Post by I on Apr 16, 2006 18:53:18 GMT
This is the opening few paragraph of my Culture article, which I hope someday to publish in my forthcoming book of reggae profiles entiled Days In Lives. An abbrevited version of this piece was originally published in New Musical Express in 1979.
“Ben Lyon ~ star of the long-running radio and TV show Life With The Lions ~ died last night, presumably from a heart attack aboard the Queen Elizabeth II ocean liner.”
Sunday Mirror, March 25, 1979
THIS SAME SUNDAY morning I wake up on a couch in the living room of an old friend of mine, a musician by the name of Crister Sol man, in his flat near to Swiss Cottage, and the reason why I am even here at all as I remember it is because on the previous night I accompany my friend Crister Sol man to a gig in Camden featuring his current band the Physicals, for whom he strums the bass guitar, and where in view of my subsequent stupified state following the show, he extends courteous Finnish hospitality to grateful, weary limbs. Upon my rising today, I take a short walk to Kilburn for breakfast of hot tea, cigarettes and the downmarket press; catch a bus to St Johns Wood and stop for an hour or so at the hotel where Joseph Hill is presently staying while on his current visit to the UK from Jamaica; and spend the rest of that morning in Regents Park, inspecting the moslem mosque, joining briefly a lively game of football, and looking at the lions in London Zoo.
After partaking of lunch in a Parkway cafe, I go Scritti Politti spotting in Camden Market with a colleague I meet by the way named Chris Salewicz, where I also back up against an inmate, a flatmate, a penman named Ian, a former member of Man man, and a policeman man, who proceeds to take my face, my name and my number, the fifth such occurrence in the past month, and which is the kind of general liability that comes of having a demeanour that fits nowhere easily or comfortably, as I find out to my chagrin over a number of years, and while I courteously inform him that Babylon will burn, and that the merciful shall know mercy but no mercy for the merciless.
I go home, nyam a banana, crack a Special Brew, put a Dubliners album on the record deck, brush my teeth, and step it on to Rock Street for heaven in the Seven Sisters Road at Finsbury Park, where I see not only Joseph Hill for the second time that day, along with his two brethren Roger Walker and Kenneth Paley who together form the vocal harmony trio Culture, as the three of them now climb aboard the train bound for Zion, but I also pass the evening in the company of creative people like Ranking Fish I man and Nicholas Kimberley, the latter being in my opinion one of the deftest writers on matters concerned with reggae of any that I know, as his occasional, sardonic columns in Time Out and the New Musical Express invariably testify, though he personally insists is that what I really mean is the daftest.
Now I am not saying it is not a great and singular privilege to negotiate the company of such talented and personable parties in this town, and in particular the policeman, as the watchmaker from Westminster says when the IRA blow up Big Ben, but by far the greatest pleasure of my entire day is that spent at the gates of the lions enclosure at the zoo in Regents Park, chanting Jah victory to the most high King of Kings.
Seated there in their pride, the London Zoo lions contrive to put me in mind of sound system owner Fat Man, assorted idren and sistren ranged in a group and seated at the foot of the main speaker box during one of his late night sessions down in Hackney, even as lesser lions of the same peer group prowl the edges in a display of dance, and step it up ifficial on the outer periphery.
"Lion," I roar. "Zion."
Penny Reel
“Ben Lyon ~ star of the long-running radio and TV show Life With The Lions ~ died last night, presumably from a heart attack aboard the Queen Elizabeth II ocean liner.”
Sunday Mirror, March 25, 1979
THIS SAME SUNDAY morning I wake up on a couch in the living room of an old friend of mine, a musician by the name of Crister Sol man, in his flat near to Swiss Cottage, and the reason why I am even here at all as I remember it is because on the previous night I accompany my friend Crister Sol man to a gig in Camden featuring his current band the Physicals, for whom he strums the bass guitar, and where in view of my subsequent stupified state following the show, he extends courteous Finnish hospitality to grateful, weary limbs. Upon my rising today, I take a short walk to Kilburn for breakfast of hot tea, cigarettes and the downmarket press; catch a bus to St Johns Wood and stop for an hour or so at the hotel where Joseph Hill is presently staying while on his current visit to the UK from Jamaica; and spend the rest of that morning in Regents Park, inspecting the moslem mosque, joining briefly a lively game of football, and looking at the lions in London Zoo.
After partaking of lunch in a Parkway cafe, I go Scritti Politti spotting in Camden Market with a colleague I meet by the way named Chris Salewicz, where I also back up against an inmate, a flatmate, a penman named Ian, a former member of Man man, and a policeman man, who proceeds to take my face, my name and my number, the fifth such occurrence in the past month, and which is the kind of general liability that comes of having a demeanour that fits nowhere easily or comfortably, as I find out to my chagrin over a number of years, and while I courteously inform him that Babylon will burn, and that the merciful shall know mercy but no mercy for the merciless.
I go home, nyam a banana, crack a Special Brew, put a Dubliners album on the record deck, brush my teeth, and step it on to Rock Street for heaven in the Seven Sisters Road at Finsbury Park, where I see not only Joseph Hill for the second time that day, along with his two brethren Roger Walker and Kenneth Paley who together form the vocal harmony trio Culture, as the three of them now climb aboard the train bound for Zion, but I also pass the evening in the company of creative people like Ranking Fish I man and Nicholas Kimberley, the latter being in my opinion one of the deftest writers on matters concerned with reggae of any that I know, as his occasional, sardonic columns in Time Out and the New Musical Express invariably testify, though he personally insists is that what I really mean is the daftest.
Now I am not saying it is not a great and singular privilege to negotiate the company of such talented and personable parties in this town, and in particular the policeman, as the watchmaker from Westminster says when the IRA blow up Big Ben, but by far the greatest pleasure of my entire day is that spent at the gates of the lions enclosure at the zoo in Regents Park, chanting Jah victory to the most high King of Kings.
Seated there in their pride, the London Zoo lions contrive to put me in mind of sound system owner Fat Man, assorted idren and sistren ranged in a group and seated at the foot of the main speaker box during one of his late night sessions down in Hackney, even as lesser lions of the same peer group prowl the edges in a display of dance, and step it up ifficial on the outer periphery.
"Lion," I roar. "Zion."
Penny Reel
I scooted past that part... 