Siren MUSIC the
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College Tribune | January 20th 2009
The goal is soul Wailers legend Aston ‘Familyman’ Barrett takes time out to speak to Simon Ward about the ‘mission’, some thirty years on after Exodus His voice is warm, but crackled. Omnipresent Jamaican twang sill articulating. A sound both worldly-wise but young at heart. Some 31 years after the release of Exodus, Aston ‘Familyman’ Barrett, captain of the legendary Wailers, is ready to hit the road, bass guitar swinging, one more time. “I have good feeling, but I am voluntary chosen for the mission. I play the reggae music, and spread the message, keeping a global consciousness, to keep them all in line so they don’t walk on the wild side.” Barrett was always a man of fervent creativity. An electrical welder became a mechanic, that mechanic became a welder, the welder turned into a blacksmith. It’s a career path our own Seamus Heaney would approve of, and like that old Irish master, lyric and rhyme won out. “I love the music. I bond with music. Listening to all type of music, we listen to soul and funk, rhythm and blues, and our own culture of music, which comes from Africa. We take all of that to create the reggae, we come to the conclusion that we’ve created jazz, that jazz is a free form music. And so we came up with this new concept – the drum and the bass!” Throughout the seventies, the engine room of the Wailers was occupied by Aston Barrett and his brother Carlton. Together, they created a rhythm section that was almost organic, a combination as vital as the heart and spin of any man, “The drum is the heartbeat, the bass is the backbone. If the drum isn’t right, the music is going to have bad heart, and if bass is not right, the music is going to have a bad back. The music will be crippled”. That understanding, combined with Bob Marley’s immortal vocals, was to create an record described by Time magazine as the album of the 20th century. “When we were working on Exodus, we were working on two albums at the same time; Exodus and Kaya. We recorded the tracks, and we tried to get the rhythm with the
strongest lyrics, and we put them together. And by doing that, we produced the music ourselves”. A world away from the plastic pop of the modern age, the Wailers had only one simple request, to work with musical conductor and producer extraordinaire, Quincy Jones. “We would never work with a producer. Quincy Jones. If we can’t get Quincy Jones to produce us, then we’ll have to produce ourselves.” They did. Such a sound was to give the Wailers their break in the early seventies. Having arrived from Jamaica, the band earned their first appearance on Top of the Pops. It was an experience that was otherworldly. “The first time on the Top of the Pops in the early seventies, BBC studios, and it was fun. And they put us in a club called the Speakeasy - we did two shows a night for two weeks, and for the two weeks, the first song we played it was silent, it was like casting a spell upon them, and after that, there was nothing but redemption, it was like magic.” Bob Marley may have died almost thirty years ago, but his soul, sound and spirit lives on. “We try to keep the spirit of Bob alive through the reggae music. He is like me; we are ordinary people, who do extraordinary work, and also we are work-addicts, and we love working. All these beautiful things came from the Caribbean, a little dot on the map. It was so little, but the talents of the people there are so affective.” Barrett ends with his customary chuckle and smile, and issues a typical laid-back Jamaican manifesto: “Familyman and the Wailers and come out. Come out with songs of freedom and redemption. It’s what do, we put them out together, songs of freedom and youth consciousness. It’s music for all ages and all time. The past, present and future. We are like the moon, the older the moon, the brighter it shines.”
» The Wailers play the Academy on February 11th
Science fic God Is An Astronaut frontman Torsten Kinsella talks to Eoin Boyle about touring, musical experimentation, and what it’s like being more successful abroad than in Ireland God Is An Astronaut are a surprisingly successful band around the world, and they’re from Wicklow. They embarked on their first major tour of Europe and the U.S. a year ago, and recovered from having a lot of equipment stolen in America to release their forth, self-titled, album at the end of 2008. “It’s kind of like ambience, rock, electronic, instrumental. People call it different things; post-rock, shoegaze meets metal, but post-rock would normally be what people call us.” This seems to have developed through their own efforts as much as their influences, “It probably did in its own way, we got into Metallica, Nine Inch Nails and I know Lloyd was listening to stuff like Pink Floyd and The Police. Then there was sort of weird electronic-rock like Prodigy and Leftfield and things like that we were listening to. Obviously your influences come into the music somehow, it’s just how you feel and I’m a big fan of Sci-Fi so I love anything that is a little weird and a little bit away from the mainstream so we were definitely influenced by that as well. To express yourself emotionally through your music is very important, that you can exorcise your demons or whatever.” It is a reflection of the fact that the group are more popular internationally that the group chose not to aggressively promote the November release of God is an Astronaut in their homeland. “We didn’t do any press in Ireland, we just kind of stuck it out and promoted it outside the country... We definitely approached the recording
very differently, we went more for a modern sounding record, some of the other ones were kind of a lo-fi influenced a lot by early Pink Floyd and we didn’t make it that loud but with this record we definitely pushed the level to the max and made a very post-modern record, it’s definitely slightly on the hi-fi side rather than the lo-fi side. It’s a little bit longer, sixty minutes is long for us and we meshed the structures a bit. We have the usual songs that are quiet and go to loud and one or two that started off loud and went to quiet. We experimented on this record.” Live shows are hugely important to the band, “We kind of started in December I suppose, I think our first date was in Greece. We had this idea that we’d go over and bring 300 CDs with us and sell them, and it worked. Once it’s out there it’s gonna be illegally downloaded anyway. But we’ve got Greystones coming up, then a week later we’re flying out for a show in London which is almost sold out at this point so I’m looking forward to that... We’ve sold out Belgium, sold out Spain and a fair few other places. This tour seems to be promising, our European booking agent is very happy with the ticket sales. Holland was really good before and we’re doing a festival in Holland with This Will Destroy You, another post-rock band from America. So there’s a lot of interest for our kind of music in Europe, we sold out London twice before, Leeds and also Norwich so we’re getting a good draw and we’re attracting a lot of interest and I think a lot