Last time Graham Fagen appeared on The Herald’s visual arts pages, it was in a review of Killing Time, a collaboration with theatre director Graham Eatough at Dundee Contemporary Arts. The profile picture accompanying the piece, however, told a different story. While Ayrshire-born Fagen is as pastily Scots as they come, the image above which his name was credited was of a brooding black man with dreadlocks. As glitches go, showing a picture of dub reggae artist Ghetto Priest, who Fagen had collaborated with previously in his 2005 show at Tramway, Clean Hands Pure Heart, comes with a certain sense of amusement.
Whether such a case of mistaken identity has influenced the title of Fagen’s current show at Stirling’s Changing Room Gallery, recently reconstituted inside The Tolbooth, is another matter. somebodyelse, after all, looks at cultural identity in the context of a subversion of portraiture which features both First Minister Alex Salmond and the mother of late reggae legend Peter Tosh in its line-up. To accompany the exhibition, next Saturday features the world premiere of a new musical commission, I Murder Hate. This will again feature Ghetto Priest, as well as Tackhead and Little Axe guitarist Skip MacDonald, who, under the guidance of Dub producer and founder of the On-U-Sounds record label, will re-invent a quartet of lyrics by Robert Burns with a unique reggae treatment.
In this respect, I Murder Hate, then, is a follow-up of sorts to Clean Hands Pure Heart, which similarly put Burns into a Dub reggae context via a version of Auld Lang Syne melded together with The Slave’s Lament. Where Sherwood, Ghetto Priest and MacDonald appeared in that exhibition in film footage of the recording session, however, for I Murder Hate, the live element is crucial.
“When I was first approached to do a show at The Changing Room,” Fagen says of the project’s roots, “the gallery had just moved out of a shopping centre and into the Tolbooth. So it was also put forward that I try and do something in the theatre. At that time I was being asked to go to things this year to tie in with the 250th anniversary of Burns’ birth, or as Salmond likes to call it, the year of The Homecoming. So the Burns thing was kicking about, and I guess there was unfinished business between Adrian Sherwood and myself from the work we did at Tramway. When we were recording the songs for Clean Hands Pure Heart, Adrian and the guys then were talking about the quality of Burns’ lyrics and the arrangements, and were keen to do more with it in the future. So when I understood the Tolbooth was more of a gig venue than a traditional theatre, it made sense to propose something like this, where the music is dealing with some of the same things as the portraiture, but in a way that is more about reaching out.”
The result is a concert performed by Ghetto Priest, MacDonald, percussionist Pete Lockett and English folk guitarist Ian King, which will form part of The Blend, the Tolbooth’s annual season of roots music. The focal point of this will be versions of A Man’s A Man For A’ That, A Red, Red Rose, The Tree of Liberty and I Murder Hate itself, all of which will be contained on a CD given away to the audience. This relationship between Burns and reggae might not be obvious, but for Fagen, both have played an equal part in his own roots, as well as being of greater global significance.
“Burns was quite tightly being taught to me as part of my cultural heritage,” Fagen says, “whereas at the same time I had the great paradox of buying music which was the complete opposite of that heritage, but which had more meaning to me. That was Jamaican reggae music. Then discovering that Burns was going to take free passages to Jamaica as a slave driver related to the subject matter of The Slave’s Lament, and to the questions I wanted to ask, about the slave trade in this country, and Burns’ role within it. There’s a national and international perception about Burns, and I wanted to clash those things, and picking the songs than we did this time, it’s less about Burns and reggae, and more about what the songs are saying politically. We’re used to listening to Burns in a particular way, at new year or at Burns suppers, but I wanted Burns to be heard in a new way, and look at what the lyrics mean now.”
Fagen’s exposure to reggae is typical of a generation of white boys weaned on punk, but who would hear the full power of dub through records played between bands. Today, whatever genre all this has foisted upon it, it sounds like folk music by any other name. Sherwood concurs with this.
