Steel Pulse
 

I don't think anyone's started a thread on Birmingham's finest reggae band (I used search and found nowt), so here goes. Any other fans of these guys? To me they're definitely one of the best reggae groups of all time, being the ones who officially got me into reggae and all.

From what I've heard (6 albums) they've always gone for a much more polished sound than those of their contemporaries since they released their debut in '78, which certainly makes them more accessible to anyone who isn't really a fan of reggae (in my opinion of course). In some cases this tactic has a reverse effect, but when the songwriting is strong enough to make it work (as it is in quite a few cases) it results in some of the best reggae I've ever heard.

Anyway, videos... videos... [edit - obviously these are all live recordings and don't really help the jist of what I'm saying about their studio sound]


Rally Round


Rollerskates


Chant a Psalm

When it comes to albums, Handsworth Revolution is the best starting point for sure, and an essential for any music collection. From there, True Democracy is the next best thing (and one of my favourite albums of all time). They've released plenty of other great albums, but those two are the standouts.

Got that off me chest then...

Their early releases are excellent and they put the other Brummie Reggae band UB40 in the shade. It's a shame that Steel Pulse did'nt even get half the praise that UB40 got.

:o: MUST GET......

I love this site, everyday I find another great band.

It's definitely a shame that Steel Pulse, while very popular with reggae followers, aren't anywhere near as well-known as UB40. They deserve more recognition for sure - a truly fantastic band.

As I did with my Midnight Oil thread I'll post the link to a 10-track sampler a bit later to satisfy anyone's curiosity

Alright, here's that compilation I was on about;

1. Global Warming [African Holocaust]
2. Ravers [True Democracy]
3. Tribute To the Martyrs [Tribute To the Martyrs]
4. Prodigal Son [Handsworth Revolution]
5. Bodyguard [Earth Crisis]
6. Sound System [Tribute To the Martyrs]
7. Throne Of Gold [Earth Crisis]
8. No More Weapons [African Holocaust]
9. Find It... Quick! [True Democracy]
10. Macka Splaff [Handsworth Revolution]
11. Roller Skates (live)
12. Gang Warfare (live)
Steel Pulse - 10 Of the Best.rar

Apart from two tracks I already have them all but a nice mix.

Ah, that means you've got True Democracy then?

Good man :thumb:

Leggobeast.

Another band I caught live an eternity ago. I went with no knowledge and came away impressed. Looking forward to the mixtape Bulldog as I stupidly never gave them a further listen.

I knew keeping the mix online was worth it :D

An old friend of mine actually saw the band at a bus stop in Brum once back in '78. This is the same guy who told me they're a brilliant live act. I had the opportunity to see myself them at WOMAD in 2007 (I think), but never did end up going. Baaba Maal was headlining too - another potentially awesome gig I missed out on there.

rollerskates is sucha badass song..

<3 steel pulse

YEEE homes you know I told you about leggobeast. I love steel pulse.

Yeah, the few other songs I dig by them I have on a mix and are labeled 'Track 4...' etc...

I've been a fan of Steel Pulse since their first Hadsworth Revolution album was released in 1978. I've seen them five times in concert and they never cease to amaze me with their musical talent.



I also agree with bulldog that Midnight Oil is an awesome band.

A cool home made movie of Roller Skates. I love how the guy is skanking down the path.

^^^nice skankin....

btw steel pulse "blazin' fire" is the one!

my mates dad played keys for steel pulse.... was also the opening piano player on "sunshine day" by osibisa....


GWAAAAAAN DEYA

YouTube - Steel Pulse - Blazing Fire (Live @ The Canyon Club)

I really wish I could have seen them live when I had the chance to. Unless you count reggae sets by various club DJs as such, I've never seen live reggae before. Must be an amazing experience.

Great vid there as well. Earth Crisis is among my least favourite Steel Pulse albums, but Rollerskates is still a great song.

And you're right, Midnight Oil are immense :D

Just found this thread and have downloaded the compilation. Cheers to Bulldog as the only Steel Pulse track I own is Klu Klux Klan.
Skanking to this right now, and my pet budgie is grooving along too. LOL

I can't believe you've never seen a live reggae show. You need to get out more often, mon. Do I have to fly across the ocean and travel 4000 miles just to drag you out to a reggae concert? If I were living in the UK, I'd be out at least once a week to check out live music shows.

