Feature - Lee 'Scratch' Perry

An old feature, from May 2009, which originally ran in The Drum Media (Sydney).  On re-reading a bit of my older work recently, I decided to repost this one, as I remembered how entertaining the interview, and the subsequent writing, was.

Lee 'Scratch' Perry

In Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s universe, no one can hear you scream.  Whether it’s with laughter at some of his more outrageous claims, or with frustration at not being able to understand his thick Jamaican accent is debateable – either way, Lee ‘Scratch’ is in control, and you are merely there to entertain him. 

For this is a man who, arguably, invented reggae, and who, definitely, invented dub, so basically, in a world where Perry regards himself as god, you are the uninvited guest, so you’re best to just buy the ticket and take the ride. 

It’s one o’clock in the morning when I put through the call.  I get his wife on the phone, who gives me another number to ring.  I call this number and get an automated message bank – in Swiss, for this is where Perry resides these days, in Switzerland.  I call his wife back.  She laughs, and hollers through the house for Perry to turn his phone on.  “Try again,” she says patiently – she’s obviously been through this before.

The reason I’m making this call, is to talk to Perry about his impending trip to Australia, a whistlestop tour incorporating only the one show at the Opera House, a show which holds much significance for the now 73-year-old iconic musical figure.  The reason I’m calling him at one o’clock in the morning, is because it’s four-thirty in the afternoon in Switzerland, and of course, Perry doesn’t get out of bed until at least four.  My nicotine stained fingers grip the phone tighter to stop the caffeine wobbles as I wait, and then he picks up.  “What can I do for you?” he intones after I identify myself a couple of times, and so we begin.

Some background: Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, born Rainford Hugh Perry, and also known as The Upsetter and Pipecock Jaxxon, basically, with his track, People Funny Boy in 1968, invented a sound and style that was later to be called reggae.  A number of years later, due to his incredible production techniques and wont to fuck with mixing boards, he created dub music, and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

In 1973, after heading a number of labels and releasing music all over the shop, Perry decided he wanted more control, and so in the backyard of his house in Kendal, Jamaica, he built a studio he called the Black Ark.  It was in this literal shack, that Jamaican music was exported to the world, Perry producing the likes of Bob Marley, Junior Byles and Max Romeo within its fibro walls.  Eventually, as Perry’s condition deteriorated, so too did the Ark, and it burned to the ground in the early ‘80s – some claiming it was faulty wiring, Perry himself claiming he did it, “In a fit of rage”, to cleanse the place of, “Bad spirits”, that had begun to inhabit it towards the end.  Yes, the man is an eccentric, which is indeed one reason why we love him.

And so to this Australian tour and the reason it’s so significant for Perry.  In short, on the Opera House Stage as part of the Luminous festival, Perry is recreating the Black Ark, and he and English producer Adrian Sherwood, will be performing in it as if it were 1975 and Jamaican music was at its zenith, surrounded on all sides by fibro walls, the pulsing riddims holding them up and making them shake – this promises to be an experience.  “Yes man, it’ll be Opera Dub you know,” Perry tells me before breaking off to cackle maniacally, as he does many times throughout the interview.  “You will hear something from the Ark of the Covenant… it’s righteous, it’s perfection, it’s perfection… it was perfection, so why should I let it die?  It’ll live, live on stage.”  I remark at this point, that it sounds like this’ll be somewhat of a religious experience for Perry.

“It is, it is a religious experience,” Perry says quite seriously, before that cackle comes rattling down the line once more.  I can’t help but think I’m being taken for a ride here, but hey, it’s an entertaining one, so I press on – I’m keen to know how Perry feels about recreating this period of time, particularly given how badly it ended in the early ‘80s.  “Well, it’s reality, it’s not a joke… the Ark of the Covenant is over your head,” Perry explains, before going on to say something about negativity which I think is him saying it was indeed a negative time, but we can’t live in the past because the Ark of the Covenant is above our heads and this is why it will live on.  As I said, this is a thick Jamaican accent over an international phone line, so please, bare with us.

As for the involvement of English producer Adrian Sherwood, well, therein lies another story.  After the death of the original Black Ark, Perry wandered into the proverbial musical wilderness, his mental condition deteriorating with his music, before, in the early ‘90s, he hooked up with Sherwood and Neil Fraser (aka Mad Professor), and his career began to catch its footing once more.  “Yeah, he treated me like an artist,” Perry explains of Sherwood.  “He does have a knowledge of my music and he does love my music… he knows that I make music to make people happy… he has come to the realisation that it is not a joke, that it is reality.” 

