Tag Archives: Argonaut Sounds

Interview Bass Warrior Sound System



photo by Bartosz Madejski






And it’s completely homemade ?

Yeah. Well except the amps, they are bought.





































Well I think it got harder.












Is there any reason particularly for that kind of taste?






Yeah you get some guys who are into that there.

bass warriorBass Warrior Sound System





Because you have some good dubplates though.





Dubplate business as bit?


But now it becomes a money business.







Dubplate no work like that.




















But I don’t know if that will ever happen.





And as I said, reggae is not big in Scotland.












So people take it quite personally then?

Yeah, some people do.







Well YT grew up around that whole culture.




Or rock n roll.






Wow [laugh]





























Really experience what it is all about?







Yeah they got Dawn Penn as well



All photos courtesy of Bartosz Madejski


Rampant Sound Interview


“You have to remember that in the early 90s that was when things got really clamped down in Glasgow. You had the Criminal Justice Bill coming in; you had a curfew in Glasgow, you had to be in the clubs by 12. The illegal parties and illegal gathering were really clamped down upon, with the whole repetitive beats thing and all that. It was quite heavy in those times.”

I had the opportunity to talk to Paul and Alan, aka. Doctor Dub and Professor Collie, the original Rampant Sound, at their first return behind the decks in over ten years. We discussed how they began as a sound, the Glasgow music scene in the 90s, as well as their thoughts on the current sound system culture in Britain and Scotland. 

So what was the glasgow scene like when you started ?

Alan : Well there were a few things. There were a few a guys with connections with Rubadub Records, they played out in 13th Note originally. They had an event, like an ambient night as well called Sonar I think – with people like Dribbler, and Dave Heart and State of Flux played at it.
Before us, there was a guy in the kind of 80s…

Paul: There was Joseph too. He was from Edinburgh but he was more of an eclectic mix, it was like soul, funk, a bit of reggae. His DJ name was Joseph of Babylon.

Alan : I heard he’s become a muslim now, and he’s really into acid jazz, and funk and stuff.
But there was a guy even before that, quite a long time ago – in the 80s – from East Kilbride ; and that had Dillinger, and Steel Pulse and all sorts of people playing in community centres in East Kilbride. But that was way before us. When we started in ‘91-‘92.

Paul:  ’92 probably because we got that gig in January – in the place which is now 13th note, when it was on Glassford Street… That was always a good venue. And yeah, in January of ‘92 – because I arrived in Glasgow in ‘91. And we did a mix night with Joseph a couple times, he came down from Edinburgh.
Then we went from under Ventura to a night at the Art School. A few soundclashes with Soundclash,

Alan : we also played with Mungo’s who were called the Dub Dentists at that point. And we played a few gigs with them.

Paul : that was early 2000 though

Alan : oh yeah that was second time round. I’m getting ahead of myself. So yeah in the early 90s we played at the Art School, and then we had Zion Train up, Revolutionary Dub Warriors.. and who was the other one again ? With the ex-specials in them ?…
Anyways, we had a few guys coming up and playing with us.
And then we went down and played in London, at the St George Robey. It was a pub, with a dance space in the back. And then we played at quite a few parties, with connections from Pussy Power – Terry and Jason.
Terry got Twitch’s first gig – Keith – from Optimo. And we also did a few things with this band called State of Flux, which was a guy – Dave Clark – who now records for Optimo and Numbers under the name Sparky. We did a few parties with them. The Beach Coma party…

And that was all early, mid-‘90s ?

Alan : Yeah. And then we took a rest. Had kids…

Paul : Yeah, life got in the way (laugh).

Alan : And then we got back into it, continued to play.

Paul : You know, we’ve only been dub-jockeys, dub DJs. We grew up listening to Shaka, going to Shaka gigs. But we didn’t have the equipment. Glasgow’s a techno city, it was a lot of dance. And you’ve got to try and mimic that, the way they play the records and tunes, so we mixed and scratched the tunes too. Then we got an echo box, an echo chamber, in order to make it sound like a sound system, over whatever we were playing. And then when we came back in 2002 and started to move more into using a sound system, we had a guy that we knew, that would upright the sound, he was our sound engineer. And he was responsible for the system. That limited it a bit, but it also opened it up to some new people.

But then it meant we were always reliant on running our sound system, and where we were in our lives at that point it was a bit too much. Because you know, it’s having a van, and it’s being on the road a lot. And after a while it was just too much, we didn’t have the time.

Alan : The one thing I regret not doing at the time is going in the studio.

Paul : I still want to do it now. I’d do it tomorrow if we could, because there are tunes there that need remixing. We always had a particular style as well, we like our dub. We like our vocals, our version, and we like our dub. We don’t like ska, or whatever.

Alan : We don’t like it when it’s too diluted.

Paul : It’s all about the bass line to me. I mean you can put anything you want over the top, if you get that right, then that works.
You know, I can play you a tune that’s maybe 40 years old and you’ll go « well that’s drum and bass ».

Did you have at some point any releases ?

Paul : No we didn’t, but we recorded a lot of our session, and even now they really hold up.

Alan : but that’s the one thing I regret is not releasing anything original, you know. And I think if we had kept our relationships with the likes of Zion Train and stuff, it would have probably come to that at some point. One friend of mine in particular still makes tunes, and had 2 or 3 releases on R&S label. We went into his studio a couple of times, and we kind of just started to get to know the machines. But it didn’t come to anything really.

But we listen back to some of the sessions and you can see how our inspiration and our musical thought processes were changing. I was listening to this one CD recently, and it’s kind of organic, and it’s quite lush sounding. And then you listen to another one and its very steppers, it’s very rigid.
There was a lot of good stuff coming out in the mid to late 90s, quality releases. A lot of really seminal releases.

So in the ‘90s, doing reggae and dub in Scotland there was you guys and anyone else?

Alan : Messenger. there was Messenger in Edinburgh. We always rated Steve. I think he’s still active today.

Paul : He had a good system, a good sound. They brought the likes of Dougie Wardrope, Conscious Sounds. Big Sound, we used to buy our records of them in London. He made our siren box;

Alan : He also got Russ Disciple, Nick Manasseh. Well we played with Nick Mannaseh at the Art School as well. He was instrumental in what you taught me about dub, it came from Kiss FM, from the Manasseh show.

Paul : The first time I heard Manasseh was at like 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning after a rave, and Manasseh sound was just great.

Alan : But yeah, I think there’s arguably more today, obviously with Mungo’s and Argonauts. And then you’ve got Bass Warrior, with Kenny. I went to see the Jamaican Longbowl team and Kenny was there with a sound system on a Saturday afternoon in the park.
So now you can say it’s going well.

rampant bw

Yeah reggae in Glasgow now is quite big – every week now you’ve got reggae playing.

Alan : well we really struggled, and I think that’s why we played it the way that we played it. Because it’s a techno city, and everybody wanted techno. So we used to speed our records up a lot.

I mean if you listen to what Mungo’s and Argonauts and Bass Warrior play it’s very digital and dancehall :

Alan : Yeah

Paul: I listen to them, and I love them but they’re still keeping afloat because I think you’ve still got be somewhere near that techno-dub mix.
And for me, any sound system I’ve listened to that has been afloat there’s been a start and a finish to their night.

Alan : It’s a way to share a musical journey. We always try to do that, a warm-up, and then get people into it. But you know, if you go to see somebody like Shaka or Aba Shanti or someone like that, I mean they’ll play 11 versions of a song to start the dance off. But what these guys don’t do so much is, they don’t mix.

And I always think if you’re a reggae sound system and you don’t mix, you need a toaster or an MC. You need something, unless you’re Shaka and you’ve got that presence. And then you can have silence. When you go to see Shaka, and there is silence, nobody will cheer or yell. You’ll have silence at moments.

We always felt that perhaps the Glasgow crowds weren’t ready for that. They wanted continuous music, because they were used to it.

Paul : Well yeah it’s because they were used to techno, they wanted raw beats. And you know, a lot of the time we used to pitch up the records too [laugh]

Alan : Yeah some really slow stuff, some really old stuff and you’d play it +8, and it sounds like a techno tune… well, a drum and bass tune at least.

Paul : I always felt it was a shame to do that and now we can play stuff that we want to, and people get it. But it’s true at the time in Glasgow we had to train people, because it wasn’t like London where they were all used to it, you know what I mean. We had to train people to the sound.

Alan : And we had a cowbell, we had a siren box, we had a melodica sometimes. So we used to kind of add things to the sets.

It sounds like it was very rootical. Quite like the UK or London sound.

Alan : Aye

Paul : we had a friend come down to play the congo drum too

Alan : we also had several guest vocalists and toaster, Kwasi Asante and another guy, Desi Nile was it ?

Paul : They really understood the vocal and version thing. We do a lot of that. I could play the same tune for half an hour just with versions. But we can’t do that here, because people want the next thing, they’re impatient. Honestly, we could play the same tune in here for 45 minutes, with various versions. We would love it.

