Track listing for the CD is as follows:
1. I Believe
2. Pompous Way
3. Long Long Ago
4. Militancy
5. Earth Land
6. I Am flying
7. Slavery
8. Oh Mama Africa
9. Hide out
10. On The Ground
11. Call Me Out
12. No Fee
13. Struggle
14. Landscape
15. Without Direction
16. Capitalism
17. Come and Sing

Recorded in Bristol in April at J & J Studios
Produced by Black Roots and Mixed by Loius Becket

More news soon

One of the last surviving founders of the festival that evolved into the St Paul’s Carnival has spoken out about the state of the event in the wake of this year’s cancellation.

Community activist Roy Hackett, who is now 84, was among a small group that launched the festival in 1968 and while his active involvement ended 11 years later, he has kept closely in touch with this key event in the Bristol calendar.

It was due to take place on 7 July but after a cash shortfall, organisers announced in February that it would be scaled back, and at the end of April said it would be cancelled, citing funding and crowd safety concerns.

Hackett criticised a lack of transparency in the organisers’ dealings with the public. “They seem to have a closed door policy. It’s only when the money ran out that we heard how much they had got and how much they had spent.”

He is concerned that the event was successfully run without subsidy for many years but now seems unable to function without costly financial support.

Hackett said: “We ran it for 11 years without this council or any council, ever putting any money in. So when they are talking about how this carnival hasn’t got any money, I want to know why.”

He added that after decades when the event ran fairly smoothly, a rising tide of problems seem to have occurred only in recent times: “It has been cancelled three times in its whole history, but in the last 10 years it has been stopped twice.”

Hackett fears that between the money worries blamed for the latest cancellation and other problems of the past few years, the St Paul’s Carnival may have lost it way.

He is scathing about the use of external advisors – “A consultant to tell you how to run a community event?”– and people being paid when carnival should be community-owned and community driven to stay closer to its roots.

“The festival was never a business. It was a community event. The event involved everybody that was living in the community. Everybody did their little bit. We went with caps in hand, begging pennies, and half a crown. If you give five shillings, that is a whole lot of money.

“People always asked me: ‘Do you get big pay?’ I say: ‘For what?’ I’ve never charged anyone for what I do because I don’t need to; I have a job, I have my wife, I have my family.”

Hackett was interviewed as part of Bristol Archive Record’s ongoing oral history of the city. An individual who is almost an institution in Bristol and St Paul’s, he arrived in the UK from Jamaica in 1952 at the age of 24.

A career in construction took him all over the country, with spells building the Hinkley Point nuclear power station on Somerset’s coast and even working alongside Welsh star and The Voice coach Sir Tom Jones: “He was always singing.”

After settling in Bristol, Hackett became engaged in community activities, including anti-racist protests.

He was strongly involved in Bristol’s bus boycott in 1963, called in protest at the failure to hire black staff for the city’s transport company, which led within weeks to the lifting of the so-called “colour bar”.

Hackett said his role in creating the annual celebration that became carnival came from his habit of attending meetings and joining committees.

As he puts it, some people preach, others enjoy gambling, but he “fell into sitting in on associations and committees”. Even today, in his eighties, “I go to the meetings because I am a nosey person, because I want to know what’s going on.”

Carnival is seen as something strongly derived from Caribbean culture, in particular Jamaica, and Hackett’s childhood memories are of Christmas celebrations: “We don’t have anything back home on as big a scale as the St Paul’s Carnival. In Jamaica, the carnivals move from parish to parish.

“I lived in the countryside in Jamaica until I was 16. There, carnivals are part of the Christmas amusement; everybody dresses up as a god or a devil and has their own role in the carnival. Each year we looked forward to it and it would go right on through to New Year’s Day.”

Hackett is saddened that the St Paul’s Carnival he helped launch has hit so many problems when the original ideals of 1968 were very simple.

“At the very beginning we just wanted to do something to say thank you to our community. I thought it was a good idea because everybody could have a part in it. The old people could watch from their doorways and the children would have smiles on their faces and shout, ‘Mum, look here, Look here.’ That brings joy.”