And there’s that cackle again, which I feel in this instance, shows Perry’s delight at working with Sherwood once more, particularly in this setting, which can only mean good things for fans of Perry’s work, and indeed, the staged recreation of the Black Ark Studio, the scene of so much work which has since influenced so many artists.

Perry and Sherwood will front a five-piece dub band on the Opera House stage, and as Perry tells me with yet another laugh, this particular version of the Black Ark will not be burnt come the end of the set.  “No, it certainly won’t end like that,” he cackles. 

So this is where Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry is at right now, and looking back at what this character has done, it’s a place he’s pretty happy with.  “I have to thank my teacher, God,” Perry tells me in summation.  “I have to thank him for making me perfect, so I could create this music.” Once again, Perry’s maniacal cackle rolls down the line, and it’s at this point I realise, that my universe will never be the same now that I’ve set foot in Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s, and that’s something that’s fine with me.

Samuel J. Fell

http://www.lee-perry.com

Comment - Gillard And The Lost Boys

There are denizens of this wide, brown land of ours, who do little to contribute to the term, ‘proud Aussie battler’.  There are people amongst us whose goal in life, it would seem, is to degrade, incite and generally heap insult upon those they disagree with.  And there are those who call Australia home, who are downright cowardly, little more than gormless worms, hiding in their digital holes, slinging insults from the safety of their personal computers thinking themselves witty, urbane, insightful.

On Monday, via social media site Facebook, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in what was a first for a high ranking politician, hosted a chat session, fielding questions about the implementation of the Gonski Report into school funding reform, NAPLAN and teaching quality, amongst other things.

An attempt to tap into immediate feedback, the session lasted an hour with many questions answered, and more “tabled for further discussion”.  However, it was after the PM logged off, that the aforementioned gormless worms reared their tiny heads, too cowardly, it would seen, to sling their odious words whilst the object of their hatred was still ‘in the building’, as it were.

“Get my dinner ready”, “Lube up Julia”, “Are your pubes as radiant, shiny and glorious as mine?” and even a Jones-esque, “How’s your dad?” were amongst the comments posted in response to the Gillard chat, from a group of all male citizens who really don’t warrant the kudos, as they would see it, of being named again.

What they do deserve however, is the utter contempt of the rest of the population, the sneers and disgusted half-chuckles we reserve for fecal matter found on shoe soles.  For despite the fact many of us disagree with those in power, sometimes vehemently, when did it become an accepted behaviour to so viciously attack, personally, the person or people we disagree with?

To my mind, this is a part of the trolling epidemic perhaps, and an offshoot of the rise and popularity of social media – people are able to comment instantaneously, they do so from the safety of their own homes, and even though the aforementioned didn’t hide behind monikers, for the most part, it still shows that to say something so dirty is no big deal anymore, there’s nothing anyone can really do, so cop it.

No doubt there will be many, far more insightful investigations into this sort of thing, but in the meantime, this comes down to cowardice and a general lack of respect.  I can only surmise that the mothers of these haters raised them like the barnyard vermin they are, and that perhaps this misogynistic behaviour is a call for help from a group of little boys who miss their mummy.

For little boys is what they are.  They think it’s cool to hate on a person in power, particularly one who has copped more than her fair share in the week just gone.  They lack the mental capacity to form coherent arguments and so resort to schoolyard bullying in an attempt to gain themselves some attention on a wider scale (ironic that I’m writing this, then).  Further, good and honest debate is paramount to the workings of government and public life in general, regardless of how you feel about specific policy or policy setters, and behaviour like this shunts that to the wayside, sabotaging meaningful debate, diluting it and rendering it less powerful, the flow-on effect being that we’re worse off because of it.

These people shouldn’t call themselves Australians, they shouldn’t consider themselves battlers, they shouldn’t consider themselves much at all.  This sort of behaviour is abhorrent – perhaps if someone wrote something about them being selfish bully boys, they’d think twice about how this sort of thing impacts on people, society in general, and the debates we should be having but aren’t.  Lube that up.

Samuel J. Fell

Profile - Gomez

Published in the October issue of Rhythms.

