Two great sides of a 12″ by The Gladiators with Evil Doers and Pocket Money and an additional version by the great U-Roy. Trying to rack our brains which charity shop in the midlands in the long long past we found it in.
And talking of U-Roy, here’s the great man talking about King Tubby and his electronic and pirate radio wizzardry near the end of a track by Lapa called the 45th Parallel.
A few tunes for this cold, dark night. The first was heard on Monday morning at 7.15 while on the way to work feeling very cold and miserable. Out of the blue comes the familiar bassline of Coco Tea’s Lonesome Side blasting out of the pushbike soundsytem of the guy who rides on the pavement on his way to and from work in Brockley who pumps out a varied selection of tunes (Disco, Funk and Reggae). Big up the Brockley pavement-riding pushbike soundsystem bloke!
The second, Ranking Joe‘s Natty General as heard on last week’s David Rodigan show when he did a history of the “General” Rhythm. There’s a lovely dub on this cut with some serious filtering/knob twiddling around the 4.20 mark and some heavy baseline business. Tune!
Sounds from The South10 – Never mind the Council Our contribution to The Dirt this week is about meeting a couple of those Sex Pistols fellows while working as a council gardener in West London in the 1980’s. Tune of the week is from the great U-Roy&The Gladiators called Natty Rebel.
Have a listen on play again when it’s up later this week (5th October show) here (Sounds from The South is usually around 10 minutes in), alongside more gardening related stuff including funerals, morrisons, squashes and a tale about one of The Smiths. Cheers again to Si, Ricky and Paul!
That’s just reminded me, years ago I was told by a bloke who I doing an apprenticeship with (who wasn’t the full shilling on thinking back) that his brother was a mechanic who got a call one day in December 1977 to a coach that was carrying a famous rock band that had broken down on the motorway just outside Coventry.
He told me that when his brother went to fix the coach on the hard shoulder, it was the Sex Pistols and that all the band and their entourage were all dressed in “normal” clothes (flares, star jumpers and hair like Noel Edmonds etc) and all the punk stuff was “just an act.” Briliant, this rates as one of the best stories I’ve ever been told! But please don’t tell that to the dog-collared fashionista I seen at London Bridge station the other morning.
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