That’s quite a cultural thing. In France a lot of the new sound systems have taken on the one turntable thing. Whereas here, a lot of the new sounds in the last 4-5 years have gone for the two turntables and mixing.

Paul : But then that tells you a lot about the situation of the city you’re in, and where you’ve grown up. Because that’s the vibe of the city, isn’t it; its clubs, its DJs. We don’t have the weather for great outdoor festivals, setting up on beaches – which we’ve done, but that was for a special occasion. And it’s a shame, because we’ve got some of the best outdoor locations in the world.

It’s true that even a session in Kelvingrove Park would be fantastic.

Alan : Well there used to be one. Every May day, there would be two or three sound systems playing techno or dub in Kelvingrove park.

Paul : well it wouldn’t say reggae.

Alan : well maybe not reggae, but there was stuff happening then. You know, you have to remember that in the early 90s that was when things got really clamped down in Glasgow. You had the Criminal Justice Bill coming in; you had a curfew in Glasgow, you had to be in the clubs by 12. The illegal parties and illegal gathering were really clamped down upon, with the whole repetitive beats thing and all that. It was quite heavy in those times.
And so I suppose we grew up with quite a lot of illegal underground parties.

So there was quite a big free party in movement that kept on?

Paul : yeah. There were things like the ferry. Parties on a ferry that we used to rent out.

Alan : yeah, that was Pussy Power that did that, Subterrania, they used to take the ferry out, and had a rave on in.

Paul : They used to have parties in Ventura, it was a great basement venue. You’d lock the door, people were let out at two exits, in groups of ones and twos, at 6 or 7 in the morning.

Alan : there was that kind of culture at that time, I suppose. And it was good. And I suppose it did encourage that kind of underground music, and dub is an underground music.

Because all that was happening at the time of the Criminal Justice Bill, was there a kind of politics attached to the movement too ?

Alan : I would say political with a small ‘p’. Dub and reggae have always been political, if you listen to the political content and what it’s all about, it’s essentially political.
Personally I wasn’t really drawn into that, I was more just for the music. I met Paul when we were working in a pub together, and I was just back from working in Jamaica for the summer. And so that’s when I had really gotten into reggae.

rampant bw2

I’d liked reggae when I was younger, but that’s when I really got into it, going down to dances in Jamaica. So then I came back, and when I met Paul I had just bought a Jah Shaka album, and I didn’t really know anything about dub. And I said to him « why is every tune the same », and he said « it’s not, go listen to it again » (laugh).  So that was me starting to get into the dub side of it.
But politically, no. I’m not really a political animal. Don’t think you are either

Paul : I’m not really into politics no. But they are there, especially a lot of Jamaican tunes, and even some English ones. Steel Pulse and the Handsworth riots, that was very political.

In the end it’s a medium…

Paul : yeah exactly, there’s not a medium in the world that hasn’t done that. And reggae as a music is very powerful. Music does something to you. You listen to music, whatever genre you like, you’ll feel something, whether it’s emotionally or other.
And that’s what I like about dub, because for me, it’s intimate. You conserve it. You know how you have vocals and versions? Well eventually you’ll listen to a vocal version, and you’ve already got that song without the lyrics, and so when you add the lyrics, fucking hell!

It also takes another dimension when you play it on an actual sound system, something that you may not get in other genres as much.

Paul : I think most DJs can play any sound system. We played at Sub Club with Mungo’s HiFi, and we played the club’s system as a (reggae) sound system.

Alan : Seriously, that night. Let’s put it this way, it put their sound system to shame that night.

Sub Club is known for having an excellent sound system.

Alan : La Cheetah’s also got a good sound system, it’s got a function one sound system.
But we used to tear them up, we used to blow them up. You remember when I broke the one in the George Robey.

Paul : yeah it’s because you wouldn’t listen (laugh).

Alan : no I would not. I had all the dreads shouting at me.

Well home-made sound system is something you find a lot more in techno and reggae, whereas in other genres it’s more of an attempt to put loads of speakers together.

Paul : well with a sound system you can do something completely different. You know, you want your sound to sound like x. But then for the type of music that we play we would want our sound to sound like y. It’s like, we knew where we wanted to go with it as well.
You never heard Mungo’s sound have you?

Alan: no I’ve never been and seen them.

Paul:  I did hear it at New Year ’s Eve, down at Stereo. It was a good night. I though at the end, in terms of the tunes, the tunes were better upstairs.
But as far as Glasgow’s concerned, yeah I’m a big fan of Mungo’s sound, because they built their sound system, it requires a lot of dedication. And I get quite envious because I think we should have had that kind of dedication at the time. Maybe we didn’t have the finances and Glasgow I would almost say was not ready for it.

Alan : And at the time we should have probably pressed a number of individuals to give us some money but we just didn’t really do it. We should have done. But no, I think they’ve done a great job, and as Paul says, ultimately that’s exactly what we would have like to have done. Have a sound system. But you know, things didn’t happen, the planets didn’t align, you know what I mean. That’s just the way of it.
But I think it’s great what they do, that they have their record label and they actually release stuff as well. That’s really really good.

Something I was talking about with Argonauts was what do you think made Glasgow attracted to reggae so suddenly? Because it’s really taken off in the last 5-6 years.

Paul : Well there’s a big reggae scene in Dundee from the start. And city-wise nowhere is that far in Scotland.

Alan : It’s true I don’t know why it kicked off…

Paul : It’s got to do with the population of Glasgow. Glasgow doesn’t have a West Indian community. When I first arrived in Glasgow there were three black people [laugh]. Me and a few others. In Edinburgh slightly more but Glasgow’s never had that West Indian population. Which is weird for the second city in Britain.

Especially as it’s not as if Glasgow had nothing to do with the West Indies.

Paul : Exactly, every city on the West Coast of the UK : Bristol, Liverpool… have all got a huge West Indian population. And you would have thought Glasgow too. But even now, it’s weird.

Alan : Maybe there was more of an influx of more english students, at that time in Glasgow. And that would have coincided with the time that tuition fees came in. And we don’t have tuition fees. And so perhaps we had an influx of english students who traditionally would have been more educated in terms of sound systems.

Paul : And the proliferation of better universities in Glasgow. Because with just Glasgow Uni, you had generally quite a wealthy group. Well the Art School is a little more diverse and open, which is why we played there I think. But because of the proliferation of better universities in Glasgow, everybody’s come to Glasgow, a lot of people from more average backgrounds, who have probably already been to sound systems, who are culturally a bit more different and therefore that brings it up.

Alan : Maybe that’s got something to do with it. But apart from that I can’t really think of other reason why it exploded. I mean Mungo’s obviously took the bar and they ran with it and took it to the next level, and that definitely helped. But I think there’s probably more to do with the kind of people that were there in Glasgow at that time and were going out.

Well that’s something we touched on when I talked to Mungo’s. they were saying that unlike London where there was the West Indian and Jamaican influence in the way of running a sound system. Whereas in Glasgow they felt as if there wasn’t any existing template, so it allowed for a lot more freedom.

Paul : which makes it very real, you know, the reggae scene in Glasgow. It’s a dedication. It’s had to develop on its own, because of the conditions we talked about before; there isn’t a West Indian community that brought in sound systems; that knew how to build them; that organized that sound clash or this sound clash. There isn’t that.

Alan : I suppose it’s also one of these things where the more systems you get, that’s going to produce more systems.

I think there’s about five or six sound systems in Glasgow now.

Alan : well that’s good, and obviously it means that there’s a market for it. If they’re all playing out regularly. I mean, we haven’t played in quite a while, quite a number of years (laugh)

That was another aspect that is quite interesting – the whole idea of meetings. You don’t really have the clash culture here, or in France or Italy, like you had in England, or Jamaica.

Paul : Well it’s because there was a lot of violence in those times

Alan : yeah it was turf wars wasn’t it. Again, these sound systems in London, I mean I’m a white middle class boy. We don’t have the same social problems and social issues that these guys had and still have. And yeah, ‘money run tings’ you know, that’s what it was about a lot of the time.
And reggae’s evolved in so many ways and so differently in Britain. When Reggie Steppa played for instance in London, there would be gunshots. The police would be rocking off the roads. It was that period I mean, the late 80s, where it became really gun and cocaine orientated. And then you had New Roots, which came in the kind of early 90s.

Paul: You also had new people in the scene, you know, in the likes of Dougie Wardrope: working class, these white London boys.

Alan: But who grew up with black culture.

Some people have said that there’s now been 3 generations of sound systems. The first one was the Jamaican sounds, the second one was the first sounds in England, and then the third generation is like you have here, or in France or Italy, people who do not have any links with Jamaican culture but still have taken on the reggae sound system tradition.

Paul : But then you can say that about any genre of music. Music moves on and evolves over time. The fact that you talk about sound systems in the like or France or Italy. They’re not sound systems, they are people who play dub and dubs. They are people that play techno, you know what I mean ?
Andy Weatherhall does a really good dub set, but he’s not a sound system. You can invite Nick Mannasseh to play some records at your gig, but he’s not a sound system.
Jah Shaka turns up with his system then yes, then that’s a sound system session.

