Sunday
I have a few test pressings, and I have been trying to obtain
information about them, such as how many are made and howthey are
obtained.
Test pressings are the very first records pressed from a
"mother"disc, therefore they have the highest sound
quality. Companies usually use one mother disc for entire run of
vinyl. Quality would then obviously suffer down the line.
I tried writing a mother in law joke back a few chapters ago, My
friend Nelson Vinikor Esq., Lawyer and a
standup-comedian-want-to-be, did me one better. "If
they made marriage illegal, would my in Laws be Outlaws?"
One of the most honest stories I ever heard was by Lynn
Cason. Lynn is another reggae Lover, and has wanted the
"Bedroom Tapes" for years. Roger Steffans was over her
house visiting, and I guess let her listen to them. He
left, and was in his car about to drive away, and she noticed
that the Bedroom tape was still in her tape deck. She ran
out to Roger and returned the tape. (Obviously without copying
it.) I believe she received 2 "do -wop" cassettes
as a reward,
Sometimes I feel that this is a column about Roger. A Roger
story I love, involves a Mutabaurka quote (BTW I met Muta at a
Steel Pulse Concert at Pier 84 years If Marley fart, Roger has it
on tape."
I was listening again to the Marley/Jacob Miller interview at the
St. Martin Airport, and the reporter asked Bob if Ganja affects
his throat and makes him hoarse. Bob replied "that he
liked having a hoarse/ruff voice, and didn't like that high clean
neat voice he had sometimes" (paraphrasing)
Monday
There is a lot I could write today, but don't feel like it.
The Hospital gave the patients Father's Day napkins with a nice
poem on it, and the NY times (Arts and Entrainment section) had
an article on the Beatles, and discussed obsessive collectors.
Tuesday
Here is a excerpt from
the NY Times, which sounds familiar to us Wailers collectors:
... "the Australian 45 r.p.m. reissue of "I Want
to Hold Your Hand," has a stereo mix with centered vocals
(the British and American mixes put the vocals to one side), or
the latest rarity, a British trix number XEX 606-1 printed into
the runout groove of side two. That disk includes an
otherwise unavailable mix of "Tomorrow Never Knows,"
which was replaced with the common
version only a few hours into the press run."
The Times then makes a comparion to Beethoven collectors to
Beatles collecotrs:
"If you visit the Beethoven Geburtshaus (house), in Bonn,
you can peer into glass display cases at ear trumpets, eyeglasses
and personal effects preserved with fetishistic care. You
can also examine manuscript pages, full of ink blots and
crossed-out sections. In these and in Beethoven's
sketchbooks, one can follow surprisingly mundane themes as they
are reworked and transformed into the "Eroica" and
other titanic works.
For the Beatles, alternative mixes and unreleased recordings -
concerts, BBC radio performances and raw session tape, traded
clandestinely or sold on bootlegs-are the sketches that fill out
their creative history. Granted, some mixing oddities are
interesting merely because they have an extra "woo"
before the fadeout of the stereo mix if
"Slow Down". Mostly, though, the attraction of these
outtake Beatle recordings are that they let us in , on the
choices that went into creating some of the greates pop
recordings ever made"
The Times article then states"
Bootleggers have been muddying the historical waters by using
such components to make new alternative "Versions." In
this they are taking a cure from Anthology "sets, in which
several outtakes were combined to create a new version in a
triumph of cosmetics, over histroricity.
These concoctions, are called "outfakes."
Neville Garrick told me that the original cover for Uprising was
something like 5 circles, with different pictures in each circle.
Neville doesn't remember what happened to the original
artwork. He either gave it away or sold it. Neville
also mentioned that someone incorrectly said they were
responsible (I can't remember whom) for the concept of Bob and
his locks arising from earth.
This segues to the idea of "keepers of things" Vs
"non keepers of things." (Holder on's Vs.
NonHolder ons) For the Freudian bunch among us this is known as
Anal retentive. Some people like to save things. My wife
has a collection of different waters from around the world. Roger
Steffans wife collects Pez dispensers. I still have all my
old report cards, and my wife still has locks of my kids
here, I mention this because of Neville's comment that he
does not keep any of his old artwork.
I just saw the most extraordinary TV show on the educational
channel about a new album by Robbie Robertson of the Band, He
recorded a CD with Native American Indians. All I can say
is that the music was wonderful. I have a pretty short
attention span, but this program and music held my interest. I
can't wait to buy this CD, which is very atypical for me, since I
am pretty fixed in my musical tastes.
