GONDWANA

Escucha mi gente, el reggae está llegando . . .

Listen up, my people, reggae is coming . . .

—Gondwana, first lines from the first song of their first CD, Together

One day, out of the blue, Oscar Sayavedra from BMG in Chile called to tell me about a group called Gondwana that wanted me to produce their debut album for the label. They had been listening to the music I produced for Israel Vibration and were inspired by my work. Of course I was interested. Any chance to visit some exotic part of the world was always a temptation. I explained that I first needed a tape of some of the rough recordings, as I did not like to just take people’s money if I could not make a true commitment to their project. I ended up being very pleased with what I heard. Especially the lead vocalist. And the offer to fly me first class and pay me $10,000 put the icing on the cake I was getting ready to eat.

Upon arrival I breezed through customs and spotted a contingent of dreadlocks waiting for me. My Spanish was pretty good from all those years I spent in South America, so I was able to easily communicate with everyone in the group. Only the lead singer spoke any English. We all hit it off immediately.

I joked with them that when the customs officers asked me the purpose of my trip to Chile, I told them I had come there to murder the past dictator Augusto Pinochet. I was sensitive to what had happened in Chile back in the early ’70s. The Chileans had a democratically elected Marxist president, Salvador Allende, but he’d been overthrown in 1973 with the support of the CIA, as America wasn’t comfortable having a Communist in power. Pinochet was brutal; he had Allende killed and rounded up the opposition. America often represents its support for democracy, and sometimes we even go to war to ensure it for other nations. Yet in Chile, and in other countries where we don’t approve of who has been democratically elected, we have too frequently undermined their sovereignty. The CIA organized truckers in Chile to stop the transport of food to its people, and as Bob Marley says, “a hungry man is an angry man.” The people got angry, Allende was overthrown, and Pinochet was entrenched in power.

In 1970s Chile under Pinochet, you could get arrested if you had a beard. Imagine that. Arrested just for having facial hair, you fucking Commie leftist piece of shit. Many people were taken away to the country and became “the disappeared.” In fact, the percussionist Don Chico of Gondwana, who was a very hard-core and serious Rasta, had both of his parents murdered by the Pinochet regime. His parents were poets and free-thinking people, and Pinochet considered anyone like this a threat to his power. Pinochet was still alive and living in Chile when I arrived there, so my joke about coming there to kill him sparked many a conversation about America’s complicated relationship with democracy. Don’t get me wrong—I love this country, and I don’t take for granted our hard-fought freedom; in some other places, I’d be locked up for even writing this type of shit. But a key question that isn’t asked often enough is Why? Why do terrorists feel compelled to kill innocent people? By treating symptoms and ignoring the underlying problems, we’ll never stop the violence and get to the root of what’s bringing on this abhorrent behavior.

* * *

Gondwana was the name of the Earth before the continents shifted and broke apart. When the world was one. If you look at Africa and South America you can see how they once fit into each other as a single land mass. So the name signifies oneness and unity. I liked it.

The sessions in the studio went extremely well. It was like we were having a party with jokes and laughing and eating cherimoyas, and I am not sure I ever had a better time recording an album. None of the members had ever left Chile and they treated their guest Doctor Dread with maximum respect. I think some of the newspaper articles and TV stories had me mistaken for Dr. Dre, which I thought was pretty funny.

In one song where the horns sounded like some drunken barroom brawl as everything deteriorated and people shouted in the background, I suddenly smashed two beer bottles together. Perfect timing and the perfect sound. Years earlier I had smashed two Heineken bottles together at Philip Smart’s studio in Long Island for the Don Carlos song “Spring Heel Skanking.” Philip was bent out of shape because there were shards of glass all over the his studio floor, but sometimes if you need a sound, then you just need a sound. The song “Irie” ended with me asking in a loud voice, “Is it irie?” and about thirty people responding with a loud “Irie!” In the song “Smile Souling,” which was written in English by the bass player I Locks about his young daughter Souling, we brought the girl to the studio to voice the words, “Daddy, I love you.” She is over twenty years old now but that line still sounds as sweet as can be. The song “Armonia de Amor” (“Harmony of Love”) was the hit of the album and had the excellent line, “Tu cuerpo es un poema de sensualidad” (“Your body is a poem of sensuality”).

