The great Leonard Cohen (still going strong at 81) might well be bemused - or even amused - at the way his classic of cynicism, sexual posturing and resignation, "Hallelujah" has been transformed into a mighty spiritual anthem, especially by Jamaicans weaned on its exposure through the movie "Shrek" (and many other Hollywood presentations) and also through countless performances by "American Idol" and "The Voice ' hopefuls.
And so it was that Jamaican "veteran" Lukie D (best known as one-fourth pf the vocal group LUST) added to the song's legend with a typically spirited - and taken as spirit-filled - reading of the song for a hugely appreciative audience at the Pegasus this past Sunday.
The singer's appearance was part of a cavalcade of (mostly) male singers called upon by Gem mYers as part of what is now a highly anticipated annual showcase. With them embers of Fab 5 surrounding her, and with Lymie Murray, Tony Rebel, Bagga Case, Roy Rayon and the aforementioned Lukie D on the roster, the impish Myers, who preceded each guest on stage, could well be forgiven for starting with the Weather Girls' 1982 disco smash, "Its Raining Men".
And Murray- admirably - took the "rain" purple with a slick yet robust cover of the late Prince's "The Most Beautiful Girl In the World" even leaping off the stage to pick a damsel out of the audience the he deemed worthy of the title line.
Family emergency kept us from enjoying the show i n entirety, but the capacity audience (which grew steadily) no doubt got their money's worth and had more than enough reason to shout "Hallelujah!"
Freddie McGregor is really into wildlife documentaries.
A visit to his Big Ship studio/residence finds "The Captain" and his cicrcle of young protojes absorbed in the televised social and survival habits of big cats, water buffalo, wild dogs and other animals.
Of course, Freddie, after "50+" years of striding Colossus-like yet with great agility through the "jungle" of the Jmaaican and global musica business, of racking up awards and associations enough to fill several rooms (He has two walls of fame emblazoned with photos and plaques in the Big Ship complex to verify), of being the soundtrack to countless new romances, affairs, break-ups, conceptions and other life experiences, of seeing his progeny establish their own tracks and their own varied impacts.
After all of that, Freddie McGregor is still "on the hunt" still hungry, just not for the trappings that seem to occupy so many lesser lights. No, Freddie McGregor is hungry to become better to show more of his love for the music and thesound and to show just how much further there is to go, even as he takes stock of the leagues he's already covered.
And that quest is exemplified in his latest disc, entitled "True to the Roots" Upon our visit, Freddie was stil lhuddled with engineer/producer "German" (from Stuttgart, no less) in seeking to go through the tracks and making the hard choice of paring all the fantastic material down to a manageable 13 or 14 tracks.
The lead-off tandem is the title track and Dennis Brown's "Love's Got A Hold On Me" two tasty slices of modern rtoots which serve as sort of bio notes on his illustrious career. "Yeah man, Dennis ah me bredda man," in describing the closeness between him and the late Crown Prince of Reggae. The "Roots" track offers some concrete foundational points on values without sinking into preachiness.
And yet, Freddie at this stage can manage to roam stylistically beyond the roots reggae and lover's rock that made his name and still retain a trademark sound, that warm, rolling lower register that song after song transmits both a knowing and an eagerness for new experiences.
That duality is reflected in a stirring mix of tracks like Little Anthony's 'Falling in Love" and the original "A Song in My Head" the latter which Freddie says just evolved out of his regular writing process with the likes of Dalton Browne, one of many collaborators on the project. Dean Fraser is featured, as is
But the end result is, as stated, vintage Freddie. Regardless of tempo, complexity or subject matter, these songs attest to the experience, intensity and wisdom that are uniquely Freddie. It's a disc that genuinely has something enjoyable for every demographic but can be listened to and enjoyed without the burden of trends, market values or any other preconceptions. This is not the "phoned-in" exercise of a weary veteran content to coast on the past, but the sound of a leader scanning the landscape with a positive view, with an eye to opportunity, not content to pick at consumed carcasses, but mindful always of the need to stay grounded "true to the roots" as the title track proclaims.
Its an outlook that no doubt will enable "the Captian" and head of the pack to rack up many more accolades and more loyal fans
At a panel late last year titled “Is London Too Rich to be Interesting?” Saatchi-approved sculpture pioneer Gavin Turk, now 48-years old, was asked a simple question by an audience member: “If you had your time again, from now, in this London—with no grant, and no time to spend swimming around for patrons—how would you do it? Would you still be here? Would you stay?” Prior to that, he’d indulged the audience with stories about how a glorious and multi-faceted London of times past had given him the opportunities, freedom and inspiration he needed to explore his art and self, and become who he is, but he can’t help stutter on this question for some time, before coming to a long winded conclusion which I’ll simplify here: No, probably not actually.