About 20 years ago, I worked as a Physician for the Cheyenne
River Sioux tribe in Eagle Butte South Dakota. This experience
obviously was unforgettable. I went to real a POW Wow, took
a drive to Mount Rushmore and prevented an Indian from dying of a
Suicide Attempt.
A few years ago my family and myself went to Montazumas's Castle
in Arizona, and Chaco in New Mexico. If you ever have a
chance to travel, don't miss these places. They are almost
as good as Luxor or the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.
Anyway getting to the point of the article, if you are into World
Music, I think you would enjoy this CD.
Wednesday
Here is one of my family Home pages.
http://www.visualcities.com/Vacation
One of the founders of Reggae Recording was Chin Randy of
Jamaica, He started the record label Randys and recorded Peter
Tosh as well. About a year ago, I hooked up with Clive
Chin, One of Chin Randy's sons and he invited Alon
Katz and me to his house to visit and see his records. He
allowed us to go thru his stacks of records (LP's and 45's )
downstairs in the basement. We didn't find anything
increadable like Little Green Apples, or any super Tosh
rare stuff from his father, but we did have fun going thru the
stacks of records.
I found U Roys' album where he DJ's over Chalawa's Exodus
Rhythms album. I also obtained a Pecker and the Wailers album
among others. We paid a nominal fee to purchase the records. He
had one of those Marley burlap bags from Rastaman Vibration
framed on the wall, but the price was over my head.
Thursday
I want to apoligize for any
spelling mistakes or errors in grammer. I'm not sure
how James edits or posts this page.
Friday
I know that I am running out
of cool stuff to write about. I'm starting to scrape the bottom
of the barrel.
About 3 years ago I went to Glen Adams apartment and he had a few
canisters of undeveloped home movies. He mentioned that one
of them had a home movie of the Wailers at Max's Kansas City in
NY. He gave me the film canisters, and I brought them to the
local photography store. I asked them to if the could develop
them and transfer them to a VHS format. They said that the
chemicals were no longer available. The were very reluctant
to try, but I sort of asked them to try anyway, they weren't too
optimist, but they would give it a shot.
I returned a week later and they said that there was nothing on
one of the rolls (blank),I brought the film rolls to another
store and asked when if they could help. They transferred one to
VHS, and the other they said was blank.
I nervously took the developed one home and played it on the VCR.
It started off with an incredibly grainy blurry home movie of a
building on fire, then a few men of African descent in a
store. I was a bit excited that maybe these were home movies
of the Wailers in NY. If I used my imagination, one of the
men looked like Marley and another looked like Tosh,
the quality of the film was terrible, barely visible, but
any barely visible movies from 73 is better than no movies of the
Wailers, I tried all types of editing the video, used my
snappy contraption to make some jpgs.
I though I might have gotten a few frames of the Wailers
faces, I tried lightening them, darkening them, cutting
them, cropping them to enhancing the pictures. I finally I
had a few shots of the guys in the home movies that at least
looked like people. I got a copy of the movie back to glen and he
said they were they guys in the film store in Manhattan who were
demonstrating to Glen how to use the camera, Boy, was that a
disappointment.
As far as the movies of the Wailers at Max's was concerned, Glen
Adams was filming them and Chris Blackwell asked Glen to turn off
his camera.
Anyway the developing chemicals are no longer available, I asked
my Children's baby sitters, sister, Nancy, who works for Nikon,
if she had an any connections. She said that her company four
times a year makes special solutions for this type of film and
will see what she could do, A few months later she heard they
were unsuccessful, It's been a year now, so I have essentially
given up. Oh well, it was a good try.
Saturday
I've been growing a beard now for 5 days. Everybody hates
it, but I want to see how it looks. It used to be red in College,
and I want to see how gray it is now. I've also been working like
a dog, so by not shaving, I am saving my energy nad time
for my patients. Mucho expenses coming up like 3 new computers
for my office, malpractice insurance and my sons' Bar
Mitzvah. I figure that I spend 15 minutes every day
shaving, and that I could devote that time to patient
care. It's also summer here, so maybe I will think I'm on
vacation, if I don't shave.
