OK for a long time now I have been so frustrated by the type of music spawning all over the country that people are calling Reggae. I have gotten frustrated to the point that when interviewed by the Reader I proclaimed "White Boy Reggae is Dead!"... So I had a few drinks during the interview and low and behold to my surprise Ken Leighton put the comment on the cover of the magazine. Let us say this was during angrier times and I have since come to terms :)
I did however want to address this topic as I think it is good food for thought or at least a good conversation starter.
Sublime... God bless them, God love them, but for fucks sake are we not over it yet? I can't even listen to one of the bands, if not the only band that shaped my life. I was lucky enough to see them at the Fox theater in Boulder Colorado by accident and it changed my life. Sublime was genius, they were magnetic and they were totally drunk. This powerful 3 piece followed no rules and created an entire sub culture of music. If you live in So Cal, it is not just a sub-culture but it is the culture. How could such an innovative band spawn off a nation of imitators?
Sublime dug deep, they listened to the roots of music and drew from it. Hence all of the standard rhythms that they used to create their own songs. This is part of Reggae culture and it is rooted in the necessity of poverty. The basic idea here is create one rhythm have 20 singers sing on it and the producer controls the copyright (if any copyright at all)... It is about recycling, getting the most out of everything and I guess you could consider it "green music". What I am trying to get at here is that Sublime knew and understood the culture of Reggae music and that is why they were able to stitch in and out of the genre without ever being considered a Reggae band. Where they the first to do this? no, not even close, but they are arguably one of the most successful.
This is where my annoyance comes in. The nation of followers produced hundreds of bands calling themselves and combination of the descriptors... nation, irie, dub, 'ion, massive...etc. here is an example... band name: "dub massive"... "irie nation" ..."irie dub massive"... "massive dub nation"... get the point? (disclaimer... i am not talking about any band specifically but just illustrating a point as for sure there is a band out there called "dub massive":)) The funny thing here is the lack of creativity. How could such a innovative no holds barred band spawn so many imitators. I was happy to hear Miguel from Skunk in an interview call this out and basically say that he gets tons of demos from bands wanting to be on Skunk but they are all just imitators.
So what was my turning point in attitude? Well I had this whole argument crafted about how this phenomenon of imitators is actually Babylon working. My argument circled around the fact that this is a classic example of Babylon taking culture and turning it into fashion and having the privileged profit. I mean come on... you can get lion of Judah bracelets at the mall.. and by the way... Red Gold and Green does not stand for Bob Marley. I took this argument to my boy Boomstyler and he basically shut me down and told me that this has been going on since the beginning of music and is nothing new. He cited Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis as obvious examples and basically told me to focus on something positive.
"that's the way it is" he said.. and all the sudden it was so simple.
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