City: 1 SW 3rd & Burnside, Portland
State: Oregon
Country: US
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009
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Category: Music
EEK-A-MOUSE
JAGGA
November 19th, 2009 9:30PM
Dante's
1 SW 3rd Ave, Portland OR
Tickets: $20 (adv. through TicketsWest)
contact: dantesbooking@qwest.net or 503.226.6630
CLICK FOR TICKETS
EEK-A-MOUSE
It is not only Eek-A-Mouse's 6 feet 6 inches height that make him one of
Jamaica's most individual talents. He has created a style all his own, and gone
on to become something of an international phenomenon quite apart from the rest
of the world of reggae. Hylton's unusual name was originally that of a racehorse
upon which he frequently lost money; when the horse finally won a race, he had,
of course, refused to back it.
"My Father's Land" and "Creation", his first
two releases, came out under his real name in the mid-70s. Not only were they
made while he was still in college, they were produced by his math teacher Mr.
Dehaney.
In 1980, he started recording with Joe Gibbs after working briefly
with the Papa Roots, Black Ark, Gemini, Jah Life, Black Scorpio and Virgo sound
systems.
"Wah Do Dem" was the 1980 single that made his name in Jamaica. Even
though it was considered too controversial for radio airplay. It was followed by
"Modelling Queen," another JA hit single that appeared on his first album
"Bubble Up Yu Hip". Both were produced by singer Linval Thompson and issued on
his Thompson Sound label in Jamaica.
By 1981, he had teamed up with producer
and Volcano sound owner Henry "Junjo" Lawes and had achieved significant hits
with "Once A Virgin", "Modelling Queen" and "Virgin Girl". Before the year was
out, the artist had joined forces with producer Junjo Lawes and remixer
Scientist. Backed by the Roots Radics, Eek cut "Virgin Girl" and "Noah's Ark,"
before having another go at "Wa-Do-Dem," for Greensleeves. The latter did the
trick and Eek-A-Mouse had arrived with a sound so unlike any other, equal parts
singing, DJing, and disconcerting Oriental-esque weirdness, that soon all of the
island was raving about the rodent.
He was the toast of Reggae Sunsplash in
1981, his bubbling lunacy providing a cathartic release to a festival otherwise
in mourning for Bob Marley. "Biddy biddy beng" roiled out across the crowd, and
the audience shouted it back as one, instantly cementing the syllables as the
catchprase of the new decade. Eek saw out the year with the holiday hit,
"Christmas A-Come."
1982 was the year of the Mouse, with a litter of smash
singles including "Wild Like a Tiger," "For Hire and Removal," "Do You
Remember," and "Ganja Smuggling," and the seminal album "Wa Do Dem," rounding up
most of the hits and more. With "Operation Eradication," Eek proved there was a
thinking man inside the mouse costume on a single inspired by the tragic
vigilante killing of close friend and fellow DJ Errol Scorcher. A rabid
appearance at Reggae Sunsplash was also captured on tape and released in 1984.
"Skidip!" appeared before the year closed and although it was less hit-driven
than its predecessor, was just as strong nonetheless.
More smash singles
followed in 1983, while "Mouse and the Man" proved to be another classic set.
Again produced by Linval Thompson and backed by the Roots Radics, this remains
one of the artist's masterpieces. The following year's "Mouseketeer", produced
by Junjo Lawes, included several hits, while also taking on contemporary issues
and finally answering fans' number one question on "How I Got My Name." A
distribution deal with Shanachie later put these records in the hands of
American reggae fans.
In 1985, Eek began working with producers Anthony and
Ronald Welch, for whom he recorded the "Assassinator" album, which was his U.S.
debut on the RAS Records label. It was a rather depressing and violent affair
thematically, although even the most serious subjects have a comic irony under
the artist's oddball delivery. Surprisingly, or not, Eek's international
audience was found amongst the rock crowd. Which explains why "The King and I",
also released that year, was recorded in the U.K. with producer Cliff
Carnegie.But it was on 1988's wittily titled "Eek-A-Nomics" that the DJ began
seriously courting this new audience. Bolstered by the hit single "The Freak," a
version of the Addams Family theme song.
Eek signed to the Island label the
following year and even grabbed a role in the film New Jack City, playing Fat
Smitty. "I do seven or eight minutes in the movie but they cut me down to one
minute and I was pissed. Lost my Oscar!," Mouse laments. He later passed on a
part in Steven Seagal's "Marked For Death," after reading the script. "It had
some bad vibe about Jamaicans. It have Rastaman doing all kinda voodoo and
drugs."
