Monday

I have a great weekend planned. Sorting, archiving , collecting is a labor of love for me. I'm sure the following will make many of you drool in envy.

Being a serious collector of Wailers material, I have amassed many LP's, tapes, Videos and Jamaican Singles.

Where can my collection turn to now ? I recently have made a contact in Germany for non USA and non Jamaican Wailers related singles. The trades were pretty much as follows: I would send Melody Makers shows and money, and he would send UK/Holland/Spain/German /etc. Pressings. So over the last 2 months I have obtained about 75 Wailers singles. ( 7" and 12 ").

The first thing I have done was look at all the singles I obtained and separate the ones I had from the new ones I have recently obtained. Then I separated the Tosh from Marley singles. (Please note I will obtain Bunny singles in the future) Then I took out my Distant Drum Magazine collection. (Issue 9 . page 33-35 in particular)

Now I have to go through the matrixes, covers, and countries of origin, and compare what I obtained with the published list.

First I will photocopy the pages of interest and check off, what I have. I guess the above process will take a few hours. (I now have roughly 50 Marley singles and 25 Tosh singles. I will have to see what doubles I have obtained and pass them off to trading partners, if they want them.

Fortunately the people of DD mag have also added pictures. I'll have to continue this article later, Just got a package from Bruno Blum.


Tuesday

I received 2 45's from Bruno Blum in France, briefly, they were his versions of War, in a few words, they blew me away. The first time I heard this version (with " Selassie is the Chapel" intermixed), it brought me to tears. These versions are equally as good.

My Tosh "outernational " 45's collating is coming along well. Now I realize how much I lack, such as all the Spanish and Brazilian pressings. (oh well, soon come). I'm looking forward to the next issue of Distant Drums where they will document the "outernational" Tosh 12" pressings.

I have been spending the last few days pressing CD's. I recently purchased a Phillips CD presser. this "toy" allows me to make Cd's directly from the Stereo receiver.

To make matters more complicated, I have plugged in my Mono VCR player and have been making Ziggy Marley Cd's. As I mentioned in my last chapter, I am trading with Julian in Germany , my Ziggy Marley items for Non United States Marley and Tosh singles. I ran out of concerts, so now I am moving on to my video collection. I knew this would be a lot of work when I started, but it had to be done. I would say I have roughly 100 videos with a reference to Ziggy on them. The only problem is that I had to find the segment, and only copy the music, not the interviews. I am doing this for myself, and to have new trading material.

Some interesting segments I have found are Ziggy on Sesame street, Ziggy on Rockers TV, Peter Tosh riding his unicycle for MTV. (I am using Ziggy as a generic term for The Melody Makers.) MM's singing in a Muppets movie, MM on Arts and Entertainment TV station singing "Good time " acapella.

Intermixed in going thru my reggae videos, I have found interesting sound bytes of important things in my life (my TV appearance, My wedding, My wife's Wedding shower, my kids singing. etc), and digitalized them. In other words I pressed a cd of important videos , which I will be giving to my wife for a mothers day present.

Wednesday

Just got finished watching the South Park episode where one of the kids is drinking too much coffee and see Gnomes stealing underpants. Great episode.

Anyway, back to collecting. One of the great things about having an extensive collection is searching and finding things that are in your possession that one doesn't know that one owns. recently I was talking to Roger Steffans about this regarding "Lemon Tree" on the back of a Judy Mowatt single.

In going through the list of Tosh singles in DD # 9, I noticed on the bottom of page 34 that on the back of Stick Up is Little Green Apples. LGA is a record that I have trying to obtain for a long time, unsuccessfully. (I asked Clive Chin if he would sell me one, 2 years ago) Anyway getting back to the point, I remember that I have a since called Stick Up credited to the Wailers. (I obtained this about 2 years ago in a trade for about 20 +Lee Perry singles and others from John Righland)

First I had to locate this single in my collection, which is no easy task. After going through some boxes I found it. The record is unique in the fact it has a somewhat official stamp stating "Wailers." (note that going through my records is like an adventure for me, because I find things that I have not seen in years, and as my knowledge grows, I see the records threw new eyes) I nervously put on side A, which was warfare, and I play it through, hoping that it was Little Green Apples.
No success, I flip the record over, and the other side is "Stick up" Oh well, I guess my quest for Little Green Apples will continue. (If anybody out there in Internet land has this or Alligator man on tape or vinyl, please contact me.)

