SECOND WHICH EMOTION?

SECOND WHICH EMOTION?

LETTER FROM BRITAIN

by Cynthia Rose

A week after the fact, the capital's 17th Notting Hill Carnival seems like a shimmering heat mirage—a hot long weekend wherein the maas, steel pans and jump-up of the east Caribbean blended with the heaviest dread of reggae (and the earnest good intentions of all Ladbroke Grovebound liberals). It remained a defiant celebration of black Britain, too, despite a pan-UK attempt to co-opt the occasion. This often verged on the risible: everybody rushing to review the two Marley biogs (and everybody illustrating them with caricatures!); the Sunday Times printing an "A-Z: Definitive Guide To Reggae"; British telecom outfitting the entire Glissando Steel Band in company T-shirts with the slogan "Hands Off British Telecom."

Little of this emanated from genuine civic anticipation of an annual festival; most of it was aimed at de-sensitizing the population in advance of a perennial flashpoint. Rastafari culture is now a genuine reality to be reckoned with in English life.. .Unlike soca contests (judged this year by The Explainer, aka Winston Henry, and won by Britain's First Lady of the form, Betty Alexander aka Soca Baby) and calypso costumes, it can't be confined to a one-off binge of summer nostalgia for the tropics.

It's important for this country to come to terms with its Jamaican heritage, therefore, as it is for Americans to cop to the hip-hop scene. So it wasn't a bad thing to see promo like Capital Radio's fortnight of openair concerts beforehand: gigs on the concrete in front of the National Theatre. There the dark electronic pulse of Jah Warriors reverberated round the entire arts complex of galleries, concert halls and theatres on successive evenings. And they enjoyed a fascinated, non-paying audience of all ages and races-—many of whom would never itself t0 Ven*ure near Carnival (or reggae)

^ were, as usual, amply ar ed with splendor, sound and great damaican fast food sold from front-garden . e.s a™ sheet corners. The parade of acts vo ved was gigantic, considering that the estival site is barely twice the size of New orks Little Italy. Brass bands like Islanders, 3 a' • H°mer, Marabuntas, Spoilers fu asc*uerac^e v'ed with steel bands like "}e MerrV Maker, Ebony, London All Stars, Metronomes, Grove 82, Mangrove, Paddington Youth, Stardust & Cariba, Maestro and Groovers.

Add to that the officially scheduled acts: Urban Warriors, Red Eye, Peaches Farenji Warriors, Hardrock, Oshamar, African Dawn, Syco and the New Yorkers, Brimstone, Renegades, Sons of Jah, Winston Reedy, Rip Rig and Panic (a farewell gig on the final day), Spartacus R, King Sounds and the Israelites, Curfew, Disciples, Sweet Distortions, Black Knights, Red Beat, Twelve Inch, Cayenne, Restrictions, African Women, Sus, Wisdom, Arc Connection, the Impossible Dreamers, and Crucial Music all gigged. Probably the most generally well-received, though, were entrenched heroes Aswad and the popular

Abacush, as well as local band Rema. Carnival bands filled two not-distant venues—under the westway overpass and down by the "Canal." But with another two dozen costume bands parading the streets (and living up to great names like Flamingo Carnival Club, Proud People and Quintessence) plus home-structured sound systems blaring it was an aural free-for-all in the best sense. The sound systems, beloved of local residents for the defiant creativity they have come to represent, cluster round the Mangrove Restaurant and the corners of All Saints Road: traditional "trouble spots." Their operators are not the pro competitors of the dancehall circuit; they're those smaller concerns who work the area's year-long blues dance and house-party trail. Along with the myriad of young neighborhood toasters, these residents are serious about staking their claim to the streets—for them black pride is the text of the holiday's exuberance.