The "U-Neek" album,which included tracks produced by Gussie Clarke,
Daddy-O and Matt Robinson, was the pinnacle of cross-pollination between reggae
and rock, highlighted by a cover of Led Zeppelin's own Hindenberg attempt at
reggae, "D'Yer Maker." The album also spawned the hit single "You're The Only
One I Need," and an appearance on The David Letterman Show. Unfortunately, this
was to be Eek's first and last album for Island.
It wasn't until 1996 that a
new full-length, "Black Cowboy", appeared on the Sunset Blvd./Explicit label.
Though his voice seemed to have dropped an octave, the breadth of subject
matter, as well as his patented "bingy-boingy" style indicated that Da Mouse was
still "in the house."
Mouse continued to tour almost constantly throughout
the end of the 90's and into the millenium, performing an amazing 200-250 shows
a year. While still finding time to appear on collaborations with different
artists including Cocoa Brovaz, POD, Papas Culture, MC Torch, and BranVan3000.
Also, appearing on various riddim albums from the UK. before releasing
"Eeksperience" on Coach House Records in early 2001.
A chat with Eek-A-Mouse
is something of an aural adventure. More than a quarter-century of recording,
global touring and enough years of residency in the suburbs of Irvine to justify
an accent heavy on California mall girl-isms have hardly changed the dancehall
godfather's husky Kingston patois. Though his voice is smooth and rich in tone,
Mouse's unique re-imagining of English grammatical rules can prove challenging
to the unprepared ear.
Take a conversation touching on Mouse's feelings about
his music's place among reggae's current crop of dancehall favorites. While a
couple of decades removed from the early '80s Jamaican dancehall scene that
solidified his reputation as one of the genre's most irreverent and oft-copied
toasters, The Mouse — as he is fond of calling himself — hardly feels his career
has peaked or that his time has passed.
"I'm Mouse, you know? I'm Mouse, so I
can change my style any time. There's different reggae now ... hip-hop, dance,
regular reggae. Just like Eek-A-Mouse. I'm also unique, you know?
Different."
"I was singing when I was a child, yeah," said Mouse, asked about
his hand-to-mouth beginnings in Kingston's notorious Trench Town ghetto. "I
would sing with my mama. I was singing all the while. Then the kids got
interested, and sometimes I would sing them songs. Sometimes there would be
little concerts going on in school and I would participate in singing, you know?
But I knew I was gonna be a singer soon."
Mouse's diverse list of early
musical influences reads like a Magic 8-Ball of the varied styles that would
eventually color his inventive lyricism and instrumentation.
"I loved Nat
King Cole, Marty Robbins, Cab Calloway, Patsy Cline ... all different singers.
Sam Cooke and The Beatles ... and stuff like that," said Mouse, rhapsodically.
"And then I came up with my own original style."
That "original style"
included elements of "sing-jaying," an early form of toasting (boastful catch
phrases, singing and DJ work) mixed with funky vocal gymnastics and effects.
Mouse's contribution to the genre was a percussive, nasally vocal style, and a
talent for using his voice as a musical instrument that moved The Boston Globe
to call him "the Al Jarreau of reggae." Much to his chagrin, Mouse has also
often been called the originator of "sing-jaying."
"I don't know why they
call me that," said Mouse, chuckling. "Maybe ... it's a good vibe. Maybe a good
vibe is what they feel, you know? Using my voice as an instrument ... (it's)
just what I do, you know?
"Sometimes, if I'm freestyling lyrics ... I'm
thinking about the sound. I say, 'bam-ding-ding' and stuff like that to get the
lyrics together."
Over the years, Mouse's core audience has also happily
accepted his frequent lyrical switch-ups from half-baked humor ("The Mouse and
The Man" is about a Disney World meeting of the minds with Mickey) and pointed
social commentary ("Operation Eradication" is about the murder of his friend
Errol Scorcher by politically-motivated Jamaican eradication squads).
"That
just came natural," said Mouse, of not being pigeon-holed to a sole lyrical
style. "I never worried about ... sounding the same because I'm always seeing
stuff happen to people. And I'm alive, you know? So I just sing about current
stuff happening in the world ... and just make it unique to The Mouse."
And
as evidenced by some off-the-cuff long-distance crooning, what seemed to be on
The Mouse's mind of late was some serious fascination with amour.
"I've got a
song called 'Pretty Girl,'" said Mouse, offering a track from this summer's
still untitled followup CD to 2001's "Eeksperience."
He began singing softly
and sweetly, "She's a pretty girl. Pretty like a diamond. Pretty like a-gold."
After finishing, Mouse shared a few verses from another gently performed love
song called "I'll Be Waiting," this one using all manner of weather-related
lyrical metaphors as a promise of keeping one's love real.
You in love,
Mouse?
"Yeah, you know ... but not really," he said, laughing again. "I go
through stuff sometimes, you know? — and I'll sing about it. It's like stress
release."
We know.
http://www.eeksperience.com/
3:50 AM
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