“If you look at a lot of reggae artists,” he says, “they sing about everything, from sex to buying a new donkey. Every aspect of life is there, so it becomes social commentary. Burns had that thing going on as well, so everyone’s already working in similar areas. Burns doesn’t really get the respect he deserves, but he’s up there with Chaucer, Shakespeare and Wordsworth.”
Like Fagen, Sherwood has also had certain presumptions foisted upon him. In another publication for instance, an art critic of note described him as a ‘black reggae DJ.’ In truth, this bald white bloke has over the last thirty years become an incendiary musical force, both on record through his On-U-Sounds label and mixing live, as anyone present as he manned the controls for an Edinburgh show by Mark Stewart and the Maffia will testify to. As far as previous Scottish connections go, production work for claymore-wielding funkster Jesse Rae and a mid 1990s collaboration with novelist Irvine Welsh and Primal Scream vocalist Bobby Gillespie as Scream Team and The Big Man Meet The Barmy Army Uptown similarly tapped into hybrid forces. Unlike Fagen, however, Sherwood was part of a multi-cultural community from an early age.
“I had lots of West Indian and Asian mates,” Sherwood remembers, “and we used to listen to ska, reggae and all sorts. There was no mystery there. You either got it or you didn’t. It’s the same with this. It’s an interpretation of the great man’s work, and I think he’d probably dig it as well.”
Whether this is the case or not, for Fagen, the important thing, as with any gig, is to reach out and make connections by crossing cultural borders.
“What I’m not necessarily dealing with,” he says, “is the cultural identity of someone from the west coast of Scotland. What I’m interested in is how someone from the west coast of Scotland can have an influence on and can understand the rest of the world. Both the portraiture and the gig are suggesting that. It’s not about bringing it back home. Let’s go out the way.”
I Murder Hate premieres at The Tolbooth, Stirling, as part of The Blend on March 14, with a Q and A with Graham Fagen and Adrian Sherwood at 6pm. Graham Fagen’s exhibition, somebodyelse, runs at The Changing Room, Stirling, until April 11. Adrian Sherwood relaunches On-U-Sound Records at The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, March 13
www.stirling.gov.uk/tolbooth
The Herald, March 6th 2009
ends
Whether such a case of mistaken identity has influenced the title of Fagen’s current show at Stirling’s Changing Room Gallery, recently reconstituted inside The Tolbooth, is another matter. somebodyelse, after all, looks at cultural identity in the context of a subversion of portraiture which features both First Minister Alex Salmond and the mother of late reggae legend Peter Tosh in its line-up. To accompany the exhibition, next Saturday features the world premiere of a new musical commission, I Murder Hate. This will again feature Ghetto Priest, as well as Tackhead and Little Axe guitarist Skip MacDonald, who, under the guidance of Dub producer and founder of the On-U-Sounds record label, will re-invent a quartet of lyrics by Robert Burns with a unique reggae treatment.
In this respect, I Murder Hate, then, is a follow-up of sorts to Clean Hands Pure Heart, which similarly put Burns into a Dub reggae context via a version of Auld Lang Syne melded together with The Slave’s Lament. Where Sherwood, Ghetto Priest and MacDonald appeared in that exhibition in film footage of the recording session, however, for I Murder Hate, the live element is crucial.
“When I was first approached to do a show at The Changing Room,” Fagen says of the project’s roots, “the gallery had just moved out of a shopping centre and into the Tolbooth. So it was also put forward that I try and do something in the theatre. At that time I was being asked to go to things this year to tie in with the 250th anniversary of Burns’ birth, or as Salmond likes to call it, the year of The Homecoming. So the Burns thing was kicking about, and I guess there was unfinished business between Adrian Sherwood and myself from the work we did at Tramway. When we were recording the songs for Clean Hands Pure Heart, Adrian and the guys then were talking about the quality of Burns’ lyrics and the arrangements, and were keen to do more with it in the future. So when I understood the Tolbooth was more of a gig venue than a traditional theatre, it made sense to propose something like this, where the music is dealing with some of the same things as the portraiture, but in a way that is more about reaching out.”
