{"id":940,"date":"2017-04-27T20:24:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T20:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=940"},"modified":"2026-06-27T20:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T20:26:11","slug":"steel-pulse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=940","title":{"rendered":"Steel Pulse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

June 2000, Carefree Theatre, West Palm Beach, Fla.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While growing up in Miami didn\u2019t allow for live access to alternative and hugely popular bands in the \u201970s and \u201980s \u2014 at least not on a consistent basis \u2014 there was plenty of opportunity to hear and see more music from around the world. Latin, African, Calypso and reggae music were easily heard \u2014 especially reggae. A public radio station would play reggae music deep into the night, always making for a nice listen.<\/p>\n

The release of Bob Marley\u2019s Legend<\/em> in 1984, three years after his death, opened up a huge well of support for the genre, but anyone who did more digging found plenty of reggae bands to support. Peter Tosh, Burning Spear, Mutabaruka, Linton Kwesi Johnson, The Meditations, Yellowman, Alpha Blondy \u2014 these were musicians who filled my youth. As did England\u2019s Steel Pulse.<\/p>\n

Reggae music from England differs from Jamaican reggae music less in message and more in sound. What the lyrics say \u2014 love for Jah, rising up against oppression, occasionally dabbling in the smoking of a certain plant \u2014 remains consistent, but English bands are faster with the traditional hook. British reggae music has somewhere to go, Jamaican reggae wants to stay a while. Steel Pulse (and early UB40, discarding that \u201cRed Red Wine\u201d bullshit) were masters at this.<\/p>\n

The band has 11 albums to its name, but two in the middle \u2014 True Democracy<\/em> (1982) and Earth Crisis<\/em> (1984) \u2014 are essential, loaded with the band\u2019s best songs. I must have listened to those albums hundreds of times. There was a huge Steel Pulse show my senior year of high school which I missed for some reason, but I remember the T-shirt people were wearing the next day. Decked in yellow, red and green, on the back it read \u201cMe Big, Me Broad, Me Jamming.\u201d I wanted one of those shirts.<\/p>\n

I never did see the band back in its day, but like so many bands do, they kept playing for years and years and the chance to see them arose later. So once again, I relived my youth years after the time through the music I loved. Original member and singer David Hinds was still leading the band, and he was not averse to playing those classics, even though several albums came after Earth Crisis<\/em>. When \u201cWorth His Weight in Gold (Rally Round)\u201d was played early, perhaps the band\u2019s best-known song, I knew the party was on.<\/p>\n

And it was a party. Reggae bands have fun on stage, the music allows for this festive atmosphere, and Steel Pulse was in full-jamming mode. \u201cSteppin Out,\u201d one of the band\u2019s liveliest tunes, had the band of eight moving as one, roaming the stage in a happy prance. \u201cChant a Psalm\u201d and \u201cBlues Dance Raid\u201d were played to similar effect, and I want to say there was someone on stage with roller skates during \u201cRoller Skates\u201d. There remained a defiance in \u201cSoldiers,\u201d from the band\u2019s first album Handsworth Revolution<\/em>, which had the slower sound of Jamaican reggae, but generally Steel Pulse was there to entertain.<\/p>\n

And no, they didn\u2019t have those T-shirts \u2014 parts of your youth always remain in your youth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

June 2000, Carefree Theatre, West Palm Beach, Fla. While growing up in Miami didn\u2019t allow for live access to alternative and hugely popular bands in the \u201970s and \u201980s \u2014 at least not on a consistent basis \u2014 there was plenty of opportunity to hear and see more music from around the world. Latin, African, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":941,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[159],"class_list":["post-940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-steel-pulse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":942,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940\/revisions\/942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}