Earl Gateshead

[roots tradition]

It's obvious if more Afro Carribeans turned out the crowd wouldn't be dominated by white people.

[underated]

You've completely proven my point, well done. Go on and tell me the vast amount of reggae artists and sounds from Glasgow, you don't even have a Jamaican community there, how would you understand?

I don't think you have proven anything.
Perhaps i understand a lot more than you think, perhaps i don't.

One thing for sure though, i have enjoyed listening to reggae music for over 30 years.
I first heard a sound system playing in a Club in Glasgow around that time.

Of Course the scene there was & is totally different from the likes of London.
As far as i know nobody tries or wants to copy that scene.
Music is music & people like what they like.

Some foundation sounds do travel up there from time to time & the crowd shows them plenty of luv.
Now i don't really know that much about scenes, never been my thing, so share some wisdom.

Explain & name these racist white selectas your referring to ?
Don't know much about this guy Earl either, saw a video on you tube where he played laid back lounge music
& people liked it so good for him.

If all these guys you are talking about say racist stuff, well please quote it .
Then i could understand some more.

A lot of youths don't listen too much to their parents music , they have their own thing.
I'm just trying to understand where you are coming from ?

[markreading]

BIG UP EARL GATESHEAD! NEVER EVEN KNEW WHO HE WAS BEEORE THIS POST.

[naram]

@Riddimforce

A few points:

I don't know if you're trolling or not, but Earl is a sound bloke - he stayed at my house in New Zealand for about a week. Who gives a flying f%ck if he wears track pants to dances. This aint a f%*king fashion contest.

In terms of selection, sure he plays for his crowd - which as you say is young white people - but he's popular with them and many of those people may well end up supporting some 'proper foundation' JA/UK reggae artistes as a result.

Reggae has gone outernational - if you don't like white people listening to reggae, that's fine. But I can assure you the foundation artistes who are getting the opportunity to earn a living by touring the increasingly lucrative European reggae festival circuit are loving the fact that young white people are getting into the music - whether it be as a result of Earl Gateshead-types or not.

Side note: Glasgow has a pretty strong scene - Mungo's Hifi, Argonaut Sound, Soom T etc.

Finally, who the f*%k calls out some dude (who's just doing his thing and harming no one) like this on a public forum that he might well read? If you are a proper roots fan I'm surprised, because you clearly haven't been listening to the lyrics. This is pure bad-minded business.

[lankou]

Seen the TSS a coupla times,left me pretty much unimpressed. A mate wants to book them, no idea what crowd he wants to cater to, but really, not the one i'd book myself on the revive front. Yet, seems there are some pretty biased bad feelingS at work on some posts.Wondering what they conceal. Pretty clueless comments on today's reggae condition.

The previous post pretty much sums up what i think but there's an utterance which couldn't be further from the current facts:
"Reggae has gone outernational - if you don't like white people listening to reggae, that's fine. But I can assure you the foundation artistes who are getting the opportunity to earn a living by touring the increasingly lucrative European reggae festival circuit are loving the fact that young white people are getting into the music - whether it be as a result of Earl Gateshead-types or not".
That circuit is gradually getting less and less lucrative and a number of festivals are at risk now. Artists get less pay than they used to. Had it been written some 10 years earlier, i'd have agreed. Reggae isn't really gaining more fans now,on the whole,it's once again in the undergound, a niche music, very few artists have a high profile.

Besides, some of those thoughts by ridimforce just forget the fact that the appreciation of reggae is nowadays very far from the white/black dichotomy: japanese people are none of them, latinos are none of them either, still these people produce some of the most authentic reggae sounds to be found today. Just watching the MOBO ceremony, which supposedly supports UK black music: a pretty good snapshot of the state of reggae in the UK: most of these young black people don't play anything even vaguely reggaeish (some deejaying on grime sounds, at best) and most don't even have any impact beyond their own borders, they all look self-satisfied within but will never touch any foreign crowd, like people like the 70's UK reggae acts or the UK MC's did. Is that non-black people's fault? Try and convince us, good luck!

[naram]

Wow I'm genuinely surprised to hear that about the European festival circuit. I'm from the other side of the world, so have only a peripheral understanding of it all. But Rototom etc seem to be huge these days. I went to Garance Festival a couple of years ago and it was incredible... Which festivals are struggling?

[lankou]

The firm which does garance festival is currently filing into bankruptcy, for instance, They will hold the next edition of the event, still. On the whole, it is pretty obvious that times are much harder for reggae acts than they used to, apart for a few chosen acts who have been doing the rounds since dog knows when. Most organizers and touring agency tend to play it very safe, and rarely bother to book new,unusual or veterans who aren't on th regular circuit. They rely on well-tried names: Groundation, Alborosie, SOJA, Gladiators(new formula), Black Uhuru (worthless without M Rose aboard) and such...the UK dub scene does better than most reggae scenes but it mostly caters to the type of audience ridimforce dislikes, at least in continental europe.
I'm basically mentioning the situation in france, which used to be the biggest reggae market. No idea which country it is now but if it's still france, pretty scary! Germany was kind of big for a number of years but things went downhill several years ago. Spain has been hit hard by the crisis and so have many other countries. I really don't think it's much better elsewhere in europe and, as said by UK members of this forum, reggae is daddy's music and doesn't have so big an appeal after all these years. Got some first-hand info from some professional reggae artists and all told me that they get less than they used to around 2000. Yep, it's now 14 years that this millenium started. If they can manage it and are lucky to find enough dates, then they have to play more dates for less money.

[naram]

That's sad to hear... I was under the impression reggae was booming in France. Ce'st la vie, I guess