Did anybody see Queen Noor of Jordan on Larry King this week? I
do not think I have ever heard a more articulate, compassionate
and intelligent women in my life.
Sunday
Roger told me that I "won the prize for traveling the
longest distance for the shortest amount of time."
I thought I would mention what it was like to visit Rogers
house in '98. One enters a lovely Califnoria house, with
1970ish mirrors on the left. Roger's prized
piece is an autographed poster of essentially everybody who
ever was involved with Bob. The upstairs is basically a normal
nice house, with very no obvious relics pertaining to Bob
around. Then one goes downstairs and walks into a
den.
Well, basically everywhere one looks, there is a reference
to reggae. One walks down the steps where the entire walls are
filled with reggae posters and framed reggae paper items.
(No Gold records.) I think we should forget the walls for this
article. When one looks to the left, there is table with
hundreds of scattered tapes and paper material, in various stages
of being catalogued and organized. By the left wall is a
table of lots scattered reggae related items. You can tell
that these items are actively being worked on (such as sorting,
being listend to, or being filed).
Straight ahead is Roger's computer, a three-year-old model with
few frills, on which he helped create the CD-ROM part of
"Soul Almighty") that includes one of those Marley
mouse pads, On the floor are about a dozen thick padded
manilla envelopes, obviously trades in progress. His waste
paper basket is filled with red cellophane wrappers of tapes that
have been copied........... To be continued....
Roger's respsonse to the above chapter:
WE HAVE DONE EXTENSIVE WORK UPSTAIRS, AND ALL OF THE BUILDER'S
ORIGINAL CATHOUSE GOLD FLECKED MIRRORS ARE GONE. THE STEPS
DOWNSTAIRS ARE LINED WITH FRAMED REGGAE ART REACHING ONLY TO THE
LEVEL OF THE FIRST FLOOR. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO MARLEY PRESENCE
UPSTAIRS EXCEPT FOR THE SIGNED POSTER IN THE PHONE ALCOVE, HIDDEN
FROM DIRECT SIGHT. IT IS THE COMPROMISE THAT MY PATIENT WIFE MARY
AGREED UPON, SINCE MY OCCUPATION OF NEARLY ALL OF DOWNSTAIRS
PROCEEDS UNABATED.
Thanks, roger
Monday
Slightly edited and approved by Ras RoJah :-)
On the left wall hangs a large Marley cloth sarong from Bali,
Indonesia, with amusing misspellings (Concr Jungle and Tatch A
Fire).
When walking downstairs, and looking right, one recognizes the
hanging piece of fabric on the wall with Bob's picture on it that
was used as the background of the Danny Sims interview from JAD's
enhanced CD-ROM. In the far left corner are two custom-made wood
cabinets specifically designed to hold 5000 tapes, separated by
two shelves holding another thousand tapes. In its top four
drawers of the Wailers cabinet are Marley shows and other Marley
tapes, one or two of which I recognized as being obtained from
me. (Good feeling.)
Basically everywhere you look are Marley/Tosh/Bunny or reggae
posters.
One could easily spend hours transcribing the collectable paper
items mounted on the walls, such as the poster from the One Love
Concert, a hand-drawn cartoon by Matt Groening of the Simpsons TV
show, an original "Hammer" Tosh poster, etc. There is a
multi-colored paper crown Roger's wife Mary made for Tosh,
inscribed with all the lyrics to "Legalize It," a
towel sold by Rita Marley and so forth and so on. (There is a
story behind everything)
Let's leave the den, because one could literally write days on
the acquisitions in this room. Adjoining it is a small room with
a refrigerator filled with refreshments for the various visitors
who constantly stream through. This chamber contains the bulk of
Roger's cd collection of several thousand albums, as well as
about a thousand hours of video tapes, including most of the
episodes of his long-running cable tv show, "L.A.
Reggae." This part of Roger's house was more interesting on
my previous visit there, before it was organized. It used
to be a small storage room. I remember that Roger pulled
out a box of magazines with Marley's picture on the cover.
Now I have been around and saving Marley stuff for a while, and
have seen a lot of publications, but a whole box of magazines
with Marley on the cover that I haven't seen? (Many were from
Europe.) There used to be lots of newspaper items and other
miscellaneous Reggae items in this room, now it's neat and tidy.
One does an about face and crosses back to the side of the stair
case facing the sliding doors of a closet, which holds tens of
thousands of slides in sheets, and boxes of prints.