The result is a concert performed by Ghetto Priest, MacDonald, percussionist Pete Lockett and English folk guitarist Ian King, which will form part of The Blend, the Tolbooth’s annual season of roots music. The focal point of this will be versions of A Man’s A Man For A’ That, A Red, Red Rose, The Tree of Liberty and I Murder Hate itself, all of which will be contained on a CD given away to the audience. This relationship between Burns and reggae might not be obvious, but for Fagen, both have played an equal part in his own roots, as well as being of greater global significance.
“Burns was quite tightly being taught to me as part of my cultural heritage,” Fagen says, “whereas at the same time I had the great paradox of buying music which was the complete opposite of that heritage, but which had more meaning to me. That was Jamaican reggae music. Then discovering that Burns was going to take free passages to Jamaica as a slave driver related to the subject matter of The Slave’s Lament, and to the questions I wanted to ask, about the slave trade in this country, and Burns’ role within it. There’s a national and international perception about Burns, and I wanted to clash those things, and picking the songs than we did this time, it’s less about Burns and reggae, and more about what the songs are saying politically. We’re used to listening to Burns in a particular way, at new year or at Burns suppers, but I wanted Burns to be heard in a new way, and look at what the lyrics mean now.”
Fagen’s exposure to reggae is typical of a generation of white boys weaned on punk, but who would hear the full power of dub through records played between bands. Today, whatever genre all this has foisted upon it, it sounds like folk music by any other name. Sherwood concurs with this.
“If you look at a lot of reggae artists,” he says, “they sing about everything, from sex to buying a new donkey. Every aspect of life is there, so it becomes social commentary. Burns had that thing going on as well, so everyone’s already working in similar areas. Burns doesn’t really get the respect he deserves, but he’s up there with Chaucer, Shakespeare and Wordsworth.”
Like Fagen, Sherwood has also had certain presumptions foisted upon him. In another publication for instance, an art critic of note described him as a ‘black reggae DJ.’ In truth, this bald white bloke has over the last thirty years become an incendiary musical force, both on record through his On-U-Sounds label and mixing live, as anyone present as he manned the controls for an Edinburgh show by Mark Stewart and the Maffia will testify to. As far as previous Scottish connections go, production work for claymore-wielding funkster Jesse Rae and a mid 1990s collaboration with novelist Irvine Welsh and Primal Scream vocalist Bobby Gillespie as Scream Team and The Big Man Meet The Barmy Army Uptown similarly tapped into hybrid forces. Unlike Fagen, however, Sherwood was part of a multi-cultural community from an early age.
“I had lots of West Indian and Asian mates,” Sherwood remembers, “and we used to listen to ska, reggae and all sorts. There was no mystery there. You either got it or you didn’t. It’s the same with this. It’s an interpretation of the great man’s work, and I think he’d probably dig it as well.”
Whether this is the case or not, for Fagen, the important thing, as with any gig, is to reach out and make connections by crossing cultural borders.
“What I’m not necessarily dealing with,” he says, “is the cultural identity of someone from the west coast of Scotland. What I’m interested in is how someone from the west coast of Scotland can have an influence on and can understand the rest of the world. Both the portraiture and the gig are suggesting that. It’s not about bringing it back home. Let’s go out the way.”
I Murder Hate premieres at The Tolbooth, Stirling, as part of The Blend on March 14, with a Q and A with Graham Fagen and Adrian Sherwood at 6pm. Graham Fagen’s exhibition, somebodyelse, runs at The Changing Room, Stirling, until April 11. Adrian Sherwood relaunches On-U-Sound Records at The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, March 13
www.stirling.gov.uk/tolbooth
The Herald, March 6th 2009
ends
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