top ten albums - no. 3

Dear Sheddists,

our third visit to the record racks takes us to the much sunnier climes of Jamaica.

I was vaguely aware of Jamaican music as a child through early ska hits on the UK Trojan label - the likes of  'Liquidator' by the Harry J Allstars, 'Double Barrel' by Dave and Ansell Collins and 'Al Capone' by Prince Buster - but it was John Peel's fabulous Top Gear Show on Radio 1 that really turned me on to it.

Reggae, like most other established musical forms, is fragmented into a bewildering myriad of sub-genres from rock-steady to ragga. It was, however, dub that really caught my attention.  

I had never heard anything remotely like it before - the hissing hi-hat cymbals, pounding bass, smoky echoed vocals and fractured piano runs that emerged from nowhere only to disappear the very next moment.  I simply had to explore this further.

At first my dub play-list was put together through the medium of a make-shift home-studio. This comprised an Akai twin tape-deck, an FM radio and pillows for sound baffles. It proved surprisingly successful, and two or three times a night I would leap up to press the 'record' button as the latest white label from Jamaica hit the Top Gear airwaves.

I found myself in need of harder stuff and the very first dub album I managed to track down in a local record store was 'Dubbing With the Observer' by the Observer All Stars. Based largely on rhythms showcased by Dennis Brown it's a classic in its own right.

Notwithstanding the strong claims of this album to a place in my top ten I've chosen instead 'King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown' by Augustus Pablo, a masterpiece in the art of dub.  His trademark melodica blows delicate and haunting Far Eastern scales across the entirety of the record.

I have an original Jamaican pressing of this record on the Yard Music label, complete with details on the back cover of the distribution centre at 15 Tangerine Place, Kingston from which it was sold.  Needless to say, it takes pride of place in my vinyl collection.

Here's the title track - don't forget to turn it up loud!

the model

Dear Sheddists,

the results from the latest session of the superb Photography Course I currently attend appear earlier in the Shed. However, in fairness I thought I should share with you also my auspicious return to the exotic world of glamour modelling.

It is a closely guarded secret that my nascent career as a swimwear model was cut cruelly short on location several years ago by the intervention of a troupe of marauding Japanese tourists sporting freshly sharpened harpoons and blubbering a massed rank close-harmony Barbershop rendition of 'Whale Meat Again'.  Their pitiful shrieks live with me to this day as I fled screaming down the sun-kissed sands of a remote tropical beach clad in naught but a fetching pair of translucent budgie-smugglers and with my new acquaintances in hot pursuit.

Accordingly, it was with no little trepidation earlier this week that I accepted an invitation from our Course Tutor, Miss Kate, and stepped forward to assume the position.  Our theme for the night was Studio Shots and the glare of the solitary barn-door lamp beckoned. There was work to be done!

Pausing only to hoist my empire-line trews to a gusset-wrenching full pennant I strode forth toward the chair carefully positioned by Miss Kate in front of a black back-drop.  With the benefit of hindsight how I wished I had taken the time to ensure the complicated corsetry that now holds my substantial frame in place was properly secured and tensioned. Nonetheless, duty called.

I duly straddled the vacant seat in a vague and faintly unconvincing reconstruction of the infamous pose struck by Christine Keeler astride a counterfeit Arne Jacobson chair. If memory serves me right (which all too often sadly fails to be the case these days) the pictures were taken by the late Australian photographer, Lewis Morley.

The re-enactment failed miserably to impress my fellow students. Stifling a collective yawn several members of the class rummaged through camera bags in search of a wide-angled lens capable of capturing my magisterial form in all its tawdry, bloated immensity.  Miss Kate, sensing imminent mutiny, strode purposefully across the room to the nearest I-mac, declaring that music was the answer. Something to get us all in a better frame of mind.

A smile flickered briefly across my light-seared features as I imagined fondly the opening strains of Miles Davis' modal jazz masterpiece, 'Kind of Blue', or perhaps even the delicate filigree beauty of an early Augustus Pablo minor-key dub. But no, Miss Kate's choice was 'Girls on Film' by the lamentable Brummie new-romantics, Duran Duran. This, a song so redolent of cheap antiperspirant and raging pheremones that it could be bottled and marketed to neophyte girls fresh out of white knee-socked penury as the very essence of  'Christmas School Disco 1981'. Even now I shudder to think of it.

I am, however, nothing if not a trier.  Summoning up my very best modelling smile (described succinctly by one of my compatriots as a cheery take on Edvard Munch's, 'The Scream') I boldly kicked one leg in the air and shook an imaginary straw boater in time to the froth and babble of 'Girls on Film'.  It was then I realised to my horror something was amiss.

'Hold it there!' cried Miss Kate as my left leg reached its apex.  If only!

A random strap of webbing had made its escape from the subcutaneous layers of corsetry hidden deep beneath my shirt and was by now attached to the barn-door lamp which illuminated the chair. Those familiar with Newton's Third Law of Physics will recall that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This did indeed prove to be the case as the upward trajectory of my leg was  balanced neatly by a tightening of the errant webbing attached to the lamp. Of course, something had to give.

I heard the clicking of camera buttons followed in turn by a sickening 'twang' as the elasticated webbing gave way, propelling the lamp, the chair and my corpulent form across to the opposite side of the room. Suddenly, everything went dark...

As always, mrs electrofried rose to the occasion. Having been forewarned of the events of the night she was there to greet me on my return to the House with a comforting mug of warm Horlicks and a slice of her legendary Lemon Drizzle.  'There, there dear ... I'm sure it will all turn out right in the end.'

Yours in some discomfort,

electrofried(mr)