Planetguy wrote:VinnyViolin wrote:Planetguy wrote:VinnyViolin wrote:Here is Lee Perry working in his Black Ark studio approximately about the year Palmer recorded there. Roland Space Echo RE-201 used to be favored effect, but by this time, he's putting everything through a Mutron Bi-Phase as well. http://youtu.be/y651C7aNXRc
that story about RP trying to cut his trk w the that stuff going on around him is hilarious.
i enjoyed watching that video of him working in his studio...pretty sure i got a contact buzz from it. 
Yeah! ... the guy in the robe with the wand doesn't sound any weirder than what I would expect from Perry himself anyways though.
Besides the local hanger-ons, there were eventually hanger-on fanatics from Germany speaking no English ... un able to shoo them away, Perry started a fire on the roof of the studio and then came running in yelling Fire, Fire! That got rid of the hanger-ons ... but when he and his son tried to put out the fire, it was already out of control ... end of the Black Ark studio. He moved to London and carried on from there.
ok....now you're just making that sh*t up! LMAO
Well, is a paraphrase of something someone may have made up ...there are several versions how the fire started. Here's one from Perry.
"PERRY NOW sees his black despair at what he regards as mistreatment by Island as the major cause of his seemingly inexplicable destruction of the Black Ark. Whether invented or real, his recollections of those desperate events are cut-glass clear. His account is given in a detached monotone, without traces of sadness or regret.
"For weeks and months the pressure had been building up. I was getting no money, just pressure, pressure, pressure. I got up that morning with turmoil in my heart and went to the bottom of my garden, the studio, y’know. I love kid’s rubber balls. They are air, trapped. I love that and I collect many of these balls. Anyway, I have one favourite, it came from America and I kept it on the mixing desk. Some one had taken it when I got to the studio and I was just filled with anger. First all the pressure, the thievery, and then this..
What did you do? "I destroyed the studio. I smashed it up and then I burnt it down. Over." How did you feel the next day when you looked out and saw not a place of work but a heap of ashes?
"I felt I had done the manly thing, that I had stood up for what I believe in. I was cleansed and relieved. No one could rip me off any more. Not Chris Blackwell, not anybody."
But, Lee, this does sound exactly like the actions of a madman, nothing more, nothing less.
"I was mad. In my heart. But not in my mind. I have never been physically mad."
Taking the above events into account, that’s probably a statement open to serious questioning. My own feeling is that Perry, by societal norms never a candidate for Mr Sanity, probably did flip his lid and is now applying retrospective logic to this actions.
Those actions forced him into the wilderness for four long years, the prophet without honour in his own land, without a studio but with a reputation that precluded rehabilitation.
Whatever his mental state then or now, his loathing of Chris Blackwell has become an all-consuming motivational force. One of the reasons for Scratch’s re-emergence is a desire to play out his vendetta with Island.
"I was going to beat Blackwell up. I could, easily. But I have decided to bankrupt him instead, to see Island in the gutter and the vampire a pauper. Every time Island has a hit record, I will produce a better version of it. I will ruin that company!"
That could be a tall order, Island are a big business, with incredible facilities and acts like Black Uhuru. Perry’s voice cracks into a wild cackle. "Uhuru guru schmuru! I don’t care who they have, I will do it. That is definite, confident, without qualification.
"You know, that Chris Blackwell disgusts me, makes me want to vomit. He invited me to the opening of the Compass Point studio in Nassau and there I saw him drink the blood of a freshly killed chicken. He thought I was into all that voodoo and obeah (African magic for inflicting damage on enemies, much feared in the Caribbean) stuff, and offered me some. It was disgusting."
I hate to be a contradictory cuss, but we are talking about the same Chris Blackwell aren’t we, y’know, the internationally-respected business man? "Yes, yes, yes!" The knotty dubmaster is insistent. "I, Lee Perry, will swear that before any judge, solicitor or barrister he could employ."
There you have it, Perry's side of the story. A further illustration of the depth (again the bounds of rationality are being stretched) of his disaffection with Island is illustrated by the fact that he turned down the opportunity to produce no less a mob than Talking Heads, despite talking to David Byrne in a big way, because he thought that the Heads were on the label, instead of just using the Compass Point facility."
