Find Your Valentine
Line Out Music & the City at Night
The Stranger Suggests
Critics' Best Bets
Music Arts & Food
Slog
News & Arts
@SEAshowsTwitter feed of Seattle shows on sale now
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
History Hating the One Drop
Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, May 12, 2009 at 10:52 AM
I have decided that the one thing white hipsters have in common is a dislike for reggae. They may disagree on many things (clubs, bars, forms of recreation, movies, neighborhoods), but they do not disagree about reggae: it is bad, repetitive, even cheesy. Playing roots reggae to a white hipster is the same as throwing cold water on them. It breaks their spell; it makes them very uncomfortable; it does not make any sense to their way of being/thinking, this guitar chopping and one dropping. I suspect this loathing of reggae has something to do with its popularity in other areas of white society, namely hippies and frat boys. How can something that is loved by hippies and frat boys have any real value?
No matter what the reason, the wholesale rejection of reggae record culture by white hipsters has resulted in a huge hole in their knowledge of popular music. How in the world can you understand early Portishead, for example (and there are many such examples) if you do know and love "King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown"? And how can you understand "King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown" if you do not love and appreciate Jacob Miller's "Baby I love You"? And how you can understand Jacob Miller if do not admire the rich reggae tradition of great singers? Even Bauhaus recognized the greatness of reggae.
When I moved to Seattle many years ago, the first record I bought was by The Defenders, "Chant Down Babylon." Sadly, this excellent work of local reggae drowned in a sea of hipster hate that is as deep as it is wide.
1
I don't know, I think a lot of white hipsters are fucking with reggae or subdivisions of reggae culture. Would dubstep exist without white hipsters loving reggae? Would Burial exist? I think the main audience for reggae is white people, and not hippies and frat boys whose knowledge extends only to Bob Marley and the Wailers late-career output. Who is buying Soul Jazz record compilations? That's hipster currency.
Also, I don't know if knowledge of 'King Tubbys Meet Rockers Uptown' is necessary for understanding Portishead - I think knowledge of torch songs, Burt Bacharach, and spy theme soundtracks is more important than reggae. Massive Attack, on the other hand, has extended meaning through a hearty knowledge of reggae sides.
Also, I don't know if knowledge of 'King Tubbys Meet Rockers Uptown' is necessary for understanding Portishead - I think knowledge of torch songs, Burt Bacharach, and spy theme soundtracks is more important than reggae. Massive Attack, on the other hand, has extended meaning through a hearty knowledge of reggae sides.
2
How do you understand portishead without understanding the wild bunch? and how do you understand the wild bunch without understanding reggae record culture?
3
Geoff Barrow of Portishead was only on the periphery of the Wild Bunch and the creation of the Bristol sound. The Wild Bunch were very much a reggae soundsystem, but Barrow was really just an engineer who happened to be around during the recording of 'Blue Lines'. Portishead as a project has more to do with northern soul parties than blues functions.
4
Charles,
i am no longer on the fence when it comes to your opinions. You are on to something here.It may explain why it always hard to find decent reggae records in this city. It's gotten better over the years but still leaves plenty to be desired.
i am no longer on the fence when it comes to your opinions. You are on to something here.It may explain why it always hard to find decent reggae records in this city. It's gotten better over the years but still leaves plenty to be desired.
5
Amen Charles. Keep the good posts coming.
On this note I will be at Nectar on Friday to enjoy Publish the Quest and The b Foundation. Not full reggae but definitely influenced.
On this note I will be at Nectar on Friday to enjoy Publish the Quest and The b Foundation. Not full reggae but definitely influenced.
6
Hipsters who don't like Reggae/Dub/Rock Steady/Dancehall music have never seen 'Rockers" or "The Harder They Come, The Harder They Fall."
If you're only exposure to reggae is Bob Marley, it's easy to be turned off.
IF you can't find good reggae cuts in this town you are not shopping the bins at Zion's Gate or Jive Time.
Respect.
If you're only exposure to reggae is Bob Marley, it's easy to be turned off.
IF you can't find good reggae cuts in this town you are not shopping the bins at Zion's Gate or Jive Time.
Respect.
7
Also, Morrissey's widely disseminated remark that "All reggae is vile" could have influenced a lot of white hipsters to avoid the genre.