We had many invitados (guests) appear on the album since this was as much of a celebration as it was a recording. Great harmonica players, many talented vocalists, and even a tuba player who happened to stop by the studio. We became very close in that week of recording and I grew especially tight with Quique Neira, the lead singer, who is one of the most genuine and positive people I have ever known. The great vibes I and I created for these recording sessions were a major factor in our ability to capture the true magic of the music.

As we wrapped up, I was showered with gifts and, of course, lots of cherimoya fruits that I liked so much. Before leaving the country, I explained to the group (in Spanish) that regardless of how popular they became and how big this album got, they must remain humble lions.

The CD, once again mixed by Jim Fox, was released to great fanfare in Chile in 1998. The youth embraced Gondwana and the message they were putting forth. Red, gold, and green started to be seen all through Santiago, and dreadlocks became more common. Soon Gondwana was selling out stadiums and the CD went multiplatinum there. A reggae movement had been born in Chile, and I loved how it was pure roots reggae with a positive message and a revolutionary spirit. I had seen in Jamaica how the reggae movement had shifted away from the music that Bob Marley and many of the roots reggae artists like Burning Spear had brought forth in the late ’60s and early ’70s, toward dancehall lyrics extolling gangsterism and misogyny.

Quique explained that he could not even walk down the streets without being mobbed, and that reggae was taking over Chile. I felt so good for the group. With all this new fame, Quique had turned inward and was reading his Bible seriously and looking for knowledge from within. This was the best news I could hear. Many entertainers take their popularity and become obsessed with public adoration, but Quique had instead chosen the inner path.

RAS decided to release the CD in America and Europe as Together, and I think it is one of the best reggae albums ever recorded. I also believed that with Gondwana I could expose Latinos to positive roots music and help raise the consciousness of a new generation, which seemed ready for positive vibes in a post-Pinochet landscape. When I believe in something I always have to give it a try, regardless of whether I fail or succeed. I just have to do my best, which is the most I can do.

In traditional RAS style, we released a dub version of the Together CD, called Phat Cherimoya Dub, resplendent with beautiful cherimoya photos. In fact, the running joke was that I would be paid in cherimoyas since I seemed to prefer them to money.

* * *

Following the great success of the first album, I was asked to come back to Chile and produce Gondwana’s second record. I wanted to build on the momentum we had created and try to reach for higher levels, with an eye toward the international Latino market. It was a different studio this time but the vibes and songs were all good, and things proceeded in an upful and positive way. There was still lots of joking and guests, but the process was a little more serious this time. The band had gotten a taste of success and now they wanted to make sure the next course would be as tasty as the first. It was a more methodical and carefully executed project, but the music was tight and everyone was pleased with the results.

We mixed the album in DC, and although it did not have the same cosmic eloquence as Together, it still had a number of great songs and one ballad I knew would be a hit. I decided to name the CD Second Coming and put a large portrait of His Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I on the front cover. Not only was I making a statement that Haile Selassie was the Second Coming of Jesus, I was also suggesting that real roots reggae was now coming from outside of Jamaica and that the world should take notice. I was very pleased with this CD and wanted the band to make a step beyond their own country to see how the world would take to them. Aside from mixing some tracks in Washington, DC, the band members hadn’t really seen the world outside of Chile—and this was a golden opportunity to open them up to the next level of global overstanding.

I was very close with the top reggae promoters in Puerto Rico and I gotta give a shout out to Victor and Annibal from Cool Runnings, who became good friends and always treated the artists right. When it came to reggae, they ran things in Puerto Rico, and roots reggae is what the youths there were craving. And the people loved Gondwana—a roots reggae group singing in Spanish was a cross-cultural connection that resonated deeply in Puerto Rico. We started our tour there and traveled next to Washington to perform, did a show with Burning Spear in Baltimore, went to New York to SOBs, and then flew to California for more concerts. They played at Reggae on the River in Humboldt County in California, and they got to hang out under the redwoods, smoke some sinse, go for a swim, drink pisco sours, and meet the likes of Bunny Wailer and other reggae luminaries. It was a joy to make these connections, and Gondwana loved every minute of it.

