25-03-07

To say that sitting in Brunswick on a Sunday night, where the weather was cold but the music was hot, is somewhat of a cliché in Melbourne. But a cliché is often a cliché because it is something based on reality that has happened so many times that it is instantly recognisable.

So for me to say that on this particular Sunday night that I was sitting sipping a beer, while it was bloody cold outside and a band preformed in front of me who were, not to be exaggerating, hot, is a welcome cliché. Kingtide, hailing from Sydney have been regulars on the reggae/roots circuit for a long time, and have completed a number of well placed support gigs and solo shows throughout Australia.

As recently as December Kingtide joined Melbourne reggae/fun legends Bomba at the Espy in St Kilda for what was probably the most underrated gig of the year, a merging together of two bands into a perfect symmetry of sound, complete with heavy bass rhythms and driving melodies that turned the Gershwin Room into a sweating, breathing life form (those who attended would know what I am talking about).

With this in mind, it occurred to me (and probably the 30 people who witnessed the same thing) that Kingtide's gig was doomed from the outset. A Sunday night for any local act is a difficult one. If the weather is ideal and elements, such as venue and timing, correct, then it could be a winner. Unfortunately for the group of musicians who played brilliantly on this Sunday, none of these elements fell in their favour.

There are some great venues for bands in Brunswick, but Don't Tell Tom is not quite there yet. I really like the room – tall ceilings, great sound from the PA, and a great beer garden with pool table. But on this night, these elements not only didn't help, they seemed to aid the disappointing turn-out.

With all of that said, I must say that Kingtide, for me, have been the highlight of the Brunswick Music Festival, putting as much heart and soul into a performance for 30 people as they would for 3000. Kingtide put out a solid, complete sound, with vocal harmonies from vocalist Tony Hughes and toaster/MC Paul Snatch that would send shivers down Bob Marley's spine.

Featuring songs from their most recent record, Scared New World, the members of Kingtide proved beyond doubt that they're foremost a party band. Songs such as Funky Reggae, World's Gone Wack, and Ites, ites, ites (written to commemorate Tony's seeing ska legends The Skatilites play), were infused with covers such as the Wailers' classic Simmer Down and swinging track from reggae master Yellowman. My personal favourite was their ska-ed up version of Bob Marley's Soul Shakedown Party, which even had the owner of the bar dancing.

And that's what hit me as being something essential for this band's survival – the ability to make people dance. In between their two sets (yet another obstacle in the night) I had a chance to sit and chat with the guys. They didn't bitch and moan about the quality of the gig (although that's not to say they weren't disappointed). They smiled, shared a bottle of rum, and decided to treat the people who had made the journey to a show of personal favourites and fun. It's this optimism that made what could have been a complete disaster, a gig that people will hear about but only few can say they witnessed.

--Choppy Chopstein

Roots Pop Reggae Review Sept 26/09 AUSTRALIAN NEWS PAPER WEEKEND REVIEW
King Tide
Vitamin
ROOTS Pop Reggae is King Tide's third CD and its most accomplished blend of rock steady beats, pop, soul, electronica and ska. King Tide is the final mutation of the heady acid rock of the early 1990s when D.I.G. (Directions in Groove), Swoop, Caligula, Def X and Skunkhour defied the prevailing grunge and Oz rock four-on-the-floor template to venture forth with bold, individualistic blends of infectious melody, electronica and funk-soul. It ruled Sydney inner-city dance clubs for three or four years, then subsided. Main men are MC-singer Tony Hughes, from late 90s funk-dance outfit Bellydance, and toaster Paul Snatch, previously with hip-hop outfit Large Rabbit and pop band Radio Freedom. The two vocalists enjoy the backing of a nine-piece ensemble that pours peerless musicianship into sublime grooves. Players include gun drummers Terepai Richmond and Declan Kelly, guitarist Ross Fotheringham, a four-piece brass section and keyboardist Robbie Woolf, who steps up to the microphone for one of the album's standout tracks, the high, sweet soul lament Anyone Could Tell. It evokes the glistening sorrow of Smokey Robinson's falsetto. Mostly, though, Roots Pop Reggae is infectious melody welded to sinuous rock-steady dance rhythms. Atomised is Hughes's melodic account of how the soul of music is passed through generations. Keep on Lovin' is traditional roots reggae embodying the optimistic message that love can yet save the world. Sun Machine uses programmed beats as a platform for an adventurous simulation of the stimulation of summer days. Chemical is a Paul Snatch rave-up that looks for and finds reggae's DNA in disco nursery rhymes. Beggars Waltz is soul contemporised with electronic brass flourishes. Rockers Roots takes Hughes back to his childhood in Britain, awed and floored by Millie Small's pop-reggae smash My Boy Lollipop. From Reg Mombassa's vivid cover art to the frolicking music inside, Roots Pop Reggae is a rarity: dance music that leaves messages in one's ears, one being to check the gig guide to see when King Tide is next playing live.
Anthony O'Grady

