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Author Topic: Thoughts on record production according to Lee Perry  (Read 21046 times)

RMoore

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Re: Thoughts on record production according to Lee Perry
« Reply #15 on: April 01, 2005, 02:55:21 AM »

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By the end of today, another day is gone forever. You will never get it back.
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RMoore

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Re: Thoughts on record production according to Lee Perry
« Reply #16 on: April 01, 2005, 03:02:41 AM »

Follow this link, scroll down and click on the Black Ark pic to the left and it will perform a slide show of some colour vid stills from the Ark circa late 70's:

http://www.jahtari.org/magazine/reggae-history/dub.htm

I have some of this footage somewhere on video - I think from a UK channel 4 reggae documentary...

BTW - in these stills I spot 2 x TEAC 4 tracks, one to the left of the desk and one in an enclosure off to the right, against the wall.

You catch a glimpse of the 4 x VU meters in one still, situated, appropriately, behind LP's butt,

Hmm, very interesting!!
For me that would help explain the mystery of how LP managed to get his later productions sounding so dense eg: submix to the other 4 track deck & keep overdubbing..

The sly old fox himself only refers to '4 track' in interviews so you'd naturally assume he meant ONE machine..
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People's Republic of Ryan

http://www.myspace.com/twilightcircus
 http://www.youtube.com/user/Ryonik
 
By the end of today, another day is gone forever. You will never get it back.
We must never let up for a second. Work harder at every single thing - Terry Manning

 You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take - Wayne Gretzky

RMoore

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Re: Thoughts on record production according to Lee Perry
« Reply #17 on: April 01, 2005, 03:05:11 AM »

Double post  sorry
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People's Republic of Ryan

http://www.myspace.com/twilightcircus
 http://www.youtube.com/user/Ryonik
 
By the end of today, another day is gone forever. You will never get it back.
We must never let up for a second. Work harder at every single thing - Terry Manning

 You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take - Wayne Gretzky

tombola

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Re: Thoughts on record production according to Lee Perry
« Reply #18 on: April 01, 2005, 04:53:10 AM »

Oh, OK. That 'recreation' of the Black Ark wasn't too accurate, then?

I saw LP playing live at Reading Festival one year, just before the Beastie Boys came out. He was wearing a hat covered CDs, and was very good, as far as I remember. Just MCing over backing tracks.

RMoore

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Re: Thoughts on record production according to Lee Perry
« Reply #19 on: April 01, 2005, 04:12:58 PM »

tombola wrote on Fri, 01 April 2005 11:53

Oh, OK. That 'recreation' of the Black Ark wasn't too accurate, then?

I saw LP playing live at Reading Festival one year, just before the Beastie Boys came out. He was wearing a hat covered CDs, and was very good, as far as I remember. Just MCing over backing tracks.


Well actually it looks pretty convincing & its well done..the desk is not the same, the decor and gear etc is not identical blah blah..
but its definitely has the look!

only now its on the web here & there with no explanation, a lot of people see it and THINK its in fact the real thing,

I always thought his CD attire was to somehow ward off evil / reflect bad vibes..but who knows what goes on in the mind of LSP!



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People's Republic of Ryan

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 http://www.youtube.com/user/Ryonik
 
By the end of today, another day is gone forever. You will never get it back.
We must never let up for a second. Work harder at every single thing - Terry Manning

 You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take - Wayne Gretzky

JackJohnston

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Re: Thoughts on record production according to Lee Perry
« Reply #20 on: April 01, 2005, 04:26:04 PM »

Quote:


One story (not confirmed [yet] by other parties involved) had Perry instigating himself and Chris Blackwell walking the perimiter of the studio property, dripping blood from fresh killed chickens along the entire property line.



Who doesn't. After that, you should make a little stuffed doll of each musician, just to make sure the performances are up to par.

Jack

RMoore

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Re: Thoughts on record production according to Lee Perry
« Reply #21 on: April 01, 2005, 04:41:30 PM »

<note: I view the writer's thoughts on DUB differently - namely, King TUBBY experimented and took it further than anyone else!..I think most would agree with me on that...but read on..>


Some call him a genius, others claim he's certifiably insane, a madman. Truth is, he's both, but more importantly, Lee Perry is a towering figure in reggae -- a producer, mixologist, and songwriter who, along with King Tubby, helped shape the sound of dub and made reggae music such a powerful part of the pop music world. Along with producing some of the most influential acts (Bob Marley & the Wailers and the Congos to name but two) in reggae history, Perry's approach to production and dub mixing was breathtakingly innovative and audacious -- no one else sounds like him -- and while many claim that King Tubby invented dub, there are just as many who would argue that no one experimented with it or took it further than did Lee Perry.

