Roots Archives Forum

To bring the Reggae good times back we have to go back to old school. This modern stuff that the likes of Damien Marley makes is, in my humble opinion,poor, that said I do like Jamrock.
We have to go back to "at least" 74/75 but the real good times were early 80's.
To showcase such music there should be more festivals in the UK like when Sunsplash came to Crystal Palace.
OK a lot of the artists have departed this earth but there is still plenty of big names to help bring it back.

NINEMILES wrote:To bring the Reggae good times back we have to go back to old school. This modern stuff that the likes of Damien Marley makes is, in my humble opinion,poor, that said I do like Jamrock.

I think the new roots revival has lost its way, and straight up bashment stuff is on a retro tip too; but that isn't the point, people still want to listen to new stuff, they just don't want to pay for it, and if the industry is in decline the music goes down with it.

I don't think revival events are the way forward at all. Forward ever backward never...

NINEMILES wrote:To bring the Reggae good times back we have to go back to old school. This modern stuff that the likes of Damien Marley makes is, in my humble opinion,poor, that said I do like Jamrock.
We have to go back to "at least" 74/75 but the real good times were early 80's.
To showcase such music there should be more festivals in the UK like when Sunsplash came to Crystal Palace.
OK a lot of the artists have departed this earth but there is still plenty of big names to help bring it back.

Don't you think that this might lead to the 'old guys who've done nothing creative for years playing greatest hits for cash' effect?

There's a big punk fest in the UK that's a bit like that, especially with the big-name bands.

The problem is that record shops do not add that much value compared to webshops. I am still à heavy record and cd buyer, but most of it I purchase viawebshops such as ErnieB.
Why?

It is much cheaper.
Soundsamples are easily available , i can listen to soundbits of 100 records and only buy 5 (try doing this in à shop)
Availability of vinyl is very good.
Its easy, you can do this at night (when shops are closed)...

what disturbs me though, that i purchase most of The stuff in THE us, even if it concerns Europeanen pressings (its à pricing thing). If you arrangement this properly, you wont even neef to pay vat.

The value record shops offer is that they aren't websites.

Good Reggae shops play records for you, and you walk out of the shop with your purchases, you don't have to wait for them to be shipped across the Atlantic.

Also Ernie B's site is an aesthetic disaster; I can't bare to look at it.

Yeah maxi Trojan you are right. A record shop is not à website... I love to visit one when i am nearby. when I am in new York, I always go to Jammyland. When I am in Amsterdam, i always went to boudisque (which also closed down last year).
Fact is that it is à very rare thing, à reggae records shop. Especially when you are not living in abig city. So THE web alternative is à very appealing one. At least à better alternative than downloading illegaly.

What i do thinking is disturbing is that via THE web deleieveries out of THE us are much cheaper, because of unpaid vat. Competition is unfair.

Roots record man wrote:What i do thinking is disturbing is that via THE web deleieveries out of THE us are much cheaper, because of unpaid vat. Competition is unfair.

I guess this is because in the US and Canada, VAT is added on at the point of sale, and if you buy online you don't have to do this. You might have to pay import duty though which is an extra hassle.

In my experience music has always been retailed cheaper in the US, before or after VAT. In the UK the mark up on CDs was notoriously high, because people didn't complain; they're now suffering some passive-aggressive payback for this liberty.

Roots record man wrote:Yeah maxi Trojan you are right. A record shop is not à website... I love to visit one when i am nearby. when I am in new York, I always go to Jammyland. When I am in Amsterdam, i always went to boudisque (which also closed down last year).
Fact is that it is à very rare thing, à reggae records shop. Especially when you are not living in abig city. So THE web alternative is à very appealing one. At least à better alternative than downloading illegaly.

Yeah, good luck in finding anywhere with a decent selection of reggae if you live in a crap Northern town like mine.

There's an HMV. That has one rack (about 5 feet wide) for 'reggae/ska/soul'.

In terms of reggae, there'll usually be a few copies of, say 3 Bob Marley albums, a few copies of Bob Marley's 'Legend', a few of those dodgy Bob Marley compilations released on labels you've never heard of - and maybe a couple of Trojan 2CDs/theme boxes. Cheapest item there will be £14.99. Oh - and UB-bloody-40.

Stick-a-Bush wrote: Yeah, good luck in finding anywhere with a decent selection of reggae if you live in a crap Northern town like mine.

Yeah I feel your pain, I grew up in Scarborough. The web is a great help if you're out in the sticks.

But I used to love getting a train to London and buying a big pile of singles; even if you did have to interact with that rude bloke in Daddy Kool

Maxi Trojan wrote:I think this because a song starts in the studio, it's played in the sound system, then it's played on the radio and if it's popular enough it will make it onto an artists live set.....so I can't see why live music is the future when it is the end of the chain.

Maybe most of the times is like this, but I remember a Roland Alphonso interview (I think it was Roland), where he said that Coxsone made the Soul Vendors play live weekly, like a regular job. It allowed him to see which songs people liked/danced the most, and then he made the record (with a realistic prevision of the commercial acceptance of it).