Friday Photo(s) #73

I traditionally save myself just enough annual leave to take a little time off after the Christmas mayhem has subsided, though most years I seem to fritter it away, in a state of exhaustion, achieving very little of any consequence. When I submitted my holiday request several months ago, the earliest post-festivities period available to me this year was the second week of February and to ensure that I didn't waste all of it, I took the opportunity to book a 48 hour stay in an Airbnb on the North Norfolk coast, planning to get some walking done. I'd mapped out a couple of routes ahead of time to give myself some choices, but ultimately the weather had other ideas. Following such a long spell of consistent rain, any thoughts of walking across country were out of the question and I was forced to stick to mostly hard surfaces. I put some miles into my legs though and it was good to get away, even if every item of clothing I took with me was soggy by the time I came home!

It's hard to believe that 'Under Heavy Manners' by the mighty Prince Far I is half a century old this year, though age has not withered its crackling intensity one jot. The appropriately titled 'Rain a Fall' opens the album. The Voice of Thunder was just 38 years old when he was murdered during a burglary at his home in 1983. 

Rain a Fall

Monday Long Song

I've been living in the new gaff for nearly five months now, yet I've still to meet, or even cast eyes upon, four of my six immediate neighbours - they come and they go, very quietly it has to be said, at all hours. I'm assuming various forms of shift work are involved. Anyhow, while enjoying a few days off work last week, I took the opportunity to make myself known to any of the locals who might also have happened to be at home, via the good offices of On-U Sound collective Singers & Players. Over the course of one afternoon I played through 'War of Words', 'Revenge of the Underdog' and 'Staggering Heights' at, what can probably be best be described as, a potentially neighbour-bothering volume, but I never heard a peep from any of 'em, so I can only assume that either my neighbours weren't at home or weren't bothered.

Here's a heavy heavy tune from the 1981 Adrian Sherwood produced, Singers & Players debut LP, featuring the mighty voice of thunder himself, Prince Far-I.

Singers & Players - Quanté Jubila

Red Gold & Green #17 - Prince Far I

Thanks to a generous uploader, I managed to catch up up with the Don Letts autobiographical documentary, 'Dread Meets Punk Rockers' over the weekend. The film was originally broadcast in April on Sky Arts, but made a fleeting appearance on YouTube, before, unsurprisingly, being removed. Many of 'The Don's' stories of the Punk period may be familiar, though embellished by the copious Letts-shot film clips, took on much greater significance. Don and John Lydon smoking themselves into a stupor in Jamaica, an off duty Mick Jones looking a bit miserable at a party, Ari Up's unique and joyful dancing - and then there's the live footage. The Heartbreakers, The Damned, The Clash and, best of all in my opinion, a pair of sensational performances by Big Youth and Prince Far I. Is there more of this stuff Don? I'll get to Big Youth in due course, but for now, here's '354 Skank', a 1975 single from the mighty voice of thunder himself.

Prince Far I - 354 Skank