Oh FFS! Seriously?

'I never saw value in reading, and then I realised that I could be an intellectual weapon if I read'

Self Portrait (Triptych)

(Exile Towers - Aug/Sept 2021)

If Texas leaders want to protect life, where are masks, vaccines, resources for kids?

The Bug - Instrumentals Dubs & Versions Mix

Tracklist: 

Those Tapes Are Dangerous / Destroy Me (Version) / Rootsman VS The Bug (Version) / Killer Queen Dub / Fire Version / Zim Version / Opi Teng / One Shot Version / Living Dub / No Version / Void Version / Dem Version / Angry Dub / Bad Riddim / Box (Instrumental) 

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The Bug with Manga St Hilaire - Live Railway Hotel Brunswick Melbourne (15/3/15)

 

Recorded on hand-held Tascam

Here's the night self reviewed by Kevin: 

Tonite in Melbourne was messy, it was raw, dirty, tense & nasty..LOVED IT, despite and maybe because, the lying fuck of a venue owner promised the promoters, his building was 'Fully sound proofed' prior to the event, when the dude was desperate to have the show hire his venue….but then the idiot kept bringin out bigger bouncers over time, throughout the set to try and intimidate me and the promoters to turn down the voliume..….which actually just added fuel to my fire..lol. (Although i gotta say i was sorry for the don dadas/show promoters Ben/Tom from ‘Echo Chamber’ who had to feel the heat and were forced to compromise somewhat…) i made mistakes, tech probs occured, It wasn’t as overwhelmingly loud as our normal sets, it didn’t have the light assault we normally employ, YET it absolutely rocked, cause the good ppl of Melbourne that showed, gave us maximum energy…Big yourselves up indeed……It was a psychotic rollercoaster at the 'Railway Hotel' last night …we dug it, and Manga was almost literally on fire as he rinsed the mic.. Major shout to the 'Echo Chamber' crew for sortin last night's show at 4 days notice, it was an incredible effort, + cheers for fillin the house with a sick crowd & the sweetest reggae/bass/junglegrime sounds…. I guess me and Manga really did fuck up Melbourne...It was pure madness..Crowd were incredible..Max energy. Madman victory ! Hilarious that Manga saw two women literally rip off their bras and throw them in the air, whilst i saw another girl literally clinging on to the bassbins for most of the set..The people they expressed themselves proper....hahaha.. Sorry it couldnt have been as intense an experience as we generally like to detonate, but actually it was still a blast..! And yo, can the fucker that stole my shades, plz return them, as my weakass blue eyes will fry in the sunshine down under.... (Great selfie by Manga)

‘Panic made us vulnerable’: how 9/11 made the US surveillance state – and the Americans who fought back

She Is Beyond Dub

BOMBART - Pop Group Dub Special with Dennis Bovell

A monthly one hour sound collage on Radio Alhara by BOMBART (Peter Harris and Mark Stewart)

Give Me An Inch & I Will Go For Your Throat Mix

A Leslie Winer compilation 

I got a tiny little phial of ‘come to me’ and a gallon of ‘get the fuck out'

 

Remote Viewing

Video Sebastien Chou 

New Age Doom & Lee 'Scratch' Perry - Life is an Experiment

From New Age Doom's upcoming album, 'Lee 'Scratch' Perry's Guide to the Universe' released November 5, 2021

Looking Good Diving (In A Buffalo Stance)

1986 Looking Good Diving (With The Wild Bunch) 1988 The common denominator is Neneh's partner Cameron McVey

Rip Rig and Panic - 18 mins of Commonwealth Institute gig (1983?)

 

Oh man I have never seen this footage before. 

Taking me back to London in the early-mid eighties when I caught this band SO many times live. 

From their first gig billed as The Ex Pop Group at The Planetarium in Kings X to the last one wherever it was. I honestly can't remember. Hardly surprising but I did record a LOT of their shows on my Walkman. Every London gig they played plus others outside the city including an amazing improvisation by Springer on the organ at York Cathedral when they were strolling around town before playing at The Territorial Army Hall, where they had been double booked with Wall of Voodoo. WoV got a wee bit stroppy so RRP played first and then fucked off. 

I hope the person who nicked all those tapes knew exactly what they were getting tho I suspect not 

*Sigh 

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Neneh's dad joins them in Tokyo in 83

GOD,,,,is 40 years old today pic.twitter.com/Yxc5iYBsjA

— Gareth Sager (@GarethSager) September 2, 2021

(Play full album) Fuck The Shit That Was It to paraphrase their first poster. 

They really were just the most amazing band and so many good times was had though I did nearly get arrested while working for them in Manchester. 

Neneh had been driving the tour van around a car park in the city centre and as Neneh couldn't drive the van basically bunny-hopped around it. Driving off to the venue at some student place I seem to remember they went upstairs and I started to get their instruments together to take into the venue too, when suddenly there was quite an angry knock on the back door and there was one of James Anderton's finest wanting to have a word. 

Now while there was really only one member of the band who smoked grass boy did he smoke a fuck of a lot and I knew that the van stank of grass. Really strongly stank. Anyway I opened the door and watched this  cop's face as he probably got very high just from the waft. 

Yes it was all about Neneh's er 'erratic' driving and was put down as just giving her a driving lesson. 

I have to say I'm surprised they didn't have me arrested for being the world's worst roadie to be honest!

