I Am A Madman: Lee Perry 1984 - 2003

Here's a summary I had previously written about the creation of the Battle of Armagideon artwork:

The story of the Battle of Armagideon sleeve artwork.

It was late in 1984 when I first met Lee Perry in Portobello Road whilst shopping for some clothes. I literally bumped straight into him as I was coming out of Alchemy. I was stunned - only a week or two before that I'd been watching Jools Holland meeting him at the Black Ark studio in Kingston, and suddenly here he was, right in front of me. I'd been a massive Perry fan since my earliest musical experiences, and the Upsetters were my No.1 band from those days, and I could only dream of being a part of them.
I told him that I was in a Reggae band and invited him to come to rehearsals, which (to cut a long story short) led to a strong friendship being established and eventually led to Lee working with me on the recording of a new album. The first single from the album was released for Christmas 1985, and the album was completed in the months following.
In the two years since I'd first met Lee, many things had changed in my life; the band I was working with - Studio Six - had split (they told me "Lee Perry is a washed up old fart who will never do anything for the band") so myself and the Keyboard player left and joined up with a new band called Dub Factory and the work commitment involved in making the album led to the split up of my marriage.
In the interim time between finishing the recording of the album and its release my new band also lost faith in the project, and said "we don't believe the album is ever going to be released" and they moved on to other projects too.
I stuck with Lee to see the album through to its completion.
He had been going through some terrible personal times, he had also split with his wife and his studio had burned down, and the time when I met him was during this low patch, and he wrote of this time in some of the songs we recorded together, describing the time as his "Armagideon" - the battle that he was fighting in his own life.
During our discussions he came up with the idea to name the album "Battle of Armagideon" - I said I wanted to do the sleeve artwork (he was always asking me to draw pictures for him) and he said to me "I want a ghost smoking a giant spliff sitting on a Bible throne wearing a rainbow crown."
At the time I was also going through some very hard times. I was split from my family and staying in a friend's flat who was in jail. There was no electricity in the flat and me and my girlfriend spent the evenings in candlelight. I had a collection of old magazines, and from these I cut out pictures of different scenes to make an apocalyptic collage, scenes of the devastated city of San Francisco after the 1920s earthquake were used as background, with piled up skulls from the Cambodian war which became the smoke from the giant spliff. To a picture of marching soldiers I added a photo of Thatcher waving a little Union flag. The Queen holding her dog eating the food from the tray of a starving child was added along with the flags of the USA and Russia - who were still in cold war at the time - I drew the ghost smoking the spliff to Lee's brief, and added it to the collage.
I used letraset for the text.
It was all done in that dark old flat with no electricity. Lee wanted to add "Millionaire Liquidator" to the title too.
When he saw the artwork he immediately said "this is an Upsetter artwork" I added the word bubbles at his request "I am the holy ghost, colly Jesus Christ" and my band became billed as the Upsetters - to which I was overjoyed - a dream come true.
I took the artwork to Patrick Meads at Trojan Records and I was paid £100 for my work. When the receptionist at Trojan saw it she proclaimed "oh my giddy aunt!" to which I replied "no, Armagideon" - how we laughed.😁
The only changes that were made by Trojan were that I had originally set the title at the top of the art and Lee Scratch Perry at the bottom. Patrick changed that round putting the name at the top and the title at the bottom but also he'd created a rip across the bottom of the artwork where the title was set - this had the effect of chopping out the image of Thatcher waving the flag while the troops were marching to war. I considered that to be consorship of a potentially controversial image. The rest was left intact just as I'd created it.
The only other thing of interest is that WH Smiths (a British store with a record department) banned it and refused to display the cover in their shops. I was quite pleased about that.
The artwork was all made with traditional methods of cut and paste mixed with pen and ink drawing.
No computers or robots were used in the creation of the image. 😎

I Am The Upsetter is another unreleased track from the Battle Of Armagideon sessions. Recorded with a drum machine programmed by Lee, and with Spike on bass, Tarlok on lead guitar, Russ on keyboard and myself on rhythm guitar, I also added the repeating organ riff that I wanted to make the track sound like the old Upsetters tracks from the 69 era. It was omitted from the final set list probably because Lee had recently done another revived version of The Upsetter titled  Am The Ganja Man on the History Mystery and Prophesy album, but in my view at the time it fitted in with a few ther autobiographical tracks we recorded "The Joker" "The Madman" "The Upsetter" but I'll write more about those other tracks later.

Once again I made this video in tribute to Lee shortly after he passed away last year.

The Real Story of I Am A Madman.

Much has been written about this classic track from the Battle Of Armagideon album and - like in Doug Armstrong's rather gossipy and sensationalist synopsis - most of it is nonsense. 

