were incredible graffiti artists, painters, people who drew things with a Sharpie pen that were mind bendingly good with meticulous shading done with old pens which were half way dried out. I learned techniques from those friends, and from my love of comic books. I used to sit and draw from comic books and try to paint similar to the watercolor comic art like Havok and Wolverine and Black Orchid. my friends and I used to stay up for days on end, (if you know what I mean) and just draw until we could barely see any more! Now days I am straightedge, but I do think that those crazy days of my youth and the obsessive way I drew and drew truly shaped my style and abilities. I also learned SO much from the staff at an art store I worked at for 4 years. They were all amazing artists who had gone to school and knew so many techniques and they shared that knowledge with me and encouraged me to try oils, which I love now of course!
I would like to show the world through my art what a beautiful and diverse scene we have, I would love it if the name skinhead made people think immediately of Jamaican Ska, dancing and good times. Unfortunately, at least here in the USA, “normal” people tend to cringe when you say the word skinhead. Right now I live in San Diego, California. The skinhead world here is small, but very welcoming. I am fairly new to them and for the past few years, they have all been so great, I just love each and every one of them. There are a few excellent and knowledgeable DJ’s who have skinhead reggae nights around town, and we are very close to Tijuana, which has a big group of skinheads along with good shows and dos. Also we are just a few hours from Los Angeles, they have some GREAT shows up there, and lots of people doing events with amazing DJ’s and really good people.
I can’t think of one particular highlight to my artistic life, but I do really enjoy giving my art to my dear friends. They get so happy and there is really no feeling like it! I have had low points, where I just don’t want to paint or draw, and sometimes these low points will last for a few years. I will try to force myself to do stuff but if you are not feeling it, it will turn out bad. I’ve noticed that good positive friends who truly encourage me help immensley. Right now I am surrounded by people who truly care for me, and want to encourage me and all I want to do is paint and draw! My dry spells usually went along with stress and depression. I am currently in the process of some big changes in my life, I plan on taking big steps to forge a positive life for myself and my family, I am making an effort every day to be a good person, be a hard worker, be an honest and loyal friend. It takes effort to be positive and truly honest as much as you can, but it is worth it as you find good things around you and good people come in to your life.
I’ve given up trying to change other people, I just change myself and be what I wish other people would be.
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Symond Lawes 
Isabelle Pradel Skinhead Girl, Sao Paulo Brazil banned from Facebook
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