Dominating Riddim Peter Aaron It’s two o’clock on a sunny Friday afternoon and the members of roots reggae outfit the Big Takeover are recuperating from the previous night’s gig in Albany. Present but dog-tired and squinting are bassist Rob Kissner, vocalist Nee Nee Rushie, guitarist Jon Klenck, drummer Sam Tritto, and saxophonist Chas Montrose; missing is trombonist Andy Vogt, apparently still sleeping it off.“It was so much easier to do out-of-town shows before SUNY New Paltz [at which most of the 20-to-24-year-old players are enrolled] changed our class schedule around,” groans Montrose, a math major. “Most of us didn’t get to bed until eight o’clock this morning.” After catching the band live two weekends in a row it’s not hard to see why these skilled young musicians are so visibly pooped. Sure, the lengthy hike back home from up north and the lack of sleep both have a lot to do with the group’s shared suffering, but compound those points with the sextet’s customary high-energy sets and you have a recipe for exhaustion. This is not a bunch of lazy hippie jammers moonlighting as yet another Bob Marley cover band: The Big Takeover leans much harder toward reggae’s more up-tempo parents, ska and rocksteady. “We definitely try to play our asses off,” says Tritto. “The overall vibe at our gigs is really joyful,” adds Kissner, who recorded the band’s just-out debut, Following Too Close (Takeover Productions), at his parents’ house. “We want the people at our shows to be able to forget about all the negative bullshit going on in their lives and just go crazy and have a good time.”In addition to its refreshingly upbeat, party-making approach, the group has another secret weapon, one that other area reggae bands would no doubt be envious of: a genuine Jamaican lead singer in Rushie, who by day works toward an English teacher’s degree. She’s quick to point out, however, that her home island is no longer the reggae paradise most believe it to be. “Nobody cares about reggae anymore in Jamaica,” laments the vocalist, who learned to sing from her mother’s record collection and as a member of her church’s choir. “It’s retarded—they just want pop music there now. People in New Paltz are much more interested in reggae, they really study it and seek out the records. In Jamaica, people just take it for granted.”The group got together in October 2007, taking its name not from the classic song by punk/reggae legends Bad Brains as one would assume, but, instead, Kissner maintains, from his and Klenck’s proclivity for commandeering the stereo at campus parties. “We’d just show up and take over, play the music we wanted to hear instead of the crap that people were usually listening to,” Kissner explains. In addition to the Big Takeover, Kissner and Klenck also play in long-running blues-rock outfit the Paint Cans; the bassist and Tritto had worked together earlier in popular R&B/Latin/funk trio Fillet of Soul.And in the space of only one year the Big Takeover is indeed well on its way toward total domination, rising to become one of the best-loved live acts in the Hudson Valley—in more ways than one. “After we finished playing one night, this girl just hopped onstage and kissed me,” says Klenck with disbelieving laughter. “And when we played the next weekend, her sister came up and did the same thing. It was crazy.”The line forms to the left, music lovers.The Big Takeover will play at Snug Harbor (aka Snug’s) in New Paltz on November 11; at the 169 Bar in New York on October 31; and at Oasis in New Paltz on November 22.