Well, that'd definitely help :D

I don't really live in very musical places if that makes sense. I'm living with my parents in Norfolk over the summer where you're lucky if you can go patronise a mate's band. Back in Bolton the closest thing you can get to a gig is listening to the PA system in Sainsburys.

Absolutey fab!!!

Bought 'Handsworth Revolution' earlier on this afternoon. Great band, great music.

Good lad :thumb: As I think I've said before, True Democracy's by far my favourite of theirs. Tribute To the Martyrs is a great album too. I do love me a bit of Handsworth Revolution as well though.

By the way, anyone wanting to dig around their discography a bit (which I must say would be well worth the hassle), just keep well away from Earth Crisis and State Of Emergency.

Im curious, why not 'State Of Emergency'?

It is the only other Steel Pulse album that they have in my regular music stores sadly.

It's basically the sound of the guys trying to make a reggae-pop album and failing miserably. It's swamped in horrifically dated studio treatments and production techniques, which'd be ok if the songs themselves were actually any good (which, by the way, they ain't!).

If you're curious, give it a try, but don't say I didn't warn you :D

Warned:)

I think im still gonna give it a bash sooner or later seeing as there are only about 5 more reggae albums left in the whole town which I could buy. Sad state!

Gregory Isaacs - Night Nurse, Burning Spear - Marcus Garvey, Third world - reggae greats compo, culture - nuff' said and at least 40 million variations of Bob Marley... Not exactly spoilt for choice.

Unfortunately it's the same story with a lot of places I've been to in England - unless you're looking in the biggest HMV or whatever in the country, you're likely to come across some pretty pathetic reggae sections. Before I started getting my albums off blogs I just kept using amazon and itunes to find all the good stuff.

If you're ok downloading for free, I can hook you up to a couple of good reggae blogs if you like.

and to think I live in probably the 3rd biggest city in the country.... hmmmm!

At the moment the only downloading I do is off new artists/genres in attempts to explore more stuff, but I have already been looking around at some reggae albums and blogs to download. Wouldn't mind giving them a look if thats not a hassle. Thanks.

There is also a shortage of reggae music in retail stores here in the USA. My favoritie retailer used to carry a fully stocked reggae section with about 100 different artists. Now there isn't a proper reggae section but a "world" music section carrying albums only by Marley, Tosh and UB 40. Music retailers are cutting their own throats by carrying only the music that sells quicky off the shelf because they're losing guys like me who purchase a lot of offbeat and slow selling titles.

The good news is that Amazon and Rhapsody are carrying a gold mine of old and new reggae and digital titles about half the price you'd pay for a cd or vinyl version. I go crazy whenever I shop there because the albums run from $5.99 to 8.99 (US Dollars) and single downloads are only 99 cents.

I'm not sure what's available at Amazon UK or Amazon South Africa, but I do know that I can't download titles from Amazon UK because of EU copyright laws. It surprises me there is such a shortage of reggae music in Africa because Africa is one of the few places that reggae singers can still fill football stadiums for concerts.

Handsworth Revolution was a pretty good album, but it was oddly dry-sounding, and they seemed to be somewhat humorless/overly serious about their lyrics. I've been planning to get something else by them at some point, though.

It's true they lack the more playful kind of slant on their lyrics that, say, Barrington Levy or Eek-a-mouse have (comparatively anyway), but to me it's just part and parcel of the core values of roots reggae. Good that you still liked Handsworth Revolution regardless of that though. True Democracy is definitely the next best place to go with them - brilliant songwriting, brilliant production, just a truly fantastic and well-rounded piece of work.

I had True Democracy sitting around in my CD rack for the longest time, having not listened to it until a few months ago. Really some of the best stuff out there. I promptly bought Handsworth Revolution.

I think David Hinds is capable of tonque and cheek humor in his writting. David's toast on Rollerskate sounds like a lunatic episode in the life of Eek-A-Mouse that he'll turn into a humorous song like Penni Walli/

David is playing a musical game of the dozens with the boombox thief in Roller Stake.