Things have never been easy for creative types in the city, that's kind of the point. But they've also never been this bad until very recently. Only in the late 90s into early 2000s, the city was fostering multiple vibrant music scenes, each one representative of the young people that fuelled it: from grime in Bow, to indie in Camden, to dubstep in Croydon, to artrock in New Cross. To have that many young people all maintaining so many seperate, vibrant and concurrent scenes in London now seems impossible.
London used to offer artists a means to flourish, which was why it would always be uttered on the same subcultural whispers as New York and Berlin. By hook or by crook, musicians could not only eat, live and work, but also make enough to record, buy equipment, tour van gas, expenses, managers, CDs, drugs, pot noodles. There was cheap housing if you had the balls to rough it out (it often came with rats, shit landlords and toilets that coughed sewage, free of charge). Recording studios could be found in the middle of town that hadn’t yet been forced to close, or pander their diaries and costings to big money block bookings—so a young band or artist could get a few hours in front of a half decent mixing desk for not an unrealistic price, without going on mythological quests to Zone 8. The city even had a visible ladder of progression, its venues would guide a rise, all the way from shithole basement to 200 cap club to decent sized concert hall. But the most important thing the city had was time. Obviously there was no eternal well of opportunity for workshyshitbags, but it wasn’t so unrealistic for an aspiring musician to work three or four days a week in a dive bar, and spend the rest on building their dream. An artistic balance could be achieved, where your work was just work and your talent was your focus, without simply consigning yourself to waste.
Is Tropical were one of many bands who took advantage of the city’s charms and loopholes, throwing their dice at London’s heaving squat scene around 2007. “When we discovered living in squats was doable, it was perfect,” explains lead singer Simon Milner. “Suddenly, everyone had the time to get on with what they loved. If you just have to work for rent then you have to work five days a week, but as an artist, you have to buy your equipment too, whether it's paints, instruments, or jewelry. It’s expensive, so an opportunity to live for free, yeah, in horrible conditions, was vital.”
Photo provided by Is Tropical.
Their now famous South London squat was called The Toilet Factory, and homed themselves, Shitdisco (together, then known as Ratty Rat Rat), and The Metros (some of whom went on to become Fat White Family). It was one of many in the city; including others like the notorious Squally Oaks, which housed early formations of Metronomy, !WowoW! squat in Peckham, and also 78 Lyndhurst Way.
“Down in South London there was a load of us. A lot of artists like Matthew Stone, the writer Karley Sciortino. So it was a really big scene. From the outside it probably looked like everyone was just wasters, but that’s where you socialized, collaborated, and made your connections.”
South London band Breton utilised a guardianship scheme for the first part of their career, where tenants are welcomed into otherwise abandoned buildings for next to nothing, to basically keep the building’s blood pumping. They landed themselves in an old bank in Elephant & Castle, which they dubbed BretonLABs. "It was like Stalingrad most of the time," they tell me, and they all slept in a wedding marquee with electric heaters in the center of the space. "When we got signed, we bought massive coats” says lead singer Roman.
Members of London band Breton, on the roof of their South London squat
Still, it was a place they could live, film, and record for next to nothing. Another girl in their building ran her theater company from home, stacking her space with props. A different tenant was the filmmaker Ian Pons Jewell, who’s now an esteemed director, he made the video for Naughty Boy's "La La La" and scooped the 2013 MOBOs and Best Director at the UK Music Video Awards as a result.
But in 2012, the Conservative government made squatting in a residential building in England and Wales a criminal offence. What was previously a civic matter, became a police matter, meaning people could be rapidly evicted. An old bank in the middle of Elephant & Castle might not sound like a residential building, but because one small room was once deemed the bank manager’s sleeping quarters (in the 80s), it was enough to get the whole building classed as "residential," and Breton, plus 15 other residents, were evicted so it could be demolished. There’s something poetically cyclical about how such a capitalist construct, as an in-office living space made for bankers to ensure they work excessive hours into the night, was still managing to do its bit for inequality, even in its dilapidated state.
Men holding stacks of cash at Breton's bank, back when it was actually a bank in the 80s.
The decimation of London’s art squats is a metaphor for the city’s recalibrated attitude towards art, and 2015 London has all the spluttering symptoms of a city hurtling towards cultural void. Investors pick up housing estates as if they’re glass ketchup bottles, turning them upside down and smacking the bottom until all the inhabitants fall out. Wages have stagnated, living costs have soared, rents have rocketed, venues are being methodically demolished, 150,000 of us are working two jobs, and everyone with a creative one is considering a move to Woodford.