In conclusion 3 Marley Gold Records were for sale on E bay for $15,000. There were no bidders.

Thursday

Not much to say today. A day never goes by with me thinking of Marley. (I wonder if that is normal)? I wonder how I am going to collate my Non US and Non Jamaican. Marley singles? My plan is to wait for a probable upcoming Distant Drums, and use that as a guide.

In going thru DD # 9, I see that there is a 1996 single by Bob Clark with credit given to Peter Tosh. I'm going to look through my Johnnie Clarke box and see if I have a copy misplaced.

Friday

One of the great things about trading is waiting to see what the mail will bring. I used to collect autographs as a child and used to get the same feeling. Today was a good day, I got a white label promotional album of Countryman.

I have to give thanks to Roger S. I have been collecting Marley for about 20 years now, but only after I met Roger, did I realize that people trade. The beauty of the Internet is as James wrote in "an idiots guide to tape trading" is the speed of transactions. I used to go to NYC, spend an entire day, hitting every record shop, and if I was lucky, I would pick up an item. Now I can shop and trade at home..

My next chapter will be on trading vinyl for tapes, or in other words, a 2 dollar tape that could be copied, for a piece of vinyl.


Saturday

I would like to say that collecting has taught me much:

LEXACOLOGY
I have learned the difference between a demo and a composing tape. The difference between a test pressing and a promo. etc....

There are also different levels of rare tapes, such as No copies, No copies Ever or "For Your ears only". There are also no copies in Red ink. Some tapes cannot be copied because of copyright infringements. Some tapes cannot be copied because of personal requests by the owner of the tape.

Getting back to the previous chapter, regarding trading vinyl for tapes, I have been on both sides of the trade. I have traded away some very rare singles and have gotten tapes in return. The issue here is that one can make as many copies of the tape, as you want and keep trading them, but once you trade away a record, it's gone. What normally happens is that, a few months later, one is able to obtain the tape from another source, but it's too late, the record is gone.

As I said earlier, I have also traded my tapes for vinyl from someone else. So I guess what goes around comes around.


OCD Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

This is a behavior pattern that includes ritualistic behavior. Do collectors suffer from this? no. True, many like myself like to own as many tapes and records as possible, but that is because of the music.

SUPRISE!!!!!

The County man, White label promo that I bought was actually a different record. It was actually "Reggae Sunsplash 81, A Tribute to Bob Marley", which brings me to my next topic. What happens when you are not happy with the deal?

I could return the record and say I am not a satisfied customer, but that would take me over an hour in time plus going to the post office.(and Time is money.)I guess I'll have to eat the loss, and chalk it up to experience.

I'm sure people have not always been happy with my trades either. Some times the quality is not what one would expect, one person mentioned that side A was actually side B on tape. Sometimes one gets a record in G condition, instead of Very Good. Oh well "Don't sweat the small stuff". It's nice when a deal works out and both parties are happy.

Sometimes the first thing I do when I wake up is check the front door to see if UPS, or Federal Express have left a package for me early in the AM. I read that 1 out of 20 delivered boxes, is from someone who bought something from an online auction.

This possibly translates to good stocks to buy. If people order by mail, then the postal delivery sevice stocks should go up.

Today's issue that I want to raise is the time involved in preparing a trade. If it takes 2 hours to located a particular tape in one's collection and 4 hours of work to copy the video tape to a cassette or a cd rom, and another hour to wait at the post office with forms , is this worth anything? Is the time put into a trade factored into the equation for a trade? Usually not.

Sunday

I've been involved in a few bad trades/deals. I have traded with the biggest and the best. Many times I've been nonspecific, or kept my fingers crossed hoping for a rare gem, but was disappointed when the package arrived. Other times I hit the jackpot.

Most likely. these trading partners thought that I would have enjoyed the items they sent. It wasn't that I didn't, but there is so much out there that I lack. This is just part of the learning curve that goes with trading.

God forbid if I complained, maybe I'd be cut off, or I would not be able to be involved in a trade for another couple of years.

