| Up For The Cup?
Governor Turbomatic talk us through their unification preparation |
"What do we hope to achieve by entering the competition? The cup! we ain't coming to make up the numbers, we're coming for the cup. The final we're going to. That's what we're looking for." Wow. I hadn't really considered how Daddy Razor and Junior Dread from Governor Turbomatic might answer my question about the Unification Dub Cup. I began to see things in a new light. The flat near Clapham Junction began to feel like a training camp and the two soundmen seemed as if they were getting themselves in shape for a big fight.
It's slightly startling to hear a Roots sound speak in such an overtly competitive way. It's an aspect of soundsystem culture that has been rather veiled or obscured in recent years. Meetings have tended to be gracious and any soundmen who've failed to abide by the prevailing mood have attracted disapproval. However the Unification Dub Cup is identified as an arena for sounds to express their competitive side. I wanted to know how forceful Governor Turbomatic were prepared to get. Junior attempted to define their approach. "People saying words against each other would be taken the wrong way. So there will be no verbal. Just the tunes you play and the way you sound." Razor tried to clarify, "There will be light banter. The rules stipulate that you cannot discriminate against, discredit, or abuse the other sound. So you have to use humour. Saying you're gonna kill a sound is not acceptable because Roots is about peace, harmony and love. People can still like an element of competition though" Will they be playing the kind of specials that talk about who's the champion and who's the drum pan? "Specials that praise your sound are acceptable but there's a line you shouldn't cross. Our specials are really tunes to say how we are as a sound. It's not calling to another sound or no derogatory names. It's a thin line, but if you cross it the crowd won't like it so you'll suffer. The judges probably won't like it either. A tune has to be conscious." As he explained this Junior seemed fairly unconcerned by how complicated it was all sounding. Ultimately I guess there's no means for articulating what your reaction will be. How a man deals with pressure and responds to the battle is part of what he's being judged on. Soundsystem fans will have to wait until the night to find out. As Razor put it, "I don't know for sure. We're gonna see how things pan out."
We talked at Razor's place. The three of us were surrounded by soundsystem equipment and trappings which accentuated the impression that some serious training and preparing was in progress. However we weren't talking about boxing for twelve three minute rounds, three knock downs or standing eight counts. So what are the rules of this competition, how are the sounds judged? Junior explained, "Crowd response. The crowd has the last say. They will be asked who's the best out of the two. Each round will be ten minutes. You can do whatever you need to in that time. You could do anything basically. You'll be judged on that by the crowd. If the crowd accepts it and says so or applauds, then hey, you're doing well. If not, then it's curtains!" There are also judges and Razor appeared to have memorised what they'll be looking for. "Each sound will be judged on the type of bass you play, clarity of your midrange, clarity of your tops and how the operator, engineer and MCs all work together. They will be taking marks on that. They will take points off if you don't sign on on time or if you cut your ten minute rounds short." Junior continued, "If you play over your time you get points taken away. If you break down, for whatever reason, you have a certain amount of time to get back in. The longer it takes, the more points you lose. So you know what I mean, it's up to you to make sure everything is in order on the night." At the launch dance, Kenny Knots appeared with Lord Ambassador. I wondered whether that was a sign of things to come when the competition starts for real. Junior thought it was likely, "If sounds are happy with their own MCs that will be fine, but if having an artist will give people the upper hand then they'll bring them. It's a competition." Razor concurs, "Everyone's gonna be carrying a special guest artist. Any sound that's worth anything will have an artist. They'll call in the favour. We might have some surprises coming! I ain't saying who."
Governor Turbomatic have been drawn against Jah Hamma in the second clash of the first round. They were of course mindful of the fact that anything they revealed would become available to their opponents. Would all the sounds be checking up on each other? Razor is certain, "Oh we've done our homework. Everybody in this game must do their homework or they're not a good sound. You know who uses what, you walk round their sound and have a look or you ask a builder what they got. No doubt they'll be asking about us." Junior agrees, "We know exactly what they got. They won't know about us, but we know exactly about them. We even know where they're getting their tunes from. We know. You have to do your homework in this." I asked what other preparation they've been doing. Junior said it was all the obvious things, "Sorting out our wires, making sure the speakers are all working and amps serviced and up to par. We're in preparation like every other sound that's in this competition." Razor continues, "Yeah, cutting tunes, pressing tunes, recording tunes. What we've been hearing on the grapevine is that a lot of the sounds have also been going to see the well known producers. We've done it ourselves already. Whatever the hype, we've all done it! Most of the sounds out there will have recording studios, most are engineers. So most will be playing some of their own stuff. We've started making some tracks ourselves and we've voiced a couple of friends we know. If you want to be the best, you do what's necessary."