8
One time I played "pass the dutchie" to a black person and they didn't like it. They were confused, as if one had tossed cold water on them. This is how we know black people dislike british people. And reggae.
9
We can't control how we discover a music genre. More often than not, it's indirectly through other genres, whether they are parent or child genres.
I discovered reggae in high school via industrial/noise music. Thankfully, something like On-U Sound records existed, so I had a direct door from electronic sound experimenation to dub, and then dub straight to reggae.
Many people discovered jazz around the time thanks to John Zorn, who perfectly rode the fence between discordant rock and discordant jazz.
As for Seattle, well, we're as far away from the birthplace of reggae for a major continental U.S. city as we can get. I'm pleasantly surprised we have stores like Zion's Gate that are more dedicated to Kingston-based music than other stores, which to their credit, do a decent job of having a reggae/dub section.
The harder issue to tackle is the hate of Kingston-based music amongst the gay crowd, which blends in strongly with the Capitol Hill crowd. There are valid reasons many homosexuals, especially men, revile reggae thanks to many verbally loud homophobic artists like Buju B. On the other hand, UB40, Madness, and The Specials are conveniently OK. Why is that? *There's* your 100+ comment thread if you're begging for one.
I discovered reggae in high school via industrial/noise music. Thankfully, something like On-U Sound records existed, so I had a direct door from electronic sound experimenation to dub, and then dub straight to reggae.
Many people discovered jazz around the time thanks to John Zorn, who perfectly rode the fence between discordant rock and discordant jazz.
As for Seattle, well, we're as far away from the birthplace of reggae for a major continental U.S. city as we can get. I'm pleasantly surprised we have stores like Zion's Gate that are more dedicated to Kingston-based music than other stores, which to their credit, do a decent job of having a reggae/dub section.
The harder issue to tackle is the hate of Kingston-based music amongst the gay crowd, which blends in strongly with the Capitol Hill crowd. There are valid reasons many homosexuals, especially men, revile reggae thanks to many verbally loud homophobic artists like Buju B. On the other hand, UB40, Madness, and The Specials are conveniently OK. Why is that? *There's* your 100+ comment thread if you're begging for one.
10
That said, Charles, I think you underestimate Kingston music knowledge amongst the Seattle music-geek cognicenti.
What the fuck is a hipster today anyway? Someone who hates him or herself and spends more money on clothes? Who gives a fuck then?
What the fuck is a hipster today anyway? Someone who hates him or herself and spends more money on clothes? Who gives a fuck then?
11
There is a genre more universally despised by white hipsters than reggae, and for good reason: "new" country. It hauls out slabs of the worst AOR and smears globules of twang over the surfaces. The result is unpalatable and unhealthful, stultifying one's personality to the point of voting Republican.
12
@10:
Agreed. If this is the type of hipster we are talking about, then they know fuck-all about music entirely.
Agreed. If this is the type of hipster we are talking about, then they know fuck-all about music entirely.
13
@ 6 I didn't entirely say you couldn't find decent cuts of reggae here in this town what I was expressing was that through out the years here reggae bins at most record shops were complete shit. A few Bob and Ziggy Marley records and boring " Cool Runnings" ost artists.
Today it's a bit different. Thank god. I found Zions gate stuffed with great records but the pricing tended to be on the rip off side of things.
None the less they are a great shop and deserve attention. Jive Time as well is great but their selection of reggae is small, tight and compact.
Today it's a bit different. Thank god. I found Zions gate stuffed with great records but the pricing tended to be on the rip off side of things.
None the less they are a great shop and deserve attention. Jive Time as well is great but their selection of reggae is small, tight and compact.
15
Zion's Gate get all their reggae from Ebreggae.com and then jack up the price. You can buy from Ebreggae.com too but you will only pay half what you get charged at Zion's Gate.
16
Good point @9. And by Mudede's logic I'm not a hipster, 'cause I dig reggae...but find Portishead pretty expendable--though I could lose myself in Chris Cunningham's "Only You" video...