Oh well, I guess I'll have to take my own advice and "go with the flow". I think the Melody Makers have a song about that.

Monday

Going back to Chapter 4, I mentioned that I had a Johnnie Cladrk collection, Well I traded it away. About 3 months ago , I traded a 1000 Ja. singles in G and VG collection from the 70's, for a copy of Lemon Tree. The trade was successful for both parties, but I let a lot of great stuff go.

The following is an article that is a short story about some of the Lemon Tree singles floating around.

There are 3 known Reggae versions of Lemon Tree, one by the Wailers and Gaylads, one by the Soul brothers and one by Johnnie Clarke. This in-depth review of some of the known copies of the Lemon Tree will only deal with the one by the Wailers.

One of the copies had an unreadable matrix. Only the Dir is legible, pressed on a blank. The flip side is by Peter Austin and Hortenses version of Money. The matrix is DIR CS 2002 A 1H. It was found in a box of 25 blanks found in 1976 in Deptford Broadway, SE London.

The second copy was found at a bookfair around 1994. It was also a blank, there is a matrix, which goes across the label but is legible. The other side has a standard Muzik City stamp and is "Feel like Jumping" by Marcia Griffiths. This suggests that Mr. Dodd was repressing the single in 1968. This copy has since been traded to myself in United States for 1000 singles from the 70's.

A third copy is another blank. The matrix is readable The DIR starts on the raised edge and goes to where the label was supposed to be. The flip side is Hot Rod by the Soul Brothers, with the matrix cs0600.

A forth copy, I believe was recently sold to somebody in the Far East for $1250.

There has been a number of "name checks" for Marley on TV this past year.

Most recently on a United States Detective show called "Silk Stockings" Apparently 2 detectives were talking and one said "That's not Marley"

The Bob Marley name has popped up several times on mainstream TV. On the sitcom Family Matters seen on the Warner Brothers network, Ziggy Marley made an appearance with the Melody Makers singing "Power to Move You" Steve (Erkle's brother is with a female and they are going back to there room, acting happy, singing Tomorrow People, His father is waiting in the room.

A Melody Makers song was performed by a marching band in the NY Thanksgiving Parade.

Of course we are well aware of the Beer commercials using a Marley tune. The Melody makers were one of the featured artists in Cover Girl commercials. This stirred up much controversy on the Internet, especially in the Reggae usegroup.

The number of Reggae/Marley Internet sites is well over a thousand, and growing larger every day. There are now 2 Marley rings and one Reggae Ring.

In an episode of Murphy Brown, who is suffering from Probable Breast cancer, is suffering from adverse reactions of Chemotherapy. Traditional and holistic medical treatment has failed. Murphy is suffering from anorexia and nausea, and another newscaster goes out and buys her some Pot. She mentions Bob Marley....

On Teen Angel a hot show for kids on Nickelodeon, Marty was going to a Costume party dressed as the Scare Crow. Steve asks "Who are you going as?, Bob Marley?"

On the TV show "Muppets Tonight" there was an episode where there are rats dressed in Red Gold and Green clothing, wearing dreads are singing "No woman no cry" at a fast and humorous pace. Ther Rats close out the segment by singing the song the correct way.

I would like to publicly thank Paul Johnson for his recent trades. I reached a dead end in obtaining good items for over a year. I sent things out, gave things to people, and either got nothing in return or items that I already had. Paul also known as the Mighty Dread, recharged my collection. He trade me some items hassle free, that I could not get from any source.

Before Paul, I hit a brick wall. Everything was a "no copy" or just another excuse. I was recently discussing collecting with Roger, His take on this was " that to get new stuff, some of the serious collectors have to die off." (for example nobody is going to trade their UK pressing of "One Cup of Coffee"), so I guess it's up to the heirs.

PRAISE JAH!!!!!!

Just found something new, but I'll get to that in a second. One of the things of collecting, is that one does not know what is out there. (what exists, or what is available) Years ago, I would scour the back of the Beat magazine, when they published their play lists, and look for interesting tracks.