I am here to set the record straight about this track and some of the other material on the album once and for all, as I was involved in the entire conception and production right from the outset.

It is probably necessary for me to outline briefly how the whole project came about in the first place, so let's take it from the top and give a short background - some info I already wrote in my description of how the sleeve artwork came to be, so please excuse any repetition:

I had been an avid Lee Perry/Upsetters fan since my early teenage years, and I had dreamed of being an 'Upsetter' since those early years. I started out as a DJ playing reggae singles in the youth clubs from the age of about thirteen back in 1972, I had travelled to Jamaica in the Merchant Navy after leaving school, and straight after that started playing in bands. At first it was punk rock that all my musician friends were playing, but I started introducing elements of reggae and ska into the sets. At first it was pretty much amateur rubbish, but soon after we formed a ska/punk band that I named The Night Doctors - after an Upsetters track of that title. One day listening to the radio at work I heard a great reggae track played called Music Like Dirt and as the song finished the DJ said "that was Night Doctor" - another group had beaten me to the name! I was upset, and combined with friction in the fledgeling band I decided to quit music and pursue my other great interest, comic book art. It wasn't too long however before my artistic career led me back to making music. This time I decided to focus on playing solely Reggae in the band, and to leave the punky elements behind. We formed a group called Studio Six (from a spoof radio station we used to record on cassette tapes named Radio Six combined with the inspiration of Studio One). Studio Six played a series of gigs around our local Hertfordshire scene, and branched out to a few slots in London venues. One evening a TV music show called The Tube broadcast a special Reggae edition called Jools in Jamaica, where the show's host Jools Holland visited Lee Perry at the Black Ark - I was fascinated and in awe seeing my musical hero on the telly and his eccentric antics at the Ark. At the end of the interview he looked straight at the camera and said "I don't care if you're black, white, pink, yellow or green, if you have a clean heart and you want to work with me you're welcome" - I had the strangest feeling that he was talking directly to me - stupid as that sounds.

It was perhaps two or three weeks later, and I was in the popular West London shopping location Portabello Road looking for some funky clothes to wear on stage, and I was just leaving the popular head shop called Alchemy when I walked straight into Lee Perry! I was gobsmacked! "Scratch!" I yelped: "I'm a massive fan of your music" and I held out my hand to shake his, which he met with a fist-bump, his hand covered in large rings displaying skulls and suchlike. He nodded politely and continued walking up the road with his Rasta companion. I stood stunned for a few seconds and thought to myself "am I just gonna let him walk away and not say anything else?" and I instinctively ran up the road after him: "Scratch, I've got a Reggae band and I'd love you to come and work with us" I said. Scratch turned to his friend and said "give him your number - phone this and we'll arrange something." His friend was Tony Owens and a few days later I was sitting in Seven Leaves Records in Kensal Rise playing Lee our demo tapes. Lee agreed to come to rehearsals, and we ended up striking up a friendship. Lee would come and stay at my house in my spare room - my art room which he renamed as his 'Ark Room' and we began writing songs together and going on long walks in the countryside which he loved.

I organised for Lee to play a few gigs with my band, and we worked out a few of his recent tracks and he jammed in with some of the rhythms we were playing, mainly making up lewd and rude lyrics of a sexual nature and talking about "shit" and "piss" quite a lot - very funny and eccentric, but some of the band members didn't get it. A band meeting was called at which several of the band gave me an ultimatum: "we think Lee Perry is a washed up old fart who will never do anything for our band, it's either him or us!" to which I immediately stood up from the table and invited anyone who wanted to leave with me. Russ the keyboard played and Zebby the Rasta percussionist joined me. The next day I approached Spike - bass player from a three piece local Reggae band called Dub Factory and proposed that we team up to form a new band to back Lee Perry, and so it began.

Spike, Tarlok and Peng- Bass, Guitar and Drums were joined by myself on Rhythm Guitar, Russ on Keyboards, and Zebby on percussion. We had our own songs, and we jammed a few new original rhythms between ourselves. When Lee Perry came to rehearse with this new unit he was far happier, and we all hit it off together as a working unit. Scratch was still spouting out his lewd and dirty lyrics, but this time there appeared to be more focus and direction. One of the rhythms we'd been jamming he started singing "introducing myself, Lee Scratch Perry" and on another  of our original rhythms he was singing "I am a cuntist, I don't deal with rumpists, I am a cuntist yeah yeah." We were all in hysterics laughing at his filthy lyrics and we all had a great old laugh, smoking spliffs and drinking Thunderbird wine. Lee said he wanted to take us into the studio to record a "Dub album" - game on.