Alan : He’s never played in Scotland on his sound system. Scottish people have never heard Jah Shaka.

Paul : He’s played here before, he played on Mungo’s sound.

Alan : Aye, and he’s played on Stevie’s system, and Messenger’s system in Edinburgh. But he’s never come here with his own system.

So there’s never been that thing where you would invite people up here with their sound system ?

Alan : It’s too expensive.

Paul : but then again you don’t need to do that, because that’s not what it’s about. When you’re playing in a venue like the Art School, or even the Arches which have a great system, why would you need to. People are there for the music. I’m almost to the point where anyone that labels themselves… I mean we never called ourselves Rampant Sound System. We’ve always been Rampant Sounds.

Alan : Out of respect for these guys, because we’ve never had a sound system. We played records.

Paul : Yeah, so apart from Mungo’s and Messenger, even Unity Reggae to a point, I’ve not really seen proper sound systems here. And I don’t know why that makes it any more special, because if your tunes are shit, or you can’t play your system well, it’s not going to make any difference.
In the end I’m there to listen to good music. If you’ve got a sound system that can enhance it, then that’s even better, but it’s not the most important.

But then again, when a crew have a sound system, a home-made system, it’s generally built for their own sound, their own music. So if they bring their own sound system, it won’t be the same as hearing them on the PA system of, say, the Arches ?

Paul : Well you know, again, I could go with Alan to any gig and I guarantee we could put on a serious show with the selection of tunes that we have. And ultimately, that’s what it’s about. When sound systems are clashing, at any historic clash, it’s about who’s got the latest tune, who’s got the latest dubplate, who’s going to rock it. Exactly that same as in clubs nowadays, who’s got a version of x, who’s got the latest remix of x by y.

Alan : I mean there’s a famous story of Shaka who was playing against Coxson I think. And he played something like 14 versions and the Coxson jut went like « i’m away, that’s it, you won ». But we’ll have that kinda… I suppose we had a bit of rivalry with some of the guys… like when we played with them we would put tape on their mixers so they couldn’t turn it up, and then we would come on and take the tape off and turn it up [laugh] But that was as far as it got.

Another thing about playing records, say if you go to a DJ set in a lot of hip-hop or techno gigs, it will often be mixed in a pre-set thing. Whereas when one uses vinyl, it seems there is a lot more improvisation going on, how one feels according to the crowd.

Alan : I mean I’m not a fan of… I don’t even know what they’re called, these new things, traktor ? you know what I’m talking about. So as long as someone’s playing vinyl, if it’s played well, it’s good. But I always liked DJs and techno DJs that weren’t perfect. I didn’t want this silky, smooth thing. I wanted to hear the tunes. With reggae especially. You want a distinction, you want to understand one record before you go onto the next.
I think it can become too sanitized, you know. And that’s what I don’t like. I think if somebody can play the records and maintain the integrity of the record and the character of it, then they’re doing a good job, and that’s what it’s all about.

And then you get into all the other stuff, effects and such. A proper sound system, like Shaka, of Coxsone, or whatever… they can do things with the sound. I mean, they’re splitting the sound, they’re rolling the bass round them, they’re panning the hi-hats right round the room. That’s what you don’t get nowadays, with the sound systems that you have in Glasgow, they don’t do that. We always tried to do that, but from the mixer, because we didn’t have a sound system. So we would always mess about with the levels; cut the hi-hats ; cut the bass completely… and then bring it in: bang ! All that kind of stuff. We were trying to create the sound of a sound system without having one.

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Fogata Sounds Interview


We had a  small chat with Fede aka. KrakinDub and Troy Berkley from Fogata Sounds before their session in Glasgow. They told us about their start in the techno free party scene, the idea behind Fogata Sound, and their thoughts on the future of the sound system scene.

How did Fogata Sound start and who is Fogata Sounds?

Fede : well Fogata Sounds started in 2009. Two of us founded the label, me and my mate Hugo. Hugo is one of the pioneers of the dub and reggae scene in France. He was in the punk scene in the 80s, and was one of the first to make bridges from punk to reggae. So he grew up with things like Gom Jabbar, Puppa Leslie. So he’s the one who introduced me to reggae in the early 90s.

You were part of the Mas I Mas crew, which was mostly a jungle and techno sound ?

Fede: And reggae, yeah. I was playing reggae as part of the Mas I Mas from the start, from ’96. At that time the French free party scene was growing hugely, and it was only about hard techno. Everyone was playing that kind of music, acid, speedcore. And we wanted to propose different parties, staying in the idea of the free parties: free  for the people, taking places that don’t belong to us, fuck the police… and that was all about the TAZ –the temporary  autonomous zones.
But we wanted to do it not for a larger audience, but with different vibes; from reggae, to techno, through jungle, because we were all junglists at that time.

We experienced a big boom in ’96, from the first parties of like maybe 20 people in a bar, to a couple of months later, 2000 or 3000 people attending our jungle parties. But always with a bit of reggae, and then final mixes with techno. We also liked to have visuals and decorations. We wanted to complete the music with decorations and visuals. We didn’t want to have only a DJ behind a wall of sound. Because that was the idea of free parties at the time, you had a big rig and the artists were behind it.

Did you also have your own sound system at that time?

Fede: Well we had our sound system from ’99. But it wasn’t that potent, so we always borrowed more sound to make it better.

So you were doing mainly link-ups?

Fede: Of course we did link-ups. The first link-up was with Heretik sound system, from 96’ the first free parties were mainly with Heretik. Then we did parties with Furious, a techno sound system from that time. They were playing very slow techno, not that hardcore thing.
And then with many, many others, including UK people, Austria… all over Europe.

And how did reggae come into this, were you the only ones playing reggae in this techno scene?

Fede: No not really the only ones. Some people went to play reggae in some techno parties that were happening already. But it wasn’t the sound systems themselves.

We as a sound system tried to be open minded, breaking all barriers between those musics. But the free party audience was already a mix, from punks & squatters, to everyday working people, to hard core drug dealer… every kind of people were there, so we thought every kind of music should be there too.

That sort of explains the idea of « Rubadubstep », the title of your album.

Fede: Yeah Rubdadubstep is the idea about Fogata. Fogata is born because I saw the growing of the reggae scene, the so-called ‘new dub’ scene. And we wanted to put back in some parts that were somehow forgotten in their own place. Lyrics are the first thing. That’s why we call it Rubadubstep, because rub-a-dub is riddims but also lyrics. We also obviously try to have conscious lyrics. We wanted to make a bridge between reggae, dubstep, and the conscious part of the music. That’s why ‘rubadubstep’

There’s also a lot of new dub sound systems in France, and many say the free party scene in the 90s paved the way for the current reggae sound system scene.

Fede: That’s true. But we were hard core [laugh]. We fought the police sometimes during parties, I mean really fought. The dub scene that is growing now in France is not about that. They are not looking for frontal confrontation. We were, we really were. But still, they have the same feeling, the same idea of using big sound systems to get people to understand the real meaning of the music, that’s something that joins us. Also having our own rigs, and other similarities.
But they don’t do ‘free’ parties. Nowadays in France it’s prohibited, there are several laws that make it such that if you put a free party on you can have big troubles, you could see your sound confiscated, your vinyl and gear confiscated, and if you’re not lucky you could face jail.

Maybe that is why the reggae scene has become so big, because its legal alternative?

Fede: Of course, that’s the only way they could take. We tried it, at the end of the free scene, in 2003. We made a couple of semi-legal parties. We could sell beers without paying the state, that’s the illegal part. But we had police at the entrance, ambulances, and every aspects of regular festivals.

There was one big festival you did with Heretik in 2004 or 2005

Fede: Yeah, we made that big party named « Alice au Pays des Merveilles », which had maybe 10 000 people attending. A huge party, with big sounds. But we lost money, because we still wanted to keep the low prices. It wasn’t free, but it was a low entrance price, and we wanted big sounds, big names, so we lost money.

So Troy Berkley, next question is for you. When did you first start MCing ?

Troy: Oh God man. It was a really really, really long time ago. I guess i started when i was about 13, which was ages ago.

Fede: Early 80s to tell the truth

Troy: I’d say the late 70s.

And was it always on reggae sound systems or did you begin on something else?

Troy: Let’s be honest – shit man you take me way back. When we was 13 we would be doing kung-fu fights in the street and shit like that – so he was able to imitate the sounds of the kung-fu fights. So he started doing that but we couldn’t sing over that, so we weren’t really interested. And then he started doing proper beatboxing.
Do you remember Joey Lickshot? Well he used to imitate Joey Lickshot – and everyone was like « shit, he does it better », so he became Lieutenant Lickshot.  I guess I was about 13, something like that. So yeah, thank for that memory lane.

So you started with Hip hop and then moved on to other stuff?