Since I’m a born troublemaker, when we got to LA I decided to play a joke on my brother Doug, who was living there at the time. During one of our late-night drunken sessions, the musicians and I were discussing the worst curse words you can say to someone in different languages, and we agreed that “chupa me” (“suck me”) is the most insulting phrase in Spanish. My brother was excited to meet the band and see their show, and I told him that they didn’t speak English but were all great guys. I told him that in Chile, it’s customary and polite when greeting someone to put out your hand and say, “Chupa me.” Of course, he then went one by one to each band member and put out his hand and said, “Chupa me,” just like I had told him. The musicians knew me well enough to appreciate my twisted sense of humor, though my brother wasn’t quite as understanding when I explained to him later that he had just told each musician to “suck me.” I still laugh when I think about how fucked up it was to do this to him.

Though the California gigs were not as well attended as I would have hoped, we had one last great adventure before Gondwana headed back home to Chile. I had booked flights for all of us to go to Jamaica beforehand. I knew this would blow their minds. To go to the root of where all this great reggae music came from. To experience Jamaica firsthand with Doctor Dread at the controls. I could not think of a greater gift for Gondwana. To feel the Jamaican culture and get to know its people and its tropical beauty.

We went to Kingston and spent a few days in and around the city and then headed over to Port Antonio. I wanted them to experience both the city and country vibes. We visited some studios. They met some artists and other friends of mine. In Port Antonio we would go to the beach or hike up Reach Falls in the Blue Mountains. I knew I had helped open Gondwana’s eyes to the world and it would give them a better overstanding of life. A gift upon which no price tag could be put.

Oscar Sayavedra was still managing the group and taking very good care of them, setting up shows in places like Mexico and Argentina. The world was opening up to them. And after a while it was time to do a third album.

There was some tension growing in the band as Quique and the bass player (and original founding member) I Locks were having some issues. I Locks owns a cool reggae club in Santiago and is a wicked bass player but was not as deep into Rastafari as Quique. The band informed me they wanted to do the next album at a studio owned by Jon Baker in Port Antonio, Jamaica. Geejam Studio had just recorded some tracks by Gwen Stefani’s band No Doubt and had a good reputation building in the industry. It felt like both a vacation and a recording project, with everyone digging the vibes of being in Jamaica again and recording there.

I also wanted to take the guys back to Kingston so they could get a better feel for the big-city energy. In Jamaica, though I loved the sunshine and beaches, I actually spent far more of my time in the recording studios of Kingston, the creative heart of the country. So I booked out some studio time and arranged for Don Carlos to add some vocals to a track called “Jamaica Jam” that we had cut in Port Antonio. Then I brought in Dean Fraser to touch it up with his rollicking sax. It was an authentic Jamaican-Chilean collaboration, and I wanted the band to feel that they were on equal footing with the local music community.

Other notable tracks included the happy number “Felicidad,” along with “Te Recuerdo Amanda,” which is a popular song originally written and performed by the Chilean folk singer Victor Jara, whose music I was introduced to by Gondwana. Under Pinochet’s iron-fisted rule, Victor Jara was thrown in prison as an “enemy of the state.” The prison guards broke his fingers with the butts of their rifles before ordering him to play his guitar. When he picked it up and tried to strum it with his busted fingers, the guards shot him dead. Point-blank, in cold blood. Pinochet was later convicted of crimes against humanity by an international tribunal in Spain, and although he is now gone, he is not forgotten.

* * *

Though I did my best as a producer and tried to keep the energy positive, in truth the album, titled Made in Jamaica, was a downhill slip musically. Sometimes you just accept the cards you are dealt and make the best of it. The group broke up shortly after the album’s release. I Locks kept most of the members together and they continue to tour as Gondwana. I recently saw them perform in Virginia and Oscar is still with them and says they are doing great business in Mexico and Europe. They have a lead singer with long dreadlocks, and I Locks is still playing wicked bass, but I miss Quique. He comes to Washington now and again to mix his solo recordings with Jim Fox and we always get together and have him to our house for dinner. He is still pure and has such a positive spirit and my family and I have much love for him. He always calls me Doctor and I know he is a lifelong friend. Jah guide and protect you for-iver, Quique. Un abrazo.