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Marky Power - Bass, vocals

Jesse Willaton - Rhythm and lead guitar

Hugh Jones - Drumkit

Stuart Currie - Trombone, vocals

Smurf - Trumpet

Ben (Gfresh) Ganly - Keyboards

Sonia Leeson - Vocals

Simon Jerrems on Reggae and Rastafari Influences

I grew up in the suburb of Montmerency and left with my parents to live closer to the city at around the age of eight or nine. I always remember Montmerency as being more natural. It had a lot of native gum trees and was much more earthy and bush like than closer to the city. It was hardly like the country but had more trees. I grew up in a Christian church and was always in question of the validity and authenticity of this religious tradition (as it is known). I did not, at a young age, have the ‘intellectual’ development on which to base my doubts upon, but more felt that something was not ‘right’.

I was first introduced to reggae through a school friend around the age of fourteen or fifteen. Prior to that I was into rap, popular music and classical music. Bob Marley and Peter Tosh were the first two artists I was introduced to and the first record I bought was Exodus by Bob Marley. Most kids at my school weren’t into reggae; in fact it was only me and one other friend who were actually interested in reggae.

It was around this time that I stopped going to church and was disinterested in the patriacrchal system of Christianity. I was always thoroughly passionate and interested in anything spiritual or philosophical or anything to do with the idea of God or life. I chose to follow my own intuition and discover for myself what this all meant for me. It was difficult in a society that is/was predominantly Christian and white Anglo-Saxon, to even want to talk about God without people thinking you were talking about the Jesus-ised version or some mystery God separate from you out in space or up in the sky.

I knew Bob Marley had profound messages in his music from what I had been told prior to even listening to him. I listened to Bob for a while and got tapes of his other albums. A guy that I knew who had been to Bali for holidays gave me two tapes by Black Uhuru and one by Peter Tosh. I loved the music so much and was mesmerized by the Black Uhuru sound, which was very different to Bob and Peter. It had a sifferent sort of depth. I didn’t really understand some of the things that Bob Marley was saying in his music at first because of the unfamiliarity I had with the Jamaican accent. In many ways this was perfect because I would just listen and feel the music. The emotions I felt were unlike any of the emotions I had experienced with other music that I had heard in Australia at that time.

I was totally engrossed and amazed and couldn’t understand why none of my peers were interested. After a short period of time listening and getting used to the accent, I could understand much of what the message was from a mental level and I became more pulled in. Quite a portion of what he was saying from the perspective of being a black man, I couldn’t relate to because I was a white skinned teenager living in Australia. But I could feel the emotions of his expressions and that amazed me. I was so humbled because I knew that what I sensed and felt in my emotions was second hand. I would never know what it would be like to be a black person and of course had not the experience he was referring to. I did not identify in this was because I was from the ‘white race’. I mentally could see what he was saying and I knew what he was saying was true, so had some education by his message about racial injustice while living as a young teenager. I knew I would never know the experience but having a start in being informed about the experience was revealing. I related a lot to the spiritual messages and devotional songs and felt that these were beyond flesh. They had a universal message.

Over the coming years whilst at school I began listening to Burning Spear, Dennis Brown, I-Kong and Jamaica, Gregory Issacs and the first CD I ever bought was I-Jah man Levi. The more I heard the more I wanted to explore the music. I read everything I could get my hands on about Jamaica, Rastafari people and reggae music. I was interested in Haile Selassie and his life but as a teenager found little information on him in Australia. I eventually had to go to the Victorian State Library to get any information about him and there I read a part of one of his biographies. I found that I got mixed reports about him from others so I wasn’t satisfied that I knew enough. So I kept listening to the music and continued building on my own form of spirituality that was innate. The Meditations, the Gladiators, Culture, Steel Pulse, Freddie McGreggor and Twinkle Brothers were the next group of artists that I became interested in when I left school. For many years I recorded songs off a Melbourne reggae show that was hosted by Rich Mickleff and DJ Sintaro. I taped songs because I didn’t have the money to buy CD’s. I became familiar with artists like Lucky Dube, Adeyahwah, Mickey General, H.R, Pato Banton, Barrigton Levi, Junior Reid, Alpha Blondi, Junior Delago, Sugar Minot. In later years I bought CD’s when I could afford them. I just spent money on getting all the albums that my favourite artists had recorded over many years or just wore out the albums by artists I had already been listening to from day one!

It wasn’t until the late nineties that I started to become aware of artists like Luciano, Mystic Revealers, Tony Rebel and I became extremely excited that roots reggae was still very much alive. Artists like Morgan Heritage and Luciano were coming forward. The new millennium brought Bushman, Prince Malachi, Jah Cure, Chizedek, Chrisinti, I-Wayne and dancehall artists like Capleton, Sizzla, Turbulance, Anthony B, Lutan Fiyah, Jah Mason, Natural Black (to name a few). All artists in the new millennium have all been massive inspirations for my music and singing. Plus a host of brilliant artists from the Virgin Islands like Dezarie, Midnite, NyoRah, IBA, Remah and Bambo Station have had an incredible and fresh effect on my feeling for reggae. My most admired ‘new’ vocalist is Vaughn Benjamin and his band Midnite. His expressions and lyrical content are visionary and ingenious. He brings a whole new dimension to the music with a deep and powerful sound. I consider many of his songs as reggae master pieces; musical masterpieces.