Added to the heroes one expects to hear and gets in abundance (Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs, Yellowbeard, Marley and Mtume) several operators intercut their reggae with American rap sides—the Intergalactic system down by Westway was one particular example. And small crews roamed the crowds, trying out their own versions of body-popping a la Crazy Legs or electric boogie. Like the A-side of Dennis Brown's "The Prophet Rides Again" (released just in time for the fun), some of the festival's funk casts an eye towards New York. In Brown's case it may be the Preludetested electro-disco market, but for the kids it's the kinship they feel between those crumbling streets swept over by Westway and the battle-scarred Bronx Channel 4 has recently been documenting. Along with Mtume's classic "Juicy Fruit" though, Brown's "Save A Little Love For Me" was certainly one anthem of Carnival '83.

Ian Dury is a chap whose cultural status lies not a million miles from that of Winston Foster aka Yellowman, which is to say the humor of each brings out a Briton's best affection for the traditional music hall turn. And Dury's about to take stage center again (in preparation he's just had a CND symbol

TURN TO PAGE 63

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 41

DECEMBER 1983 shaved into his haircut) with an LP called 4000 Weeks Holiday. His first in two years, it's been held up by a track called "Noddy Harris"—a character assasination of a famous English nursery-book personality. His creator, Enid Blyton, is something of a sacred cow—leading to Dury and Polydor's disagreement over how "offensive" the song might be. "Blyton was piggy racialist scum," says Dury, unrepentant in the face of his record company's plea to provide "This May Offend" stickers. "Besides, swearing is a wonderful freedom for kids, they're the only people it's naughty for. I think 'Noddy Harris' is one of my five best songs ever."

Just as Costello has to live with his offstage, offhand racist remarks of a few U.S. tours back, Dury's still sensitive to the response his "Spasticus Autisticus" track proI voked. To be banned by the Beeb on grounds of "bad taste" meant little—but many disabled people took personal offense at the grim lyric. And, Dury contends today, "few of the ones who felt really enraged ever found out I was a cripple. Imagine! I set out to make it a war cry for my tribe, for all of us, you know? As well as an explanation of how it feels".

He doesn't recant those verses now and 4000 Weeks continues to be explicit; this time particularly on the subject of nuclear arms. "Of course we should ban the bomb," laughs their author. "But the real trick is optimism. Everyone can't have everything— that's where 'Spasticus' came in. But everyone can learn and build. And everone i can get angry, angry and beautiful at the same time. That's what I try to be in my music."

It may surprise Americans dosed to death with the most vacuous of our pretty-boy pop on MTV, but Dury's ambition is not such an uncommon one. Despite what exports would have you believe, even Britain's syntho-seizure has become a bit less of a gimmick and a bit more like a viable format. Probably much of the balance has been provided by Europioneers with artier aims, but the latest results sound surprisingly healthy. Some Bizzare's Matt Johnson (aka The The), for instance, provides a Euroinfluenced balance to his label's most commercial synth act, Marc Almond (aka Soft Cell-ite and head Mamba). It's the percussive punctuation of Mental Metal— Einsturzende Neubautan and their numerous imitators—Johnson's absorbed and softened. But higher-profile electro-art outfits like the Eurythmics (slightly under par on the Who's That Girl EP but in the studio now, birthing an October album) and Depeche Mode seem obviously affected by art-fringe Europeans like Liasions Danger euses.

Depeche Mode have made a particular departure from their pretty-boy wimp-rock beginning with the new Construction Time Again LP. Like the best of, say, R.E.M., it actually packs melodic muscle. Though its lyrics are definitely open-ended, they're not lame and Mute svengali Daniel Miller's lush production affords them maximum impact. Some of the best lyrics here even betoken a bit of progress in the synthosphere's concerns: take "There was a time/When all on my mind was iove/Now I find/That most of the time/Love's not enough/in itself" ("Love, In Itself').

Miller is only one of a number of New McLaren figures emerging offstage, backstage or—like Jim "Foetus" Thirwell— those who maintain a musicianly role while playing "Conscience" to both the commercial and the non-commercial arenas. (In Thirwell's case he's Foetus of his own Foetus On Your Breath, "consultant" to Soft Cell( and conscience of innumerable mental metal' contenders).

