The Thread (Too Many Creeps In New York City)

          As soon as I started practicing law, I “lost the thread” andit remained hidden to me for a long time after that.   Ibelieve I saw it swimming away, looking like a silvery ribbon-fish racing fast submerging beyond surface sight.

          Law school was creepy and deadening, with nothing butboring reading, bad writing, one-note/one-topic (legal billing) professor “humor,” and the ever-present  terror of beingcalled on in class and found unprepared and uninspired. 

          But the actual job of doing law, once I found a job, waslike hitting a solid, flat, featureless wall hard in the dark.   It took a long time for my eyes to begin to adjustand see shapes, forms, and the outlines of doors and doorknobs, doorknobs I found eventually I could turn to enter communicatingrooms and spaces.

          I wasn’t crazy about what I found myself doing, but I chose law deliberately and for rational reasons I could easilyexplain to you today in exactly the same way I often re-explained them tomyself during dark moments back then, whenI despaired of  (I have to say it) Kafka-esque contradictions and the utter chaos of gritty New York City criminaland civil litigation practice.  It’simpossible to be sufficiently rigorous in your daily preparation and zealous in yourclient advocacy when you’re overwhelmed with confusion andindifference. 

 

          Eventually I broke out of my trapped space and landed an excellent, prestigious job doing approximately what I wanted. I was surprised then (less so now) to find that my previous trapped lifetaught me some valuable lessons  I could build on as I developed my new practice.

          When you are mentally and sensually dead to the world as Iwas then  -- essentially turned completelyinward -- not a lot gets through, but those things that do are significant.  I had basically abandoned my previous museum, gallery-going, art magazine and art history-reading life because I find it difficult handling multiple serious subjects simultaneously, and I knew Ineeded to learn to be a good lawyer, which requires concentration and sacrifice. I still listened to music, of course (my wifewas in the music business and our life together was the great consolation theperiod offered me – and I don’t mean just the free records and concerts), andfor a long while reggae became my consuming passion.  Jamaican music taught me more about rhythm, melody, harmonyand the multiple levels great art plumbs than anything else had for a longtime.  It also made me a better, moretolerant and thoughtful person than I would otherwise have been during Manhattan’sterrible and terrifying Bernie Goetz era.

           One non-Jamaican song that really got through to me back then, which Ihadn’t thought about until recently, was "Too Many Creeps" by The Bush Tetras.   I first heard it when the company I worked for renteda hip downtown dance/music club called Tier 3 and threw a party to reward the marketing, salesand creative services teams for good work and excellent results on somechallenging projects during the early days of home video “sell-through.”  I wassurprised and proud to find myself the only member of the legal departmentinvited to attend.  My colleagues concluded that I was a good counselor,facilitator, advocate and friend, and that I broke through the traditional corporate “lawyer impediment”role, so they decided to include me intheir festivities, which was uplifting.

 

          The Bush Tetras often played Tier 3 and “Too ManyCreeps” is one of the really great downtown-but-everywhere-in-New York Citysongs.  Actually, I think it applies tothe whole world.  

          Do you know the song? It’s funny, very direct and as true today as it was then.   

I just don’t wanna go

Out in the streets no more

I just don’t wanna go

Out in the streets no more

Because these people they give me

They give me the creeps

Anymore

Because these people they give me

They give me the creeps

Anymore

I don’t wanna

Too many Creeps

Too many Creeps

Too many Creeps

Too many Creeps

Too many Creeps

Too many Creeps

           Eventually years later, after many changes, I found the thread again.

Note:  "Too Many Creeps", Bush Tetras and Tier 3 links in paragraph 7.  Polka-dot ribbon-fish immediately above.

Warrior (Johnny Osbourne; Bunny Wailer); Quaker Peace Testimony

Tell me what you’re fighting for.

Why must there be so much war?

You fight against your brothers every day

The price of war you'll surely have to pay.

You must be warrior  

Or a warmonger.  

You must be warrior  

Or a warmonger.

You'll soon find out

If you are warrior.

Everyday there’s always so much fighting.

There must be someone to be always backbiting.

When I see people fight, I sidestep it.

Follow my footsteps and you won’t ever regret it.