I must confess that I don't have a real list of shows that I own. But let's not get side tracked. (Any body know anything about A.D.D.?) Anyway, recently I traded about 40 Midnight Ravers NY radio shows for about 40 "Reggae Beat" radio shows. Now it's rare when I hear something I haven't heard before, but this AM while taking a shower I noticed something different. Peter was composing "Jah is my Kingdom" on a twangy electric guitar, and tuning it on RB tape #96, tape one of three, Aug 23rd 1981.

I don't know where Roger obtained this one, and why I never heard it anywhere else? Anyway, I'll talk more about this later.

Tuesday

The correct name for that demo or composing tape that I mentioned above, is Creation. It is from the Record "Bush Doctor". The copy I played was an Intel Diplo labeled one, in a Promotional copy sleeve. (By the way Hechicero means Bush Doctor in Spanish) The picture sleeve of the single in Spain has that printed on it. (which I need)

By the way I was peripherally involved in Toshs' Honorary Citizen. One of the greatest experiences of my life was being in the studio in NYC when the tracks were being chosen. I mentioned to Pauline Morris that in my opinion, Creation was equivalent to "Redemption Song". (I felt that this was Tosh's swan song) By the way, I contributed about 15 singles to the Tosh Museum in Bluefield.

Just received the single 12" by Kymani Marley in the mail from CDnow.com. This Internet stuff is great. I only ordered it abut 3 days ago.

I love the Kymani song "Rude Boy" It has a mandolin in the back ground, nice touch. Another version has a salsa feel. I think Kymani's mother is Yvette Chrigton, but I might be wrong. I think she also has a daughter. Anyway, she was one of the founders of the Internet Marley pages, but might have dropped out due to financial reasons. I have spoken with her several times on the phone and Internet and met her once. She is one of the nicest people. She sent me a pamphlet/book of her poetry.

Wednesday

The Kaymani single "Rude Boy" is really enjoyable. There is about 25 seconds at the end of the Acapella version which is very cool. Basically the song was over, but he was just doing some scat or improvising, with the mic. on. I love that type of stuff. The million dollar question is will and how long will my enjoyment of the song last? The greatness of a song is partially, how long it lasts, or remains fresh. I was discussing this with my children's guitar teacher, Lisa Itts. She has an up and coming "Grove Rock" style. She mentioned that a song has to "have some type of quality which gives it the ability to last".

I was thinking about the Tosh song Creation and was wondering if it was the original Track without all the overdubs?

If I had time I would love to find the Bob Marley and the Wailers superspecial moments (yodels) of each concert and make list. I used to be known as an archivist but the RAW membership cost an extra 10 dollars.

In my last column I mentioned what a wonderful person Yvette Crighton is. Another artist that comes to mind is Glen Adams. Glen, one of the original Upsetters, is easy going and helpful. At is CAPO studio, he produces many up and coming Reggae groups.

Thursday

I received my first critique of my column. I quote, "Great columns by the way, immensely informative, I love the one on the bad trades and the vinyl to tape and vice versa. I have only been trading for 3 months and so I am still learning as I go along, so it is great to hear what traders of many years have to say."

A pat on the back always feels good. ;-)

Friday

My Jamaican record connection, Paul Henry, can be reached in Georgia for 6 months, at 912-635-2531 extension 763. Paul is a great person and came to America, on a short term visa, to make some extra money in the Hotel business, to send home to his family. I have been working with Paul now for about 8 years. Pretty much he can find anything, except the super rare.

Briefly, I give him about 300 Dollars , and he sends or brings me singles. It depends on my mood, but usually I ask for singles form the 60's and 70's, condition is of not particular importance. I take what I get usually. It's sort of like the lottery, sometimes I loose, sometimes I win. Sometimes I get a broken or chipped record, but that's the way we work it.

Let me say, let the buyer beware. Paul is totally honest, and he is not cheap!!! Figure to pay about 3 dollars a record, and sight unseen, this is pretty steep. If you feel like gambling, give him a try. Once again you might get a bunch of old scratched, almost unplayable records. If you want mint records, he can do that also.

I guess one would have to wire him $ Western Union. I have tons of stories about Paul and our record hunting together, but the best one was when I received in the mail an unplayed "Selasssi is the Chapel ".

