The Rebel Dread – Don Letts gets Sussex sweating

DON LETTS – THE CON CLUB, LEWES 14.7.18

Wow! What a fab evening we all had at the Con Club in Lewes tonight! The legendary Don Letts was in town and he performed a solid two hour DJ set for the lucky punters.

He had easily sold out the venue located in the High Street and everyone was buzzing. The dancefloor was rammed and I for one bopped for the whole two hours and are expecting the blisters to follow. It was the perfect opportunity to just let yourself go and get absorbed into Don’s selection dub discs.

I thought that he was only due to be on stage for 90 minutes but we had 120 minutes – nice one Don.

He has seemed to be able to tap into dub tracks that sample and remake several well known non-reggae tunes. Examples of which tonight were Nirvana’s ‘Lithium’ which was covered by Little Roy and the Trentemoller Remix of Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Games’.

Don Letts at the Con Club, Lewes 14.7.18

We had dub versions of ‘Dare’ by Gorillaz and quite rightly souped-up mega versions of The Clash’s ‘Guns Of Brixton’ and ‘London Calling’. I clocked a couple of tracks by the excellent Gentleman’s Dub Club, including my fave ‘Hotter’.

I also rather enjoyed Gardna ft Tiffani Juno ‘See The Vibe and Solo Banton ‘Reggae Recipe’.

Everyone around me at the front of the dancefloor were all having a brilliant time, especially the very attractive lady to my left called Jen. I hope that she reads and comments on this review as she had a fab night out too.

More on Don here: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialDonLetts/ and here: https://www.donletts.com/

Don Letts at the Con Club, Lewes 14.7.18

If you would like to know about Don Letts, then read on………………..

He was born in London in 1956 and was deeply inspired by the Jamaican music of his parents homeland including Bob Marley.

From 1975 he ran a clothes shop called Acme Attractions on the Kings Road in Chelsea, where they sold electric-blue zoot suits and jukeboxes, and Don played pumping dub reggae records all day long. Word got out and it became a serious hang out for all the punks and rastas and thus Acme were attracting the likes of The Clash, the Sex Pistols, Chrissie Hynde (Pretenders), Patti Smith, Deborah Harry (Blondie) and Bob Marley.

The Acme accountant/promoter, Andrew Czezowski, saw the potential here and started up The Roxy (located at 41–43 Neal Street in London’s Covent Garden), the first punk-rock venue in London, so that people could go from the store and have some place to party. Don Letts was the first house DJ.

Don Letts on the cover of The Clash 10″ record ‘Black Market Clash’

As punk was very new, there weren’t many punk bands around at the time and most of those hadn’t as yet released any records and so Don played many dub and reggae records in his sets. This directly influenced those early punk bands and so acts like The Clash simply played the style of music similar to what they were enjoying listening to Don playing. So as a homage The Clash released their 10” ‘Black Market Clash’ EP with a shot of Don on the cover. (I thankfully still have my copy purchased at the time).

Having made a success of DJing at The Roxy, Letts decided to get into band management and so quit Acme Attractions and headed off on tour with The Slits (who incidentally have a dub vibe about them!). They were on The Clash ‘White Riot’ tour with The Buzzcocks.

It was here that Don switched from management to filming music videos as he was given a Super 8 video by a fashion editor and Don started his filming career with the legendary Clash ‘White Riot’ vid in 1977 and with the follow up ‘Tommy Gun’ in 1978.

Don Letts at the Con Club, Lewes 14.7.18

He had made great use of his Super 8 during the heady days at The Roxy in 1977, when he filmed all the new punk bands there. This turned in to an aptly titled film called ‘The Punk Rock Movie’ in 1978. Thankfully he had captured for history recordings of the Sex Pistols, The Clash, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Generation X, the aforementioned Slits and Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers to name just a few.

Don went on to record many more music videos including ‘London Calling’ by The Clash, ‘Pass The Dutchie’ by Musical Youth, and ‘Everyday I Write The Book’ by Elvis Costello & The Attractions. He also continued making films and his 2000 documentary film ‘The Clash: Westway To The World’ won him a Grammy.

In 1984 Letts co-founded the band Big Audio Dynamite with Clash guitarist Mick Jones and they had albums and singles chart successes.

In 2006 he published his autobiography ‘Culture Clash: Dread Meets Punk Rockers’ and from 2009 he he been presenting his weekly radio show on BBC Radio 6.

Check out Don’s filmography on IMDb HERE.

Discover Don Letts ‘Culture Clash Radio’ on BBC iPlayer Radio:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072pzt

Gig flyer