Troy: Both at the same time actually. I was singing in my bathroom when i was well young, when I could hit those high notes. Then of course your balls drop and you can no longer hit those high notes [laugh]. And then I guess around 13 I found myself in my first reggae session, in a big dancehall. We used to listen a lot to Saxon MCs. I used to imitate the Saxon greats, like Senior Sandy, Tippa Irie. These were my secret teachers, they were teaching me the fine style of MCing. So basically we would get these cassette tapes, and I would sit up all night putting it on rewind like « what the fuck did he just say » ! And then you’d get it down to a pattern, you’d switch it up, you find yourself somewhere along that line. Or you don’t, but you keep going anyway.

Trying to figure out your style?

Troy: Yeah, and then you figure out there is none. But that’s another story.

About the art of MCing – MCing is something quite hard, especially in sound system, it’s all about reading the crowd.

Troy: yeah it’s true, you’ve got to be synchro. It’s best to be synchro. I mean there’s no law, you don’t have to be, but you’ll have a better time if you are. It’s like, there was a game we played when I was a kid. We had this little game where the DJ would try to find the shittiest music he could find, to give to you to sing on it. And there you were, mic in your hand and you just had to go for it. So what happens is, it make you develop your ability to ride the riddim, to find where is the groove, instantly, and to sit your ass down, because it’s coming, you only get one look at it, and if you don’t take it, it’s dead. So basically this thing kind of develops your impro skills. When I think about it that’s pretty much the only professional experience I had. Even though it was a joke with friends, in actually fact it does develop, it helps you a hell of a lot. Because instantly you have to find your place, right away. So If you want to play the game, well you get better.

It must also help your ability to hype things up Even if it’s a shit tune, you singing over it has to make it good.

Troy : Yeah, you’ve got to make it a wicked tune. It’s your responsibility, if you don’t, well you flopped. You’ll get over it, but you flopped. And you don’t want to flop, so you go searching yourself to bring out what’s wicked.

It appears that in the sound system scene in France you don’t get all that rivalry that was found in the early sound system scene in the UK. There seems to be more focus on ‘meetings’, ‘in combination with’… stuff like that.

Fede: well that’s the outside point of view. No, there is competition, as there is competition everywhere. There’s no big brotherhood in the dancehall scene, that doesn’t exist. If you’re not friend with such person, then you won’t play on his sound. I mean some sounds have open minded stories to tell, and they are bringing different kinds of acts to play in their nights, but that’s not everyone.

The scene grew on the Dub Station scene. Dub station is a franchise, like MCdonalds. So in France, some towns said « ok, we accept your deal, we book your artists, we pay you for the flyers because we use your name », and some other towns said « no, fuck you Dub Station. We are going to make our own dub meetings ». So it’s complicated in France. We have so many different actors on the scene. Some of them coming from techno as you said. Some of them just born on new dub, and they don’t know shit about techno, or reggae roots. But still, they put on parties.
So I don’t know, we’ve been playing for several dub sounds in France, but still it’s a few of them that are open minded enough to open their arms to us, to say welcome.

I guess that’s one comment that comes back quite a lot, that France is still quite conservative, in the sense it’s very focused on roots and stepper.

Fede : that’s true. And a lot of ‘new steppers‘. A lot of them don’t even know about the huge UK scene, like Jah Warrior – 90s stepper – or Zion Train, Universal Egg. For me it’s foundational for techno-dub. Because they call themselves ‘dub sound systems’. But in reality they are not really playing dub, they are playing a new music – I’ve got nothing against it. But it’s not dub. It’s a part of dub music, dub music is so much more.
And you’re right in saying that it’s really conservative. But not in the right way. Not in the way that conservatives look at their roots and project them to the future. They are conservative about this new thing, without looking backwards or onwards.

Going back to the free parties, like you were saying, the early raves were quite political, focusing on autonomy and all that.

Fede: yeah, in that sense every free party was political because of the confrontation with the police and the state. But 98% of sound system didn’t really give a fuck about politics

Reggae as well at the start was very political – do you think the current reggae sound system scene has kept a bit of that political engagement, or is it a bit like the free parties?

Fede : well thank god Macka B exists, that kind of person. Macka B can put out a tune today, and the youths will play it, and Macka B has always been a conscious artist, telling a message to the people. Not only singing ganja tunes or love tunes, it is always with a point. So of course some of the youths in the scene are growing with a message, but still I think most of them lost that political engagement. And forgot that the entire reggae foundation is built on ghetto issues, political issues…

It’s a bit like you were saying with dub stations, in the sense a lot of people in the crowds are there just for the beat.

Fede : not all of them of course. A crowd is made of many different people. You can say that crowd is shit, or that crowd is just sheep. A crowd is made up of different people. Sound systems are made up of different people. I mean if everyone in the sound system is a sound man, then you have no promotions, no good flyers, no good singers. You need a whole bunch of different aspects and people to build a sound or a crowd. And those crowds are not bad, but of course a big part of them come just to jump up – as they say today, they come to skank, and that’s it. But they don’t listen to the lyrics; they don’t know what the song is about. So it’s half-half.

It’s funny, if you look at sound system nights in France and in the UK. In France the crowd focuses on the speakers, and in the UK they focus on the crew.

Fede: Sometimes you go to play, I swear, and we are playing, he [Troy] is singing and everyone is just looking at the speakers. So it happens sometimes i just cut the music and say ”hey folks, it’s happening here!” this man came all the way from the Bermudas ».

Troy: And on my side I don’t really care, because I used to sing in techno shows, where I wasn’t allowed to be there. I fucking loved it, because you take the mic and you have to sit in the background, and don’t let them see you because otherwise they go like « what the fuck ! An Mc ? bla blabla ». So you give them a little bit of lyrics, and they notice it at the end, like « holy shit there was a guy singing this whole time? ».

Fede : And that was one of Troy’s abilities. To be part of the vinyl playing. Merging with it. It sounds as if there’s no MC, it’s just on the vinyl.

Troy : Sometimes I’d be sitting down, and nobody could see me [laugh]

Fede : But a big part of what you say is true. A big part of the crowd is looking at the system, the speakers.

Isn’t that a legacy of the techno scene?

Fede : Maybe, but at that time the live acts, the DJs, they were behind the speakers. So everybody’s secret will was to see who was playing, go behind the speaker and see who was playing. And experience what is a badman sound system person’s life. But now, instead of being behind it, it’s in front of the speakers. But the people are still only looking at the speakers

Troy : But it’s humbling, you know…

Well that was something else i wanted to ask, about MCing over techno – a music where you don’t really have the MC tradition that you have in reggae. How was MCing in the techno scene?

Troy: well drugs helped [laugh]. I mean the problem with drugs is that they work right? so it helps yeah.

Fede: In the techno scene at that time, we had a lot of people who were against MCs. I mean jungle MCs have always been boring to me. Too much blabla, too much non-stop talking

Troy: All over the place

Fede: and the first time I met Troy, a friend presented him to me, he said « I’m going to present you a wicked MC ». And I was like, « pfff one more of those boring motherfuckers » [laugh]. But I had the good surprise to meet Troy and to experience what an MC actually is. Someone who knows when to sing, when to keep his calm, when to check the crowd… and all the other MCs abilities.

It’s true it’s an art to feel that there’s a dub you should just leave, and then another moment when you feel you have to hype up the crowd

Troy : Yeah you feel the vibes. You just have to follow the vibes. There’s an expression in Britany : « tout est bon dans le cochon ». Everything is good in the pig… Now how do I explain why I’m using this expression. I mean you can’t really go wrong with if you’re following the vibes, if you’re riding with your feelings, you’re going to be synchro with it.

It comes back to the idea that sound system is emotional; it’s run with an emotional feel, not only a technical one.

Troy: It’s definitely emotional. It’s 100% emotional.

Bart: Looking from back, today with everything like in the internet, how do you see the scene today, is it expanding?

Fede: I’ve been playing different continents, lots of countries all over. And one thing about the cyber part of it… It’s an illusion. It’s just some pictures, and some things on the net. It’s not true, anyone can pretend anything. So I don’t really look at it like a real thing, even though I find a lot of my bookings and a lot of people find me on the web. And then there is real life, where you have some real people, some fake people too, and each country has both of them. Each country has people trying to build a thing because of their love of music, and some others are just following the fashion

Troy: I mean it all pulls each other, so it would be a big yes to the question « is it expanding ». I mean I’m listening to Fede here and thinking about Steppa (Style), who’s in Russia, in Moscow ; and that Mc from Indonesia…

Fede: yeah, we’ve been working with lots of international acts. Not international in the way that they are moving from their home, but they are all looking outwards. And that is the basis of what we always did. We do the things for the world, not just for our neighbourhood. You don’t do music just to keep it for you. You do it to spread it.

Troy: It’s a wicked feeling, I mean you think that you’ve got guys in Russia singing over your riddims, you know what I mean? It’s fucking wicked.