BTW ( By the way ), Paul has to pay about 2 dollars a record, and hours of time goes into his searching. Which brings me back to the time factor involved in collecting. He has spent entire days tracking down records for me. One cannot get the records we are looking for in any store in Jamaica. What Paul does, is that he goes deep into the hills, and buys old sound systems. If anybody gets anything really unusual, I want a percentage. ;-)

Also, Paul has a wife and 2 sweet girls in Jamaica, and we sort of have adopted him, so we do not look at our transactions in totally dollars and cents.

Saturday

I just remembered that I made a trade with someone about 4 months ago, but never received the tapes. (roughly , 7 of my Marley shows for 7 of his Tosh shows) I forgot who the person I traded with was, so I had to track him down. First I asked some people on the Internet, but they didn't know him personally or have his e mail address. Then I checked mail sent and mail read, to no avail. Then I went to Personal Filing Cabinet, under my files in the computer. No luck. Then I dug out a lot of email correspondence that I printed out in the past, and VWALA, I found his e mail address.

I promptly contacted him and he quickly e- mailed me, that he didn't forget to send me the tapes, but he was out of town. Bla bla bla, He mentioned that he had a to go to California, Time will tell.......

Sunday

My daughter brought to my attention a children's book called Animorphs, that has a name check for Marley. I just read that Bob was unable to play in Seattle, USA, on 7/15/78, due to his illness, but I can't confirm that.

The Tosh solo "Creation" electric guitar version, that I mentioned a few chapters back, was from a backstage tuning session, probably the Beacon Theater, in NY.

I wonder if anybody out there in cyberspace could find something interesting to say in comparing Toshs' "Coming in Hot, Hot, Hot," Vs Marleys' "Coming in from the cold" I heard that Peters was written when he was ill with fever, and I believe that Bob's might have been about Death.

Many times I get the same tape from different sources. But frequently there are minor variations, or I hear it ona different sterio. Specifically this happened to me recently with the Sims Demos, first of all I really never noticed the uniqueness of the song "Ask Myself" I wonder who is singing lead vocal? (probably Bunny). This particular tape has a few extra seconds of "Hurts to be alone." Hammer has an extra 30 seconds, which I have not noticed, and there is an electric lead guitar on "Touch me" .

Check out this interesting slide show of Wailers singles, with emphasis on Peter Tosh. http://petertosh.freehosting.net/index.html, in case that doesn't work try http://nav.webring.com/cgi-bin/navcgi?ring=bobmarley;id=4;go

I hope you know how to copy and paste. I'm not sure this column takes hyper links, I'll have to ask James.

Some items that come to mind that I need are, the cd sampler from Songs of Freedom, the special Midem 97' promotional sampler from the Complete Wailers CD, and "A Place called Africa" by Junior Byles and Peter Tosh, on vinyl.

I will go on record of saying that I really like Dreams of Freedom, Ambient Translations of Bob Marley in Dub. I am really going out on a limb for saying this. I don't know why it gets such bad press. Distant Drum's panned it, the Reggae Use group tore it to shreds and Roger hates it. I have found that it still sounds fresh and is good music to exercise to. By the way, I play this CD all day in examination room one, an edited version of the "Reggae Philamonic plays Marley " in examination room 2 and "A tribute to Bob Marley" an acoustic portrait on guitar performed by Bub Roberts. I also made an edited CD of Dean Frasers' "Dean plays Bob" removing the interview, Crisis and Zimbabwe. (The beat does not have a calming effect) and the 96 year old ladies do not like loud noise.

Monday

I had The Simpsons on TV before but wasn't watching. According to Paul Johnson, they had another reference to Reggae. Paraphrasing the episode: Homer was dressed with a tam and one love necklace. They were all stated they wanted to go on vacation Homer said "I and I want to go to Jamaica man. I-man been in Babylon too long , seen."

But then when they find out they can only go to Japan homer says "not Japan, Jamaica. Doh, I wanted to pass the cutchie pon the left hand side!"

Previously I mentioned, that my 10 year old daughter pointed out to me, that on page 65, of chapter 12 in The Animorphs' book "The Escape" by K.A. Appelgate there is a referance to Marley. I quote "I hit play on th CD. Reggae. Some good old classic. I'd bought the CD at a point when I was considering growing dreadlocks. Never mind why, Okay, it had to do with a girl at school. Bob Marley, Mon I said, Help me out, mon Bob didn't help. Bob was singing "No women no cry". And that translated way too easily in my head into "No Mother No Cry"........