**** out of 5
The Australian Newspaper

King Tide get minimal airplay on triple J and zero commercial air play .Yet we tour constantly to packed houses around the country purely on the back of our word of mouth live reputation. Summer 2008 was the usual list of gigs up and down the east coast. That was until we hit a certain state capital.
This night down in the Valley below we had just finished playing a great show to another packed house.
So after the gig with everyone flushed with the success of a great show we adjourned for a couple of windin down ales in our accommodation's beer garden.

As I still wanted to have a voice left for the three consecutive gigs left to do on this run. I trundled off to bed after having only one and half beers.
As I stepped outside the beer garden area of the accommodation I was stopped by two police officers one white the other black. The black officer says to me "You can't walk down here" But this is the way to my room! I say. And I really need to get some sleep.' "Step back you can't come this way". I then opened my mouth to plead my case further and managed in getting about three words out, something like "come on please". Before I was slammed to the floor my face ground into the cement along with two knees landing on my back with all the police force that gravity could summon.

My hands are then ripped behind my back and I am handcuffed as tightly as the cuffs can go.
I can tell you this much. It wasn't sexy by any means .I think they had forgotten our agreed fantasy play stop word. Of ouch! You're breaking my wrists.
Next the black officer using a fulcrum of my wrists against the handcuffs rips me up to my feet.
His face right up against mine now, his eyes popping wild. Noses almost touching .His breath fouled by his words, he hisses, "How does it feel to be bashed by a black man " Of course by now I 'm in shock. The physical pain of the assault comes later.
Thankfully for the first time in my life I am left speechless to his question.
Then, like so many bits of white reggae singer trash, they drag me off throw me into the back of the Paddy wagon. Twenty minutes of being tossed around uncontrollably in back of the Paddy wagon we arrive at the watch house.
As I am of Irish stock the name [Paddy Wagon] I find extremely racist and offensive. A point I bring up later in the police station. Just imagine if they called it a chink wagon or leb vans or a Jew for Christ mobile. No they didn't laugh they just threw me into a cell.
And in that cold hard steel cell I sat for the next eight hours confused, wondering what it was I had done to deserve this. I did have a little giggle at the irie ony of the black police officer bashing up the white reggae singer and my failed professional intent of an early night in order to rest my voice.
The next morning I was released on a ten-cent bail a charge of being drunk and disorderly, bruised /cracked ribs, badly swollen wrists and the reoccurring image of a crazed black police officers face in my face.
I had, had one and a half beers.

The strange thing is I don't feel any hatred for the black police officer.
Why? Because I can't and don't wish to imagine the fresh hell he wakes up to every morning. A spectre caught between two worlds .His culture and the culture of hatred and violence that I from my experience assume is the modus operandi of this particular states police force.

On the advice given to me by the vast legal team at Crush / Babylon and Babylon. I am not able to name the bands accommodation or the naked city this incident happened in.

I will be pleading innocent to the charge at hand.

The Happy Sufferer singer King Tide.

LIVE REVIEWS…..

KINGTIDE @ The Factory 22 Feb.

