I had the sad experience of watching Eek a Mouse last night in London at the Jazz Cafe.

The man was so drunk it was genuinely embarrassing.

The first three songs he wouldn’t even come out. Until eventually the bass player had to walk off stage to get him to come on.

He needn’t have bothered.

He didn’t even know where he was. Was stumbling around the stage so badly, I was watching with curled toes, thinking he was going to tumble over the keyboard player or the drummer.

He was slurring and mumbling his words and of the four of five songs he did attempt to sing, he had to ‘rewind!’ and start again each time. At least two or three times as he simply forgot the words to his own songs or was badly out of rhythm.

He kept giving the mic to various different audience members as he was so f’d he couldn’t even sing his own songs anymore.

After watching him butcher his own songs for maybe 30 minutes, he simply walked off stage and that was that.

What a waste of a night, a lot of money and what a disappointment to experience this.

Don’t bother with Eek a Mouse anymore and safe your money for artists that actually care about their audience.

Disgusted.

The legend just had a fire set on the Pyramid stage

I’ve gotten flak on here (even from mods?) about “gatekeeping” for a few of my comments in the past but honestly… perhaps some gates need to be kept - or at least some perspective needs to be shared. I’m not trying to diss anyone, there’s room for us all. But when I say the scene here is special and we don’t want to be lumped in with the Cali / American reggae rock jam band thing because it’s distinct, this is what I’m getting at.

I saw my friend Anant Pradhan’s band last night at Barbès in Brooklyn. They did a 2+ hour set (no breaks!) of almost entirely instrumentals and despite them having some of the best musicians around, not a single guitar solo was played. Quite a few hand drum solos, however. It’s amazing what you get when people come together to play foundation music with deep respect for it. Some of you may recognize Larry McDonald (percussion) and Troy Mobius (sax) from Subatomic Sound System if you do go to festivals. Larry was on the bill; Troy just showed up and began harmonizing with the other horns. Eddie Ocampo learned some drumming techniques from Lloyd Knibb (Skatalites). So even the players who aren’t Jamaican have gone through the fire and sharpened up under the guidance of elder players with deep roots.

The reason it still bubbles up here is because there are enough Jamaicans keeping the culture alive, and that is kinda self-reinforcing. You can go to a sound system event or a basement party in Flatbush with local selectors playing vinyl and it still feels like this. I’ve had some of the best nights of my life playing records with friends (old / new / black / white / elderly / young / whoever) til 5am or until we run out of tunes (it never seems to happen). So yeah… when we say NYC is still very special for reggae music, this is what we mean. It’s almost invisible to the outside.

Personally, I’d rather see this once a month than see any American festival lineup being advertised as reggae today. Just my 2c, come see for yourself sometime.

The link to the full song performance is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AY1hhqst7I ✌️❤️ #LilaIké #Reggae #ReggaeMusic

Just saw them! 🔥🔥

It mainly consists of the midi mix and el capistan.. Maybe one day I ll will add a reverb unit to it who knows. Hope you like it

This festival is really special! This will be my 2nd time going and excited to do it again in less than 2 weeks. I want to encourage anyone on that loves reggae music and Jamaican culture to make the trip. From my experience and everything I’ve read, ROTR is in its own class when it comes to this type of festival. They have worked hard to keep prices low, despite the reality that gatherings like this are becoming more difficult to produce. I don’t want to see it die out like many others.

For anyone interested, ROTR is giving away one more pair of 3 Day wristbands; they also have good discounts if you want to come with a crew. Let good times and positive vibrations prevail!

https://gleam.io/nJQwr/reggae-on-the-river-3day-pass-giveaway?fbclid=IwQ0xDSwLqLRpjbGNrAuOUO2V4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMU5TcHNCZzR2VndhOXZyM1MBHjnWTiWfGuOQHELAQJ7xVU0OJlFFBd1v-cF-VGHdvmimRWEUtJcOJetUfi_r_aem_WsW8KutkYB09Td-xqbpjQA

My favorite song of them together so it was easy to know when to start recording.

If you don't know his voice, go check out the first Frightnrs LP - really a beautiful piece of work. We all admired him deeply. He became ill and died young on this day nine years ago, and I think of him often. I dug up this late night footage from a birthday party we had in 2014, I figured some people would appreciate a snapshot of what the scene was like in Brooklyn at that time. You can hear Screechy Dan pass the torch to him with a little intro. Jonny Go Figure and I are in the background, I think he was up next as selector.

Here's the actual tune, one of the last things he recorded I think. Brukky doing a little Tenor Saw tribute over Ticklah production:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4556TFjvNhM

I left NYC for Philly years ago, but those days really hold a special place in my heart. Remember to tell your friends how much you appreciate them while they're still around.

him and Stephen put on an amazing show 🙌

My wife loves Rebolution. I think mostly cause the lyrics. I think Eric Racmany is sick on the guitar. I love the genre. Me, I’m a Big Stick Figure, Tribal Seeds fan. How is Rebolution live?? Looking forward to staying at Ocean Casino as well.

Tore. It. Up. His voice sounds as sweet as ever…the show finally ended when they turned on the lights at 1:30am. He would have kept going.