As a bookend to an exciting week of Marley-related posts, I leave you with one of my favorite articles by noted journalist and Wailers superfan and biographer Vivien Goldman. “Jah Punk: New Wave Digs Reggae” was published in Sounds on September 3, 1977-the year of the punk. It discusses the relationship between the Rasta and punk movements-a relationship that was first documented in song by both Bob Marley and UK poet/musician Linton Kwesi Johnson. By 1977, the punk movement in the UK was in full effect and Marley memorialized the movement in the song “Punky Reggae Party“.

“Punky Reggae Party” did not appear on any studio album. It was released as the b-side to the Jammin’ single in some countries and was later released as a live single on Babylon by Bus. Subsequently, it appeared on a number of compilations and ‘Best of’ albums as well as the Deluxe Edition of Exodus and the 2002 CD Reissue of Legend.

The song was written by Bob Marley as a positive response to the release of a cover version of Junior Murvin‘s “Police and Thieves” by English punk band The Clash, on their first LP. Referring to the party of the title of the song, the lyrics mention several punk and reggae groups: “The Wailers will be there, The Damned, The Jam, The Clash – Maytals will be there, Dr. Feelgood too.”

The song was referred to in the Sublime song “Garden Grove” and the Robyn Hitchcock song “Antwoman.”

In addition to providing this rare article, I have included several versions of “Punky Reggae Party” and a documentary titled Exodus 1977, which chronicles this volatile year through the music of Exodus.. Enjoy!

Click here to read on Issuu.

Jah Punk: New Wave Digs Reggae

Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 3 September 1977

‘We’re gonna have a punky reggae party…the Wailers will be there, the Slits, the Feelgoods, and the Clash…’

– BOB MARLEY SONGS LYRIC

‘Black people are being supressed and we are being supressed, we’ve got something in common’

– PAUL SIMENON, THE CLASH

‘It’s the first white movement that I can relate to as a black man’

– DJ DON LETTS

‘We’re not given a chance. The record companies just pussy foot around instead of investing’

– CARL LEVY, CIMARON

IT WAS the red, green and gold Patti Smith button that clinched it for me. I was walking in to the lumbering grey Hackney Town Hall for the Rock Against Racism gig with Generation X and the Cimarons on the same bill, and there was this regulation blue-haired punk with the abovementioned button on, and there was Dennis Morris, the Jamaican photographer, formerly reggae-pix-a-speciality, fresh from snapping Scandinavia with the Sex Pistols walking into this punky reggae party with me, and…

One of those divine flashed where all the energy line’s fuse and the outlines stand crystal clears. It goes something like this:

1. Basic premise: Jamaican music is to punk music what r’n’b music was to 60’s beat groups. The Rolling Stones cut the Valentinos’ ‘It’s All Over Now’, the Beatles cut Barrett Strong’s ‘Money’, the Clash cut Junior Murvin’s ‘Police And Thieves’, and Generation X do a reggae-style dub version of their own song ‘Listen’ on the John Peel show, guitars showering in shattered fragments on the airwaves.

2. Yet more evidence. Patti Smith bouncing around clapping her hands in excitement in her bedroom at Blakes Hotel when Lenny Kaye walks in the room to say they’ve tracked down their favourite reggae toaster Tapper Zukie and he’s gonna come and visit ’em backstage for their second night at the Hammersmith Odeon. In the event, Tapper joins them onstage and toasts along with ’em, with Don Letts, rasta DJ at the Roxy, the original punk club, helping out on drums. Later, Patti and Lenny fly Tapper out to New York to be a kind of roots consultant for their projected revival of the Mer label.

The Clash go into the CBS studios with Lee Perry, the magical mystery Jamaican producer, whose crystalline star war productions are impossible to reproduce, and cut ‘Complete Control’.

That same week Bob Marley’s in town recovering from yet another football injury to his big toe. I walk into the room carrying a copy of the Clash album with their Westway rocka ‘Police And Thieves’ on it – remember, Lee Perry (let’s call him Scratch) not only worked with Marley but also cut the original version of ‘Police And Thieves’ with falsetto-swooping Junior Murvin.

Markey grunts, clocking the long player and my newly bleached hair. “Wha’ appen, Viveen? You turn into punk-rocka?” he teases, inference being it couldn’t be more uncouth. “You shoulda change your hair to red, green and gold!”

That’s next week, Jah B. Now, just check these sounds awhile…Marley and Scratch are both surprised. Impressed. “It good, t’raas claat!”

And the week after that I’m in a listening room at Basing Street Studios, and Bob’s voice is rolling in magical command out of the huge speakers: “We’re gonna have a party, and we hope it will be hearty, it’s a punky reggae party…the Wailers will be there, the Slits, the Feelgoods and the Clash…rejected by society, treated with impunity, protected by their dignity, it’s a punky reggae party…”

I’m not sure how many punks, in it to have fun, would recognise themselves in Marley’s typically emotion/politics charged description, but it sums up the crucial reason why punk and reggae are linked – when you get right down to it, punks and dreadlocks are on the same side of the fence.

Bluntly, who gets picked up in the street by the police? Answer: those natty dreads and crazy baldheads. Girl choruses syncopate behind Marley’s throbbing, dangerous lead vocals “new wave, new craze, Jah Punk…” Thanks for the title, Bob.

Bob Marley and Lee Perry both said it, sitting in the thick white carpeted luxury of Basing Street. “The punks are the outcasts from society. So are the rastas. So they are bound to defend what we defend,” Marley paused, flexing his arms. He’s wearing a bright blue tracksuit, and he’d just finished telling us why he wears just tracksuits and faded denims onstage. It’s because he doesn’t want to wear flash clothes that the youth will admire, envy, and feel frustrated ‘cos they can’t have.

Remember all those declarations in the early days of punk that echo his sentiments? Anti-chic, poor people’s fashions, dustbin liner chic. If you can’t afford a packet of safety-pins, you can pick ’em up in the street…

“In a way, me like see them safety-pins and t’ing,” Marley continued. “Me no like do it myself, y’understand, but me like see a man can suffer pain without crying.”