In the dark lit hall in Longsight.

Latest Homework for the Poetry School summer class in Leeds.
'Think of a situation that you have been in and try and convey the music of the place, the sounds'. I went back to the 1970s, and my first experience of a Sound System in a Dance Hall stylee.

Updated and reworked poem reposted 11/6/12  - 1,500 words...too long?

In the dark lit hall in Longsight.

I look back at a time in space

and a place

where I took one step forward

and No step backwards ………………………

of that first step out of the realm of my family’s past,

That first step

that reached into my vital organs,

reached into my whole physical and spiritual being

Freed my heart

and bathed me in a sound vibration

that I had never conceived of

on any register of colour or musical stave,

I could not perceive or give a name to this.

It was unknown,

Unnamed.

I look back with companionship to these tunes,

this music of liberation.

I choose to loose myself in the realisation,

That came from that sequence of noted moments,

that sound is a vital ital vibration,

That the community around the sound,

the dancing feet of strangers,

Says more to me than I         can               say                or convey,

Said more than had ever been said to me before.

Words can only short change that deeply significant event,

The limitation of word-centred descriptions

can only cast,

 at the best

copper,

into the penny saving tin of understanding

when compared to the gold and richness of the experience of that night.

When it has really all just been darkness

until that dark hot, black welcoming hall

in Longsight in Manchester

in the 1970s.

Music so colourful.

The first reggae record I bought was by the Mighty Diamonds,

‘When The Right Time Come’

on the Virgin label in 1976.

Bob Marley and the Wailers ‘Catch a Fire’,

Which, for all their Rootness

was a Westernised white-eared mixed production

by Chris Blackwell of the Island brand. 

………….and then an angel must have showed me the way to a real reggae night….

The time HAD come……………….

And a shine eye girl was giving a message to this blind-eyed, life muted deaf boy.

The muffled base I could hear

 as I wondered up to the hall on a winter’s night

Where the Rastafarian twelve tribes dance was called.

It filled me with expectation.

And I wondered.

as I paid at the door

and stepped into that dark hall on that dark winter’s night;

am I brave or mad?

I was on my own, solo…….

drawn to this event, this community,

by forces I have no comprehension,

no understanding of…………….

Kick start this new tune of life

Kick start this new tune of my life

Kick start this new new new new new flash

Twelve tribes

Twelve tribes

Twelve Tribes

Twelve Tribes

In Longsight

In Longsight

In LongSight

In LongSight

I’m dancing in this spot in this reggae shed

I’m dancing in this spot in this reggae shed

I’m dancing in this spot in this reggae shed

18 inch speakers are calling me.

cabinets of wood are breaking me.

shaking my body with quakes of sound.

In the dark lit hall in Longsight

The smell of beer

From the bar hatch

catches me,

The smell of weed

from splifs,

it raises me.

A sharp call to the senses; senses senses senses senses senses

That will end the top billing of

the dulled white rock music of my early teens

FOR EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

N ight n ight

R ight r ight

Te eth te eth

Bri ght bri ght

Ey es ey es

Flash it  flash it

In the dark lit hall in Longsight

What a night for this white boy I am saying.

Physical bass rhythm laying down a track so low

to a soul that was calling wordlessly,

voiceless in a heart-silence unnoticed,

unrecognised.

One white boy in darkness with all these black folk

Surrounded by sound.

Bass cabinets lining the walls, one after another

with high frequency horns touching the ceilings!

crissed crossed spider webs of speaker wires

with hand twisted connections

conveying the music to us all in this dark near full dance hall.

This rhythm and music had an understanding that lifted me,

that bounced my heart like a basket ball,

hanging in space between the notes,

raging from these soft push-pull

valve driven

air cushions

of vibration bass movement,

that wrapped up my ears and my sense of hearing

into my very skin and lungs and solar plexus.

A white boy in the hands of coil driven

paper thin speaker cones

spun from the hands of bass players,

the music making of

black black Jamaican men.