Fede: Steppa Style he was on our first album already, and now he’s on the next Fogata 10 inch, which also has Troy on the A-side with ‘Matta’, a good hit. And Steppa is on the same riddim on the B-side. And it’s come together only now, because things are complicated, vinyl is expensive. We’re not rich people, we are humble people.

Troy : So Humble [laugh].

Where would see the scene growing to, or would you see it stopping at some point? Now you have sound systems trying to have as many scoops as possible, is that maybe a tipping point?

Fede: That’s not really true, I think a sound system sounds good even if you have a large amount of boxes. Of course, there is always a competition. If you’re a beginner, things look lost from the start, and that’s sad. I mean you look at Blackboard Jungle with 26 scoops, and you just have 3… So of course it’s hard. But there’s not going to be an ending to it. I don’t see why there would be an end. It will just mutate, it’s going to be something different.
I mean tell me if I’m wrong, each and every year in the dancehall scene, the real reggae scene, the youths discover the Sleng Teng riddim. Each year you go to sound systems and they can play the full fucking Sleng Teng, I mean you want to kill them because you know them already and you’ve heard them so many times before [laugh], but it’s good for them. Because they need to know about it.

So you know, it’s always about different paces. You may not always be in sync with others, so the good thing is to take the boat with someone for a while, do a part of your journey with them. I mean here with Argonauts who invited us, that’s a part of our journey. Tomorrow we go our separate ways, but somehow we stay together for ever. You know, at different paces, in different ways, but we are all in the same boat.

Troy: yeah the joy is in the journey not the destination. That’s pretty much it. The joy is definitely in the journey, than trying to focus on some sort of destination

Fede: for real! A young sound beginning today doesn’t need to get his 26 scoops to enjoy himself, you can enjoy it with your stereo at home.

Troy: it’s accessible to everyone

So even though you’re saying that the sound system community online is a bit of an illusion, but at the same time i mean, it does make it more accessible. If you want to build scoops you can go online, you don’t need to go to a dance and take the measurements there and all.

Fede: and find someone who can teach you, so you do the thing maybe better than with just plans from the web.

Bart: but there wouldn’t always be someone around. I mean maybe it would then just spring around centres where there would already be someone but not anywhere else?

Fede: there are always teachers. Inside sound system school there are always teachers, there are people that did it just to spread it, always. And they have shared their knowledge; they always shared what they knew. It’s not about keeping it for you.
I do workshops when I’m traveling. Not this time but often, and everyone is welcome and any questions I will answer. Any part of my knowledge I will share with people, because I don’t see the point of keeping it just for me.

But that’s the point of putting it online though, that you share your knowledge with everyone

Fede : yeah, and in that sense it’s pure positive. Of course. But now the statement that a big part of the reggae scene believes, the statement that says « the only good system is a sound system ». Well I don’t agree with that. A sound system is just an amplification of what you’re saying. If you’re bad minded then only shit will come out of your sound system. So the only good system, is the system where we are brothers, we are equal, there are real sharing vibes. Not every sound system is a good sound system. And that’s the problem with the internet thing. It leads you to believe that the only good system is a sound system, and that’s not true.

It comes down to what makes the identity of a sound system. Is it the system or the crew?

Fede : It’s definitely the crew behind it. Because the records can be played in many ways. The same boxes can played on in many ways.

AF & Bartosz Madejski

Fogata Sounds website

Argonaut Sounds interview


[Photo: Bartosz Madejski]

“Actually you’d be amazed at how many people come up to us, or send us emails saying “I was down at your night, so great to see someone playing vinyl”. I bet no-one that plays on a laptop gets emails saying “I was down at your night, great to see someone playing with a laptop.”

Here’s a really interesting (and long) interview with Argonaut Sounds, about the early sound system scene in Glasgow, reggae music in europe, and about the role the internet played in the growing popularity of sound system culture.

How did you first discover reggae ?

I would guess the way most people do. Like some Bob Marley tunes. Because that’s the thing that everyone’s exposed to kind of first of all, when you’re small, especially when don’t really know much about music. You’ll probably hear more Bob Marley than a lot of other things anyway. But other than that I don’t know. I like toots and the Maytals, and jimmy cliff and stuff like that, you know all the more obvious stuff.

But then I got kinda more into it when I moved to Glasgow and I went to a reggae night, Unity reggae. And that was the first reggae night I went to, and it just got me more and more into it. You start to find it more from going to different nights. Unity reggae was the first sound system I went to. It doesn’t run anymore, but it used to be at the sound house which was by the Clyde, just across the expressway. Afterwards you’d sometimes run across the expressway to get home to cut off about half an hour off the journey [laugh].
But they didn’t have speakers or anything, but they had quite a big PA in there. And they would put on nights once a month and it wasn’t all that busy, but you could have a smoke in there.

And when did you decide the start your own sound system?

About 2002. Well I don’t think it was ever a conscious decision to start a sound system. How it was, was that Neil was in a band called the Argonauts, who were a reggae band. For their pretty much last ever gig, he got a few mates of his, including me, and played reggae music of vinyl basically to DJ at it. And afterwards we were like “hey we should put a night on or whatever”. And we kind of did down the line, but also about the same time we started doing a radio show on Subcity radio, me and Neil, called Argonauts sounds, after the band. So yeah, it kinda all grew out of that.

But I don’t think it was ever first a conscious decision like “oh let’s build a sound system”. It was more just like, let’s start putting on nights and it quite quickly grew into building a sound system.

This is a fun question. How would you describe a sound system session to someone who has never been to one?

It’s like trying to explain it to your parents or something [laugh] I don’t know, I almost think it’s like… You could flip it over and say it’s a cross between a nightclub and karaoke. But it’s not because it’s more than that.

It’s different from to a nightclub in the sense that it’s much more of a community thing. You don’t just look up a list and say “oh that’s on, or that’s on, and we’ll go to that”. It’s more a thing where you know that it’s on, and you keep more in touch with the scene. For a sound system session, well I guess you’ve got to have your own speakers. I mean that’s kind of integral. Not many other events would do that.

I’m thinking what else kind of defines it… It’s a really difficult one to get your finger on.
Yeah it’s the speakers, it’s the crowd, it’s the way that the people follow it. It’s also the way that it takes a lot more people than just the DJs to run it. See you’ve got the people who run the sound, but you’ve also got all the others. You have your crew and then you’ve got all the people who kind of help out doing little bits and pieces, and they kind of are brought into feeling part of it. And then they bring their friends in, and they feel part of it. And it’s more of a sort of thing that grows out, I think, as it gets bigger, rather than just being like a strict relationship between the people who come to the night and the promoters or the DJs. It’s not like one and the other; where one’s just playing to the other. It’s more like the thing kind of grows out of someone saying “oh I can do that, and I can get involved in it that way”, and someone says “well I’ll work the door for you” and things like that.

Plus probably the fact that it’s not necessarily a business enterprise for a lot of people. A lot of people just do it for leisure, you know. So that takes away that kind of more commercial aspect.

It’s true there’s not that much money in it, so you have to have a passion.

Yeah, I mean you’ve got to do it for the love of the music basically.

I know in the last few years reggae in Glasgow has gotten pretty damn big. How was the reggae scene before?

It was small when we started. I came to Glasgow in 2000, and then as I say, my first reggae night in about November 2000 was Unity Reggae. And I don’t think that even Mungo’s has started then. I think there was another sound system just before I got here, I know the guy Stevie who used to run it, called Rampant Sound. Stevie from that helps out Bass Warrior now.

But when I came there was basically Unity Reggae and a couple of really small things that you would struggle to find out about, and they weren’t really sound systems.
Unity always promoted itself as Unity Sound System even though they didn’t have speaker, and I still to this day kind of see them as being a sound system because of the way it was.
And yeah, pretty soon after that I guess Mungo’s must have started because I remember going, certainly when I was in second year at uni… So that must have been 2001-2002. I’m not exactly when they would say they started.

And so we started in about 2002, and for a while there wasn’t all that much else, that I can think of. I mean Kenny started doing Bass Warrior nights, and before he had built his sound system he used to do nights in the art school, like ragga and dancehall nights. But I think they were often quite quiet.

That was the thing, I mean back then it was hard to get a crowd out. We would put on our first nights just in pubs with a small sound system, and you’d be doing well to get 30 folk.
And I remember going to Mungo’s nights, and it was not quiet because they always got a pretty decent crowd, but it was nothing compared to these days. And then, they didn’t have a big sound system either. I remember going to the first night when they got subs… It was amazing [laugh].

But the crowd was quite different then, because it was more like, what you would call “crusty” kind of folk. Folk who are into protests and would set up peace camps and stuff. And I remember Mungo’s used to live on a farm, and they used to have farm parties and stuff. Because I think the crowd has changed quite a bit, it’s gotten a lot younger, and it’s also gotten more… I don’t know, it’s hard to say. It was smaller back then. It was a lot of crusty folk, a lot of punky folk and things like that. And it’s stayed at that level for ages, and then I can’t remember when we noticed. We started to find that we were getting a lot more people in about 2007. That’s when we noticed that it really started to pick up. And when we moved to the Ivy bar downstairs in there. We did nights in there for a year, and I just remember some of them were packed. One night we had people dancing on the stairs, because it was so rammed. It was amazing in there.