Push Bob's elbow on a towel decorated with Marley's wedding
picture, and a secret door gives way to the Reggae Decompression
Chamber, lined with hundreds of buttons and photographs and
posters. A door on the left leads to a very interesting room, the
Reggae Cave. Roger's house is built on a steep hill, so the
ground/boulders are on a 45 degree angle. Here Roger has
very interesting items such as a huge canvas banner advertising a
Jimmy Cliff concert in Negril, and a stack of Marley posters and
artwork. I guess people have been sending Roger lithographs for
years.
These chapters of my Journal have been read and annotated by
Roger. (THE CAPITALIZED REMARKS.) You're a might keen observer,
my friend. One Love,
Roger
We are in a short hallway heading to the "Mother Load"
storage room. We have only reached the half way mark in
Roger's Reggae Archives. We already passed the Marley tapes, and
lots of miscellaneous reggae items. We passed the cave on
the left (I'm sure this area will be upgraded in the future)
UNFORTUNATELY IT CAN'T BECAUSE IT'S GOT CREOSOTE ON THE WALLS, A
KNOWN CARCINOGEN, AND WE CANNOT BY LAW TURN IT IN TO ANOTHER
ROOM. SHUCKS. BUT IT'S GOTTEN MORE FILLED THAN EVER IN THE PAST
MONTHS, AS I'VE ADDED ANOTHER TWO HUNDRED T-SHIRTS IN BOXES TO
THE STASH IN THERE
We push the door and enter what Roger calls the Reggae
Decompression Chamber. I remember that he asked my family to
"please step to the rear of the chamber!" We joked
around like it was one of those rides in Disneyland where the
room doesn't move, but you think it is.
Anyway in this area is an unbelievable amount of Reggae Buttons,
I would guess about 1000. The opposite wall is loaded with
a smaller collection of memorabilia, such as snapshots.
There is a picture of Lord Buckley, a picture of Roger's father
etc. We pass a collection of interviews which have been
alphabetized, an unsorted box of Ziggy related items from Japan,
and a box of Bob Marley clippings.
I THINK YOU'RE FORGETTING THE ROOM TO THE RIGHT, THE REGGAE
LIBRARY, WHERE THE TEN FOUR DRAWER FILE CABINETS AND THE BOXES
AND BOXES OF UNSORTED CLIPPINGS ARE FOUND.
I have this tour on video so to refresh my memory I have watched
and transcribed it. At this time my son asked Roger about
his collecting and he responded that he collects "anything
to do with Reggae." We finally enter the best
room. Roger mentioned that four Lithuanian refugees lived
in that room before he bought the house.
Tuesday
Well, we made it to the main room. The heart of the
Archives is a moderately sized room (I'm not good at dimensions),
with wall to wall Reggae.
As one walks into the room on the left is a Marley/Reggae
Library. I'll guess there were over a hundred books, in all
languages. Most I have seen, but there were some new ones.
I saw one I traded to Roger, and song book by the Wailers, in
Japanese. On the walls are Marley clocks, posters, bumper
stickers, decals, and autographed items. I saw the Jamaican
Barbie Doll that I traded to Roger, (with a picture of Bob on the
back) Roger mentioned that, that item was one of the most talked
about items in the archive.
On the floor is a framed newspaper story autographed by Bob, when
Roger met him. ( By this time my family was getting edgy,
we still had to see all of California in 3 days, and my purpose
of visiting Roger was to trade.)
Retracting our steps, as one enters the room, straight ahead are
the non Wailers singles collection. Dozens and dozens of A.
Ellis singles, and so on. If the other room would take days
to document the items in it, this room would take months. On a
shelf, over the singles are an uncut sheet of Marley trading
cards.
My wife asked Roger if he arranged his albums alphabetically, and
his response was that he did it chronologically, by dates of
release.
On the same wall as the singles, is Rogers mother load of Regae
tapes, another 6000!!!!!! The tapes are arranged as
follows. Drawers of Demos, Drawers of all the Sunsplash
shows starting from 78, and draws of The 400 Reggae Beat Radio
shows.
Each tape has a similar label, for easier filing.
If one does a 360 in this room, one sees thousands of Reggae
artifacts. Believe it or not, I never even had time to look
in any of the special draws that hold the Wailers singles.
