Move Out of My Way

From slap bang in the middle of the 1970s comes Bunny Clarke, aka Bunny Rugs, soon to become lead vocalist with Third World, but here in a solo stylee with the follow up to his cover of 'To Love Somebody', which, confusingly, he recorded as Bunny Scott.....I hope you're taking notes, there'll be a test later. The tune in question is 'Move Out of My Way', a militant Lee 'Scratch' Perry produced groover that didn't trouble the chart compilers of the day to any great extent. What it did do, however, was spawn a number of dubs and versions, including this oddly disturbing example, released under the title 'Kojak', by Perry himself on the 'Revolution Dub' LP later the same year. With the titular lollypop-sucking cop playing on the TV in the background as he works, Scratch retains just enough of Clarke's vocal to inject disorientating stabs into an eerily stripped back rhythm track, which I've always found a little unsettling, but perhaps that's just me. Who loves ya baby?

Bunny Rugs & the Upsetters - Move Out of My Way

Lee Perry - Kojak

Friday Photo(s) #49

Dad would've loved to have visited New York. He had a life long fascination with the city and would no doubt have spent hours walking its alleys, streets and neighbourhoods, but by the time my cousin relocated to the Big Apple in the 1980s and invited him over, it was already too late. The mobility issues that dogged his later life were beginning to take hold and he knew in his heart that he wouldn't have been physically capable of doing the things he really wanted to do, which would have frustrated him enormously. So he never made it there, but enjoyed hearing about my exploits whenever I returned from a stay with my cousin and I got into the habit of buying him a book about some aspect of New York each time. I got him one on the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge and another about the growth of the subway system, but his favourite was the one I picked up about the history of the Staten Island Ferry. If Dad could have been magically transported to New York and allowed to do just one thing, I think it would have been to have taken that iconic orange ferry, gazing back across the harbour as Manhattan disappeared into the distance. He simply couldn't believe that I'd never done it. This year, on a bright, chilly March morning, I put that right.

The Upsetters - Ferry Boat

Monday Long Song

Flip over the 12" of George Faith's classic 1977 reading of William Bell's 'To Be a Lover' and you'll find 'Rastaman Shuffle', a lengthy instrumental ramble through the same tune by The Upsetters - essentially it's the backing track, stripped of vocals and effects. Sometimes you need a thudding drum and bass heavy dubwise selection in your life, but at other times a melodic, chugging beauty such as this just hits the spot.

The Upsetters - Rastaman Shuffle 

Aunt Update #1

 My Aunt & I in 1963 and at her 90th birthday party last August

This was written a few days ago, but all being well, as you read these words I should be speeding my way back up the M11 towards home after spending a few days in London with my Aunt Joyce. She lives alone, celebrated her 90th birthday last year and required some minor outpatient surgery yesterday. Her daughter, my cousin, lives in New York, so I went down to transport Joyce to and from the hospital, then make sure she was as comfortable as possible before zipping back to East Anglia and to work. In four days I start a week's holiday and I'll be heading back down to London in order to check in on the patient, who, knowing her, will be a very impatient patient. By then I imagine she'll be desperate to get out of the house for a wander along the High Street, a bus ride to Romford, or a shopping trip to Chelmsford. She's had a few knocks over the years, but doesn't like to sit still for long. Hopefully though, she won't overdo it and will hang on until I arrive back in town next week, when I can whisk her off for a pub lunch at her favourite spot.

The Upsetters - Medical Operation

Saturday Scratch #43 - The Artibella Rhythm

The ska original of 'Artibella' appeared on Studio One in 1965, credited to Ken Booth & Stranger Cole (here). Boothe released his hit solo version of the song, produced by Phil Pratt, in 1970 (here).

In 1972 Lee 'Scratch' Perry produced his own interpretation of the 'Artibella' rhythm with The Upsetters, initially bringing in Milton Henry and Junior Byles to voice 'This World' over it and releasing the results under the moniker King Medious. Several further adaptations of the rhythm would follow.

Hot on the heels of the duet, Byles was back behind the vocal mic alone, creating his classic reading of 'Fever'. At around the same time, the song was also voiced to good effect by Susan Cadogan.

The versions poured out of the Black Ark. Here's Jah Lion with 'Hay Fever'.

Jah T voiced 'Lick the Pipe Peter', with Augustus Pablo's melodica accompaniment, though I prefer Pablo's instrumental 'Hot and Cold'.