But that was a complete change. And it seemed from when we’d done nights before that, for about a year before then it had started to get a lot bigger. And I remember Mungo’s were starting to get a lot bigger, because that’s around about the same time that they moved to the art school. And it started to really take off then. That was the start of it getting a lot bigger. But I don’t know how or why.

Ah, Well that was the next question actually

Well it’s popular partly I think now, because people have become exposed a lot more in the way that, that music gets a lot more… How would I put it… It’s almost like a snowball effect as well. The more the people come to it, and they bring their friends, and then they tell someone else, and then someone here’s from two friends independently “oh I was at this night and it was great” and then they decide to go the next time. I think that has got a big impact on it.

And as it’s happened that more people have started putting on nights or sound systems, I think it’s become that people have made more links and realized that the scene is bigger, so that means that they go to more things as well.

But I find it hard to know why it actually did kind of explode. Because you know, the late 2000s weren’t a classic period for new reggae stuff. I mean I think there’s loads of good stuff from then, but loads of people don’t.

Yeah the 2000s aren’t known for really being a time of great productions.

I mean, I don’t know if the net has had an influence in that way. Because I remember when I was younger, and I mean like in my teens, the music that you could get exposed to, you had to search quite hard to find stuff that was different to your mainstream music.

Whereas now maybe a lot of stuff is more accessible because you’re not restricted as to where you find out about stuff. Like it would have been impossible for me to download say, well I literally couldn’t have downloaded an Anthony B album in 1996. Like that to find out about that would have been so much work. Whereas now I think it’s quite easy, someone says “here’s a mix that my mate made, it’s full of reggae and dancehall” and that gets someone into it.

That’s a good point. Because 2006-2007 is about the same point when social media started to really kick off as well.

Yeah, that’s true. Because social media I think has a big influence in getting people out to nights who haven’t been before. Just say on Facebook you make an event for a sound system night, go on and invite loads of mates, people who are like fans of Argonauts sound say on Facebook. And then someone who has been invited accepts it and invites all their friends, maybe some that have never been to a reggae night before. And so they might just suddenly realize that there are reggae nights maybe.

I don’t know how much the internet has to do. I think it’s really hard to quantify, but it must have had an influence.

Yeah because it is about that time, even back in France, a lot of people started building their systems around then. There were things before, but a lot of the recent ones all started around 2007-2008.

Yeah, and whether it’s access to information about running a sound system, and easy access for parts to building it. Whereas I remember before we had these old Celestion bass speakers, they were pretty horrible, they were all covered in felt and stuff. They had big 18” drivers in them, they sounded not bad actually, they just were really old. And then one of the drivers got blown, and this was about 2004 or something. And we hadn’t really twigged on to the internet enough to think to on there and get things, we didn’t know enough about it. And actually we had to find this guy, who was a Pioneer speaker cone dealer in Glasgow, and we went to his house way out in Cardoland I think it was. And it was like something from back to the future, the guy stumbles out of his garage with massive white hair, and all these pioneer drivers. And the thing is, that was quite hard to get hold of this guy and work out a god deal; Whereas now, you can just look at this driver that cost that much, this one cost this much, and this one will come tomorrow if I buy it now, but this one is more expensive.

There was this debate in France last year, about what makes a sound system’s identity. What would that be for you?

Well there’s got to be two factors I think. One is the identity that you kind of want to portray, because you make conscious choices about what you’re doing.
But the other side has got to be the way about how you are sort of perceived, I guess. Like the way that people think about your night, and see it.
Music must come into it as well, the music you play, and what sort of style you play. But I think that, a lot of sounds, newer sounds particularly, especially when go to like Garance or something and see European sounds systems that are really dubby sounding. They have got that kind of new dub sound.

What do you mean new dub sound

You know like, almost that sort of semi digital dub sound. Rather than playing your classic 70s Tubby’s, Jammy’s, Scientist kind of dub, more that sort of new sound – yeah steppers… And I don’t know, that seems really popular there, and that often gives a sound its identity. But then also say we play a lot more major key stuff, so that’s quite different.
But you get a lot more sounds like that in London I think.

So music can play a part in the identity… I don’t know, that’s a hard one. It’s really difficult to pin that down. It’s funny because you can almost imagine what it is, but it’s really hard to pin down in words. It’s a conglomeration of a whole load of different factors.

There’s the music you play. Also the music you choose not to play. There’s that whole aspect of tunes with homophobic lyrics, and we’ve always though it’s a strict thing, we’d never play that. If one slips in by accident we’ll take it off, you know. Stuff like that, that contributes to your identity as well. Because there are sounds I’ve heard who do play it, and you think “oh fucking hell, don’t play that shit”.
And you hear one or two in London and stuff, whereas I don’t think you’d hear that here. But maybe that’s more kind of a social norm amongst sound systems, or well anyone with a reasonable moral outlook would see that as the right way to go.

I don’t know, a sound system’s identity. It’s a really tough one. I’m going to be thinking about it for days [laugh]

Well we can pass on to the next one. And actually you kind of touched on it a bit. You said you went down to France a bit, have you noticed any particular differences between the UK scene and the French scene.  You mentioned the music a bit, but is there anything else?

Yeah, there is a bit. But there are also a lot of sounds now that play in Britain stuff that they would play in France I would say. I think that a lot of sound systems in France play stuff that’s not that dissimilar to Mungo’s. I don’t know what side has influenced what, but I think those are becoming a lot closer.

What, so like more recent ‘bass music’?

Almost yeah. Or like, more when you hear Mungo’s playing, you know. That sort of stuff I was talking about, with those french guys playing that kind of steppers dub, things like that.
So I do think you hear Mungo’s play a fair bit of that. And I think you get a fair amount of that in France. The difference would be I think maybe that you don’t get as much of the – is that true actually, I don’t know. See sound system, new roots and things like that. We play a lot of new roots, and we play a fair bit of new dancehally stuff. We also play a lot of 80s digital dancehall. And then you’ve got Kenny and stuff, and he plays soca, ragga, dancehall, new roots. And you go down to London, if you go to the carnival you see all these sound systems and you realize they’re completely different to what it’s like in France.

I mean you’ve got your classic old system, like Channel One, and Aba Shanti and They’re all playing, you know, kind of classic roots and dub. And then you’ve got your newer ones who are all playing brand new stuff, whether it’s ragga or new roots or conscious stuff.
And maybe in France, I mean I don’t know enough, I’ve only really ever been to a few nights, and the Garance three times.

But I don’t remember really hearing too many of the sound systems playing brand new stuff. Although I do remember at the Garance hearing one or two. There was one, Jumbo Rock sound, I remember playing really good stuff. They played some news stuff and I really enjoyed it, but I don’t know where they were from, they might not be French.
I think maybe, this is only a conjecture, but maybe they don’t play much brand new stuff out of Jamaica in France, as you might find a lot of system in Britain playing. But then I know a lot more Jamaican artists come to France to play.
It’s hard to gauge whether maybe sound systems would in another environment, you know. I get the impression that a lot of German sound systems play a lot of new roots and stuff, and dancehall.

Really? This is going to sound really weird, but I can see germans playing new roots a lot. In the sense that it has a similar sound, or esthetic to the kind of rock and electronic music they produce. I don’t know..

Yeah I know what you mean. I mean there’s a big scene for that in berlin and stuff, there’s a few labels and shops there as well, so I don’t know… I would be interesting to see the differences in that in Europe, but I don’t know enough about that. Obviously the main places are France, Germany, Italy and Spain in Europe for reggae. And it would be interesting to see the differences, because Spain, they’re beginning to get quite into the new stuff, and so are Italy.
I mean, I say that about France but some of the biggest, you know Irie Ites is one of the biggest European new roots labels. And there’s so many labels in France that, I don’t know, a lot of the stuff must be getting played in France. But I guess I just haven’t heard it

The thing is, I’ve not been to a lot of dances – well a lot in France, but just in one area – but even a lot of the new sounds that have come up, they are very attached to roots and steppers, more like Iration and stuff like, and a bit of digital. Whereas in Glasgow, Mungo’s, and CC sound or Chungo Bungo, what they play does seem to be a bit more dancehall, or Jamaican orientated.  More digital and all, and then Mungo’s and the others often go into bass music. Whereas in France, well to the sessions I’ve been to, they are a lot colder to dubstep.

[Laugh] that’s kind of how I feel.

That’s the main difference I seem to have noticed, that there is a lot more roots and stepper in France, while in Glasgow it’s a lot more dancehall, new roots and newer stuff.

