Greetings, seekers of the bizarre, the unusual, the extraordinary, and the incredibly cheap! I come to you after a long hiatus to share the results of a particularly fruitful scavenge undertaken this past weekend at the thrift stores around the nation’s grand capitol.
During this excursion, I was lucky to find a small stack of vinyl 45s from Jamaica, obviously from a fan of the early- to mid-period “deejay” era in the development of popular Jamaican music. They’re on extremely weird, poorly printed labels — and a few have no labels at all, substituting instead a hasty crayon scrawl simply saying “DJ,” or (in the case of the most entertaining of the singles I’ve ripped for you tonight) the word “PUSSY.”
Anyhow, the point is, these are some fairly ribald tunes. The density of the Jamaican (in one case, Trinidadian) patois is such that I feel you could safely play any of these at work without fear of prosecution — but they are spicy. So, as part of my ongoing effort to goose traffic statistics for my beloved Rock Town Hall (see easily porn-searchable headline above), I’m attaching them here for all to enjoy.
The first tune is, in my estimation, the best of the lot: a 1974 number by a young Max Romeo, entitled Pussy Watchman. 2000Man may get a particular kompletist kick out of this, as the InterWeb tells me that Romeo sang backup on some tune off of “It’s Only Rock and Roll.” But this is from very early in Romeo’s career, and it’s a good one. Check it out!
Next up, another ribald selection, this time from the extremely obscure 1970s DJ “Charley Ace.” There’s not even a track name listing on the label for this single (though it does sport a monochromatic label saying “SCORPION!”) — but I choose to believe the song is called Do It Same Way, based on the moans and groans of the female lead in the piece. The InterWeb tells me, by the way, that Ace was gunned down on the rough streets of Kingston some time in the 1980s. RIP, Charley.
Last but not least, Trinidadian godfather of “soca” music, Lord Shorty, gives us all explicit direction in The Art Of Making Love. Again, I call 2000Man’s attention to this tune, in which — towards the end there — Lord Shorty gives us some guidelines as to what we might expect from various races as far as their boudoir behaviors are concerned. I immediately smelled a “Some Girls” rat in the mix. But, whether or not Lord Shorty was ripped off by Jagger and company, I strongly urge all basement-dwelling, pasty-faced members of the Hall to heed Lord Shorty’s advice. Dude obviously knows what he’s talking about.
Anyhow, that’s what I got for you this time around. Mod, Backoffice: if nothing else, please let me know how much traffic this effort generates!
Yours sexily,
HVB
Whenever traveling through Southern truckstops in the 80’s I always looked for the smutty 45s on the jukebox, from “The I-95 Song” to “Candy Licker” from Marvin Sease.
Max Romeo had a big hit around the same time with Wet Dream. But he did conscious reggae too. I have a great compilation of this early material called Open The Iron Gate (“Jah Jah open up the iron gate, and let you children repatriate!”). It’s interesting that Jamaican artists could get away with doing both kinds of material.
Lord Shorty belongs in the Look Hall of Fame.
Hrrundi, I’m in the middle of a busy day, so I just got my first peek at this provocative post. I’ll get time to listen to these traxx and comment later. Meanwhile, I hope I’ve added that special touch that will be sure to draw traffic to this post!
OPEN THE IRON GATE is really fine, they do a wonderful job with those Blood & Fire reissues. WAR IN BABYLON from ’76 is one of Lee Perry’s quintessential productions, and I always had a thing for Marcia Griffiths, on backing vocals.
I was a big fan of Randall Grass’ WXPN show ROOTS ROCK REGGAE, perfectly programmed before the new wave and punk show Yesterday Now Music Today (or YMNT) by Lee Paris in the 70’s and 80’s. When I moved to San Fran in the 1990’s I unsurprisingly rubbed up against some major reggae-heads. That Jeb Loy Nichols guy will talk about Jamaica till the cows come home.
Pince nez time. The famous Max Romeo album is titled War Ina Babylon, not War In Babylon. And it’s Dance from Emotional Rescue that Romeo contributes backing vocals to.
Big Steve: “The famous Max Romeo album is titled War Ina Babylon, not War In Babylon.”
Who you going to believe, Big Steve or spellcheck?
Burning
-db
It’s getting HOT in here! Actually, I need to hear these songs better cranked up. It’s hard to assess reggae music over computer speakers. The first song is the one that grabs me the most.
HVB, this is getting a pretty good number of hits but nowhere near as many as we got on the 50 songs/50 states thread from over the weekend. I’m wondering if the involvement of a “Lord Shorty” in search results is a turnoff for some of our more curious browsers. Good effort, though, and I encourage any newer visitors to the Halls of Rock to click on the “hot rocks” tag and revisit our brief-lived effort at spicing up this site to entice investors. Perhaps we’ll want to revisit that approach.
HVB, that’s some weird stuff. When is the timing right to play that second song? BigSteve is dead on about Max Romeo and Dance. I think it was nice of them to credit him, since it’s pretty hard to pick him out. I struggle with reggae in general, but I kind of like The Stones’ bastardized version of it, and how they keep it in small doses. Keith produced a Max Romeo album after the Emotional Rescue sessions, but I never heard it.
Thanks for the weird tracks. That “one eye” song cracked me up!
2000Man asks:
When is the timing right to play that second song?
I respond:
Now THAT’s a good question!