Babylon Is Falling - The Music of Steel Pulse
David Hinds, singer/guitarist for Steel Pulse
Then in 1978, Steel Pulse, a Birmingham reggae unit thundered onto the UK music scene. What was unusual about Steel Pulse was they had as many punk rocker fans as Jamaican national reggae fans in London.
I visited London in 1978 and attended a Culture concert in Brixton and I was the only white person at the show. Two nights later, I saw Steel Pulse perform in a punk club in London and there were more white fans in the audience than black fans. Clearly, Steel Pulse had built a bridge between London's white punk rock community & the black Jamaican reggae community. It was the first bi-racial reggae music concert I'd ever seen, outside of a Bob Marley show.
David Hinds on the origins of the Steel Pulse name:
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When we call ourselves Steel Pulse, the intention was to come out with a groove that was of the hardest kind. And behind that groove was gonna be the lyrics that hitting of the hardest kind. It got a lot of controversy because a lot of people associate it with being a steel-drum band, then they associated it with a heavy metal band,” he laughs.
“Even Bob Marley from meeting him for the first time when he heard the name, he screwed up his face and say, ‘ah what kinda name dat?!’ Then when he started hearing what the band was about, only then he was like, ‘Oh they’re part of us!’
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Steel Pulse initially had difficulty finding live gigs, as club owners were reluctant to give them a platform for their "subversive" Rastafarian politics. Luckily, the punk movement was opening up new avenues for music all over Britain, and also finding a spiritual kinship with protest reggae. Thus, the group wound up as an opening act for punk and new wave bands like the Clash, the Stranglers, Generation X, the Police, and XTC, and built a broad-based audience in the process.
Steel Pulse's biggest break was being designated as the supporting band for Bob Marley's European tour in 1978. The twelve-date tour included sold-out concerts in Paris, Ibiza, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Oslo, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Brussels and kicked off with an outdoor festival at the New Bingley Hall in Stafford (Marley later released an album culled from some of the live shows, Babylon By Bus.)
David Hinds recalls:
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We learned a lot of discipline on that tour that rubbed off - rehearsal, execution on stage, how to tour, stability [...] that's when the doors really started to open for us. It has always been one of the most memorable moments of my career. To play as part of that package exposed Steel Pulse to audiences that literally were in awe of our message. Of course, being formally introduced through Bob Marley helped us tremendously. Playing for audiences, especially those in Paris who saw the force of Steel Pulse and the force of Bob Marley play on the same bill, enabled us to sell out shows every time since then.
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Handsworth Revolution - Steel Pulse - Handsworth refers to the Handsworth district of Birmingham England which is the home of Steel Pulse. The 1978 album of the same name rocketed Steel Pulse to global noteriety as a band.
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Ku Klux Klan - Steel Pulse Steel Pulse's first single for Island Records was the classic "Ku Klux Klan," which happened to lend itself well to the band's highly visual, costume-heavy concerts. I saw Steel Pulse in London, New York and Boston in 1980 and the band was at the peak of their power as a live band. This clip of Steel Pulse playing "Ku Klux Klan" live at the Rainbow Theatre London, England September 18th, 1980 captures that energy. This was also included in the film
Urgh! A Music War.
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Babylon Makes the Rules - Steel Pulse= A hit in 1979, and got a lot play on a lot of sound systems in London, Kingston, Paris and New York. This video was recorded at a NYC show during their 1979 American tour.
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Roller Skates- Steel Pulse-
Roller Skates may be the most requested Steel Pulse song ever. It's the epic saga of a roller skating rastaman who gets his wireless boom-box stolen by a big "cigar smoking" man in a flashy car and how the rasta becomes a ninja hero in his quest to recover his stolen boom-box.
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