I’m still in St Lucia, so I’m still skipping through my selections from Peel’s 9/4/93 show to pick out any Caribbean influenced tracks that he played that night.
In comparison to Man Beware by The Slickers, Bucky Skank, a 1973 Lee Perry production with The Upsetters, is a trickier listen. Unlike Man Beware, I wouldn’t put this on at a party, unless I was hoping to hurry people home. Although it has a narrative running through it - the scolding of a wannabe bank robber (bucky meaning a home made gun in patois) - it’s really more of a mood piece than a sound system floor filler. The track seems afraid to draw attention to itself, almost afraid to blow its cover in the same way that its protagonist would be while preparing for a robbery.
With its plangent guitar notes and strikingly, strange vocalisations, the listener is taken into the jittery, disturbed mind of the track’s protagonist. I’ll be honest and admit that this is a borderline inclusion, but what carries it through is precisely that strange, almost nocturnal atmosphere that pervades the track.
I’m hoping to go to the weekly street party in Gros Islet tomorrow evening. I don’t expect to hear Bucky Skank played there, but I’ll let you know if it is.
Video courtesy of Rare Samples and Songs Oleg Tsoy.
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