Over in the fallows of central London, bankers body pump to “Everybody’s Free” at morning raves, each new bead of sweat more resinous than the previous, as last night’s cocaine residue is taxied out of their bloodstream. The same month London Mayor Boris Johnson launches his#BackBusking campaign, his police force are heavy handedly arresting musicians in broad daylight for doing just that in Leicester Square.
We’re told to tolerate this, and that it is a means to an end because—grin emoji, thumbs up emoji—London’s output growth is BETTER THAN EVER! The problem is, the burgeoning riches of a city don’t necessarily correlate with its art and creativity. Cities like Lisbon, where new strands of Afro-Portuguese electronic music seem to sprout every six months, or Atlanta, where trap has supernova’d in every direction, aren’t teeming with invention because of a influx of billionares, high density penthouse monoculture or chains of cold brewed coffee shops. Berlin's progressive arts scene is in part thanks to the progressive politics that frame it, and they've addressed their soaring costs by becoming the first German city to introduce rent capping. So, it’s no surprise that in London, the unhindered boom in the city’s wealth hasn’t exactly chimed with an explosion of subculture and youth movements. You only need to look at the cities London is now mentioned alongside: digested baked bean shells like Singapore, or sanitized 1-percenter city-state toy towns like Monaco, to get a feel for its aspirational trajectory. Tell me, who was the last shit hot beatmaker from Monaco you faved on Soundcloud? These days, for most normal musicians to survive London’s demands, their employment must become their everything, their music: a mere hobby.
“In the last few years,” explains Roman of Breton, who coped with the demolition of their bank by moving to, you guessed it, Berlin. “They have done their best to paint these pictures of crusty squatters, who go and smash up these buildings, but it’s not like that. Yeah, we were basically living like heroin addicts without the perks of heroin. But that made the band possible! All the things that a Londoner had to pay for, that could really attack our time and freedom, we felt liberated from.”
The London Int’l Ska Festival returns to the capital this Easter (2-5 April) for a series of 21 unique events at famed and iconic London venues. The festival, which launched in 1988, celebrates all things ska, from it’s roots in rhythm and blues, mento and calypso, through it’s Jamaican originators and onto rocksteady, reggae, dub, 2 Tone, skapunk and beyond. Amongst the 50+ acts this years headliners include; Lee Scratch Perry, Steel Pulse (performing their classic Handsworth Revolution album), Derrick Harriott, Twinkle Brothers, Gentleman’s Dub Club, Dennis Bovell, Rico Rodriguez MBE, Freddie ‘Montego Bay’ Notes, Bitty Mclean, Pama International, Horace Panter (The Specials), Rhoda Dakar (The Bodysnatchers/Special AKA), Don Letts, Zion Train plus acts from France, USA, Japan, Malta, Italy, Jamaica, Mexico and all over the UK.
In addition to the wealth of live talent the festival also features the now infamous LISF Thames cruise onboard the beautiful Dixie Queen paddle steamer, and a 3 day ‘From Kingston to Camden’ art, music and fashion exhibition, UK premiere of the ‘Legends of Ska’ film at the British Film Industry, the launch of the stand-alone Trojan Records Clothing collection, a free family day in the heart of Camden, and much more!
Every year festival goers fly in from the four-corners of the globe. From Auckland to Buenos Aires, Moscow to Toronto, Tokyo to Chicago, Stockholm to Sydney, Paris, Rome and beyond people come to celebrate the wonderful world of ska in all it’s colourful guises,
It’s hellos and goodbyes in the music world. Days after the Replacements announced a reunion tour, the Neville Brothers are making plans for a farewell concert to cap off their long career as performers.
Joining them for their last show at “Nevilles Forever: A Celebration of the Neville Brothers and Their Music” will be Allen Toussaint, Terence Blanchard, Trombone Shorty and Widespread Panic, among others, according to a news release announcing the event. The May 2 concert comes toward the end of this year’s New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, though it isn’t affiliated with that event.
The Neville Brothers—Aaron, Art, Charles and Cyril—have been playing in one fashion or another since the 1950s, and its members are associated with hits like “Sister Rosa.” Aaron, probably the most celebrated brother, made it big outside the group recording “Don’t Know Much” and “Everybody Plays the Fool.”
“The Neville Brothers are the royal family of New Orleans funk,” said Don Was in a statement. Was will serve as musical director for the evening.
Photo via 
Photo provided by Is Tropical.
Members of London band Breton, on the roof of their South London squat
Men holding stacks of cash at Breton's bank, back when it was actually a bank in the 80s.