Live Inna Dance

so last night DJ Wicz and I rolled to the Deadly Dragon Sound 3-year store anniversary dance. this was at a pretty chill little club/lounge spot in Chinatown called Happy Ending. i know this is also the place where DDS holds their regular night, but i had not been there before. anyway, on this night, for a mere 5 or 10 bones, you got four legends live touching the mic - Johnny Osbourne, Wayne Smith, Ranking Joe, and Tony Screw aka Father Downbeat selecting. so of course, the night was absolutely terrific. here's the rundown.

we arrived there 11:30ish (the night kicked off at 10). Max Glazer from Federation Sound was spinning upstairs (Serato, boooo!) playing a selection of '90s classic dancehall and recent-years huge-tunes. i really dig Federation & Solomonic's dubplate mix CD from a couple years ago, so i was into seeing Max play for a little bit. there was one shall-remain-nameless very questionable selection that had me cringing, but overall it was a nice and accessible crowd-pleasing selection. definitely aimed at getting the upstairs not-reggae-heads crowd dancing, and they were. after about an hour or so upstairs, Tony Screw started playing downstairs, so we headed down there.

the downstairs is a long and somewhat narrow room, with one side being somewhat separated from the dj booth by a large doorway. it was really crowded down there already, i guess we didn't realize more people were down there listening to DDS selecting than were upstairs listening to Glazer. anyway, we opted of course for a position closest to the little cul-de-sac next to the booth, as it was clear that was where the artists were going to touch down. Tony Screw played for about 2 hours selecting strictly '60s-'70s tunes, doing 3-4 tune runs from Dennis Brown, The Wailers, Delano Stewart, Leroy Smart, Gregory Isaacs, and a couple more i'm forgetting, along with a few dubplates throughout - a Willie Williams comes to mind. i think Gregory's 'Babylon Too Rough' got the biggest forward of any tune Tony Screw played. Screw closed his set by selecting a few one off's. That I can recall, these last few tunes included Dandy Livingston's 'A Message To You Rudy', a Rupie Edwards tune, and an AMAZING, warhead-heavy and super hazy 1975 Studio One dubplate of the Drum Song rhythm, among others. that 'drum song' dub was the highlight of Screw's set for me, along with his excellent stage presence and the great tidbits of knowledge he was dropping on the mic all throughout the night.

just shy of 2am the artists made their way up to the control tower and DDS took over selecting. the first rhythm to hit was stalag, and from there all three artists were just killing it. lemme just say that all three cats have totally retained their voices and sounded exactly as they did twenty-plus years ago, and in Johnny Osbourne's case, even 40(!) years ago. the highlight of the night for me was hearing Wayne Smith, one of my all time favorite singers. he did 'come along', 'under me sleng teng', 'ain't no meaning', and maybe one or two more. i wish he would have touched the mic more (and sang 'life is a moment in space' or 'my lord, my god', though i knew those weren't gonna happen), but he was still excellent. Ranking Joe held it down inna OG deejay fashion, and Johnny Osbourne just killed it with most of his biggest hits and then some - Budy Bye, Musical Chopper, Truth & Rights, Dubplate Playing, Bring the Sensi Come, Can't Buy Love, No Ice Cream Sound, Murderer, In The Area, and many more. the night's other big highlight for me was Johnny doing 'Rock and Come In'!!! when that drifter rhythm came booming out i let out a serious cheer. totally beautiful. Ranking Joe touched on drifter inna deejay style as well. towards the end of the night DDS and Tony Screw were both testing Johnny, throwing down old and obscure rhythms he has tunes on, to see if he could remember the tune on the spot...he got it every time, most times even saying the year and producer he cut the tune for. most of Johnny's big tunes got big forwards from the crowd and nearly every tune had almost the whole crowd singing along.

by 3:30 the crowd was thinning out, as the night was wrapping up at 4. we split shortly before closing time, and Tony Screw was selecting again, throwing down mostly Studio One rhythms for Johnny and Ranking Joe to shock out over (Wayne had left earlier unfortunately). overall, excellent vibes and a great night out - the best $5 i've spent on live music in forever. the majority of the crowd didn't stop dancing all night, and seven hours after leaving the dance i'm still rocking.

np: CSNY - 4 way street (atlantic 2LP)