Tuesday

About 3 years ago, I was made aware of the Dennis Thompson tapes. The tapes obviously were "no copies." Despite my upping the ante, and practically offering my first born, the answer was "I COULD NOT get a copy of the tape? My contact was kind enough to work with me and gave me Dennis Thompons' home phone number. I was able to reach him and asked him if I could obtain a copy of the tape, out of my love for Bob. As his wife listened on the phone, I pleaded my case. I stated that Yvette Crighton and Mrs. Booker had trusted me. I have never broken my word and obviously had no commercial interest. The answer was still no.

Marley probably would have laughed at all this no copy stuff going around.

I did pester my original contact after that for a copy of the tape until I pissed him off. He said that if he said something once, then that would stand.

Me, being the persistant person I am, tried to reach Dennis Thompson again last year, but misplaced his phone #. I looked in the phone book and found many Dennis Thompsons, called a few, but they were the wrong numbers, and subsquently gave up.

Oh yes, by the way, I got the tape from another source.

Wednesday

"The computer is just a modernized drum" was recently quoted in a newspaper.  Before e mail, this was the drumbeat, forwarding messages....."

I obtained an interesting CD, about 3 years ago, by Michael Livingston called "Bob Marley in Espanol." It includes No llore mujer,( No women no cry) , Son Locos,(Crazy Bald head), Esperar en Vano (Wait in Vain) and Cartas Malas (Bad Card).  On Keyboards was Agustus Pablo, who I understand passed away recently. I had the good fortune of seeing him in concert about 10 years ago in a small club in NYC.

The "Columns" page  of this Home Page  plays the midi version of  Natural Mystic. This page is great to Jam to, if you play any instruments.

I'm playing "The Harder they Come" now, which is really one of the greatest all time records, probably as good as anything that was around in 73.'  And it really held up over time. This record probably got a whole generation into reggae.

I have to thank my wife for getitng me into the band "The Offspring". First of all punk is ok, but I wouldn't have missed a Wailers concert to see some.  The songs grew on me, and familiarity is something very important in getting to like something. ("there is a powerful message hidden here somwhere , but I don't know what it is.")

I hope readers know to hit the reload button once in a while, to see the updated page.

I would like to thank John Parmeton for his friendship and Internet assistance.  I just got an interesting program that makes a 360 degree panorama screen saver.  You are in one point in l room and take 16 pictures in a circle with a digital camera. Then you use the program called PhotoVista, which splices the 16 pictures together.  One sample of this technology can be viewed at. http://www.pointvillage.com/ >Negril, Jamaica - Point Village Resort - Home Page. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Virtual Reality,

I was thinking of another tragic loss to the Reggae Music world, Delroy Wilson. Delroy had a drinking problem and apparently developed Cirrhosis.  One of the complications of drinking is that your liver does not work well, and one looses the ability to stop bleeding.  Sometimes one gets Esophageal varices, (varicose veins in the Esophagus) and they pop, due to portal hypertension.  Alcoholics get a bleeding problem called a coagulopathy, where one cannot stop bleeding. 

Unfortunately, this happened to Delroy, and he wound up in a Kingston Hospital.  There is  a medication called Vasopressin, which is used to stop the Gastrointesstinal bleeding.

One night at midnight,  I got a call from Glen Adams that Delroy was in trouble and that the Hospial in Kingston needed  Vasopressin.  I  made a few phone calls to my local Hospital  and explained the situation, to the Hospital  Pharmacy, and the Nursing Supervisor.  (note,  that this medication is expensive,  I said I would cover the cost ,and take full responsibility.)  Supprisingly  there was little resistance, everybody did there part.  Maureen Kane, a hospital friend  and I met Glen Adams at the midway point between us.  We  met in at a designated parking lot, about 2:00 AM, and I gave him the bag of medications.  (Good thing the Police  didn't get involved) Glen brought the Vasopressin bottles to the Airport, and I believe, he pulled some strings, and they were off to Jamaica on the 6:00  flight.  Apparently the medication was administered  to Delroy, but unfortunately he passed away.

Next Page