http://www.sinninginla.com/articles/john-browns-body-pushes-some-los-angeles-air-through-key-club
John Brown's Body Pushes Some Los Angeles Air Through the Key Club
Sinning in LA
01.09.10
By Alex Storch
My first experience with live reggae music was in the city of Chicago. I somehow convinced my friend Mark to come with me to the Wild Hare, one of the premiere places to see a reggae concert in the entire country. We were the only two white people in the room, a couple of suburban tourists in a scene we didn’t fully understand. But we soon found that Red Stripe and reggae can soothe any tensions, even when swirling winds and snow lie outside, just beyond the doors. The air was moved that night, pulling at our winter coats, twisting our scarves, and leading us all across the land and water to Jamaica.
I was inspired. My record collection hasn’t been the same since.
We gonna push some air / won’t you raise your hands into the air
Give me the feeling that you’re keeping the faith
We gonna push some air / won’t you raise your voices so they hear?
We gonna shout / scream it out clearly
-From “Push Some Air” by John Brown’s Body
Enter John Brown’s Body.
They come from another place with brutal winters and not a palm tree or a Rastafarian for miles. Ithaca, New York.
But on this night, Mark and I were back together again, watching reggae music played live on a stage. We raised our hands and voices as the songs went on, the trumpets blew, and we may have momentarily seen Jah. Mysterious ways and that, you know?
Drummer Tommy Benedetti told us that the band “played to a lot of new people,” and that the crowd “wasn’t that familiar with their music.” You wouldn’t have been able to tell, as the band brought some island sounds to a part of town normally reserved for the long-haired rock set. By the end of it all, just like on that cold night in Chicago, the crowd was converted. Both the dreadlocks and the blowouts.
With songs like “Push Some Air” and “The Gold” driving the pulse, the grooves spun over the Key Club, out to the Sunset Strip and through the late-summer air.
“This is our last show of our U.S. tour,” said Benedetti. “We just spent three weeks with one of our favorite bands on the planet, The Black Seeds, from New Zealand. That was incredible, touring with them. We’re flying to Europe for phase two, then three weeks in New Zealand. We’ve got this really cool collective building around the world.”
“Both Amplify and Re-Amplify are dropping at the same time, three days before the first show. We’ve got sixteen shows in the UK coming up with the Easy Star All-Stars, with venues from 500-1500 people,” Benedetti told us. “We’re going to cover every mile of that island.”
I’m envious, of course, of those listeners in the crowd on this night that haven’t heard these songs before. Much like what happened to me in Chicago, they’ll be soon hooked, and the sounds of John Brown’s Body will be coming from their cars, their homes, and even their lips as they whistle the songs that run through their heads.
“We’ve been waiting for the opportunity for a while, and through Easy Star Records, it all came together this time. Our record is being released in the UK, and Europe, and New Zealand and Australia.”
We shook hands and left for the night. Soon after, they’d be pushing around English air with warm tunes, and the Easy Star All-Stars would be playing reggae-fied Radiohead songs in the band’s hometown of Oxford, and we’d be right here, bringing you both the whispers and the bangs.
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