Dr Alimantado, where have ye been all my life?

thee trouthole

Dennis Alcapone
Big Youth
Dillinger
Linton Kwesi Johnson
Mutabaruka

Poison Flour: Man Next Door (I think this version's a Horace Andy one but I have it in the back of my mind that it's not called "Man Next Door" in Horace's version... there are lots of versions of this around, I've a feeling that John Holt did the original)
Gimme Mi Gun: Thief A Man (Gregory Isaacs)
Unitone Skank: My Religion (Gregory Isaacs) (both these Gregory tracks are dynamite btw)
Who Shot the Barber: Ali Baba (John Holt) (if you're after this rhythm may I also recommend the genius "Ganja Exchange" by Ringo and also "Gal Boy I-Roy" by Prince Jazzbo please? Thanks).

Be careful with Dr Alimantado btw: "Sons Of Thunder" (sometimes "Born For A Purpose") the next LP after TBDCIC is great but after that the quality drops rather, from the bits I've heard at least.

This disc (Best Dressed Chicken In Town) is kind of brilliant, in a left-field sort of way. The instrumental I Am The Greatest Says Muhammad Ali is all kinds of wonderful; it's more 70s wah-wah guitars and funk-ish than it is reggae, I think.

great album

Yeah still one of my favorites. Born For A Purpose is also good.

Anyway other deejays worth checking out not mentioned on this thread:

Prince Jazzbo
Lone Ranger
Jah Lion

Yeah, I've got Born For A Purpose on Greensleeves' From Dubplate to Download. It's about my favorite thing on that disc. I know Pitchfork fawned over FDTD, but I'm sort of put off by the harsher, more mechanized dancehall sounds that dominate the album (but in fairness, I've got to give that whole disc more of a chance, and maybe I'm judging the thing too harshly from a few ugly, homophobic songs).

My senseless anti-reggae stance, a sort of misguided punkish anti-hippiedom gag reflex, was ultimately won over by the likes of Scientist, Dr Alimantado & experiencing a couple of Jah Shaka one-turntable, a delay + a mic nostril hair-raising bass showers.

The popular alliance of reggae with "hippy" instead of the sensible alliance of reggae with punkishness sucks.

I hate hippies for stealing the reggae. Thanks, Blackwell. Thanks, Bob Marley.

Any rootsy, 70s Gregory Isaacs. Trojan's "Reasoning With The Almighty" is one of my favorites, and "The Sensational Gregory Isaacs," on Burning Sounds, is also great. The above two have lots of songs that start as standard vocal tracks, and then get progressively dubbier (the ideal mix, in my opinion).

sensible alliance of reggae with punkishness

This has never made any sense to me at all.

I could see like a similarity between reggae and country - which has its own ties to the origins of both punk and hippy music - but punk and reggae are strange cousins.

I think the sheer number of punk bands that had reggae elements in their songs just speaks for itself as a fact (better than Hebdige's explanation in "Subculture," anyway...).

The dread, doom, sense of righteousness, feeling of tension in performance...

I'm about to go out, and am therefore going to use that as an excuse for my poor eloquence.

The dread, doom, sense of righteousness, feeling of tension in performance...

These are pretty broad characteristics that could, in theory, unite lots of genres. But I see the point, and the fact that punk so frequently draws from, and acknowledges its debt to, reggae speaks for itself.

Best Dressed Chicken kills - awesome cover too. Dom shot the barber!