Since the advent of the internet, I was able to learn more about Selassie from speeches and other testimonials. I reached the conclusion of his greatness as a leader, realising the propaganda and controversy that some have come to smear on his name. Whether some see him as a God or not, I know that the world would do well to study this man’s life and works. We should listen to Rastafari men and women going beyond the superficialities that people try and super impose over the commonsense truth of Rastafari living. Rastafari living includes a healthy lifestyle eating natural food from the earth, grown and prepared in a natural way as well as a compassionate outlook on fellow human beings with emphasis on social awareness and conscience. A spiritual awareness of consciousness of the deeper essence of self and the highest potentials of self and being Jah (the God force) inherent in all beings. The reality of a god that is not ‘out there’ but is in the here and now and is in the flesh. The flexibility of individualistic understandings of Haile Selassie, his role and meaning to various Rastafari people with solid boundaries and principles to exemplify a truthful and dignified visibility that is defined. The veneration of education. The total freedom by the black man for the black man for equal rights and justice in a world that has been dominated and polluted by Eurocentirc values/lies and systems.

My desires and wishes for others who see me and hear this music is that they find who and that which they be in the reflection of the word sound and power vibration of the music. I have no desire to see young white Australian kids growing dreadlocks and screaming Rastafari or any other such things. My music is about the heart. Whatever image you take is your business as long as you are being truthful to yourself. It is important to me to live in context with my own culture (which in Australia is not particularly fixed and is still in early developmental stages) and to be honest to myself, finding the highest love of integrity within me and be it. I have no great desire to be considered as a Rastafari by others or to greatly project myself as a Rastafari man or even a spokesperson for Rastafari peoples.

I am not a spokesperson for anyone. For myself I am that I am. If there is a word to define the indefinable, great; but that is found in meaning, not in the linear construct of human language. There is no power in words or sounds if they do not come from the source of the meaning. Meaning, energy and consciousness defines words, not the other way round. I have drawn greatly from many spiritual traditions creating myself as I learn more. I take what resonates with my innate intuition but also actively seek out information that challenges my own mind and perspectives.

I have always sung reggae and have never sung any other ‘style’ of music. I began singing to music in my bedroom at around age fourteen or fifteen. I wasn’t conscious of every word I was singing; I was more singing out sounds and feeling the emotions (in my interpretation of them) in the vocals and felt a great uplifting and personal transformation. I would only sing songs that I related to, which were mostly spiritual or personal in their subjective projection. I felt I could feel and relate to those songs which were universal and were in context with my own upbringing and culture. I still however, love all messages in reggae that are righteous.

The forces of conscious integrity and light do offer me messages of encouragement and assistance from the spiritual realm, but no mystery God is whispering in my ear telling me to do this, do that or jump over the haystack like some George Bush- 'God told me so'- business. No, this is not my living philosophy or action.

I have drawn greatly from Rastafari teachings and ideas but these teachings are not exclusive to “Rastafari’ culture. I have found them in other philosophical and spiritual traditions. I believe in eating healthy foods, preferably organic; I do not personally drink alcohol (but am not against it if in moderation); I do not eat pork and steer clear of processed foods. I meditate, chant positive affirmations, I give thanks for life and the breath of life and I offer and call for the blessings for others that they may know who they are in essence. I read anything that awakens my conscious awareness to more of who I am, to the best of my knowledge of what I can. I believe in the use of cannabis for making clothes, ropes, industrial uses, medical uses and the right for adults to smoke it without the threat of imprisonment or prosecution. I believe in proper education in regards to smoking marijuana so that it be known for (like all natural things on the earth) as being sacred and therefore a sacrament to be used (if chosen) wisely for relaxation, contemplations, meditation, perceptive inspiration to live in the here and now. And not to be known for the idea that it is about getting ‘out of it’ or ‘f….d up’, ie. unconscious.

I have no desire for white people who claim themselves as Rasta or Rastafarian to believe they are spokespersons for black people. I believe that a white person can never know or have the direct experience of what it is like to be a black person in this world at this time. Therefore no white person should ever be a spokesperson for the experiences and issues concerning black people or indigenous peoples.

No apology. All are equal but not the same. If you want to know the experience of the original black man of the continent of Australia, then talk to him and ask him. Ask him if he would like to share his story with you and then listen humbly and ask questions with humbleness and openness. Listen and hear. Don’t go off telling others the second hand information; refer them to those who have had the first hand experience.

I am not saying that white people cannot follow the path of Rastafari traditions but I am just trying to give some commonsense distinctions between the experiences of different races because I think it is insulting for white people to take lightly the Rastafarian living and source of its African-ness and the African diaspora and turn it into something cheesy or something angry and superficial.

It is not a scene or a game, it is something very real to many black people around the world so should be respected as so. I will not proliferate my own personal ideas about Rastafari beyond this because I do not want to act as a spokesperson for it.

Band bookings/contact

Melissa Gibson

PH - 0449 78 42 62

Email - melissa.gibson.management@gmail.com

PO Box 1097 Mullumbimby, NSW, 2482