Cool And Deadly

Jean 'Binta' Breeze, Jamaican dub poet and storyteller, died a couple of days ago aged sixty five. Jean's poetry took her around the world, her performances described as 'a one woman festival'. Her 1991 album Tracks was produced by Linton Kwesi Johnson and Dennis Bovell, a proper pair of UK dub/ poetry heavyweights, and opened with this- forty nine seconds of street smart, earthy, Jamaican poetry.

Dubwise

If you're anything like me the first time you'll have heard this poem (or two excerpts from it) will have been on this record also released in 1991 where Andrew Weatherall sampled Jean and sent Saint Etienne and Neil Young to dubbed out splendour. 

Only Love Can Break Your Heart (A Mix Of Two Halves By Andrew Weatherall)

''The DJ eases a spliff from his lyrical lips and smilingly orders... 'cease' ''

RIP Jean 'Binta' Breeze

Isolation Mix Three

It's over halfway through April already. The weeks seem to be flying by even though some of the days seem very long. This is Isolation Mix Three. I thought I'd do something different from the ambient, blissed out, opiated sounds of the first two mixes and this mix is something that I first wrote about doing in a post here about three years ago. This is an hour and three minutes of spoken word and poetry and music. Andrew Weatherall features in various guises and with various poets, the Beat Generation and The Clash are represented, there's some reggae and the unmistakable voice of John Cooper Clarke.

Jack Kerouac/Joe Strummer: MacDougal Street Blues

John Cooper Clarke: Twat

Misty In Roots: Introduction to Live At The Counter Eurovision

Linton Kwesi Johnson: Inglan Is A Bitch

The Clash (and Allen Ginsberg): Ghetto Defendant (Extended Version)

Allen Ginsberg/ Tom Waits: Closing Time/America

Andrew Weatherall and Michael Smith: The Deep Hum (At The Heart Of It All)

Joe Gideon and The Shark: Civilisation

Woodleigh Research Facility and Joe Duggan: Downhill

Fireflies and Joe Duggan: Leonard Cohen Knows

BP Fallon and David Holmes: Henry McCullough (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Mike Garry and Joe Duddell: St Anthony: An Ode To Anthony H Wilson (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Allen Ginsberg: I Am A Victim Of Telephone

Inglan

I've been listening to a lot of spoken word and poetry stuff recently and burned a cd that worked well- the intro to Misty In Roots' Live at Eurovision, John Cooper Clarke's Twat, yesterday's Steve Cobby and Russ Litten track, Joe Gideon and The Shark's Civilisation, Allen Ginsberg/Tom Waits' America/Closing Time, a Joe Strummer and Jack Kerouac ghost duet track, Weatherall's remixes of Mike Garry's St Anthony and BP Fallon and David Holmes' Henry McCullough plus The Deep Hum (At The Heart Of It All) that he did with Michael Smith, a few other things on similar lines. And some Linton Kwesi Johnson dub poetry. Dub and poetry go together very well indeed, like chips and mayonnaise, like punk and speed. This one, Inglan Is A Bitch from 1980's Bass Culture album, is full of righteous anger at the way Jamaican immigrants were treated in Inglan. The man himself said that 'writing was a political act and poetry was a cultural weapon'.

Inglan Is A Bitch