Meeting Governor Turbomatic was a journey to the substrata of the UK Roots scene. South London has been like it's primordial swamp and the lesser known soundsystems have been the rudimental foundation from which everything has evolved. When you meet Junior Dread you are encountering the very grass roots of London's Reggae scene. He's been involved in soundsystem since the days of Lord David out of Battersea and played seven nights a week on Brixton frontline during the early eighties. He stayed deep in the underground with Aquarius The Ravers Unit and Aquarius the Governor before his crew took their current name around 1990. The problem comes when you try to asses the prospects for a sound that's spent so long under the radar. Like boxers who appear to come with a good record, they talk a good fight; but what will happen when they climb into the ring? After we met I couldn't get the boxing analogies out of my head. Too many unknown fighters have come with solid looking records and a lot of big talk; but on the night someone like Amir Khan has simply dispatched them without even breaking sweat. At the same time as I was visiting the Governor Turbomatic camp, British super-middleweight Carl 'the Cobra' Froch was getting himself in shape for the biggest test of his boxing career. He was due to fight Jermain Taylor in Connecticut two days later and despite being a world champion, to the American public he was an unknown. Taylor joked that it was difficult for him to promote the contest because Froch was such a nobody. The feeling was that Froch had stepped up in class too soon and simply wasn't ready for former undisputed middleweight champ Taylor. The Nottingham fighter's decision to take the fight appeared to be born out of a very specific frustration. It might be one that UK Dub soundsystems can easily relate to. His whole career so far has been in the shadow of the great Joe Calzaghe. How are you meant to break into the big time when there's a legend like Calzaghe at your weight, getting all the big shows and all the publicity? Governor Turbomatic's attempts to move onto the bigger stage has so far been foiled by an inability to circumvent the domination of the name-brand soundsystems. The frustration is palpable. They probably feel it more because they have been a well known sound already, just in a different scene. As Junior explained, "We were in the Bashment arena and we were doing well. We went all over the place. We were in that phase and we just left everything else alone. You don't have time to find out about other scenes. We were playing out and going to the studio all the time. Artists would come from Jamaica and phone us." Razor, who's worked together with Junior since 1984, continued, "We used to get phone calls all day long. We were cutting specials with Bounty Killer, Sizzla, Ninjaman, Al Campbell, Johnny Osbourne, Sugar Minott, Everton Blender, Horace Andy... The only people playing our kind of tunes were Killamanjaro, Black Kat and Bass Odyssey. We had the whole link. So we'd been a Bashment clashment sound for a good few years and we thought we'd have a change." Razor said that the Dancehall scene wasn't allowing their colossal soundsystem to be used to it's full potential. "In the Bashment scene most of the promoters only want you to carry records. We've got a big sound and we spent a lot of money on equipment. Why are we leaving it in to go and carry records?" Junior felt the same way, "I was just getting bored with it. Half the sounds had parked, there was too much trouble in clubs and sounds couldn't get nowhere to play. No, it's not for me anymore. I've built a sound to play, I've got all the equipment and over the years we've done all we needed to do." Razor heard that on the Roots scene it was still possible to represent with your sound. "I went to University Of Dub at Brixton Recreation one night. I came back and told them "you think we got power?" Then I took the whole crew there and they just stood there saying "oh my....." We listened to Jah Youth and the bass went through my nose, through my ears and through my belly. We was like - we need to spend some money!" Junior couldn't believe it, "It was amazing, my mouth was open all night. The vibes is old school, exactly what it used to be like in the seventies. from then on we went to as much dance as we could get to."
So here they are now, preparing to take on all comers in the Unification Dub Cup. What chance do they or any of the less well known sounds have of beating King Earthquake and taking a place alongside the big boys? Junior said, " We're a juggling Roots sound now. We're happy about that, because that's how we are. it's how we were when we were a Bashment. We haven't changed the format. We've gone in a different direction. No other Roots sound, none is doing what we're doing." But was he claiming too much? Was he doing what the Americans thought Carl Froch was doing and getting too big for his boots? The fate of Governor Turbomatic and all the less high profile sounds became linked in my mind with Froch's attempt to become a superstar of world boxing. As I sat down to watch the fight the omens didn't look good. A visibly nervous Froch struggled with Taylor's smooth boxing skills. At the end of the third Froch was knocked down for the first time in his career. He recovered quickly but struggled to catch up and was trailing badly on points by the final round. If he was a symbol for all the underdogs, things weren't looking promising. Then came something unbelievable. He floored Taylor with a cracking right hand, one minute from the end. Froch had pulled off a remarkable comeback. Now, is it a sign........?
April 2009
|