What price does a performing artist put on respect? Robbie Woolf ruminated aloud. Their was a pregnant pause until Kingtides Band leader/ Frontman Tony Hughes hoisted the $64 dollar question aloft, "shall we accommodate this rancorous and fetid shaft in our collective arses or adjourn swiftly to the bar , so to speak, and taste the superior draught of refusal.
And so it transpired, (after petulantly lugging their not too diminutive collection of instruments and amplifiers back down the many flights of stairs) that Sydney's dancehall/reggae supergroup declined to support Jamaica's Dub Syndicate at Marrickville's fabulous Venue ' The Factory'.
International supports almost invariably provide the Host Country's supporting artists with precious little time to set up and sound check, although I have experienced unsolicited respect on a few occasions, such as Spearhead's first National tour, wherein Michael Frenti encouraged a group hug with support act Bellydance and exclaimed " what is ours is yours and lets work together to have a great time " ( that's a big hug with two 8 piece bands). But unfortunately Dub Syndicate had a more solipsistic vision of sharing a stage. After pointedly requesting kingtide arrive for a 5.30 sound check, the stage was made available at 7.30, and, having occupied almost all the available space declined to share their backline ( hired gear ) and refused to allow it's temporary displacement so as to avail Kingtide some room to set up. So , realising the postage stamp space made available in which to create their 8 piece vaudevillian romp was not quite big enough to host a modest scrabble board, the band graciously declined to be shafted yet again. A big sorry to the folks that were expecting Kingtide before the main act, and A big thankyou to Jason Horner and the Factory for honouring kingtides drink rider.Cheers .. Frugal Sharky

AN INTERVIEW I AN I THE HAPPY SUFFERER DID RECENTLY FOR P.B.S RADIO NETWORK.

Kingtide Q&A

Your name:
The Happy Sufferer.

The name of your band/act etc:
Kingtide.

Where are you from (city/country)?
Sydney, Australia.

Your sound can be described as?
Reggae music and all the styles it encompasses from ska, rocksteady, dub and right through to dancehall. Reggae is our compass taking us to new and wonderful musical lands.

Fill us in on the history – where did your band/act start, what changes and developments have happened along the way and where are you now?
Kingtide started two years ago after I was asked to put a reggae band together for Roots Music Thursday nights at the Beach Hotel, Bondi. I placed an ad in the Bugle. The Bugle is the official Salvation Army musician's placement services. I thought that way I would get sober musicians and a rider for my self.

What changes and developments have happened along the way and where are you now?
Well it was never meant to be more than a jam band at the Beach on the Thursday nights but we all loved it so much, and so did, thankfully, the audience – that kept turning up in bigger numbers every time we played – so we just kept playing until one day an ad agency who were doing the Sonny campaign asked if we would like to record a Toots & The Maytals song called Broadway Jungle for the said campaign. We did that then recorded our first album, To Our Dearly Deported, which is named after Sean Collins who did the MC Toasting in the band before he was picked up by immigration and transported back to Trinidad for over-staying his visa by five years. Luckily this was done just after he had recorded his vocals for the album. Since then we have recruited our friend Paul Snatch to take on the MC Toasting duties in the band. With Paul and myself producing we went ahead and recorded a new album released December 7, 2006 called Scared New World out now on Vitamin.

What's your earliest memory of developing a passion for music?
My earliest musical memory is of my father (a classical musician he played second fiddle with the London Philharmonic). He would always tell me to listen to the music that is playing around us all the time. The wind through the trees, a car changing gears, the fish mongers pleading sing-song-call at the fish markets to "Looky, looky, looky" at her beautiful wares. The beep, beep, beep of a forklifts reversing signal. The musical loop of life itself.

Your influences (musical, political etc) and why?
Reggae music is about being righteous and fighting injustice, which there seems to be a lot of around lately in this scared new world. My influences are: my Dad, my Mum, Cassandra Woodburne, Teddy Cavanagh, Charlie MacLean, Paul Snatch, Sean Collins, Linda Janssen, Robbie Woolf, Lindsay Page, Terepai Richmond, Tony Gilbert, Alex Hewitson, Peter Firth, Declan Kelly, Winstan Stevenson, Sean Collins, Ross Fotheringham, Jamaica, King Tubby, Toots Hibbert, Saint Bob, Peter Tosh, Lee Scratch, The Skatalites, The Wailers, Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakesphere, Curtis Mayfield, Junior Murvin, Gregory Isaacs, Jackie Mittoo, Dennis Brown, Desmond Decker, Prince Buster, Duke Ried, Ernest Ranglin, Alton Ellis, Leslie Kong, Trojan Records, Babylon, Belly Dance, Sir Coxsone Dod, Ken Boothe, Jimmy Cliff, The Harder They Come, Rockers, Augustus Pablo, I Roy, U Roy, Dillinger, Big Youth, Burning Spear, Junior Byles, Congos, Marvin Gaye, Green Sleaves label, Derric Harriot, Heptones, Frankie Paul, Chaka Demus, Pliers, Studio One Label, Treasure Isle Label, Two Tone Movement,Yellow Man... reggae music.