Yeah. Someone once told me there was a theory along the lines that it’s just colder here, so you want something that will keep you going, and a bit more upbeat [laugh] I don’t know, sometimes you read too much into these things, but you wonder if that might be true, if the further south you go you just get a slower bass. You know like in the south of Spain they just listen to nyabinghi drummers or something [laugh]

A friend told me another theory he had – he was a bit wasted at the time – but he argued that the periods where reggae and sound systems peaked was in times of crises. Like you had 50s and 70s in Jamaica, then 80s in UK, then it came back a little in the late 90s, then now since 2007 it’s become really popular. I’m not sure how much it stands up but I found it interesting.

Well there might be something in that. I mean, it is often seen as a protest music. Protest music is a funny phrase, but it is that way that it’s about people quite often, and it concerns how life is being lived. A lot of it is about reality. And yeah, maybe that would have something to do with it.

Well that brings on the next question. Originally reggae was very political in Jamaica, and even in England in the 80s. Has reggae kept its political element today?

Yeah. Certainly Jamaican stuff I think still retains a lot of that strong, political… like a strong political force. And all the rasta stuff you get still contains a lot of that religious weight. And a lot of it I think is still about society and things like that. I mean there’s obviously parts that aren’t. You get a lot of stuff that’s about nonsense, but you’re always going to get that. But compared to most other kinds of music, you get way more stuff that is socially and politically, trying to either have an influence or say something about the situation.

I mean stuff that’s produced in Europe. Again it’s a funny one. Because a lot of these guys who are producers in Europe are going to be using Jamaican vocalist, and they’ll still do that on the European productions. I don’t know if a lot of the European guys kind of mimic, or maybe not mimic because that’s harsh and I think a lot of the European guys are great, but take their lead from the Jamaican tradition.

I remember actually one time talking about this with Neil years ago, and we were saying that one of the things that gives reggae an extra dimension, that social and political and quasi-religious sort of punch to it. It really seems to give it some depth, more than just the music.
It’s a whole other layer than can be interesting, to see what people are saying about stuff. And a lot of stuff must come from the history in Jamaica as well, with like Mento and Calypso being musics that were basically just a way for people to tell news and stuff like that. If you listen to a lot of old Mento it’s amazing how it’s all about how this happened in this town, or there was a fire here. It’s amazing when you listen to it, it’s just stories about stuff that’s been happening. Some of it is hilarious too.

When you do a session with your sound system, is there something you try to bring to your night, aside from just the music? A particular vibe or message?

Well message, kind of. Sometimes you fall into play loads of tune which give out a certain message. Kind of by accident. Sometimes you have a plan to play a few where you feel like you’re spreading a message. But also, I’ve got a really strong belief that there’s a sort of energy in nights, somehow. That you can try and create the right conditions for that, so that everyone is really enjoying it, and then everyone kind of feeds of that and it gets bigger and bigger. So it’s all about that sort of thing, of setting the right lighting, setting the right tone, making sure it all sounds perfect – isn’t too loud at points, isn’t too quiet.

There are times almost where selecting the music… I don’t want to say you could do it without looking or whatever, but sometimes it’s not the most important thing at all. One thing that I think really gets energy going is when people see more than one person picking the music. So if you’ve two or three selecters who are doing a tune each  and we do that often at the end of the night – and it’s like a challenge to the next person, like a soundclash within the sound system And I think people can see that, and you can get an energy building up from it…

And that way as well that having an MC obviously helps, in that even if I’s not an MC that’s going over riddims but is just kind of hyping it up, keeping it chatting so that everyone feels involved. Because I find it funny how DJs who don’t play reggae don’t use mics. I don’t like going on the mic because I’m not very good at it. But if you’ve got an MC, it makes everyone feel so much more connected to the people who are playing.

But that’s what I would say, it’s more about trying to create the right atmosphere as much as iit is playing the right tunes.

You mentioned lighting, but even in setting up your system as well, is there a particular way you have of doing it or does it change according to where you are?

It depends on where you are but you’ve always got to think about the actual space that you’re setting up in. It depends where it is but you’ve got to t about it quite carefully I think. I mean there are technical reasons and there are reasons for making it a good night.
For technical reasons, if you set up wrongly, you’re going to be plagued by feedback and all that sort of stuff, so that’s the first consideration because the night’s going to be a disaster if the technical side isn’t right.

But after that you’ve got to think about where you have your speakers, where you have your decks, making sure that there’s space for people to get in and out of the dancefloor, because no one wants to be stuck. And if people feel that they might be stuck they won’t go on to the dancefloor I think. If it’s too bright people won’t dance, you know, you have to make it quite dark. And décor and stuff like that makes a huge difference.
I always prefer the decks to be quite close to the sound system, because what you tend to find is that a lot of people tend to congregate around the sound system. And our system isn’t huge, we’ve only really got one stack. So if you have it that close to you it makes it quite natural. You almost have a corner thing, the system and decks on each side of the corner.

I’ve seen people put the decks on one end of the room, and the sound system on the other. That could really work because you could almost book in the crowd, but I think it’s harder, because it puts people in two as to where they want to be. Some people like to be close to the decks, or close to the sound, or some like to be both.

Having the system at the other end of the room works well if you have a big system I think.

Absolutely. I mean two or three stacks and you’re laughing. That’s the thing: if you’ve got loads of stacks what everyone classically does is try to make a sort of enclosure, so that everyone can be inside a big triangle or square area. There’s a sweet spot right in the middle, so you get the decks halfway between the two stacks or whatever.  I mean all these things come into it sometimes you’re stuck by what venues you can get. You always think that one of the best things to do to only have a blank canvas for playing your sound. Like venues with unlimited possibilities.

But even the street in the Jamaica and you see it at the carnival how they do. On the street typically on the two sides they’ve got a stack on one side and a stack almost diagonally across from it. The decks will normally be set up sort of just inside that square. So you almost make a sort of square, as you’ll often put a van in the other corner. And I think that’s classically how folk would do it when they’ve got more stacks. And that works particularly well on a street, because ten the street becomes the dancefloor.

You play as well strictly vinyl, compared to the others that tend to also use laptops. Was that a conscious decision, or it sort of just happened?

Partly because we just had vinyl collections, but I do genuinely think that it sounds better. Actually you’d be amazed at how many people come up to us, or send us emails saying “I was down at your night, so great to see someone playing vinyl. I bet no-one that plays on a laptop gets emails saying “I was down at your night, great to see someone playing with a laptop”[laugh].

Again it’s talking about the energy. I think people pick up on the fact that there’s someone flicking through records, and finding one and putting it on. Compared to someone scrolling through their laptop or something, it’s a thing where people see it’s someone who’s really paying attention, and putting effort into it.
I mean, there is that element of it, I think it helps in that way. It’s annoying because there are a lot of things that you just can’t get on vinyl. But I like the fact that maybe you don’t find the record you’ve been wanting for ages, and then finally you find it and it’s like “holy shit, I’ve got it”.
Whereas I don’t think it’s the same if you say “oh I really like that tune, I’ll just download it”. It makes it a lot more throw away, and maybe people take a lot less care over what they’re playing. I ‘m not sure if that’s true. Good DJ probably don’t. But it means anyone can have anything, and I think it takes away the specificity of certain tracks.
I mean I don’t have all that many that are really dead expensive, I’ve got one or two, I’ve got a a few singles that I’ve paid over the odds for. I’ve got one album that is worth about 300 quid, but I didn’t buy it though: about 15 of my mates chipped in and got it for my 30th birthday.
But there is that element to it. I like it, because I really like vinyl. I like holding it, I like touching it, I like having the sleeves. I like the fact that you take the record off and on. I also find it a lot easier to find what you are going to play. I think if I was flipping through a laptop, I would kind of be stuck thinking “what am I going play”. Whereas, I mean I never take all my records obviously, but I take a selection and sometimes you’re just going through and you’ll think, “oh that will go well now”. It’s a very tactile thing, you know, you get more of a chance to interact with it I think.
But the main reason, as I say, is that I think people appreciate it. People pick up on it.

It’s true that as well because in sound system you’re on the same level as everyone else, anyone can sort of look at the record, or come up and ask you or have a chat.

Yeah, we get people asking to see stuff, and when people are trying to look over to the decks and you just tell them “hold on, I’ll show you at the end”.
The funny thing about all that is that back in the day in Jamaica they would scratch the labels off the records, because no one wanted other to know what they were. But there’s no point in that anymore because all music is so accessible. I mean I don’t think I would really want to hide what I was playing, I’ll always be happy to show it to someone. Because there isn’t the same rivalry for it. You don’t get proper sound clashes here. But even that rivalry doesn’t exist here because all the sound systems here try to help each other.

That’s true, it’s quite a difference because until the 80s, the rivalries were quite brutal – like they would rip your speakers apart and stuff.