Bristol Archive Records: www.bristolarchiverecords.com

© Alex Cater 2012

Bristol Archive/Sugar Shack Records participates with two Limited Edition Vinyl releases:

The Bristol Reggae Explosion 1978-1983 (GREEN VINYL) – 500 pressing

AMJ Dub Collective – Sound History Vol 1 – 500 pressing

More info:

www.sugarshackrecords.co.uk

www.bristolarchiverecords.com

We start with our April releases which includes AMJ Dub Collective

More news and detail soon.

Meet Mike Darby, an independent financial advisor, golfer and married with two children. He’s also the owner, head of people relations, chief detective, finding new material, head of A&R and boss man at Bristol Archive Records and Sugar Shack Records. If that wasn’t enough, Mike Darby is also a Director at Archive Publishing.

He started his music career as a singer in 1979 with the reggae/two tone/ska band The Rimshots. The band put out a couple of singles and played with The Beat, The Bodysnatchers, Black Roots, Talisman and acclaimed dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson.
Six years later he ventured into band management and launched Sugar Shack Records focusing on British rock artists. The label recently switched direction though, and from 2012 and onwards Sugar Shack will be putting out contemporary British reggae acts.

In music terms, Bristol is primarily known for the genre trip-hop and artists such as Tricky, Portishead and Massive Attack.The reggae scene has however also been thriving ever since the 70’s in different shapes and forms, and the main aim for Bristol Archive Records is to put many more or less unheard of reggae artists on the map and put the record straight.
“For me it’s the untapped and unreleased gems that have fallen through the cracks of time,” explains Mike Darby, and continues:
“The expectation is minimal from the artists so its amazing seeing these people get a break some 25 or 30 years later, smiling, being proud and getting excited about roots music again.”

And the response on the releases so far seems to please Mike. And one word sums it up well.
“Amazing,” he states, and explains:
“I can’t believe the response from all around the world. The records sell, the artists have a second chance and we are one big happy Bristol family – taking on the world and spreading our sounds.”

Thanks to the success of Bristol Archive Records Mike has also changed direction of his other label – Sugar Shack Records. Its first reggae release is the 12” Sound History Volume 1 by AMJ Dub Collective, released on 23rd April 2012.

“The success of the Bristol Archive Records means that Black Roots, Talisman and now Joshua Moses are back out in force spreading their message via live performances. It just made sense to support them and their new material by having a record label that can work with them,” says Mike, and further explains the company’s direction:
“All things reggae from Bristol and the rest of the UK if we can discover the talent on our other label www.reggaearchiverecords.com .”

Now back to the reissue business, and Mike’s recipe for finding new material to put out.
“Word of mouth, referrals, putting out great looking records and being nice people.”
It sounds easy, but it probably also means a great deal of work to compile compilations with hard to find golden nuggets or unreleased gems, Mike pays special praise to his Reggae colleague Martin Langford aka Dubmart who compiles the track running orders and writes the amazing sleeve notes, plus Steve street who does most of the mastering.

Jah Praises from Revelation Rockers is one of those gems. It was recorded in the late 70’s, but didn’t see the light of day until March 2012.
“Shocked, stunned, excited and motivated,” says Mike about his reaction when he heard about Jah Praises.

But this album is far from an exception in the increasing Bristol Archive catalogue, and the flagship compilations Bristol Reggae Explosion 1, 2 & 3 includes a great deal of unissued material. To me, it’s remarkable that a tune like Rise Up from Joshua Moses has been lying around in a drawer somewhere.
And happily enough Mike reveals that there are more to come.
“Joshua Moses’ Joshua to Jashwha 30 Years in the Wilderness is a must buy for any roots fan. It’s stunning.”

www.bristolarchiverecords.com
www.sugarshackrecords.co.uk
www.reggaearchiverecords.com
www.archivepublishing,net

Taken from: http://unitedreggae.com/articles/n936/032312/interview-mike-darby-from-bristol-archive-records