Winter Dubtacular: The Drastics, Roots Collective, The Takebacks, and DJ F.R.P

This show’s lineup may well prove worthy of the title “dubtacular”: Chicago’s The Drastics give a good sense of reggae’s diversity and the many experimental dimensions of dub. They’ve got the thick bass and generous tunnels of echo down ... more

chicago shows ...

Saturday Jan 17
Anthony will be playing horn with The Hemispheres at Martyr's opening for American Idol Taylor Hicks ... seriously.

Saturday Jan 31
Chris is playing with JT & The Clouds at The Empty Bottle

Tuesday Feb 3
Andrew Zelm is leading his own quintet at Whistlers

The Onion's Decider talked to a handful of Chicago's "Reggae Pillars" including The Drastics and MC Zulu ... please note: I SWEAR TO GOD WE ARE NOT PLAYING THE SYMPATHY CARD! everyone just seems to be fascinated with our strange luck. I have already caught heat from a certain bald Panamanian who never even sent us balloons or box candies or dressed up like a clown to entertain us in our moment of need ...

chicago.decider.com/articles/marley-and-you-chicagos-reggae-scene,22144/

And don't forget the Drastics are in MADISON WI at the Majestic Theatre Jan 24!

Aight, gotta go surprise Sylvester Stallone in a Men's Wearhouse dressing room and straight up measure his neckthroat!!!

ok ..... seriously, this is just getting f*cking ridiculous ...

Last night, Chris Merrill (Drastic Bass) became the latest victim of the Drastic-Whamie-Curse when he slipped on some ice, bashed his foot into a cinder block propping a door open, and broke his goddamn ankle. The thing ballooned up to the size of a grapefruit, but luckily there was enough hands and vehicles to get him to the hospital in a relatively short time. We were leaving a "Soul Christmas Party" at the Hideout when it happened. Christ all mighty, can we stop now? Please? This puts 5 Drastics in the emergency room over the past 2 years. Starting with Otto (our former keysman who was in a head on collision at 45 mph), Elliot (ran over by a pickup truck while on his bike), yours truly, Ritch and now Chris. OK, WE GET IT! WHOEVER MADE THE SET OF DRASTICS VOODOO DOLLS, PLEASE PUT THEM AWAY NOW! WE'LL SACRIFICE AS MANY CHICKENS AS YOU NEED!! JUST LAY OFF THE WHAMIES!!!!

Drastic singer/frontman/little-league-shuffleboard-coach MC Zulu has been featured in this weeks "Sharp Darts" in the Chicago Reader.

Space Dancehall

worth checking out just for the picture!

MC Zulu is also featured on our latest release; "Love Is War". Check it out on our page!

diminished existence of haberdasheries has brought ire to the heads of our great country.

oh, here's his myspace page

Aight, listen up all ya'll lil reggae freaks!

Since we can't play shows until next year (we're thinking maybe February or March will be our next gig) we are going to start releasing 2 New Tracks every First Tuesday of the month ... or sometime around then ... don't hold us to that. Basically it's going to be a series of digital 7"s that will be turned into real vinyl 7"s.

This is where you come in...

Depending on our Myspace play-counts, and feedback from YOU, we are going to press 2 or 3 of these on limited edition colored vinyl! So let us know what track(s) you like or just listen to em a whole bunch, or send us a candygram, or dress up like a 19th century guy and grow a handlebar mustache and send us a fucking telegraph already, alright?

First up in the release schedule is going to be "Love is War" with a dub on the "flip side" ... featuring MC Zulu ... for those of you who know, most of our recorded cuts with Zulu are more on the heavy tip, but this be some shaw nuff party vibe reggae ... shaw nuff.

Also in the works ... another new website ... we are going to be "blogging" cause that's what cool kids do, so be checking our real website (www.thedrastics.com) 'round the beginning of November ....

aight!? alright. now myspace has got a banner ad asking me "How Goth Are You?" so i gotta go fill that out real quick. i hope i win!

thanks for reading!

alllllright ...

First off, again, thanks to everyone who sent some love. And apologies to everyone I didn't call or write back, but there's some been some awful dark days. But hey, slow motion is better than no motion, so we gotta push forward. My right hand is comin along now, but the left elbow is still pretty much not moving. Doctors and therapists are telling me it'll be months (and it's only been 2 weeks of therapy) but I'm already over waiting for this thing to heal.

There's some new photos up of the last show we played at Reggies in Chicago (from back in July), but the most exciting news is that we are nearing completion of 6 new vocal tunes featuring Drastic regulars Fada Dougou and MC Zulu. Before this craptastic accident (read the previous entry) we managed to get rhythm tracks for 6 new cuts recorded, and we've been slowly getting them together over the last month. These are most likely going to be available by download and vinyl only, so you're support of a song will help us decide what to press to a sweet sweet 7" platter of acetate.

Some other good news, our mainstay guitarist Brian is back from Ghana. Brian went over to the motherland for 2 months to help in some grass roots human rights kinda stuff, and we're glad to have him back. Also, our other guitarist Ritch (who broke his clavicle) has fully recovered and is already back on his damn bike.

So yeah, we'll be back (I Hope) but right now it looks like early 2009 at the best ...
oh yeah, and here i am ... (i'm smiling because of the morphine, believe me, that shit hurt like a bitch!)

well, first off, thanks to everyone who's sent love in one form or another. it really helps.

the long and short of it is i got side swiped by a 7up delivery truck while biking to my day job. of course he didn't stop after almost killing me, and only because a good samaritan followed the asshole and came back do i have the plate number. my right hand and left elbow are shattered. like, pretty bad. too early to know how it's gonna heal. might not get full use back in the left.

on top of my woes, ritch our guitar player is suffering from a broken shoulder. three days after my fiasco, ritch was near doored on his bike, swerving to miss he flew off his bike and broke his clavicle.

obviously, we are off the stage scene for at least a couple of months (realistically until 2009). luckily, we put down rhythm tracks for 6 new songs before all this. not sure what we're gonna do with them yet, but we'll let you know.

aight, typing w my one good finger is hard. so that's it for now.

anthony