Reggae, Mon...

July 15, 2006

Lili and Isaac The Cute Lobsterman @ the Reggae Fest, Darmariscotta, Me.

Did you ever have one of those perfectly magical summer days?...ya know....the weather is superb, the music is dead-on rockin', the herb is delish, the view is breath-taking and the company is sublime? Well, this day definetly was one of those days.

After 9 long days of lugging our gear around, jockeying vans, loosing keys, finding keys, getting lost, getting lost and then getting lost some more - (do you have any idea how freakin' big Maine is?) - packing coolers, setting up locations, breaking down locations, bitching each other out - (ok...I mostly bitched people out while other people either bit their tongues or rolled their eyes) - sweating our asses off, stressing over equipment, lights, booms and script changes...not to mention - sharing ONE bathroom between 8 people; we absolutely needed this day. Lo and behold...the sanity of the Tasty Planet crew was restored. (Pretty much).

Originally, the Damariscotta River Association's 'Reggae Fest' was not on our "to shoot" list. We were supposed to shoot some blue grass band at some unknown campground somewhere near White's Beach. Turns out that the band we want to interview (two 18 year olds and a 19 year old-psssfffttt) start getting squirrely-butt about 'copyrights' and 'intellectual property' at the last minute. WHAT ever. I had my ratty old copy of DownEast Magazine that I had been using as a pseudo production guide - and in the listings was the announcement for the Great River Basin Concert Series at the Damariscotta River Association - a land preserve - So I called up the dude running the show - Mark - who put me in touch with the lead singer from Inner Visions -Grasshopper- (fyi-the moniker comes from his habit of jumping around on stage during performances) - and they invited us all to the show. Mark -bless his soul- comped the whole crew, as well as three of my buds - Isaac, the cute lobsterman, Isaac's sternman -(also very cute) - Alex and Alex's beautiful girlfriend, Louisa.

The crew led by the ever-industrious and capable director of Tasty Planet - Adrian Nieves, aka 'A-Dawg' - went on ahead and set up the whole shoot, interviewed the guys from the band, plugged into their soundboard and generally made themselves at home before I decided to grace them with my presence - ok... so, I got a little 'lost' (read: lost in ganja-land) - I told you Maine was a big-ass state.

Turns out...this is like the most awesome performance I've seen in a long time. The music was so bloody smooth that we danced for the entire two and a half hour set without stopping once until the sun sunk into the mouth of the Damariscotta River. Truly a perfect day.

Inner Visions is so aptly named. We all got a massive dose of big West Indian style lovin' from Grasshopper, Ras Paul, Jupiter, Mr. Snooze and Hollywood. The band hails from St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands where I have had the good fortune to spend part of my unencumbered youth scraping barnacles from boat bottoms, smoking rope and drinking too much cheap Cruzan rum. The music transported me directly back to the street festivals- called 'jump ups' down island - where the music is loud, the dancing is serious and the love flows like water. We were treated to tasty new selections from Inner Visions' latest CD - "Frontline" - as well as inspirational musings from Grasshopper - who as far as we can tell, is a reluctant prophet.

We wouldn't have guessed as we crossed the border from New Hampshire into Maine 9 days earlier how righteous this day would turn out to be. In the words of Isaac - the experience was "totally sick". Many, many thanks to Inner Visions, Mark and the Damariscotta River Association for their love and hospitality. Keep on rockin' the free world.

If you're any kind of reggae fan, you simply must check out their website: www.innervisionsreggae.com

To find out more about the Damariscotta River Preserve - log on to www.draclt.org