And I still fugn miss Sean

Not that long ago Tessa from The Slits posted that her and Sean's daughter having her own kid meant that Sean would have been a Grandad and that is happening to me in November despite my protestations that I am far too young

Thinking of Sean quite often leads to thinking about this night when Gareth and him invaded the stage at a Birthday Party gig at North London Poly. Photographic evidence turned up in the last year or so...

 

Now why this happened I think was because Mr Cave had expressed his admiration for The Pop Group when first arriving in London but I do seem to remember he didn't think much of How Much Longer...when that album was released. 

Probably and I'm being honest here, it was all a bit agit-prop and at the time I think Cave had other things on his mind than enjoying the underlying heavy funk rhythms of the Pop Group live.  

Anyway that may be where the animosity, and it was very mutual, came from. 

So after this two man invasion (and it was a very polite one, just jumping onto the stage and then sitting on the drum riser and having a wee chat amongst themselves) it got even funnier (tho perhaps Cave remembers this differently)

After the gig it suddenly came to me that I had never seen him so flustered and impotent onstage before. 

Now as fate transpired we all found ourselves in the same underground carriage heading to wherever we were all going on the last train of the night. 

At this point in the story you have to understand that there was a reason why Steve Beresford (anonymously) described Gareth to the NME as someone you sometimes just wanted to put across your knee and give a good slapping to

So being the last train on a Friday night the carriage is jam packed and lo and behold Cave is spotted behind a newspaper trying to ignore the Rip Rig contingent when Gareth creeps up and sets fire to the bottom of the broadsheet newspaper in Cave's hands. 

Oh man I actually still think it was absolutely hilarious but that is probably my inner twenty two year old self smiling. 

My sixty one year old self wonders why didn't Tracy Pew intervene that night onstage or was this during the time of his incarceration back in Australia dating this gig to between February and August 1982?

Feel Like Making Dub (Mark Stewart's Essential Dubs) Mix

Tracklist: 

Jahovia Dub - The Twinkle Brothers 

Judge I Dub - Tappa Zukie

Feel Like Making Love (Version) - Elizabeth Archer & The Equators 

Psalms of David / Version - Prince Far I 

Diverse Doctrine(Version) - Ras Ibuna 

Ire Feelings - Rupie Edwards 

Sons of Dub - Junior Delgado 

Baltimore / Version - The Tamlins 

Ketch A Dub - Devon Irons 

Moulding Dub - Ijahman Levi 

Brooklyn Vegan asked Mark Stewart to make a playlist of his favorite dub tracks, and he happily obliged with 10 essentials, including plates from Prince Far I, Rupie Edwards, The Tamlins, The Twinkle Brothers, Elizabeth Archer & The Equators, and more. This list also includes Devon Irons' "Ketch Vampire [Ketch a Dub]" which Mark calls "the best production from the late great Lee 'High Priest' Perry, the duke of dub." Mark dedicates the entire list to Lee "Scratch" Perry 

Via 

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Soon come pic.twitter.com/2ABE4dMSRT

— mark stewart (@_markstewart) August 30, 2021

The Pop Group - Words Disobey Me (Dennis Bovell Dub Version)

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Mark Stewart's Essential Dubs

Stinky Grooves Guest Archive #003: Adrian Sherwood & On-U Sound Crew 1995

In Adrian's own words this was an anarchic show on an anarchic tour. Technically it's not a Stinky Grooves as we didit on a differnet night to fit them arriving in from the UK and parts unknown. In the studio are Adrian Sherwood, Audio Active, Tackhead/The Maffia minus Mark Stewart who wasn't up for it after 40 odd hours of flying & sundry other folk, studio was cloudy and I think the most crowded I can remember. The sub suffered. Whole crew were shattered and did an amazing job, lovely vibes

Mark Stewart: Secret Thirteen Mix (290)

'Pull up! This is the new style. Flip the script. This one's for the inmates. The process, the process, the process church of the final judgement. Like my life these tunes are crunked, chopped & screwed. A deep listening reflection on this processed world we live in. No sleep till Bristol. As Prince Jazzbo said ‘one step forward, two step backward.’ Let the drums of defiance ring across this land.' 

Tracklist

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Live at Dolce Vita, Lausanne, Switzerland 25/5/85 Passivecation Program / Hypnotised / Liberty City / The Resistance of The Cell / As The Veneer Of Democracy Starts To Fade / We Are All Prostitutes  / Jerusalem / Blessed Are Those Who Struggle / encore... 

Skip McDonald replaced by Steve Beresford on keyboards joining usual Maffia rhythm section of Doug Wimbish and Keith LeBlanc. Adrian Sherwood at the mixing desk. 

I actually caught this tour at The Paradiso in Amsterdam. So good. The time I had caught Mark & The Maffia previously it had been the first album's Creation Rebel line up at their first or second gig at Kingston Uni in London.Tackhead having been formed after I left London  

...and then I found this. Mark & Maffia playing in Den Haag back in 2009. I actually managed to get my son who was studying in Utrecht at the time onto the guest list for this gig. he dutifuly made it down there and when I asked him how he enjoyed it he replied that it was 'old man music dad'! Kids eh? Finally there is a new album coming from Tackhead and Mark is in the mix and people who have heard some of the sessions are saying good things. Yet another reinvention of sound for them You can hear some of the new tracks on David Asher's On-U Sound Sunday Roast shows

Finally one of the nights that Tackhead destroyed The Old Greek Theatre here in Melbourne on their first Australian tour back in 1989