Random U-Tube Music Thread

[Ed Mahmoud]

Rankin' Roger and Pato Banton a Go Roots.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Speaking of Pato Banton, not sure I agree with the message, but the song rocks...


Legalize It

[Ed Mahmoud]

Rude Music from Judge Dread

[Ed Mahmoud]

More of the late Judge Dread, first White man to ever top the Jamaican reggae charts. Big Six. Until Dread toured Jamaica, the locals assumed he was Caribbean. He was raised as a teenager by a West Indian family. His Jamaican chart topper - Big Six



Reggae and Ska

[AJC3]

Rankin' Roger and Pato Banton a Go Roots.

Every time I see Ranking Roger's name I hearken back to my "musical brush with fame" story that I've told about a bajillion times.

Back in the fall of 1981 and through 1982, I was 18-19, fresh out of high school, and used to dabble in music, along with a friend of mine named Rocco. We wrote a few songs together - they were more like pieces - I was never really big into lyrical prose. We jammed a lot together, and with friends. We would interchange playing on guitar and bass, as both of us were competent on both instruments. However, we never really made it out of "the garage" - we were never quite good enough to play a bona fide local gig.

Anyway, we used to hang out at this bar at a motor lodge called the Chanticleer. It was in front of the apartment complex that I lived at with my dad and stepmom at the time. I actually washed dishes at the restaurant there one summer when I was 16.

So it's sometime in late '82, November, I think, and both of us are at the bar drinking (18 was legal back then in NY) when this large black guy walks in and sits a few seats away from us and orders a beer...in the kings english, no less. We proceed to start talking to him, and it turns our he was the chief roadie for The English Beat, who we had vaguely heard of at the time. During a couple hours of BS-ing and brewskis, he tells us about this really cool watch he was wearing...he said it was given to him by none other than Sting, after he had helped adjust his back while on tour.

So just before he gets up to leave, he tells us that the Beat are playing at the Geneva Theater, which is a popular place for bands to play in downtown Geneva NY, a college town of about 15K located upstate in the Finger Lakes Region. He says the concert starts at 8 and the Beat go on at 9. Then he gives us free tickets and tells us to hang out after the show.

So Rock and I go to the concert. The warm up band is an all girl group that I've never heard of called the Bongos. Or so I thought. I could have sworn that I heard the intro guy on stage say... "From L.A.....The BONGOS!!!"

It turns out, (as I was told a little later) that the band was actually the BANGLES. Suffice it to say that the concert was kick-butt. The "Bongos" (LOL) played mostly new wave type stuff and the Beat, of course, they were pretty heavy duty ska.

So we hang out after the show, catch up with John (the roadie guy) and wind up riding in the tour bus with the bands and their roadies back to the Chanticleer lodge, where everyone was staying. We're hanging out in adjacent motel rooms with the band, roadies, etc., when two girls from the band walk in and join the party (they turned out to be the Peterson sisters). There was much drink, and...ahem...smoke.

So I'm sitting on one of the beds and Ranking Roger is sitting in a chair next to me. He proceeds to hand me a...ahem...smoke. And while he does this, he says something to me which he must have thought to be very profound at the time, and in his...ahem...state of mind...I can see how he might have.

He said, (cue the british accent) "You know, man....when people are like....stoned....they're like...so....so.... DIFFERENT!" Upon hearing these words of wisdom, myself, Rock and everyone else in the room burst out laughing.


Anyway, the night got a wee bit fuzzy after that, but it's one of those weird ever-so-brief crossing of paths with some semi-famous folks that I'll never forget.