Tommy Far East

Tommy Far East is a leading collector and deejay of vintage Jamaican vinyl who relentlessly tracks down the very best in ska, rocksteady and reggae records. He spends a lot of time (and money) scouring internet auction sites, private lists, maintaining contacts with veteran sound system men and old time record producers in order to secure the holy grail tunes he desires. Over the last twenty years or so he has a built an astonishing collection and he travels all over the world to play his most treasured acquisitions to enthusiastic audiences at specialist dances and parties.

For the uninitiated - and even for many long time reggae fans – the revive reggae scene is a minefield, a mystifying mix of rare and expensive vinyl, competitive deejays, underground clubs and fanatical collectors who make the Northern Soul bods look like they’re not really trying.

A typical night at a revive do will generally involve listening - and of course, dancing - to records that have been hunted down by deejays with the zeal of an over obsessive pulp fiction gumshoe, while some of the less fortunate members of the crowd make mental (and often physical) notes of any tunes they don’t possess... yet!

Perhaps curiously, there’s none of the ‘cover-up’ culture and alternate titling shenanigans that characterised the Northern Soul scene and the early sound system scene in Jamaica, where the titles, artists names and even label designs would routinely be scratched off to make the most desirable records completely untraceable. Most deejays are more than happy to big up the artists and the producers of the tunes they play (as well as themselves) and the intro to a popular tune will often be greeted by a cacophony of cheers, whistles and even vuvuzelas from the ecstatic crowd.

Some of these events are set up as competitions, where the audience or a panel of judges decides on who plays the best selection, and the rivalry between the deejays can be intense, as are the boasting and the braggadocio that go along with it all. It can sometimes happen that the deejays will spend more time talking about the record (and themselves!) than playing the actual tune, but that’s all part of the fun, and people love the one-upmanship and showing off as a deejay plays a prize possession, safe in the knowledge that no one else - at least amongst the other deejays - has a copy.

In contrast, there are other nights that take a more relaxed approach, with the music itself taking centre stage, and the deejays happy to let the music do the talking. The records may not always be the rarest, but in every case they must be on original vinyl, strictly no reissues or rereleases and definitely no dubplate copies.

So what of the music itself? There are many veteran reggae fans who would argue that most of the rare tunes are rare because they didn’t sell at the original time of release, and the reason they didn’t sell is because they weren’t very good... and that’s certainly a strong argument in some cases. However, there are many others that may not have sounded good at the time but – especially when taken out of context – sound great now. They may have slipped between the cracks because they suffered from lack of distribution and promotion (and payola!), or because the artist and the producer fell out (it’s not unknown) or it may just have been a case of bad timing... whatever the cause of their commercial failure, it’s a wonderful thing that these obscurities, forgotten B-sides and flops are getting some recognition now, and that people can enjoy them for what they are.