Roger showed me old snap shots of Bob taken in Georgia, by
Ives. (He was the man, Bob told that he would die at age
36, I failed to mention that in the Reggae Decompression Chamber
that there was an original Lee Perry ripped torn cassette that I
believe held the song "Babylon feel this one." In
the main reggae room, there is an autographed Lee Perry single
with incoherent writing, (Brack... ?) as well as Russian
Flexi discs. Roger pointed out to me his face in the audience,
from the cover of a Reggae Sunsplash album. (The guy with
his mouth open)
On the right hand wall, when one enters the "mother
load" room are the LP's and 12 inch singles. Roger has them
arranged by Bunny, Tosh and Bob, each in chronological
order. He has a section of albums he wrote the liner notes
on as well and then there is all the rest of the albums.
And so ends the nonvirtual tour of the Archives.
Wednesday
I was thinking of working on a
floor plan of Rogers Archives, but do not know if I can post it
to this site. If one looks on page 6 of the 17th Annual Bob
Marley and the Wailers collector's Edition of the Beat Magazine,
(the newest), one can see a small picture of the Decompression
area. If one looks on page 8 of the 16th Annual Collector's
edition of the Beat Magazine
on page 8, there is a picture of the main Archive room.
While I'm at it, I was thinking of describing what it's like to
go into my attic, where I have built about at least a dozen small
rooms to help me get organized. But without a floor plan it would
be impossible to describe, with all the little nooks and
crannies. I once made a video of a tour through my attic,
and sent it to Lynne Cason, who said that the video made her
nauseated, due to all the motion, rooms and turning.
Thursday
I thought I would write again
about an interesting time I had with Glen Adams. We went to
a few record shops in Brooklyn looking for some rare
singles. This next vignette occurs within about a 5 minute
time period. Glen points to a guy standing on the corner,
and says, want to meet Jimmy London? Of course I said
sure. Then we went into the corner record store, and Glen
says hello to U. Brown, who was also shopping in the store.
I purchased a few of his singles and ask him to sign them.
We leave the store and Glen waves to Philip Fraser, and we cross
the street and talk with him a bit.
I felt that if I stayed on that corner, this could go on all day.
Unfortunately we had other things to do, so we moved on.
I wonder if Peter Tosh might call Roger's "quasi
museum" the Ark Hives?
Friday
I 'd like to write a bit about
meeting Sir Coxsone Dodd. (AKA Coxsone)
I knew I was going to visit the Muzik City record shop, about 2
years ago, below the J train, so I packed up some singles to get
autographed, just in case Mr. Dodd was there. Glen Adams
and I were going to Coxsone's store so I brought about 20 white
label repressing and doubles to get signed for various
acquaintances.
We walked into a typically looking Reggae record store, with
albums everywhere. There were the usual stacks of Boxes of
repressings behind the counter, And there is Sir Coxsone AKA
Clement Seymour Dodd, sitting, looking just the way I imagined he
would. (Even with his cap on) I made some small talk, asked him
to sign about 1/2 dozen Wailers singles, then gave him a
break. In a "close out box" of singles, there
were loose white labels, with version printed on it, from 45's. I
asked him if I could have some, and he agreed.
One thing I learned years ago, was always spend some money in
Reggae stores, just to support business. I found a few
repressings, that interested me. I believe that there were
not any Wailers singles in the store.
I was hoping, as every collector wishes, that I would find reels
of old tapes, and boxes of old singles. That didn't
happen. Thanks to Glen, I was able to go behind the
counter, and behind a wall, to check out the boxes of
singles. I still did not find any "One Cup of Coffees'
'or "Judge Nots." ;-)
I asked Mr. Dodd, AKA Sir Coxsone Down Beat, to autograph a few
more of his singles, and he kindly agreed, (I figured this was a
once in a life time opportunity for me). I asked if they had any
annual wall Calendars left, which they did not. I can't
remember if I caught this episode of my life on video or
not. I was allowed to go to the back of the shop, where the
recording studio was. I met Mr. Dodd, his wife and
daughter. I was wondering what it would like to record
there.
-----------------------------------------
I am very sorry to hear about Dennis Brown's death. He
never lost his roots.
------------------------------------------
My family and I just returned from the South Park Movie, it was
great!!!!!!!!!!! Society really is decaying.
Saturday
This site allows one to find
out which musical group will be on TV.
http://www.rockontv.com/index.html?allstar
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