Some good stuff coming up this week kiddies! We got a legendary Jamaican dancehall artist in Austin tomorrow night, an excellent night of mod soul and vintage reggae in San Diego on Friday and a Halloween masquerade of legendary proportions in New York on Saturday.

If you live in or near any of these towns, do not miss these shows. I got to say, being stuck here in Seattle, I’m a little jealous. Anyone want to buy me a plane ticket for the weekend?

Enjoy!

Thursday, October 24 I Capleton – Austin, Texas

Capleton, is a force to be reckoned with in the fast-moving world of dancehall reggae. Fame and success are hard to obtain and easy to lose. Fans can be fickle, and trends change in the blink of an eye, leaving most entertainers with painfully short career spans. Only a rare few can remain relevant from year to year, holding their audience’s attention and leaving them crying for more. Capleton’s lyrics are deep, precise, and thoughtful. His stage shows are nothing less than dynamic, explosive performances. But his remarkable staying power and longevity may be Capleton’s greatest gift.

Capleton was born Clifton George Bailey in St. Mary, Jamaica. As a youth, he was given the surname of a popular St. Mary lawyer and friend of the family, Capleton, as a nickname by his relatives and friends. As a teenager, he would often sneak out of his home to catch local dancehall acts, eventually leaving St. Mary for Kingston at the age of 18 to work on his career as a dancehall deejay.

When Capleton first arrived on the scene in the late 1980s, slackness and gun talk were the dominant lyrics in the dancehalls. The pre-Rasta Capleton had a string of hit songs from “Bumbo Red” to “Number One on the Look Good Chart” and “No Lotion Man.” In 1989, he got his first big international exposure. Stewart Brown, owner of a Toronto-based sound called African Star, gave the untested artist his first break, flying him to Canada for a stage show alongside Ninjaman and Flourgan.

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