17
A lot of my friends, myself included can't stand Bob Marley or Peter Tosh, but we came to reggae through Fugazi, PiL, and The Clash and came to love a lot of dub records. Now when we go to a record store and find an Augustus Pablo record or Scientist compilation we don't own, we fight over it. Often times this leads to appreciation to other areas of the genre - getting into singers like Johnnie Osbourne and toasters like Prince Far-I. I'm far from an authority or a connoisseur, but y'know, if the Roots Radics played on it, we'll give it a chance.
Then again, we aren't really hipsters.
Then again, we aren't really hipsters.
18
Though you're not exactly wrong, you're certainly not on-target with your argument, Charles.
You're forgetting that Lee "Scratch" Perry is a hipster icon.
He was lauded in issue 2 of the Beastie Boys' Grand Royal magazine in 1994, the veritable Bible of Gen-X culture that gave birth to magazines like Vice and elevated crate-digging, ephemera-chasing, eccentric-nutcase-loving hipsterana into an art form.
Perry's biopic recently screened in Seattle to a roomful of young people of various races who you may or may not have decided were hipsters. His concerts are attended by same. You may split hairs and claim that Perry isn't a representative of reggae in general, but you're wrong.
Also, any hipster--a term which you leave undefined and has been blanched of any real meaning--that loves hip-hop understands the music's roots lie in sound system culture of Jamaica. So again, you're wrong. The people you're talking about that don't like reggae aren't hipsters, they're simply idiots.
If you'd like to make the argument that all hipsters are idiots--or vice versa--then you'd be getting somewhere. However, Nathan Barley beat you to the punch several years ago.
You're forgetting that Lee "Scratch" Perry is a hipster icon.
He was lauded in issue 2 of the Beastie Boys' Grand Royal magazine in 1994, the veritable Bible of Gen-X culture that gave birth to magazines like Vice and elevated crate-digging, ephemera-chasing, eccentric-nutcase-loving hipsterana into an art form.
Perry's biopic recently screened in Seattle to a roomful of young people of various races who you may or may not have decided were hipsters. His concerts are attended by same. You may split hairs and claim that Perry isn't a representative of reggae in general, but you're wrong.
Also, any hipster--a term which you leave undefined and has been blanched of any real meaning--that loves hip-hop understands the music's roots lie in sound system culture of Jamaica. So again, you're wrong. The people you're talking about that don't like reggae aren't hipsters, they're simply idiots.
If you'd like to make the argument that all hipsters are idiots--or vice versa--then you'd be getting somewhere. However, Nathan Barley beat you to the punch several years ago.
21
Hipster or "cool kid" love for dub and ska is nothing new, but I like some mainstream reggae, too, especially Marley (before and after Scratch), Cliff, and Toots & the Maytals. Not that I don't also dig Scientist, Mad Professor, King Tubby, Dennis Bovell...and Jah Wobble and Keith Levene...and the Slits...
22
As we were discussing yesterday, Kathy, I was amazed at how little interest there was in the Noel Ellis and Jackie Mittoo albums I publicized at Light In The Attic. They aren't the best reggae albums (and the Mittoo isn't even much roots) but there's a reason the LITA geniuses put them back out -- they're deep, delightful slices of poetry and rhythm that should have been as embraced as Karen, Betty, or The Black Angels. Oh well, LITA are the kings of reissues -- so I guess they could just reissue them again when the damned kids stop avoiding roots!
23
Yeah, roots has never had the same kind of caché. Reminds me of "Roots, Radicals, Rockers And Reggae" (though Jake Burns gives it up for dub, too), but the true reggae heads, like Vivian Goldman, tend to start with roots and work their way out from there.
Most Commented on Line Out
-
The Grammys Happened and They Were as Bad as They Always Are by Christopher Frizzelle
-
Bah Humbucker: The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time* by Dave Segal
-
What You're Not Wearing: WHATEVER I WANT Edition!! by Timothy Rysdyke
-
Young Silky - "Baby Back to Bed" by Dave Segal
-
Marian Anderson's Last Fast Ride by Kathy Fennessy
-
Two New Punk Docs Ponder Authority by Kathy Fennessy
-
Whitney: How Will I Know? by Kelly O
-
Help Daydream Vacation Record Their Debut Album by Megan Seling
-
RIP Whitney Houston, Long Live Capitalism by Mike Nipper
-
What Are Your Favorite Anti-Love Songs? by Eric Grandy
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (24) RSS