Hey Kids, $mall ¢hange with another semi-occasional post to drop some mp3 science for yas. I'll try to make these tings more regular. Lately I've been getting into more and more old school dancehall, literally tons of great rekkids out thurr, with many underappreciated in collectro circles. So here's a few jams I have in heavy rotation at the moment...
Knight Rider 'Bad Boy Steppin'
crown heights is definitely steppin' to this jam off the 'Kuff' riddim. If you don't have Shelly Thunder's 'Kuff' I more than highly recommend.
Gregory Peck 'Informer'
on Stalag, same riddim as the classic 'Bam Bam' by Sister Nancy and 'Ring the Alarm' by Tenor Saw. I like how he riff's Jacob Miller's 'Tenement Yard' into some harder steez, and he continues the JA tradition of naming yourself after a celebrity (Charlie Chaplin, Clint Eastwood, etc). Sorry for the scratchy-ness on this one.
Courtney Melody 'Ninja Mi Ninja'
Rougher than Rambo. Courtney has one of the sweetest and toughest voices in reggae, and shoutout to Scratch Famous of Deadly Dragon fame for championing this one.
Thoroughbred 'Time Bomb'
Don't really know too much about this one, its from '83 and its definitely got style.
Also, if you're ever wondering what riddim a certain dancehall track is on, there's a few websites out thurr with large databases that cross reference artists, titles, and riddims. Very handy...czeck this.
And if you own a lil' sampler like a Dr. Boss and want to load up of classic sound efx, such as the bombs, lasergun, ufo, etc, head over to the selectors resource page at Deadly Dragon. Nuff respeck!
That riddim database must have been a pain in the ass to compile. What is it with Germans and dancehall anyways? Seems weird that dancehall would turn into such a huge deal somewhere like Germany. There's a couple German dancehall records I've heard that literally scare the shit out of me. And the beats were all cracked out. Awesome
Posted by: Steve PMX | April 17, 2006 at 04:46 PM
There is a good label called Germaican (get it!?) that does some quality schlitz and gets established folks like Anthony B and Beenie Man for tracks. They did a riddim called 'Cure' which cuts and flips (you guessed it) a Cure song into a nice dancehall beat (In Between Days? I forget). And they did a quality roots rhythm called 'Doctor's Darling'. Also the Basic Channel/Rhythm and Sound people are responsible for a lot of the Wackie's label reissues. For evil reggae shit check Al'Haca Soundsystem, more on the The Bug type of dark, dirty electronic dancehall.
Posted by: $mall ¢hange | April 17, 2006 at 07:25 PM
Wackies/R&S/Tikiman all great stuff. They just stocked the Tower Records by my house with a shitload of Wackies re-issues. But of course, the idiot who stocked them had no idea what section to put them in - so I found Wackies stuff in the Punk section, the Metal section, the Techno section, and the Rock section. Guess they all kinda work.
Posted by: Steve PMX | April 18, 2006 at 04:03 PM
Great tunes! That makes up for the Utrecht Record Fair. Just spend my last money and found... Yeah. A stand ran by a Jamaican piled up high with all those lovely hard vinyl 7" originals. I just couldn't look.
'Cuss Cuss' is my all time fav riddim by the way.
Posted by: poesboes | April 18, 2006 at 05:10 PM
Cuss Cuss is my shit. 'There is no such thing as a non-violent revolution...' Love Burro Banton's 'Tek A Set' on that...
Posted by: $mall ¢hange | April 19, 2006 at 03:45 PM