In Defense of Ska Ep. 29: Mystic Bowie (Talking Dreads)

In 2019, My wife and I took a week-long trip to Jamaica. It wasn't just a tourist trip to Montego Bay or Kingston, we went a few hours into the mountains to the small village of Accompong and experienced the Maroon Festival. Every year, on Jan 6, this village of roughly 600 balloons up to 10,000 people to celebrate hundreds of years of Maroon independence. It began in 1759, when the Maroons signed a peace treaty with the British, establishing their independence, something that would not happen for the rest of Jamaica for many years. 

The festival is an amazing gathering with loud music, fantastic food, and ice-cold Red Stripes, but it is also contains important ceremonies for Maroons all over the world to remember back to when their ancestors fought the British and won, refusing at all cost to be enslaved.

The person that took me to the Maroon Festival is reggae musician Mystic Bowie, who sang in Tom Tom Club for many years, and who currently fronts Mystic Bowie's Talking Dreads, a band that combines Mystic's passion for reggae music with his love of Talking Heads songs. It's an incredible experience that steers clear of being a gimmick, even if the juxtaposition seems odd at first. 

Mystic, our guest this week, explains the sincere place in his soul where Talking Dreads emerged from, and he also tells stories from his childhood, when he hung out around Chris Blackwell's famous recording studio, Compass Point Studios and met a bunch of famous musicians, like Keith Emerson, Ringo Starr, and his future Tom Tom Club band-mates Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth. And of course, Mystic and I discuss the 2019 Jamaican trip. I do my best to recall what was one of the best experiences of my life, while Mystic gives the detailed history of the Maroon people. 

If you’d like to support us and listen to early access, ad-free episodes with bonus content, check out our Patreon! 

If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music. 

Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024. 

Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023. 

The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.