What's your Mum or Dad's favorite record/song and why do you love/hate it?
I was turned on to reggae at a very early age by my Mother who was a curator of ethnocentric music for the municipal library of greater London. My Father was a huge fan of Shostakovitch and the early jazz recordings from New Orleans, in particular King Oliver's. My Mum would listen to everything from King Tubby to Balinese Gamelan recordings from the thirties and right through to Appellation folk tunes. I must admit it would occasionally drive my father mad and force him to sneak off to his study. There, he would lock himself away and listen to Debussy and Shostakovitch on headphones, thus leaving mother and I with the speakers cranked up dancing to reggae music in the dappled sunshine of our English country garden.

Most memorable gig you've played and why?
That would have to be the last Bellingen Global Carnival gig. It was a beatific love fest' from the band to the audience to the band and back again. Basically, everyone was very fucking high.

What's the naughtiest thing you and/or the band have gotten up to on tour?
You will have to read my memoirs for that and I am afraid I have promised a very important publishing house with very naughty and nasty lawyers that I would reveal nothing about those things till the memoir is published some time in the year 2525.

Do you drink? And if so what's you're favorite rock 'n' roll recipe? If you don't drink would you care to elaborate as to why?
We don't drink because it tends to take the edge off the copious amounts of LSD 25 we all take before each gig.

What was the first record that you ever owned and tell us the story of how it came into your possession and why you loved it?
Mother brought me home a King Tubby record and we listened to it in the dappled light of our English country garden. As you can see I had a fairly privileged and protected musical up bringing.

What's the best thing about the music scene you are involved in and why?
Playing with people I respect and trust and of course the first class travel that it involves.

What's the worst thing about the music scene you are involved in and why?
No foldback and all that waiting around. Oh and counting all the money we make after the show. My hands get so dirty.

How did you get involved in the music scene you find yourself in now?
It was pure serendipity.

Any parting words?
Don't let your sons and daughters grow up to be musicians. Oh yeah, and buy our new record Scared New World. Thanks for the interview! Because when you only have one child left to eat. Every little bit of propaganda helps.



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KINGTIDE, Australia's finest purveyors of all things reggae, Rock Steady, Dub, Ska and Dance Hall, have emerged after two months in the studio with a new album "Scared New World" which will hit stores on November 20. The band's 2005 debut, "To Our Dearly Deported" was a roots album slavishly drawing references from the great periods of Ska, Rock Steady and Reggae that emanated out of Jamaica in the late sixties and seventies, while the new album broadens the band's focus, bringing influences from across the globe. Jamaican roots music is still their compass, but this time guides KINGTIDE to new and wonderful musical lands. As was observed and so succinctly put by ABC's Tim Ritchie: "... It really works.... I think it sounds like an authentic piece with classic production, but still has a contemporary feel. The perfect balance of respect and moving on." Tim Ritchie, New Music Show, ABC Radio Without ever being hectoring "Scared New World's" thirteen tracks draw some of it's lyrical musings from the political happenings in this scary new world, but it's not all global politics. You also have other more personal musings like the classic ska work out of "Ites, Ites, Ites Skatalite Feelin," which pays homage to the legendary Skatalites, written after the band supported them recently at the Basement. The album was produced by the band's vocalists Tony Hughes and Paul Snatch and features some of Australia's finest musicians Terepai Richmond (drums), Peter Furth (Bass), Robbie Woolf (Keys, Vox), Lindsay Page (Keys & Trombone), Tony Gilbert (Guitar), Ross Fotheringham (Guitar). The High Tide Horns - Geoff Innis (Trumpet) Nathan (Saxaphone) and Roy (Trombone). Well known on the festival circuit, KINGTIDE have ignited Cockatoo Island Festival, Peats Ridge, Bellingen Global Carnival, Great Escape Festival... plus supported many international artists including UB40, The Skatellites, Katchafire and Fat Freddy's Drop. "Listening takes me back to another time, when the world seemed a better place, when people smiled in their cars while listening to reggae beats" Paul, FasterLouder , September 2005 "I didn't know Australia was capable of producing such sweet rasta sounds" Daniel Morrison 3D World CD Review, 2005 "It's like someone ignited a big, huge fucking dancehall flame and all the punters ... are like moths to the light" Dave Herbert, Brag Live Review September 2005 Catch KINGTIDE touring the release of "Scared New World" –