By Michael O’Brien Currently we have two trends in music filling distinct socio-political categories. Both are direct offshoots of Third World politics. London continues to serve as a musical Eden of sorts, spawning the raging political “punk rock” and more recently giving birth to an excellent and formidable movement in reggae, previously a product of Jamaica. Our vague comprehension of this music on these'shores is by virtue of equally vague exposure. Americans have less than a full understanding of this Third World music; any other claim would be pretentious. Without the daily life that breeds the anger behind its messages, we can only interpret reggae, never fully understand it. Stateside critics continually miss the essence of the punk or reggae statement. Rock criticism, one will remember. was born wealthy, the product of kids who attended Dartmouth, Brandeis, Swarthmore and Berkeley. That has always been the contradiction between the music and what is written about it. The true essence of Third World music is the angry lifestyle represented by its purveyors, the musicians and their immediate peers. The $30 guitar that plays only three blaring chords is a statement in itself of the situation faced by an impoverished, homeless, frus tra ted 17-year-old punk-rocker in London. London: No employment, no opportunity and, as Johnny Rotten warns us, “No Future.” The “Burnin’ and Lootin’” Marley tells us of, or the “War in a Babylon” he prophesies for us, are very real in Jamaica, where the average income in Trenchtown is eight dollars a year. Or in London, where thousands and thousands of broke and angry blacks live on top of each other in run-down “projects.” I had a night of it in London, summer of ’77, at the Nottinghill Gate Festival, right around the time that popular punk rock and reggae were getting their roots. . . . August 16,1977 Tonight, it’s real hot in this area of London. It is summer and there has been a three-month drought accompanied by a heat wave, water shortage, tourist infiltration, and an undeniable discomfort and tension lies alert near the pulse of this festival crowd. There are assorted kinds of heat that I feel at the Nottinghill Gate Festival. In actuality, the party is for the black populace of this area, which swarms with gangs of sticky-fingered youth at the Portabello Road marketplace each day. Tonight they are invited and, for the first time in several years, I receive a piercing black-white glare from occasional eye contact with the crowd. Something is real nervous here and I wonder: “Should I forget about hearing this music and watching this pageantry? Should I reSpect it as ‘theirs’ and get my white legs out of this peculiar East Indian pickpockets’ target area?” Even as I continue, hands are in and out of my pockets continuously to the point that I don’t even take further offense, brushing it off as a strange, game that is played down here if the kids are black and you’re white. This could end my journey, but I have tokens and passport hanging around my neck which so far seems immune to these rude thieves. This is a scared, tense, and poverty- riddled London. I am scheduled to buy records, and I owe it to myself to see what I can when I’m in the neighborhood. A sort of perverse vanity creeps through me regarding the tension exuding from this nightlit, slightly drunk crowd of thousands, who are all moving the same way, behind a steel band on top of a long flatbed truck. I drop out momentarily to consider the reason for my ego-foul. Maybe it’s the fact that I know, if I’m willing to admit it, that yes, there is trouble here and this crowd is carrying it. With this knowledge in hand, I envision the stories I will accumulate for my less-traveled friends in a typically vain, obscenely American tourist manner. Never does fear rear its head, just nervous anticipation: “What’s happenin’, man? Honest, they’ve already been in that pocket three hundred times.” They are like mosquitoes on this sticky August night they are. The music is all-encompassing, which heightens my ability to float through this churning, somehow evil evening. Trenchtown rock has been playing at maximum decibel from every building in this area for a week, but tonight it is the real thing. Jamaican reggae groups plugged in on street corners as you pass by, some of them known to even myself as recording artists, whose vinyl I am here to transfer back to the frontier of Portland, Oregon. I am excited to be having this experience which is so exceedingly alive tonight. Some American soul groups are here jamming as well and getting a head-bouncing, half dance, just groovin’ on by thanks, response from the somatic crowd as thousands gyrate in half-time while walk-dancing through the streets of Portabello. The real juice is coming from the reggae regime, as political overtones grab the mood and a peak experience seems to be occurring for a lot of black folk. More nervous eyes begin to twitch now. A few shouts, some brisk shoving from behind, and we are en masse moving faster now, towards a darkened, block-long underpass, like a dam bursting. With this I react; quickly, and just in time ducking to the side before being swept into the tunnel, where I am sure at least minor bummers are in full swing at this very moment from the shrieks of panic bouncing out at those of us approaching it. Enough for this rookie, I tell myself, I don't belong to this from here on, and I start to head back, alongside but against the flow of what is becoming a rabid black snake, attacking itself on Portabello Road with its ice-like and hypnotic anger now boiling with the 6:30A.M. -3P.M . SUN. -THURS. OPEN ’TIL MIDNIGHT LIVE MUSIC FRI.&SAT. 6439 S.W. Macadam 246-5108 we buy used records COLLECTIONS WANTED TOP PRICES PAID RECORDS 832 S.W. PARK • 222-4773 • • 40
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