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.

Food & Wine Cocktails 2011 -- Stepping Razor Blade (Recipe and Links)

 

 

 

Stepping Razor Blade

Contributed by Richard Boccato  

SERVINGS: Makes 1 Drink
 

The Stepping Razor Blade fuses two old-time cocktails into one rum drink: the Holland Razor Blade (gin, lemon juice and cayenne pepper) and the Army & Navy (gin, lemon juice and orgeat).

Ingredients

• 1. Ice
  2. 2 ounces Jamaican rum
  3. 3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
  4. 1/2 ounce orgeat (almond-flavored syrup)
  5. Pinch of cayenne pepper, for garnish 

Directions

1. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add the rum, lemon juice and orgeat and shake well. Strain into a chilled coupe and garnish with the cayenne. 

Reader Note:  We spent part of Memorial Day weekend perusing the new Food & Wine Cocktails 2011 Guide, which came in the mail just as we were leaving for New York.  The Cocktail Guide's annual arrival is always a pleasant surprise.  Like all projects of this type, some editions are more successful than others, but the editors never fail to do their best to assemble a wide-ranging assortment of unusual and interesting recipes accompanied by an informative, well-written text and cool photos.  The glassware on display is always extremely beautiful, imaginative and (for us, at least) uplifting.  The crystal above are "Pythagore" champagne saucers in amber and clear by J.L. Coquet, Limoges, France, available in the US  from Devine Corporation (devinecorp.net).  Since Caroline, Jane and I were all taken with them, we may consider purchasing some Pythagore glasses as a "welcome summer" present.


        Interested readers will note that this year's new flavor seems to be elderflower.  This possible trend was on view (and experienced) over the weekend when we attended the garden party given by our friends Gerry and Susanne Howard to celebrate their beautiful new garden and fabulously transformed back yard, which now resembles a classical Chinese landscape in an ancient silk scroll painting.  The elderflower-flavored cocktail they offered was unlike anything I'd tasted before and was extremely delicious.  Someone mentioned that Susanne became familiar with elderflower drinks during a visit she and Gerry made to France earlier this year.

The other trend on view in the new F&W book is the practice of transforming traditional gin-based drinks into vodka or rum recipes, as is the case with this Stepping Razor.  Although  I can't be sure why this is (apart from the fact that food professionals like varying their game),  I assume it relates to the fact that most people (at least the ones I speak to)  say they don't like gin and it makes good commercial sense to adapt traditional recipes with well-known names to new materials.  I like gin.  Although it's never entirely  gone away, obviously, I'm sure it will be "back" as a flavor and an ingredient someday soon.  If you read enough volumes of the Food & Wine Cocktails guides or simply peruse any cooking magazines, that much is evident, always.To every food or drink thing, there seem to be an infinite number of rotating seasons.

        Inevitable musical accompaniment to this brief review must be, of course, Joe Higgs' immortal Stepping Razor, performed by:

1.  Peter Tosh (footage from Rockers)




2.  Joe Higgs




3.  The Wailers

European Black Elderflower

Mr Brown (Glen Adams 1945-2010)

 

        Behind in my reading, I only learned yesterday that Glen Adams, the pioneering Jamaican musician and former member of Lee "Scratch" Perry's seminal Upsetters band, passed away in December after a long illness.

Glen Adams, 1969

 

        Originally known as a backing musician (keyboards) and later as an innovative record producer, both in Jamaica and the United States, I mainly think of Glen Adams as the composer of one of the best songs ever, the unforgettable Wailers track Mr Brown.  Written in 1969, Adams had originally intended to record and release the song himself, but Scratch persuaded him to let the Wailers record it for inclusion on their pivotal Soul Revolution lp, two years before the group broke through worldwide with Catch A Fire. 

        Known for its "spooky" (really spooky; really burning) organ sound (provided by Adams and Wailer Peter Tosh), Mr Brown's fabulous, striking lyrics and Bob Marley's great lead vocal performance, Mr Brown has always been on my personal Top Ten list.  Jamaican folklore and news-based interpretations have occasionally been advanced to explicate the Mr Brown ghost story, but they remain marvelously incomplete and unconvincing.  Mr Brown, as they say, is what it is.  (Please click on link in the first line of the song below to enjoy the performance.)

        Less well-known, except to reggae aficionados, is the fact that Glen Adams was one of the several musicians who recorded as melodica master "Augustus Pablo" for producer Herman Chin-Loy before the late and greatly missed Horace Swaby permanently assumed the role and enlarged the artistic identity of Augustus Pablo.  

        That, of course, is another, equally important story.   

        But first -- Mr Brown:

Who is Mr Brown?

Mr Brown is a clown who rides through town in a coffin. 

Where He be found? 

In the coffin where there is 

Three crows on top and Two is laughing. 

What a confusion! 

What a botheration!  

 

Mandeville Market, Manchester Parish, ca. 1900

Who is Mr Brown? (I want to know now!) 

He is nowhere to be found.  

From Mandeville to Sligoville, coffin running around. 

Upsetting, upsetting, upsetting the town, 

Asking for Mr Brown.

I want to know Who -- 

Is Mr Brown?  

Kingston Tram, Parade & Orange Streets, ca. 1900

Is Mr Brown controlled by remote?  

Calling Duppy Conqueror -- 

I'm the Ghost Catcher. 

This is your chance -- Prove Yourself! 

Down in Parade, 

People running like a Masquerade.  

The police make a raid 

But The Thing get fade.   

What a thing in town! 

Crows chauffeur-driven around. 

Skanking as if they never had known 

The man they call Mr Brown. 

Jonkanoo Masquerade, Kingston, ca. 1960

Sligoville, First "Free Village" in Jamaica (1834) , St. Catherine's Parish, mid-19th century 

Glen Adams w/The Slackers, 2002 

Big Youth, Natty Warning (Glen Adams/Manley Buchanan), produced by Glen Adams

In this great future, you can't forget your past -- Peter Tosh & Bob Marley ("Get Up, Stand Up").

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.