You must be warrior 

Or a warmonger. 

Soon find out if you are warrior.

Warrior 1: Johnny Osbourne

Warrior 2: Bunny Wailer 

 

From A Declaration to Charles II, 1660.  

The following includes what is considered the seminal statement of the Quaker peace witness:

We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world. The spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it; and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the spirit of Christ, which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world. 

Given forth under our names, and in behalf of the whole body of the Elect People of God who are called Quakers.

George Fox, Gerald Roberts, Henry Fell, Richard Hubberthorn, John Boulton, John Hinde, John Stubbs, Leonard Fell, John Furley, Jnr., Francis Howgill, Samuel Fisher, Thomas Moore

Overlooked Records 1: Andrew Tosh -- Original Man

 

     Andrew Tosh  recorded and released his first lp, Original Man, in 1987, shortly after his father's tragic murder at his Kingston, Jamaica home. 

     Like all albums by the children of famous parents  (Andrew's father is Peter Tosh of The Wailers; his uncle is Bunny Wailer), and especially debut releases, comparisons are inevitable, rather than invidious, and usually the younger artist's work is found wanting.  Not in this case, however.  Although clearly the work of a nascent artist, Original Man triumphs completely. 

     The record combines strong self-penned material (Original Man, Poverty Is A Crime) with interpretations of both well-known (Maga Dog, Jah Guide, Same Dog Bite) and fairly obscure (the dark and evocative Heathen Rage and Too Much Rat) Peter Tosh songs, performed in both full band and amusingly retitled dub versions.  Backing musicians include members of  Peter Tosh's last Word, Sound and Power line-up, including Keith Sterling, George "Fully" Fullwood and Carlton "Santa" Davis (aka the legendary Soul Syndicate).  As any reggae aficionado knows, these guys are as good as they come. 

     What marks and makes the record and makes it so distinctive and such a pleasure to listen to is its graceful and light touch, clearly the work of producer Winston Holness (aka Niney The Observer), a very great artist in his own right.  Niney ensures that the ingenuousness of Andrew Tosh's youth shines through, illuminating the songs and relieving them of the portentousness that can easily attach itself to reggae's sometimes fire-and-brimstone  subject matter and "herb coma" drum and bass lines.  This deft balance allows the younger Tosh to sound like himself and establish his own identity, rather than seeming a pale imitation of his father, like Ziggy Marley, an obvious point of comparison, always does. The sharp, spare, tough and elegant musical arrangements continually lift Andrew and the songs to considerable heights and invest the words and music of Original Man (including Andrew's unmistakable "Tosh-y" vocals) with the feeling of prophecy inherent in the best Jamaican music.

     Andrew Tosh's debut record still sounds great and contemporary after 20 years and I think these songs  would find great acceptance among today's youth.  If you decide to seek this record out, you should look for the original version released on Trojan/Attack. Apparently, the subsequent Heartbeat US re-release is a different record altogether -- essentially a re-recording intended to capitalize on a change in beat, not a unique occurrence in reggae.  

    Assuming you do find and enjoy the record, I strongly suggest you also acquire Peter Tosh's posthumously released final record, No Nuclear War, a masterpiece which is more relevant than ever, as well as Tosh's Arise Black Man collection, which collects some of the bits and pieces scattered in various places throughout the part of his career before he and The Wailers achieved international stardom with Catch A Fire.

Once Ago: Gregory Isaacs (Cool Ruler, Lonely Lover, Rosetta Stone)

Yesterday, I was shocked and deeply saddened to learn that my favorite Jamaican musician and reggae’s greatest living artist, Gregory Isaacs, passed away of lung cancer in London on October 25th.

I’ve been dazed, confused and caught up in all manner of other things, but I had been thinking about Gregory a great deal lately and had actually been mentally composing a piece for this space over the last month.  I wonder why?  

Originally, I thought I would draft something about my history with Jamaican music: how I came to learn about it, became an enthusiast, and what it meant to me.  That’s an interesting story, actually, because falling in love with sunny, humanizing, articulate, vital and pulsing reggae back in the dark days of David Dinkins’ mayoral administration in New York, when we were living in Brooklyn Heights and I was riding a very rough subway to the law courts of every borough daily, relieved me from a lot of the anger and paranoia I and many other people were feeling at a time when New York City seemed to be visibly crumbling.

