Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

Hare & Hounds, Birmingham.
10th August 2011.

With riots on the streets of London and riots on the streets of Birmingham, after a day of mind numbingly inane work for very little monetary reward, and with BLACK DOG snapping at my brain telling me to give it all up and jack it all in, I needed something. Samuel Beckett said "I can't go on, I'll go on" - I decided to go with it.

There is a remedy I know of, a universal medicinal compound that can right most wrongs. It doesn't come in tablet or liquid form; you don't have to smoke it or inhale it either. And wait around long enough and sometimes it will come to you. The treatment is music - roots reggae rub-a-dub music - to be precise Easy Star All-Stars music. I decided to make my way thru' the rain and the wall to wall policing to the Hare & Hounds in Kings Heath Birmingham, hopeful that I might find a cure.

When I arrived at the H&H the resident locum Dr Brian Travers from the department of UB40 was holding sway. Administering his own brand of therapy to the assembled folk via the medium of the turntable. The room was smokey, the people were skanking. Soon I was feelin' IRIE (whatever that means).

10.00pm soon come and Easy Star All-Stars stepped thru' the crowded waiting room and began dispensing their universal medicinal compound. They opened with "Don't Stop The Music" from their latest (and first original LP) "First Light". Instantly my body began to feel the benefit. More was to come from their flighty, eclectically classy "First Light" LP - the slowburner title track "First Light" sung by Kirsty Rock and the big big TUNE "Something Went Wrong" as introduced and vocalised by Menny More.

The set segued meandered stopping at all Easy Star stations to date. "Time" from "DUB SIDE of the MOON"; "Karma Police" and "AIRBAG" from "RADIODREAD"; and "With a Little Help from My Friends" (sung by Ras I Ray), "A Day in the Life" "When I'm Sixty-Four" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (with Shelton Garner taking lead) from "Easy Star's Lonely Hearts Dub Band".

That Easy Star are one of the hardest working most consistently on it live bands in the world is incontestable. They are a collective in every sense of the word. Together they tread lightly, but carry a mighty TRUTH - Music is power.

As the last rhythms of "Money" from "DUB SIDE of the MOON" came to an end, the set, like my cure was complete. Marcia Griffiths OD said recently "music is not just entertainment fun & dance it's a message that you're sending to teach, educate and up lift". Easy Star All-Stars continue to tick all the boxes; but tonight, for me, in this week of national rank stupidity Easy Star's power to up-lift was the mightiest.

Click Here for "First Light" and remember.