Reggae Britannia BBC4 - starting this Friday!!

[Numbers]

I'm sure whatever is served up will be better than the usual Friday night tat on the telebox.

Am really looking forward to the next half a dozen hours or so.

 

[Dillinger4]

I am going to go and fix my amp and speakers up to my telly

 

[Fedayn]

I'm sure whatever is served up will be better than the usual Friday night tat on the telebox.

Am really looking forward to the next half a dozen hours or so.

7 and a half hours numbers, that's the first installment....

 

[tarannau]

Don't I know it. For some reason it's not showing as a series on my EPG, so I've been pressing record furiously for the last few minutes

 

[Fedayn]

Don't I know it. For some reason it's not showing as a series on my EPG, so I've been pressing record furiously for the last few minutes

Aye cos they're not all the same programme title.... Fucks it up for the sky plus too.

 

[stethoscope]

A focus on the UK sound system scene that produced Saxon Studio, Coxsone as well as MC's like Tippa, Smiley etc would be good, also Lovers Rock, we built this and yet it seems to be more and more airbrushed out in favour of the genres that students and punks got into.

Ariwa and Unity Sounds too

Yeah, a doc about the development/history of the UK reggae sound systems and labels is long overdue.

 

[stethoscope]

Actually, this doc on now isn't doing a bad job of the UK/London scene - some good footage

 

[stethoscope]

John and Felicity Hassle dubplate cutters

 

[killer b]

Fucking Police. No need. Been wicked otherwise so far though...

 

[Fedayn]

Completely glossed over skinheads... Ho hum plus ca change....

 

[Dan U]

John and Felicity Hassle dubplate cutters

They were great

 

[Fedayn]

John and Felicity Hassle dubplate cutters

Pretty sure they got a wee bit in the Soul Britannia programmes aswell.

 

[stethoscope]

Ending felt a bit cut-short.

 

[Fedayn]

Fuck sake this concert is embarrassing, Dennis AlCapone and Winston Reedy murdering 'Love of the Common People' in a shitty BBC approved jive bunny style.... On the documentary they rightly pointed out the atrocious attitude of the BBC-with a Nicky Thomas soundtrack-and then this?! Fuck sake..... Nice approved by the BBC orchestral 'reggae'.....

Ken Boothe saves it...... A bit....

And with 'Everything I own' saves it alot.

 

[audiotech]

This Version.

 

[cybertect]

Ending felt a bit cut-short.

Yes. Got to 1989 and that's it all of a sudden, but I thought they got the balance pretty good for the rest of the programme. And at least the the narration didn't sound like someone's grade 'C' A-Level essay that sometimes these BBC documentaries can tend to...

Jerry Dammers invented reggae/rock fusion in 1969? Is he the new Robert Elms?

 

[Part 2]

Just switched this on....looks pretty wank

 

[stethoscope]

Jah Youth!

 

[coccinelle]

It's the wrong sort of venue for a lot of these artistes: it just brings out the tacky cabaret side of them. I saw Winston Reedy and Alcapone doing their thing downstairs in some bar for Gregory's Nine Night party and it was totally a different thing.

 

[Fedayn]

Just switched this on....looks pretty wank

There's plenty of of other programmes in the 'series'. The concert from Edinburgh 1973 should be well worth it and the rest of the programmes on over the next weekends.

 

[pennimania]

I love these BBC 4 programmes too.

Just the job for an old rocker out to grass on a Scottish island

 

[William of Walworth]

Documentary was overall great!

So many names I needed to be reminded of ....

 

[killer b]

i enjoyed the doc on the whole, but - as with all these '...britannia' shows, it started strong but lost focus and detail towards the end. and why did they need to have the police on at all, let alone twice? they could have spent that time interviewing the mad professor or shaka or something...

the concert that's on now has had some good stuff, but a bit obvious.

 

[William of Walworth]

I'd definitely agree that the early-period stuff was best.

 

[Dr Dolittle]

Good programme generally. I thought the most interesting parts were where they covered the cultural context of the music - what it was like to be the first British generation of those Caribbean immigrants. I went to school with those people, in Hackney, but at the time I wasn't able to appreciate either the music or the culture that surrounded it, which is a pity. Not that I've ever really been a music person. They used to go on about 'sound systems' and I used to think they were referring to just the equipment, and wondered why they were so obsessed with it. I remember also the ghetto blasters that they carried around with them, and the specialist record shops blasting out the reggae. As the programme emphasised, a lot of white people liked reggae, but the black youth strongly defended it as their music, which made it seem a no-go area for white people, which was, I suppose, the intention. If you were white, you read the NME, Sounds or the Melody Maker; if you were black, you read Black Echoes. If this sounds a bit garbled then it is – I’m just wallowing in nostalgia – a nostalgia for something I and most other white people couldn’t understand or appreciate at the time. I used to like UB40 and Bob Marley tho’ – it was the harder stuff I couldn’t listen to – too raw, too basey – dare I say too black? The stuff that never got played on the radio for precisely that reason!

 

[killer b]

you were listening to the wrong radio shows then.

 

[stethoscope]

I grew up listening to Rodigan and Joey Jay

 

[Fedayn]

Aaaahhh this Edinburgh gig is better...... Judge Dread the compere.

 

[stethoscope]

Yeah, good stuff

 

[PursuedByBears]

you were listening to the wrong radio shows then.