I suppose my influences must be more or less the same as the artists I like to listen to, although perhaps there are a few that I don't really listen to much but respect as creators of music. Here's a sample:
Pop/Electro/Punk
Kraftwerk /
Mike Oldfield /
David Bowie /
Marc Bolan /
the Sex Pistols /
the Stranglers /
Siouxsie and the Banshees /
Reggae/Ska
Prince Buster /
Desmond Dekker /
the Skatalites /
Dave and Ansel Collins /
Jimmy Cliff /
Prince Far I /
Linton Kwesi Johnson /
Dennis Brown /
Black Slate /
Misty in Roots /
Bob Marley and the Wailers /
the Specials (formerly the Special AKA) /
Damien Marley
And as you may have noticed a classical element creeping in to some of my tunes I ought to mention the classical composers that I like best:
Ludwig van Beethoven / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Johann Sebastian Bach / Edvard Grieg / Gustav Holst / Johann Strauss the Younger
There's a lot of traditional music around whose composers are lost in the mists of time... great stuff... for instance, The Irish Rover... performed most famously by The Pogues & the Dubliners, but does anyone know its origins?
Sounds Like
I leave that as an exercise for the listener. If you tell me, I may quote you here.
I used to compose music on a family piano... every now and then I get the urge to string a few notes together, and now I have decided to submit my creations to the great assembled throng of MySpace readers. I hope you at least have as much fun listening to it as I did creating it.
Q & A: What are your earliest musical memories?
My earliest memory of music is probably the Beatles, i.e. "Twist and Shout", "I wanna hold your hand", "She loves you", and I probably started noticing music in the 60s, with all the pop records of that era, and some of the older ones that were "recent oldies" at the time, such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Gerry & The Pacemakers and so on.
When did you develop an interest in reggae?
My interest in music intensified in the 1970s with pop and rock bands such as Slade, Wizzard, T Rex, David Bowie, Queen etc. and I developed a particular liking for reggae music through popular representations of the genre, not forgetting of course the late, great, Bob Marley and the Wailers. A popular artist at the time, with teenagers, was the now largely forgotten Judge Dread (the late Alexander Hughes) most of whose records were banned on the BBC... usually a sure fire guarantee of chart success... you know what teenagers are like... he used to record in studios in the town where I went to school and some of the kids used to bring in tapes from the studios.
But the popular chart reggae led me to more "roots" music style Jamaican-style reggae from Jamaican, UK, and US based artists including Prince Far I, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Dennis Brown, and a great many more.
How did you get to hear of these less mainstream artists?
Well, there was certainly some radio play, and I was a regular listener to John Peel for as far back as I can remember, and his musical tastes are of course legendary and he always had a spot for some hard-core reggae music. I discovered record shops such as Daddy Kool in Soho, which I used to get dub plates from by mail order when I was away from London (examples would be "Hard Time Pressure" by Sugar Minott and "Higher Field Marshall" by Peter Broggs & Prince Far I), and there was another record shop that I used to visit in Harlesden.
In the 80s I often listened to reggae music on Radio London (Tony Williams, Reggae Rockers) and liked the "Lovers Rock" riddims that turned up then.
What other genres did you like?
When punk music came along, I went to see the Sex Pistols and the Stranglers. I've always had some kind of interest in new music, new at the time that is, and still like to hear what's coming up from the latest batch of new artists.
Ska had a revival when I was at University and I enjoyed artists like The Special AKA (they dropped the "AKA" of course), The Selecter and Madness, and discovered lots of old ska tunes that had influenced those bands, which were re-released at the time on LPs such as "Club Ska 67".
And what contemporary artists do you like?
I like some R&B and hip-hop tracks but most drum-and-bass, house, garage etc. dance type tracks go over my head (not being my generation on the dance floor). I generally prefer the reggae and ska of the sixties/seventies/eighties, but there are certainly some interesting people around today, Damien Marley for example, and others who you might well find on my Myspace friends list.
Do you do concerts?
As I don't play an instrument or sing I generally stick to creating electro-synthesised music. But I have in the past DJ'd for the Hull University Student's Union Technical Committee, for private parties, Union discos, as stand-in for the Union soul and rock DJs, even for the audience before a Slade concert, where Noddy Holder came over to the decks to have a look through the Union record collection. I probably mystified a lot of students by playing a lot of reggae dub plates...
We keep on doin' good music, having new releases for you coming out this month so, if you wanna know what's currently out click on the following link...
Hey Collin,
thanks a lot for your kind comments.
It´s great to be friends!
I just popped in to wish you a nice weekend and a lot of cool music ;-)
Take care and be well.
Peace,
Chris