Feeling Foolish

Gomez ain’t no fools.  All five, not a fool amongst ‘em.  One of many reasons why they’ve lasted as long as they have.  When these ebullient Englishmen grace our shores once again this month, it’ll be to celebrate 15 years since they first formed, 15 years of playing live, 15 years of spreading their musical effervescence the world over.  Nothing foolish about that.

“I think there are a few different elements to it,” muses vocalist/guitarist Tom Gray on what the secret truly is to the success of Gomez.  “One is we grew up together, so the relationship goes much deeper than, say, a professional band who met in their 20s in order to form a band… we were friends first, and a band second.

“That plays a huge part, I mean, even if we did split up, I don’t think we’d really split up if you know what I mean.  It’d be like splitting up with your mum.”  There’s to be no splitting up here, of that there’s no doubt, although after their Australian tour, the band will be taking a break for a while, recharge the batteries and all that sort of thing.

Back to the secret to the success and longevity of the band – to my mind, one of the reasons Gomez have bloomed this past decade and a half, is because no one has been able to put them into any one musical box, and as such, they have this mass appeal, this mass reach, that other groups just don’t possess.  “Yeah, I think that’s it, I mean, our greatest weaknesses are our greatest strengths,” Gray reasons.

“The difficulty of a band that’s unmarketable because it doesn’t have a singular audience or demographic, the difficulty of a band that doesn’t have one lead singer or songwriter… so all of these things which are perceived as weaknesses, I think are our strengths.  It’s a very naturalistic thing, and I think in that respect, we don’t have any peers.  So whether you like us or not, or give us any credence for that, I think it’s true.”

It’s something which has seen the band survive to this day, never once releasing the same album twice, utilising their three-vocalist attack to the best of its ability, multiple songwriters contributing to what can only be described as the Gomez Sound, in that it doesn’t sound like anyone else.  Or perhaps it sounds like everyone else, just all at once.  Regardless, it’s served them well, it ain’t broke, no one’s looking to fix it.

Meanwhile, on the aforementioned celebratory tour, there’s a bit of a twist – the band won’t be writing set-lists, leaving that task to their fans instead, who vote via the band’s website for their favourite track, the songs with the most votes making the cut.  “Well, we were just wondering what we could do,” says Gray on where this idea came from.  “We’d been touring for 15 years, we knew we were taking a short break [after this tour], and we thought that if you’re not putting oxygen into the show, people are just coming to see the same old show over and again.

“You have to keep giving people something, and this was it… what can we do to make the shows interesting?  Give people a choice.” I venture that there’d be a lot of rehearsal going on, as no doubt some obscure back-catalogue choices would pop up.  “Well we can’t rehearse because we don’t know what we’re going to play, we only shut down the voting the night before,” Gray laughs.  “So we wake up in the morning, look at what we’ve got, what songs there are, and figure out if we can play them.  And it creates an excitement for us as well, and it has the capacity to produce really spontaneous feeling gigs, which is really the lifeblood of performance anyway.”

Not only the lifeblood of performing, but of the band itself, as that spontaneity has been with them their entire career – not so much other people choosing what they’ll play, but the free-for-all ‘anything could happen and probably will’ nature of their music and live show.  It’s a fair bet that, despite the fact they’ll be taking a break, there’s another 15 years in this lot yet.  They certainly ain’t no fools, believe that.

Samuel J. Fell

http://www.gomeztheband.com

Record Review - Big bad Voodoo Daddy

Published in the Metro section of the Sydney Morning Herald, Sep 21.

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

Rattle Them Bones

429 Records / Universal

3/5

If some enterprising young television exec were to create a series which married Mad Men with the likes of Boardwalk Empire, then the obvious choice to soundtrack said series would be Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.  These nine cats are the real deal, from the top of Fedora’d heads down to wing-tipped feet, shuffle beats and big horns straight out of the ‘20s, ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s, into 2012 with aplomb and then some.

This, the group’s eighth cut since their 1994 debut, continues on with their swing revival ethos – finger-snapping big band tunes, a heady mix of originals along with a smattering of covers, including Gimme That Wine from scat-king Jon Hendricks, the James Joyce of Jive.  Nothing new to offer here, but what they’ve got, they do better than anyone else.

Samuel J. Fell

http://www.bbvd.com/theatre_home.html