how much do you spend?

[bullit]

yeah some would think thats pretty extreme, I certainly couldnt afford, im just happy to be able to listen to a tune, let alone have it twice!. Im sure one day you'll get your day to play out

[leggo rocker]

Yeah, I'm pushing for it Bullit. Started approaching local venues (Lincoln) but they all say I would have to mix Northern Soul in the night. I don't have any, and don't even really like it that much (I prefer the more funky late 70s early 80s Jazz Funk and Soul).

I'm not as convinced as they are that this is really necessary but I guess they should know best what their audience wants.

Right now I have to make do with regular sound clashes with my brother when he visits - our only audience being anyone who happens to be within 100 metres of the house at the time

[bullit]

hehe, well, my advice is only play what you want to, if they dont want that then no worries. There will be an audience for your style somewhere, ask local pubs and stuff and start off small once people get into your tunes and the stuff you play you'll get a following and the bigger places will let you play whatever you want. Cant believe they'd start dictating to you what to play

[buddy dread]

i spend a good 500 a month . give or take .

[leggo rocker]

Please specify your currency to put it into proportion Buddy Dread!

[tingjunkie]

These are crazy amounts! So much for reggae being "sufferers music."

Any of you find it hard listening to lyrics about poverty and "paying the rentman" and things like that, knowing that you have spent so much on luxury items? I'm not judging... just curious. You have to admit, it's pretty ironic.

[Maple Free]

Well,no.If a person works hard for their money they are free to spend it how they like.Bob marley lived with luxurys,Burning SPear lives with luxuries,Michael Rose lives with luxuries.
Reggae is for everyone ,even people with extra money to spend.

[tingjunkie]

I guess you missed the point Maple. Of course reggae is for everyone, but thinking about someone spending hundreds of dollars a month to listen to music which is primarily made by poor people, aimed primarily at poor people, and often deals with issues of poverty, is very ironic.

It's kind of like sitting down with a Big Mac and large fries to watch an exercise video. I'm not saying that it's wrong, or that you don't earn it, but if you can't see the humor in it, then you are taking life (and yourself) WAY too seriously.

[leggo rocker]

Yes, I understand your point tingjunkie and the irony of it all.

But I was also born in the ghetto - OK, it was a UK ghetto (at the time it was UK's biggest and possibly roughest council estate or housing project) and not Kingston. But we were dirt poor and often times in my youth me and my brothers were hungry.

Since then I have sometimes been absolutely penniless, even homeless and often hungry. The words from Sugar Minott's Ghetto-ology LP meant so much to me in those bitter hard times.

I worked hard and have earned my money from my Jah-Given skills as an artist (paintings) and a writer. And I invested my rewards carefully in property which I let exclusively to disadvantaged families who have been cast aside by the shistem.

So in many ways I actually feel empathy with the artists who made this music and their struggles. I can remember getting paid for a painting and going straight with the money to buy food to feed my kids who were waiting at home with empty cupboards and empty bellies.

I would prefer to buy the music direct from the artists and support them - but then many of them are either dead or spending their money on crack now!

And even when we bought this music back int he 70s the artists didn't benefit because of the producer / label twisted shistem.

And maybe I am sometimes buying records off people who are selling because they need the money to eat or pay bills, just maybe!

Really and truely this vinyl is now like postage stamps - collectable items. We may not like this, but it is the truth.

In the meantime I am doing what I am sure some collectors don't do - I am actually playing the stuff, regardless of its rarity! I have even broken the seal on unplayed stuff that has sat on a shelf since the early 1980s to play it - thus reducing its value. I don't care, I buy to listen as well as to collect.

And if I was to not buy records and to download MP3s without paying for them, how much help would the ghetto-ites get from this?

[bullit]

There has to be people out there to spread the vibes, i buy, then go out and play it to people who may not have the oppotunity to buy the tune themselves.. Keeping the rhythm alive and spreading the meaning of the tunes to perhaps the people who cannot afford, while knowing the meaning myself and the gift i have in playing it.