So it was that in late 1985 - a year after our first meeting - Lee took Dub Factory to Thameside Studios in Rotherhithe South East London to record a series of tracks. To save time and money, the band camped out in the studio for three days, and we laid a series of rhythm tracks, a few of our own songs were recorded at the session too. In amongst the tracks we laid were the tracks that we'd been jamming together at rehearsals - our original rhythms for Introducing Myself and the Cuntist among them, and Lee instructed us as we laid down fresh new tracks originated in the studio. Peng had problems obeying Lee's instructions, so Lee sacked him and laid down the other rhythms on a Roland drum machine.

After the initial tracks had been laid, we returned to the studio on various other occasions, but it would be only myself, and sometimes Spike who would be invited to the overdub sessions where we laid down other rhythms (Time Marches on etc) and overdubbed synth and percussive parts. I would often spend evenings hanging out with Lee at Sandra's place where he was living, and we'd drink Thunderbird, Stones Ginger Wine, Special Brew and smoke weed, and I would draw him cartoon pictures that he requested whilst Scratch would be standing on chairs writing on the walls. It was one of these dark winter evenings that he was writing 'I Am A Madman, I Am A Madman' repeatedly on the wall when he turned to me and said "Mark, where could I fit in that lyric to one of the tracks?" to which I peplied "you could change 'The Cuntist' to 'The Madman' - that would be a far less controversial title" and so Lee started started singing "I am a madman" in place of "I am a cuntist" - the following day we were back in the studio to re-voice the track. I Am A Madman was now the new title of the track, and the song took shape from that. Scratch still kept the main body of his original lewd and homophobic lyrics intact, but now they were buried in a lyrical soup that would be virtually undecipherable to the uninitiated listener. One recent review misinterpreted the lyric as Scratch saying "I am a cultist" - how wrong could they be? 

Dub Factory split up soon after the recording session, and with the inclusion of Lloyd and Trevor from Jah Warrior band added as the horn section, which I helped arrange during the overdub sessions, this led to the backing group eventually being called The Upsetters - something I always wanted to be, and that sits very happily with me (and all the musicians eventually grew to appreciate that accolade), but there were a few minor issues along the way: I Am A Madman became the most popular track on the album, and was reissued on many compilations over the years, including being a part of the playlist on the Blue Ark radio station on the computer game Grand Theft Auto 5, but that wasn't the end of the story from its original recording: as it was our original rhythm in the first place, I had formed the idea of making an instrumental version which I had envisioned as being released as the B side of a 7" single release of I Am A Madman. I approached Scratch one afternoon round at Sandra's house telling of my idea to make a Melodica version of the track, but Lee was now busy working with Adrian Sherwood and he had no further interest in working on the Armagideon sessions, so I took the idea to Patrick Meads at Trojan, and he jumped at the idea. A studio session was booked at Ariwa studio with Mad Professor, where I was allowed to blow my Melodica version over the rhythm track. At the same session Patrick asked me to also overdub a Melodica riff onto the Merry Christmas Happy New Year track, and I also manually redubbed the drum track for a re-release for the Christmas market. I was happy to complete these tasks with the view that my Melodica version would finally get a release. I was however extremely disappointed when it was eventually released. For some reason unknown to me, they had mixed my Melodica into the vocal track, and released it on the B side of the reissue of Merry Christmas - my instrumental version was buried on the second track on the B side, with my Melodica also featuring on the "Perry Christmas Dub" on the A side. Not only that, but on the Madman Dubwise mix, for some reason they had chopped the beautiful link where I'd blended my Melodica to segue into the end of the Saxophone solo - it remained intact on the vocal mix, but it was chopped in the dub. I was devastated! My masterpiece Melodica instrumental had been relegated to track four of 12" single instead of as I'd intended it as a version to the original track - and I didn't even get credited for my work either!

Time marches on, and old wounds heal, and it was very satisfying to watch as the internet age brought my track back to life - someone released youtube video with Madman Dubwise with an accompanying Kung Fu video which had thousands of views. The same person upgraded the same video months later and that also gained thousands of views. The track became the single most popular and well listened to track from the entire session we recorded, and although I still have never received a penny in royalties or any credit for my playing on the track, Madman Dubwise remains as probably my greatest musical achievement. Madman Dubwise was credited to Lee Perry and The Upsetters mixed by Mad Professor, but Lee was not involved in the recording of that Melodica track at all. 
 

This was my first take draft sketch of "a ghost smoking a giant spliff wearing a rainbow crown sitting on a Bible throne" that was Scratch's brief for the cover artwork.

 

(Apologies, it appears to have inserted on the thread sideways and I'm not sure how to rectify it - maybe the moderator can fix it? Cheers.)

It would be good to see some feedback and discussion on this forum. Doesn't seem to be much activity at the moment. 😎

Marcus, I haven't given the forum much attention yet, like on Facebook.
I will do at some point and hopefully that will attract some more people.