BY LUKE
PHOTOGRAPHY, GEOFF
STANFIELD, GEOFF
STANFIELD
If you are a music producer, mixer, label owner, songwriter, or electronic music maker, you owe a debt to Lee "Scratch" Perry. He was, and continues to be, a spiritual guide and compass for true artistic expression. He is a dub pioneer, the first to turn Rasta culture and beliefs into a popular music art form, first user of samples, and a living work of art. You can thank him for Bob Marley, as well as so many Jamaican artists that followed. At his Black Ark Studio in Jamaica, (a studio that he says he was divined to build and subsequently burned down because of evil spirits; the idea being that if he didn't destroy it, it would destroy him) Lee Perry was experimenting with these sounds and ideas. In 1973 Lee released Blackboard Jungle Dub, the first album consisting entirely of dub mixes. It is still considered to be a benchmark of the genre. Lee's 1976 album Super Ape, under the name The Upsetters, is the quintessential dub record. The songs are great, the mix earthy, gritty, mystical, and trippy. Horns, flutes, melodica, echoes, big bass, and floating on top of it all is Lee Perry. Listening with a critical ear to the technical aspects of Super Ape's mix reveals flaws in all their glory. Horns are too far away, hooks are buried in mud, and balances are out of whack. But none of that matters. Listening to dub records from this era is a time machine look into the available technology, which was pushed creatively far beyond its intended use. In the same way The Beatles pushed recording technology to new ends, so did the pioneers of dub music in Jamaica. Spring reverbs, tape echoes, and the mixing console as an instrument via pans, mutes, and volume rides – it all became an art unto itself. Mixing was no longer simply about setting balances, EQs, and committing a mix to a fixed format. It was a performance; a reinterpretation of a song. It was dangerous, and it was inspiring. When I saw that Lee was making his way to Seattle to perform a new version of this classic recording, called Super Ape Returns to Conquer (a collaboration with Subatomic Sound System), I was all over it. It then occurred to me that perhaps he'd be interested in doing an interview for Tape Op. The night of the show I went to soundcheck, shot some video and pics, and chatted with Emch from Subatomic. My interview with Lee was to happen the following day at my studio. After confirming with Emch, he mentioned that it would be a good idea to try and talk to Lee that evening "just in case." Well, as it turned out, a contingency plan was a good idea. By that point in the evening there had been prolific amounts of ganja smoked by the man, and plenty of backstage distractions. There were fanboys, hangers-on, a large Rambo-style hunting knife, and a bit of semi-coherent conversation. At one point he changed into a cloak, adorned his cap with battery-powered Christmas lights, and with large spliff in hand gave a riffing sound-system MC-ish performance of "Cloak & Dagger." As we set up for the interview, Lee sat in a chair and I was left to sit on the floor in front of him. Between us was a large platter of fruit, with burning incense sticks planted in several bananas. Lee had no interest in answering any question directly, instead offering a roundabout rhyme, poem, or references to Jesus and ganja, as well as some topics not fit for print.