One Kitchenware act, the Kane Gang, make patently silly remarks about their "influences." The Kanes claim to be working within a "gospel tradition," while admitting that "none of us is particularly religious." They do concede that "it is unlikely the Staples, say, would write about small-town life around Sunderland." Too true! But it seems particularly willful perversity in view of the fact that Britain is not starved of gospel stars in the flesh.

Just as Depeche Mode have the brilliant photography of Brian Griffin (who enshrined hotels for mega-million brochures until Arista sidetracked him with Iggy Pop's visage) on the side of their new socialistrealist image, the Kanes have Keith Armstrong's sloganeering. And groups like the Redskins—a trio of Commie-rockers who aim to finish what the Clash started—have media access.

Redskin Chris Dean labors by day at NME as a (talented) subeditor; when he wields a critcal Biro for them, he signs himsejf "X Moore." But, as a musician, he demonstrates a healthy interest in every aspect of real-noise making music, from the MC5 through the Clash, heyday punk or Rank and File. (And as a fashion influence he's pioneered a new skin trend during the heatwave: red lace-up wrestling boots to replace heavy, hot Doc Martens). The beat and brass of the Redskins' second outing "Lean On Me!"/"Unionise" builds and bums in a way the titles might not lead you to expect.

"Well," says Chris Dean. "If it does it's because we're making music and not critiques. Every two-bit punk band has done their share of haranguing. So have the British bands Americans will think of as "political": the Au Pairs, the Gang Of Four. Slogans are OK, but only when the music delivers. We need the spirit of the great old James Brown stuff—the get up, get out, getinto-its. That's been missing for far too long. Anyone can just say 'fuck the system' over and over; that's so dour." Dean wonders what Americans would make of the Redskins: "For one thing are there any skins in the States? What does it mean there? Do they know that a lot of skins here are into Tamla, really into Booker T.?"

At the other end of our spectrum are the likes of the Wolfgang Press. The WP were formed by Michael Allen and Mark Coxformer avant-gardeners in Rema-Rema, which included Marco Pirroni of Adam's Ants. Their middle incarnation was called MASS, but MASS failed to mobilize the popularity of Rema-Rema's posthumous "Wheel In The Roses" to much effect. And the Wolfgang Press's combined talents on instruments such as chain, drum, loops, "motor," guitar, bongoes and of course synthesizer don't make much difference to the adolescent versifying immortalized on the 4AD debut LP The Burdon Of Mules. There is a viable New Noise Ethic out there, but this is something else: the sound of people trying to assemble the "right" pieces with which to join in. It's a common phenomenon, and the lyrics it yields (in this case, "complete boredom is my last stand" or "I beat you with words/You cosh me with logic") reliably veer into the po-faced.

So; if these are the extremes, what's in the center? Encouragingly often, yet-to-bediscovered local treasures such as Liverpool's Reverb Brothers. These are two school friends named Colin Free and Jimmy Rae, whose songwriting partnership dates back to '77 and encompasses a stint in beat quarter The Check from 1980-82. The Reverbs utilize vocals, sax, clarinet, bass, harmonica, guitar and drum machine; their own live sax and guitar is augmented by their own tapes. And their unselfconscious brio (on spirited tunes like "One More Try" or Weldon Rogers's "So Long, Good Luck And Goodbye") recalls the Everly Brothers' harmonies crossed with Buddy Holly bounce.

It's just the sort of throwaway cool I watched three coke-hoarse Stray Cats sweat and strain for in vain during last week's secret homecoming gig late on Saturday night. There's pep and there's pap. And when the Reverbs' simplicity ("things have picked up fast over the last year thanks to a lot of valuable support from Merseyside DJs, promoters, fanzines, and friends") is stacked up next to the Cats' storebought shine—particularly the new LP—it's still easy to tell 'em apart. And there's an ocean of emotion in between. ^