There are more, but let's conclude this brief whistle-stop tour with a typically bonkers dubwise excursion on the 'Artibella' rhythm, 'Fever Grass Dub'.

Saturday Scratch #38 - A Fear of Flying

Have I mentioned that I hate flying? Over the years I've tried it drunk, sleep deprived and otherwise subdued, but the result is always the same - abject fear. Actually, that's not quite true. In the early 1990s, following my first few ventures skyward, I gained an unexpected measure of confidence. The flights thus far had been remarkably smooth, the on board entertainment distracting and terror minimal. Then, on perhaps my third or fourth trip out to visit my cousin in New York, I experienced one of those flights. Constant, violent, turbulence, akin to driving in a car, without suspension, over endless sleeping policemen, at full pelt, for about seven hours. There were tears, there was screaming, there was upchucking a gogo - and that was just the cabin crew.

Two weeks later, I was all set to fly home alone and found myself sitting next to a lovely old lady who was heading back to blighty after visiting her Daughter and meeting her Grandchild for the first time. We got chatting as the plane queued for a take- off slot and she told me how she'd experienced a new lease of life since the sad death of her husband, who hadn't really liked to travel. She'd flown to several European destinations over the previous couple of years, before taking on the long haul to America and found that she absolutely loved it. In fact she'd actually been flying around the States alone for over a month, before stopping in on her Daughter for the last ten days of her trip. She was 75 if she was a day and a quite remarkable lady.



I expressed my admiration for her achievements and somewhat shamefacedly mentioned the flight from hell that I'd endured two weeks earlier, which had left me an emotionally drained wreck for the first few days of my holiday. At this very moment the Captain's voice came over the intercom to inform us that we'd been cleared for take-off and the plane began to roll forwards. 'I just don't like flying...', I said '...and I particularly hate this bit' I muttered. As the engines roared and we began to hurtle down the runway, the old lady smiled and gave me a reassuring tap on the back of my hand, which clenched the arm rest with a vice like grip of pure fear. She then uttered the most ill-timed and least helpful phrase it's ever been my misfortune to hear. 'Don't worry young man, there's nothing we can do about it. If it's your time to go, it's your time to go'. The wheels left the ground. We were on our way home.


Here, from the 1975 LP 'Musical Bones', are The Upsetters, featuring the mighty trombone of Vin Gordon, with 'Fly Away'.

Saturday Scratch #34 - The Upsetters...and a bit of Dillinger

Swans are a common sight on the marshes around these parts, alone, or more commonly in pairs. While out walking one day early last summer, I stood silently for a full quarter of an hour watching one such pair in the early stages of constructing a nest, a little inland, by a riverside path. They displayed such co-operation and attention to detail - it was quite something to behold. Here's the thing though. Every now and again, if I'm lucky, I'll see swans in flight and they are invariably in a group. Why not as a pair, or solo, the way they live on the ground? Is it a social thing? Communal exercise perhaps? Just the other afternoon, while chopping wood, (does that make me sound like a great outdoorsman?) I heard the familiar sound, which always reminds me of the slow motion helicopters in the opening scenes of 'Apocalypse Now'. That unique whooping thwack of wings keeping ungainly bodies aloft. Then I saw them, seven majestic swans flying in formation across the garden and down towards the river. Breathtaking.

To my knowledge there are no black swans locally, I've certainly not seen any, but here's a shot of one I saw foraging around near Manningtree a few years ago. I wish I had photoshop on my laptop - I would've taken out the brick! The reason I mention black swans is that the record label Black Swan, popular for it's Ska output in the early 1960's, was briefly revived by parent company Island Records in 1976/77, and was an outlet for a small selection of Lee Perry productions. Around a dozen singles and a couple of LP's were issued before Black Swan shut up shop once again. The rekindled label's catalogue may have been slim, but the quality was high. Here, from the flip of George Faith's sublime cover of William Bell's 'To Be a Lover', are The Upsetters with 'Rastaman Shuffle'. Oh, and if you're wondering how exactly Dillinger's disembodied and out-of-sync toasting fits in with opening two minutes of the tune, well...it doesn't. Apparently Scratch would re-use blank tracks on previously recorded tape for financial reasons and in this case an unrelated section of 'Roots Train' somehow made it through to the final pressing.