It's Almost October... Time For Halloween Music With A Jamaican Twist

I'm getting psyched that the Halloween season is upon us! I actually started this blog last October because I'd been admiring and enjoying the wealth of Halloween music that was being shared on so many great non-reggae blogs and I figured I'd jump in and share some of the creepy Jamaican songs that have been a part of my holiday celebrations for years! So... in order to make this year's celebration even better, I've been stockpiling as many Jamaican songs with spooky content that I could get my hands on. Now, I could easily compile these songs into one zip file, upload it to Rapidshare and be done with it but that would be way too easy. I've decided instead to do something a little different... I recently discovered this program on my Mac called Garage Band and I've been putting together some really cool mixes complete with sound effects and other fun audio snippets. Now here's what I'm going to do... I'm gonna make a complete mix of all the songs using traditional Halloween sound effects, creepy noises, etc. and then chop it into individual tracks which I will share whenever I get a chance throughout October (complete with a little blurb about each one) and when placed together in order on a CDR or on your Ipod they'll make a complete Jamaican Halloween Mix. Each track will stand alone but will be that much better when assembled with all of the others. I think this will be pretty cool - first track coming soon!! Oh... how cool is that Bob Marley pumpkin!?

A Little Off Topic... The Poster Art of Scrojo Donovan

First off thanks to my friend Leonard for forwarding me this link. Now before I climb on my soapbox and before you continue reading...check this site out! Had a look? Good, now read on... As you've probably noticed this is definitely not exclusively related to Jamaican music and after inspection those who take their reggae seriously may even consider a lot of these gig posters as verging on blasphemy. I have to admit... I was a little taken back by Donovan taking a lot of serious cultural reggae artists and associating or advertising them using such light-hearted, commercial, pop-art imagery.But after browsing through the images for quite a while, particularly searching for the reggae posters, I thought to myself that I was liking what I was seeing. True the majority of images used on the prints don't in any way represent what the music stands for or the deep meanings behind the vast majority of the subject matter but in a world where the mainstream audience cares little for roots reggae and knows even less, these posters might serve to draw someone in who doesn't know Dennis Brown from Bob Marley. Scrojo's artwork may have the ability to recruit unwitting new reggae fans...and judging by the last poorly attended roots show I saw... getting some new blood into real reggae music wouldn't be a bad thing. Maybe it's time for reggae to present itself with a modern image instead of relying on the ganja leaves and lion imagery. Or maybe reggae should stick with its roots and maintain that "old-school" imagery that those who are into reggae or Jamaican music in general are so familiar and comfortable with. What do you think? Let's discuss it amongst ourselves!