I’ll save that story for another time.  Suffice it to say that a work project of Caroline’s made it necessary for us to learn about the history of Jamaican music very quickly.  Toward that end, I purchased a copy of the album Bunny Wailer Sings The Wailers.  Because I had read that it contained one of the original Wailers’ (the mysterious and critically and sartorially fashionable Bunny “Wailer” Livingstone’s) reinterpretations of various Wailers’ hits going back to the beginning of their storied career, and, because of the nature of the project (working with Bob Marley’s children, the original Melody Makers line-up, and also with Peter Tosh), it seemed like a relevant place to start.   

We both fell in love with the record immediately – the songs, the musicianship (provided by the cream of Jamaica’s session musicians, including Sly & Robbie’s Taxi Gang, the Roots Radics band and the eternal Earl “Chinna” Smith), and, of course Bunny Wailer’s singing – and we were off on one of the best journeys of our lives.

Examining a culture through the lens of its art has always seemed to me useful and revelatory, and the history of 20^th century Jamaica and its procession to independence in 1962 after 400 years of British colonial rule, is deeply moving.  Because of the grinding poverty and never-ending political corruption that remained in independence’s wake, it also illustrates what the English novelist Ronald Firbank called “Sorrow In Sunlight”. 

Still, a native genius in the Jamaican people actively expressed in sport and art (traditional outlets for talented people with no capital), informed and tempered by the urban renewal and civil rights/black pride movements, led to a great flowering in Jamaican culture in the 1960s, including in popular music where in rapid, logical succession, the musical forms of ska, rock-steady and reggae (exemplified in the work of artists like the Skatalites, the Heptones and the Wailers) unveiled themselves in recordings that were mainly meant to be played for passionate dancers in live dancehalls and on the radio, rather than purchased in stores. (Jamaica was and remains a poor country.)  

It was against this background that Gregory Isaacs, born in dirt poverty in Denham Town, Kingston in 1951, and raised by his mother Enid Murray in a fatherless household, first emerged as an artist in live Kingston talent shows and then with his group The Concords in the late 1960s.

By the time Caroline and I became interested in reggae, Gregory had been a major solo star for 10 years.  He was known and widely recognized as the “Cool Ruler” and the "Lonely Lover", a great singer who was the king of “Lovers Rock”, one of the stars of the movie “Rockers” and, most of all, as a significant and profound songwriter who, like each of the Wailers, members of a slightly earlier musical generation, could write important songs covering all of reggae’s relevant lyrical and musical themes and styles, i.e., political songs, love songs and religious/metaphysical songs.

"Love Is Overdue", "Slave Master", “Once Ago”, “Storybook Children”, “Mr. Cop”, “Extra Classic”, “Top Ten”,  “The Border”, “Soon Forward”, “Front Door”, “No Footstool”, “Oh, What A Feeling”, “Loving Pauper”, “Night Nurse” and the touching, chilling, deeply personal and honest "Hard Drugs".  The list is overwhelming and practically endless. Musically and lyrically, Gregory’s art communicated like some emotional/intellectual universal translating device, a living Rosetta Stone.  Gregory’s dub album “Slum In Dub” is indispensible and his live album recorded at the Brixton Academy, London in 1983, backed by the Roots Radics, is simply the finest performance recording I have ever heard, displaying an artist and audience perfectly attuned to each other.

Here is a link to a story by journalist Christopher Serju, a reporter who knew Gregory well, in the October 31^st edition of Kingston’s Sunday Daily Gleaner, which provides some additional information about Gregory’s colorful up-and-down life and personality.  I will always carry with me and treasure the mental picture of Gregory and Bunny Wailer, two visually extreme Rastafarians, as longtime golfing buddies on sunny Jamaican golf courses.  And also the memory of Gregory the opera aficionado and friend of opera singers.  

Brilliance is rare and genius practically non-existent (whatever you may hear around entertainment company water-coolers and in popular journalism).  Artists of Gregory Isaacs’ caliber are irreplaceable.  This is a very difficult loss to bear.