A month later than the last posting here we have Traffic Jam in full effect – this time the only thing that’s sped up is the chat, as was the craze of the day. A well-oiled Arrows International crew take turns to show off their freestyle lyrical prowess and vocal skill over a Federal selection. In the area: Snarky, Professor Nuts, Shakademus, Cutty Ranks.
The fact my beloved DBC Rebel Radio had been shut down, and Lepke the station manager arrested, was definitely a contributory factor to my decision to move to the USA in 1983. The door having been opened, however, a flood of new stations, mostly based in South London, sprang up. Someone gave me this tape, a wander around the dial from 1987, which includes KISS and Traffic Jam. You’ll observe parts of the latter are massively sped up, the likely explanation for this is that they, like DBC before them, employed the “plant the cassette player and transmitter on the tower block and retire to a safe distance” method, and those cheap cassette players were notoriously erratic.
Back in 1982 bread and butter for the DBC – Dread Broadcasting Corp. – were sponsored programs by the likes of Harlesden record distros Starlite and Orbitone, again presented with flair by the Ranking Miss P. Here are few fragments that have survived the ages thanks to Ms Mandi Newall of NYC who taped them off the air back in the day.
Amongst the very first streams that went out on streamola, and then run on repeat for it’s entire existence, was a selection of the Better Badges sponsored London reggae pirate DBC – the Dread Broadcasting Corp. – from the beginning of the 80s. One of the best loved features of that station were the lover’s rock selections by the sweet-voiced DJ known as the Ranking Miss P., who later went on to reach an international audience via the BBC World Service. This one’s just a brief snippet of the lady in action in her DBC prime.
It was shortly after I first started streaming the old Dread Broadcast Corp. programming that I first encountered Ras Kush via some NYC club website in 1999. I was amazed, in amongst the techno, house, etc, to discover a selecter playing all Wackies music, so much beloved by the D.B.C. back in the day. With some difficulty I made contact and, after some delay, Ras Kush eventually showed up on my door. It turned out he was freshly returned from Japan. Wackies had just, via the offices of Ras Takashi, formed a Far East Chapter, and Black Redemption Sound had been called upon to visit and wave the musical flag. Ras Kush gave me a tape of one of the Japanese sessions and that became the first of many of his sessions to grace the streamola bitwaves.
My Yahoo ID WWWhatsup was universally abbreviated to plain WWW by the Yahoo Rasta Club. I used to quite often stream live spontaneously in the late evening and this is just such a session, from a warm summer’s night in 1999.
Ari Up was booked to DJ at a Haiti Benefit at Le Poisson Rouge on Feb 4 2010 and invited me down to help out. Very dodgy start with a slippery turntable mat, but after that we were fine – assisted by a buoyant Jamaican known as Mad Scientist who had some great selections & proceeded to give a dynamic dance demo on the floor, joined by Chloe Sevigny’s date David.
Selecter Bernard is a young associate of Black Redemption Sound hailing from the Garden State. He contributed this mix which went out on Streamola’s Reggae Vibes channel in October 1999.
Not sure where this one came from – Manwel perhaps – but it’s Italian sound system One Love Hi Powa playing out in Hamburg, Germany on 7/31/98.
Again thanks to The Dubologist for this recording, I believe from the same Wetlands show as the Lee Scratch Perry previously posted – 6/14/99. It’s a monster session with Neil throwing in dub, techno, jungle, and anything else he can lay his hands on!
