Tuesday 28 April 2009

GRIPPING YOUTH REGGAE CLUB - BLAZERS

Blazers reggae disco was located in a wee Pend in Victoria Road, quite near to the Vic cinema, in the early 80's.
I can remember being at this very gig in 1982, because before there were any reggae clubs in Dundee, I used to visit the Ital Club in Edinburgh regularly, and Papa Swi was the DJ.!
Papa Swi's girlfriend used to be on the door there, and when I visited I used to keep asking her when they were going to bring their Sound System to Dundee.
And so after a couple of years passed, they did indeed eventually visit Blazers - this of course was organised by Dundee's Gripping Youth rather than me, and once again the same lassie was on the door!!
Papa Swi had a fantastic record collection and one mighty Sound System, and often during his sessions he'd mix in an array of sound effects to enhance the dub sequences, such as echo machines, sirens, ricochet drum loops and so on. Wicked.!!...as we used to say back then. Right up my street in fact...or in Blazers case...Pendie!!
The article announcing the gig is from Deadbeat fanzine.
Thanks to DD for the ticket.

2 comments:

  1. was at a few of these aswell, great nights, papa swi was quite a catch in those days with a massive rep in the reggae buisness, must have pulled some very important strings to get him on such a small place, some people were a bit wary of going to Blazers as it was too near the Hilltown for comfort. never saw any bother tho, and that place had also a very strange exotic aroma about the place, oh the joy!

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  2. Ha ha, great to see this up! Was a fantastic night for a pound! I was also there and I remember at the end of the night Crucial Youth Sound System counted up the tickets and around 30 of them were for HELENS 21st BIRTHDAY PARTY at the Ice Rink! Same colour and fonts etc but Swi's girlfriend didnt notice this but someone going to Helens 21st obviously did! Fake tickets eh, who would have thought it in Dundee!

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