In the dark lit hall in Longsight

Call me crazy,

call me a fool,

I am happy and I love this dancing.

moving to the beat

let the beat take my feat

let the music take your hip

move ya this is reggae music.

My back is struggling to loosen up

in that awkward way that white men have

when first reacting to the bass bass reggae reggae sound.

Place your back to the man-high bass cabinets

and the spine is caressed

and the harshness of Babylon falls,

blown away,

the layers of ill spread plaster

that was skimmed over its hidden chasms of oppression,

break, crack, fall, turn to dust and fly,

fly bird fly away,

like a flock of birds called to the sunshine.

In the dark lit hall in Longsight

Around me,

in their own worlds of love, romance,

brothers’ night out,

sisters’ dress-up time

religious meeting with soft shoes

their culture their scene

black British men and women

were just breathing in their music and distorted Toaster calls.

rub a dub dancing ,

hip and body moving

swirling,

side by side skanking

they set aside my colour

and let me in,

in my white skin,

with my white conditioned mind

Which I struggled and suffered under,

which was my seen oppressor that night.

In the dark lit hall in Longsight.

For uncomfortable moments

these claw thoughts fought with suppressed happiness,

Chaffing to block out the rhythm and the music’s caresses

with small-minded concerns and rationalisation that I         I                 I                I               I ,

I am the only white man in this dark dark place Boy.

One white face bobbing,

A pair of white hands

 flashing.

I am the coloured odd-one-out

A first time ever for me,

raised in my white only family,

white only street,

County market town,

Rich London suburb

Grammar school,

Red brick university

And here I am now

In the dark lit hall                        in Longsight.

my only ken of black culture

was pictures of famine,

Beafran wars,

the blues and jazz

and the recent few reggae tunes

I played in my student room

on my treasured

but small speakered

hi fi. 

This track of my mind

throws me out of my time

with the way the music takes me.

my small minded chatter

born of a class and a schooling

and a soul broken to the wheel

of ‘people like us’

looses its reason to be

and I let the music

and sounds and dancing in.

In the dark lit hall in Longsight.

This experience,

this journey to my home of music

that calls to me,

that folds me in its texture,

the power of man driven base rhythms

and slap of snare

the roll around the drums

and crash of returning cymbals

and the horns calling,

brightly calling

and the keyboard tickling the tune

easing in so gently to the rhythm. 

And the singing,

the singing of words,

the live toasting of comments

on the singing words,

on what is happening,

and jiving up the mood and the tune and the

souls soul singing of the sweetened up words.

Always waiting for the echo and the dub version to cha cha cha cha cha cha.      

My mind just stops in the silence of a second start-up re-run monstrous tune

coming from the diamond stylus,

The arm now lifted on the high-stacked head-height sound system’s turntable

and then placed back into the record groove for the restart.

“so nice must play this tune twice; seen!”

In the dark lit hall in Longsight.

and I love it,

this place,

I love it

this space,

I love it,

 the strong bass beat

I love it,

the cut of the upbeat scratch guitar chankering

the call of Jah!!

from the toaster on the mic.

And the reply             R a s t a f a r iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii                            from all around,

from my lips too.

some words and language do re-form as I am recast,

hammered in the steel-shops of the black man,

sweetened by the voice of black woman,

warmed by the vocals on the tracks

renewed by the deep culture,

love and understanding,

of this life saving sound,

the years of fighting poverty,

enduring slavery discrimination,

uprisings and scorn

recorded, pressed and duplicated

by their own industrial machinery

freeing up progress,

giving P O W E RRRRRRRRRRRRR

to black music.

reforming and mastering

the means of musical production

taking control of the communication

to their Nation

produced in this dark dark dance hall

in Longsight, Manchester, England.

  

Yes I’m dancing in this spot in a reggae shed

I’m dancing in this spot in this reggae shed

18 inch speakers are calling me

cabinets of wood are breaking me

shaking my body with quakes of sound …………………………….. you know;

In the dark lit hall in Longsight.