Yeah. In Glasgow, I don’t know how it is in London or in the rest of the UK, but in Glasgow I know that because when we started there wasn’t much, everyone was just trying to have a go and help each other. And that’s just continued, to be honest. There have never been any disagreements between sound systems. Everyone is always, as far as I’m aware, been up for helping each other, and that whole aspect of collaborations and stuff.
I guess back in the day, in the Jamaican tradition, it was run by guys who were definitely businessmen as well. And one or two of them were gangsters probably. But you’re not going to get that here. I guess that the difference. You know there’s almost that kind of mock rivalry that you sometimes get. People sometimes get dubplates that say “we’re gonna kill your sound” or whatever, but no-one is going to come to a night and break up our speakers.
And as I say, there’s that care. I think maybe in Glasgow, and this includes everyone who comes to dances, but everyone kind of knows that they’ve built something up, so you don’t want to go around wrecking it. Everyone’s put so much effort into it that it wouldn’t seem right to go around breaking stuff out.
And everyone tries to help each other out. Kenny [bass warrior] helped us build the subs that we have. Whenever Kenny puts on a night I’ll go and give him a hand setting up; or I’ll go and ask Jerome [mungo’s hifi/bass alliance] for advice and get a lift in the van, or speak to whomever else about this stuff. Everyone does kind of help each other.

In the end it’s a community

Yeah. Because everyone’s got different areas of expertise.

You released your first 7” last year now – which was really cool. Do you have any more releases planned?

Just before I came down here, I arranged for it to get sent to the pressing plant. It will be coming out probably in the end of February or something. I got it mastered in December but because the pressing plant was shut over Christmas we held off to get the lackers cut. So the lackers are getting cut tomorrow and it’s getting delivered to the pressing plant in France. The place that presses the vinyl, they’re not the cheapest but they’re really good quality. And they’re cheaper than any in Britain as well. Britain is just overpriced for all that sort of thing.
But yeah, next one is two 7” at the same time, all on the same riddim, but with 3 vocals and the version. One of the vocals will be from a duo from St Lucia. We are actually going to go to St Lucia with Babascum, maybe in March. Partly to record vocalists, because I think there’s a lot of untapped potential there. To be honest everyone I’ve heard from there is really really good. But they don’t have a lot of facilities, and it’s untapped, there are no labels or anything like that.
But yeah, that’s one thing I’d actually consider doing with the label, is just making a link with St Lucia, since we’re kind of in there.It’s a very expensive process and we can’t really afford to be paying huge advances to artists, because as a sound system we don’t make anything. Trying to break even until you get to a stage where you do start to make some money and then you maybe think about starting to pay advances, and folk can start to earn royalties and things like that. I don’t know if we’ll ever get to that stage.
But again, I think having a label – it’s one of those things that are traditional amongst sound systems. When you think back to all the Jamaican sound systems that became labels – like Treasure Isle, Coxsone Dodd became Studio One. And the later ones, you’ve got stereo one, Stone Love… All these started off as sound systems and became labels. And it was just a natural right of passage in a way, that you would eventually have a label as well.

That brings on to the last question. Having your own sound system, your own label, your own productions, essentially means you are completely autonomous. You don’t rely on anyone else.

Yeah well I think that is the key thing for sound systems, is that they stand apart from everything else. You get booked occasionally by promoters, but by and large we promote our own things, we run our own label, it’s not like you’re just an act that’s there to be booked. You’re doing your own thing.
You lean on people for favors, and help and that kind of mutual exchange of information. And maybe that’s partly what makes up a sound system’s identity, is that they do stuff by themselves, without relying too much on other people. Being able to run a night, a sound system night from scratch, however you do that. All the different aspects like booking guests, getting them somewhere to stay, arranging the sound system, making up flyers. We always just design our flyers. Most club nights would just pay someone to design stuff like that.
I think you can realize a lot more what you want to do that way, when you’re in control of more stuff. Because there’s so much different bits. I remember actually, you know our crew has changed a fair bit over the past few years, we got more folk involved. But I remember sitting down and drawing a diagram of all the different aspects, and it was huge! There was so much stuff in it. I wrote Argonauts sound system in the middle of it, and drew a mind map chart of all the different things, it was a massive thing. It was amazing actually when you looked at all the different stuff, and there were things that you realized linked.
All the different things that you did, or had to look after as part of it. And what that would entail, and how they would link. Like there was Argonauts sound, then there’s the sound system, so that linked to the warehouse where we keep our sound. The maintenance aspect, and then you have sound system nights that link up to the sound system but also go with flyers and guests and all these different aspects. And then of course our radio show, and how that links to PR and promotion.

Was that the subcity radio show?

Yeah, we’ve done it for 12 years now.

You also do the Sunny Govan one as well?

No Neil used to do that with Craig, but he’s not done it for a while. Craig that puts on gigs at Mcsorley’s and places, he’s more a promoter. But the show was pretty good.

I mean, when we started doing Subcity, it was only on 4 weeks a year on FM in the Glasgow area, because there was no internet radio. So we had a 4 week local FM license, and it cost that like six grand or something for those weeks. And that was the things, 4 weeks of shows, you’d get so hyped up for it and so excited. All your mates would listen to it on the radios.
But it all changed when we started to get internet radio, because we realized that the costs of the FM license doesn’t really make sense anymore.
The internet radio works – I mean I was really skeptical about it at first. Because I didn’t think at first that there was that many listeners, but it gets a fair amount of listeners now. And the fact that people can listen back to it as well.

At this point we finished the interview, but we kept on talking and it got quite interesting so I put the recorder back on:

I tend to think that in Europe the music goes off in tangents, like you get dubstep.. In Britain it went off in tangents from Jamaican stuff in the 80s as well, when they got lovers rock and stuff like that. And that tends to happen quite a lot, it goes off in tangents. But ultimately the path of reggae is still dictated by Jamaica. Whether that be dancehall, or new roots or whatever. And Europe takes ideas off that and goes in different directions. But reggae is always dictated by what is popular in the dancehall in Jamaica. You know like in the 80s they were into digital and so that’s what came over here, and so people took from that and made other stuff – they made this kind of digital dub and things like that.
And in the 90s they got really into their ragga dancehall, and the kind of slackness stuff. And supposedly people didn’t get so much into that here, although I think you see elements of it.

Well jungle kind of brought in elements of that

Yeah. So that all went into that.
And now in Jamaica, for the last 10 years it was all Sizzla and Anthony B. And that has come across and people have taken that… I don’t know if that’s actually caused too much of an impact here, in terms offshoots… but it’s gone now again in Jamaica where they’re just going down their own path.
They went through that phase where it seemed like Mavado and folk were going to get huge, and then they faded away and it’s come back more into this kind of… well they’re all talking about this reggae revival. With Chronixx and Kabaka Pyramid, and I love all that stuff, I think they’re all really really good. But it’s interesting to see, they’re not paying attention to all this dubstep stuff. You don’t hear dubstep in Jamaica. There’s more like of feedback loop on it. They send stuff over here to Europe, and Europe takes it in its own direction and places, but there’s no feedback to Jamaica where they say “oh we love that”. No we like what we like, you know, and we are going to do our own thing.

And because ultimately what it comes down to in Jamaica, what’s popular is what’s popular in sound system dances. And they don’t really care what is going on elsewhere. They’ve got stuff made locally that is popular… They like a lot of American stuff too I guess.

Also reggae is essentially their music, it’s Jamaican, so they don’t really care about the reggae that’s out there, because it’s not theirs in a sense.

I think a lot of the artists have got a lot of respect for the European scene. But I don’t know that your average man or woman on the street that goes to a sound system would give a damn about what’s happening in France or Britain or Germany.

It’s true I would be a bit surprised if local Jamaican sound system would be playing French dubs or productions.

Yeah, I would be pretty surprised. I think you might get one or two coming through because of how many Jamaican artists are recording there. But a lot of this reggae revival, new roots kind of ties with a lot of the stuff that’s coming out of Europe as well at the moment. But you never know how that’s going to split in a couple years’ time.

Yeah it’s the one thing that I am a bit surprised with is the whole dubstep , bass music being so big in sound system nights recently. I mean I can see why, sound systems are best for bass, and dubstep and bass music rely on that, but a lot of reggae sounds tend  to now blend both.

Yeah, I’m not really into dubstep. I’m always a bit amused by dubstep rooms at reggae nights. I kind of feel like the dubstep stuff… I’ve actually enjoyed it at times when I’ve been really really wasted, I don’t so much like listening to it. But I would almost prefer it if it wasn’t at a reggae night, because I really enjoy listening to reggae and then someone puts dubstep on.

Although that being said, the first dubstep nights, DMZ and all that, I do enjoy that kind of dubstep – with a slow bass, really quite minimal.

Yeah I mean I’ve heard some stuff that is a lot closer to classic dub. If I was going to be into any of that, I guess I’d be into that. But I’m not really. But I can see where that’s coming from.
But again, dubstep you know, most people in Jamaica would be oblivious to it. To be honest I feel kind of jealous of them [laugh]. You’ve got to have a certain respect for a place that is so sure of itself that it just doesn’t really give a damn. I mean that’s also why they’re wrong on some things, I mean some of their lyrical stuff. And you know, it doesn’t really affect them that millions of people in Europe see something wrong about it.

Check out their website for all the information on their radio show and gigs, and here’s a promo of their last 7″ release ‘Down Inna Di Ghetto‘ featuring Babascum.