Who: Easy Star All-Stars
When: Thursday, July 10, 9 p.m.
Where: GLC
Tickets: $25
Most people associate reggae music with a tropical vacation,
Bob Marley, and blunts, but at least one voice in the industry says it’s much,
much more than that.
Michael Goldwasser is a producer, guitarist and arranger of the
albums for Easy Star All-Stars. He’s also the leader of the band that is coming
to Whistler to perform on Thursday, July 10.
Goldwasser founded the Easy Star label back in 1996 with three
good friends — Eric Smith, Lem Oppenheimer, and Remy Gerstein.
“All four of us were big reggae fans… and we were just
lamenting the dearth of good reggae coming out in the mid-90s,” Goldwasser
explained.
They wanted to find a way to combine the newer, popular
dancehall reggae with the traditional, live, Jamaican-sounding music.
“There was no one else doing it, so we figured, ‘well, let’s do
it ourselves,’” he said.
They ended up creating their own label, Easy Star Records,
which produces a mixture of modern roots productions, using living
instrumentation and vintage recording techniques, innovative dancehall rhythms
to keep things current, and reissues of rare recordings.
Easy Star started out recording 45’s — seven-inch singles
— eventually compiling them into an album and issuing CD compilations of
music from the ’70s and the ’80s.
But their initial vision didn’t take off.
“We were not selling a lot of CDs at all. Reggae is a niche
market, its relatively small… and now, its even worse because of the relative
ease of downloading music illegally,” Goldwasser explained. “But even back in
the mid-90s people were selling bootlegged CDs in the street in New York all
the time.”
While they were well respected and well reviewed, their vision
just didn’t seem to be catching on.
“We had a lot of good fans, but not enough to really support a
record label,” Goldwasser added.
It wasn’t until 2003, after they did a cover of Pink Floyd’s
Dark
Side of the Moon
, entitled,
Dub
Side of the Moon
, that the label really
took off.
“The idea of taking a famous album, a rock album, and doing the
whole thing over in reggae, it really had never been done before,” said Goldwasser,
“People have been covering other forms of popular music ever since the
beginning of reggae, but to take an entire album and reinterpret it had never
really been done before, so we struck a chord with both reggae fans and Pink
Floyd fans and were able to capitalize on that.”
They followed their Pink Floyd hit with a cover of Radiohead’s
classic
OK Computer
in 2006, entitled
Radiodread
.
Now, Easy Star Records has released 17 albums, recording with
reggae veterans and up and comers alike, and representing an impressive lineup
of talented artists, like Sugar Minott, Sister Carol and The African Brothers.
“New York is pretty fertile ground for reggae and there are a
lot of Jamaican expatriates here,” Goldwasser points out.
And they’re also currently working on a third album in the
series, though Goldwasser won’t say who they’re covering this time.
This week, the Easy Star All-Stars, Easy Star Records’ touring
band, will be coming to Whistler for the first time to perform their own
original music, plus selections from
Dub Side of the Moon
, and
Radiodread
.
Artists performing in the upcoming Whistler show have been with
the touring band since 2003 — Ras I-Ray on bass and vocals, Ivan Katz on
drums, Elenna Canlas on keyboard and vocals, Gene Clemenson on guitar, Jennie
Hill on saxophone and flute, Buford O’Sullivan on trombone and vocals, and
Kirsty Rock and Menny More on vocals.
“There’s nothing better than seeing a show with 15 musicians
playing really well together,” Goldwasser said.
From his position at Easy Star, Goldwasser has been in a prime
spot to watch reggae evolve and gain popularity over the last 12 years.
“I think some of the greatest successes have been more
dancehall oriented, but overall, reggae has seen more success on the pop
charts, at least in the U.S., than probably when we started out,” Goldwasser
said, pointing to artists like Sean Paul, Damien Marley, and Shaggy as
musicians who have successfully crossed over into the mainstream.
He hopes their recreation series will help to expand people’s understanding
of the genre.
“I think that reggae is going to continue to expand in the public’s consciousness,” Goldwasser said. “One of the biggest battles we have is people who think that reggae is solely Bob Marley or just music you listen to when you go on a vacation in the Caribbean, and people don’t understand that it’s a viable genre of music, like any other.”