David is well aware that he's overstating his case against the boombox thief and he delights in doing so to the point of absurdity. The dance hall toast is a musical version of a game called the dozens. The most skilled dance hall toasters and rappers honed their skill wordplay by being highly adept players of the dozens, beginning as children in the school yard.

The dozens is a game, common in nearly all black cultures, of exchanging insults sometimes about the intelligence of the opponent, the mother of the opponent or other family members of the opponent. Skilled playing of the dozens displays verbal improvisation of great originality and wittiness. It also requires a thick skin: you lose the contest if you get upset. The most common version of the dozens begins with, " Yo mama's so ugly..."

The origin of the term is unknown. Some conjectures include: it refers to a throw of 12 in craps, 12 being a difficult number to match; but a second theory is that inferior slaves were sold in lots of twelve, the number twelve therefore coming to mean 'wretched; inferior' itself.

Both Jamaican dancehall toasting and old school rap music have stong elements of the dozens and Roller Skates is a showcase of David's own skillful use of humorous word play in the dozens style.

David Hinds has all sorts of humorous asides even in his most serious songs. In the song Soldiers David Hinds humorously responds to "civilizing" influences of colonialism and Christianity with his angry but humorous rejoinder to Babylon: The term "witch doctor" was a colonial slur for a tribal shaman who practiced the herbalism and the African rituals of the healing arts (which Babylon called "voodoo") In the mind of a colonialist the witch doctor and voodoo were symbols of a supersitious, uneducted and fundamentally evil non-Chrisitian African culture. From the colonialist perspecive it was the white man's burden to tame the uncivilized black savage through Christianity. But David takes the witch doctor insult and slaps Babylon back for their witch doctor insult with his humorous demand to "Give I back I witch doctor." Whenever David delivers the 'witch doctor" line in concert it gets a tremendous response from those who understand his dry and brittle sense of humor.

When Steel Pulse was coming up through the clubs in the late 70s/early 80s, became known for their outlandish stage costumes that parodied archetypal Babylon authority figures like plantation owners, military soldiers, mercenaries, and Ku Klux Klan members. The outlandish costumes and satirical theatrics reminded me of agit-prop theater groups like Bread and Puppet Theater, San Francisco Mime Troupe or Theatro Campesino.

A more recent stage costume adopted by David was a parody of the mercenary soldier of fortune from the Iraq War.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v8...ays06-KW04.jpg

In their live performance you see a humorous side of Steel Pulse that balances the more serious music of their recordings. You can have about as much fun as legally possible at a Steel Pulse performance.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v8...Pulse-bn01.jpg
Ladies & Gentlemen of th jury, is this the work uniform of a man who takes himself too seriously?

Stepping Out and Rollerskates

Finally gave Handsworth a good listen. Well worth it. I had listened to it a few times without really paying attention, and you never notice all the little intricacies that make each reggae song unique until you do. Anyway, really really great stuff.

^ It's a good 'un isn't it. The second side is one of the strongest sequences of songs on any album, reggae or otherwise.

For anyone who's not in the loop, here's the evidence...

YouTube - Steel Pulse - Prodigal Son
YouTube - Steel Pulse - Ku klux klan
YouTube - Steel Pulse - Prediction
YouTube - Steel Pulse - Macka Splaff

Steel Pulse is great. Steppin' Out is one of my favorite reggae jams ever. They just played San Diego last weekend but I couldn't make it. Which is unfortunate.

yeah steel pulse is amazing. some of their stuff gets alittle old tho. to me its not as catchy as some other reggae bands

True, but the way I see it roots reggae like Steel Pulse is about anything but being catchy. That's more what dancehall stuff concerns itself with, which is basically the antithesis of what the guys have tried to achieve with their career.

I've been digging these guys lately thanks to Rastanthology and I'm downloading Handsworth Revolution and True Democracy now.

How cool is this!?

Yeah, Steppin' Out's a great tune. It's off their Earth Crisis album, the one that came after True Democracy. It's the album with their biggest hits on it (Rollerskates is there too) but, to be honest, it's far from a favourite of mine.

If anyone's already got True Democracy and Handsworth Revolution and you're scratching your head over where to go next with them, I say give Tribute To the Martyrs and Babylon the Bandit a try - they're both not quite on the same level of flawlessness, but very good albums all the same.