Reggae music lost another champion of the island sound: Joe Gibbs, legendary producer, recording engineer, label founder and manager died of a heart attack at the age of 65. Gibbs created one of my favorite reggae tunes of all time – “Two Sevens Clash” – recorded by Culture in 1977. Gibbs also created many of the big roots and rock-steady riddims of the late 60′s and early 70′s and continued to produce hit after hit throughout the 80′s dancehall era. ([More →])

The continued popularity of Drum N Bass is greatly due to the tireless efforts of UK’s DJ Grooverider. He’s one half of the BBC Radio show “Fabio and Grooverider” and has promoted UK dance music for as long as I can remember (since the ’90s at least). Unfortunately, he has been sitting in a Dubai airport jail for three months for pot possession and was sentenced this week to a full 4 years in jail! ([More →])

I found a fantastic resource for digitally mobile music fans – Fina. Have you heard of it? They have a super selection of DRM-FREE tunes for download as high quality 320kbps mp3s. They’re run by Thrill Jockey and feature music on Constellation, Badman, Arts + Crafts, Sonic Youth Records, Fat Cat, Editions Mego, Hometapes, No Quarter, Rune Grammofon, Smalltown Supertown and Superjazz, Ersatz Audio, Miamsah, Mosz and Duplex Planet and so many more! ([More →])

A brand new documentary on reggae culture will reveal what really gwaan behind the scenes, on the road, backstage and inna di yard. The 90-minute flick is called “Reggae Uncensored” and features personal interviews with Buju Banton, Ninjaman, Sean Paul, Mavado, Beenie Man, Damien Marley, Macka Diamond, Sizzla, Junior Reid and many many more. The story is helped along by the doc’s host Chyna and English subtitles for the patois-challenged. ([More →])

I live in the kind of haus where random zines and propaganda often appear and disappear like time-traveling nomadic visitors. This week, an issue of Cyclic Defrost from January 2005 appeared on the kitchen table. Cyclic Defrost, one of the most exciting and well produced zines on experimental music culture, is based in Australia; and the fact that I picked up an issue from January 2005 and thought it was something fresh will attest to how ahead of the game their content is. This particular issue featured an interview with DJ/Rupture about his travels, his music, his influences, etc. A Boston-native who was living in Barcelona at the time of the interview, Rupture is an extremely active experimentalist who mashes everything from world music to breakcore and makes it sound good. Rupture recently teamed up with one of NYC’s hottest producers, Matt Shadetek, to form the multi-media platform that we often Big Up on this site: Dutty Artz. ([More →])

David Katz, a music journalist and Lee Perry’s biographer, wrote a good review of the reggae book that I contributed to: “The Reggae Scrapbook”. The review was published in Riddim Magazine in Germany. Riddim was briefly published in english, distributed in the US and immediately became my favorite publication about reggae music. Many of the dub and dancehall artists I wish I had space for in the Reggae Scrapbook are regularly featured in Riddim. Unfortunately, the publishers halted the american edition and haven’t returned to it yet, so you can only get the magazine in german. Roger Steffens was kind enuff to email a copy of this review to me, so I thought I should publish it here for those who would otherwise never get a chance to read it. If you do speak german and you love reggae music, I highly recommend Riddim Magazine. In the meantime, here is David Katz’ book review of the Reggae Scrapbook by Roger Steffens, Peter Simon, Roy Sweetland and me, Molli Fire! ([More →])

Just in time for New Year’s resolutions, Elephant Man releases Part 2 of his Dancehall Gym workout series. I’ve been waiting for this, I’ve got all of Part 1 down pat, minus whipping myself with my own bling. E-man can keep that move! Check out Part 2, now with more sexy ladies! If this doesn’t get your heart racing, you’re not doing it right! ([More →])

Loads of peeps are loving The World According To Pretty Toney by Ghostface Killah! I know I couldn’t get enuff of it at first, I listened to that audio over and over again. Well, hopefully y’all will get a copy for Xmas, but if you’re like most peeps I know, you’ll have to wait until Xmas day and see if there is a gift certificate or some cash under the tree to go out and cop that book. To help make the wait a little easier, I hunted around for some more audio. I wasn’t able to find anything as good as what I posted earlier (sorry!) but I did find some treats. ([More →])

To celebrate the release of his new single, “Bonafide Girl,” Shaggy is having a party in Second Life. That’s right, Mr. Lover Man is going virtual so he can hang out directly with his fans! It takes place in a secret location in SL early in ’08. Giant video screens will be set up and playing videos from Intoxication until Shaggy arrives.
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T2 hit the bigtime with Jodie Aysha and “Heartbroken.” These days, the lucky lad is working with the lovely Addictive ladies. The vocal duo were in the BBC studios recently along with T2 in sesh with Cameo. Here’s video of the BBC 1xtra sesh: ([More →])

What did Mavado once say about tryin to steal from him? Oh yeah, it’s the chorus to “Dreaming” and he repeats it twice every chorus:

I was dreaming that I’m floating on a thousand dolla bill
And if you touch my paper
And crush my dream up
Then you gonna get kill

So, Wud Was Dis Guy Thinkin? ([More →])

Have I ever mentioned how f*kkin rad I think Mr. T is? How could anyone question him? You’re just beggin to be a Foo!

YOU TELL EM, T!

Aaaaaahhhhh, nothing like a long weekend to reboot the ol’ relax-o-meter… I’m not big on celebrating the supper that kicked off 500 years of occupation and genocide, a.k.a. Thanksgiving holiday in amerika. However, I do celebrate extra long weekends any chance I get! Turkey Thursday was my first real day off since Mutant Fest in June, so I had some hardcore chillin to catch up on… I started with a few comic books, a Metalocalypse marathon, spinning records for hours and watching old music videos. Escaping into alternate realities eventually led to deeper explorations of my own world – messing with my live gear, pondering life/work/existence/snow conditions, making mixtapes, etc.
Ahhh, this is the amerikan dream in action right here – the 4 day weekend!

This is the reason why not much changed on HearingTest over the weekend. It also explains why I am about to post a few blast-from-the-past type rewinds in addition to the usual forwarding of fresh news content. Now get ready for something old, something new, something remixed and Mr. T’s modded warrior class is blue! Stay tuned for some delightful sounds to Test Yr Hearing on!

How was yr weekend? Did you celebrate Buy Nothing Day in style? Any crazy turducken stories? Gather round the comment campfire if you have a story to tell!

A love song to Julie’s babylons by fave youth correspondent (Ali G) and Mr. Lover Man (Shaggy)…

Ali G is insanely clever. (Don’t be fooled by the low-brow character he portrays in this video). He possesses the ideal combination of charisma, satire, intelligence, wit, insight and pure niceness that’s necessary to get away with the ridiculous situations he sets up. I can never get enuff, so I’m dropping this video into the archive for endless enjoyment.

BOOYAKASHA! Respek!

I guess I missed it when Kanye West was on 60 Minutes. I don’t watch much regular tv, so I’m not surprised. I was happy to find this video of Kanye showing some reporter how to make a dope-ass beat on the Akai MPC drum sampler. He even had to define “dope-ass beat” for the reporter! ([More →])