Born in the rural Jamaican village of St. Mary's in 1936, Perry began his surrealistic musical odyssey in the late '50s, working with ska man Prince Buster selling records for Clement "Coxsone" Dodd's Downbeat Sound System. Called "Little" Perry because of his diminutive stature (Perry stands 4'11"), he was soon producing and recording for Dodd at the center of the Jamaican music industry, Studio One. After a falling out with Dodd (throughout his career, Perry has a tendency to burn his bridges after he stopped working with someone), Perry went to work at Wirl Records with Joe Gibbs. Perry and Gibbs never really saw eye to eye on anything, and in 1968, Perry left to form his own label, called Upsetter. Not surprisingly, Perry's first release on Upsetter was a single entitled "People Funny Boy," which was a direct attack upon Gibbs. What is important about the record is that, along with selling extremely well in Jamaica, it was the first Jamaican pop record to use the loping, lazy, bass-driven beat that would soon become identified as the reggae "riddim" and signal the shift from the hyperkinetically upbeat ska to the pulsing, throbbing languor of "roots" reggae.  

From this point through the 1970s, Perry released an astonishing amount of work under his name and numerous, extremely creative pseudonyms: Jah Lion, Pipecock Jakxon, Super Ape, the Upsetter, and his most famous nom de plume, Scratch. Many of the singles released during this period were significant Jamaican (and U.K.) hits, instrumental tracks like "The Return of Django," "Clint Eastwood," and "The Vampire," which cemented Perry's growing reputation as a major force in reggae music. Becoming more and more outrageous in his pronouncements and personal appearance (when it comes to clothing, only Sun Ra can hold a candle to Perry's thrift-store outfits), Perry and his remarkable house band, also named the Upsetters, worked with just about every performer in Jamaica. It was in the early '70s after hearing some of King Tubby's early dub experiments that Perry also became interested in this form of aural manipulation. He quickly released a mind-boggling number of dub releases and eventually, in a fit of creative independence, opened his own studio, Black Ark.

It was at Black Ark that Perry recorded and produced some of the early, seminal Bob Marley tracks. Using the Upsetters rhythm section of bassist Aston "Familyman" Barrett and his drummer brother Carlton Barrett, Perry guided the Wailers through some of their finest moments, recording such powerful songs as "Duppy Conqueror" and "Small Axe." The good times, however, were not long, especially after Perry, unbeknown to Marley and company, sold the tapes to Trojan Records and pocketed the cash. Island Records head Chris Blackwell quickly moved in and signed the Wailers to an exclusive contract, leaving Perry with virtually nothing. Perry accused Blackwell (a white Englishman) of cultural imperialism and Marley of being an accomplice. For years, Perry referred to Blackwell as a vampire, and accused Marley of having curried favor with politicians in order to make a fast buck. These setbacks did not stem the tide of Perry releases, be they of new material or one of a seemingly endless collection of anthologies. Perry was also expanding his range of influence, working with the Clash, who were huge Perry fans, having covered the Perry-produced version of Junior Murvin's classic "Police and Thieves." Perry was brought in to produce some tracks for the Clash, but the results were remixed more to the band's liking.  

All this hard work was wreaking havoc with Perry's already fragile mental state, leading to a breakdown. The stories of his mental instability were exacerbated by tales of massive substance abuse (despite his public stance against all drugs except sacramental ganja), which reportedly included regular ingestion of cocaine and LSD; one potentially apocryphal story even had Perry drinking bottles of tape head-cleaning fluid. But these stories, as with much surrounding Perry, blur fact and fiction. One story that was true was that Black Ark, and everything in it, burned to the ground. Perry claims bad wiring as the culprit, but the more familiar and commonly accepted story is that Perry burned the studio down in a fit of acid-inspired madness, convinced that Satan had made Black Ark his home. Whatever the case, the site of Perry's greatest moments as a producer had been reduced to (and remains) a pile of rubble and ash. Soon after the fire that consumed Black Ark, Perry, increasingly fed up with the music business in Jamaica (which by all accounts is corruption personified), decided to leave Jamaica.

Despite the considerable lows in his career, Perry remained busy and, so it seemed, reasonably happy. Although he was less in demand as a producer, his solo work remained very strong, and his continuing influence could be felt in the contemporary dub music of the Mad Professor (another former Perry prot
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People's Republic of Ryan

http://www.myspace.com/twilightcircus
 http://www.youtube.com/user/Ryonik
 
By the end of today, another day is gone forever. You will never get it back.
We must never let up for a second. Work harder at every single thing - Terry Manning

 You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take - Wayne Gretzky
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