Who Is The Enemy - Music

URBAN TRIBE STOCKHOLM - The Long Story The Whole Thing Started On A Beach In Thailand When I And
Charlotte Were In Kamala Thailand On Our Honeymoon.
Our Favourite Hang-Out Was A Small Beach-Front Bar Called Bob's
Bar. I Then Got The Idea To Write A Song For Bob Whcih I Did
right Then And There. I Had For Quite Some Time Been
working Professionally As A Musician And Producer So I Recorded
the Song When I Came Back To Sweden. Enouraged By This I
then Gave Myself A Deadline - To Write A Whole Album In Two Months.
And This I Did - Two Months Later 10 More Songs Were Ready In
listenable Rough-Mixes. At This Point The Rest Of The Band Came Into
play A Line-Up That Was Already For The Most Part In Place Since
I Had Formed A Band Called Positive Vibration In 1998.
Positive Vibration Was A Bob Marley Tribute Band That Did Shows
around Sweden Between 1998 - 2001 Highlighted By Headlining
Reggaejam 2001 In Bersenbrúck Germany Where The Band
performed 21 ! Bob Marley-Songs. The Band Also Recorded A
live-Album Called "Live At Alcazar" In 2001. Urban Tribe Stockholm Was Officially Formed During The Spring Of
2004 And The Line-Up Apart From The Backing Vocals-Section Was
identical To The Line-Up Of Positive Vibration. Tessan Anderson Who
was The "sole Survivor" Of The Backing-Vocals Section From Positive
Vibration Was Paired Up With My Wife Charlotte And Christian
Lindström Charlotte's Brother . The Album "Bob's Bar" Was Finally
released Independanty In March 2005 And Adam Started To Send
out The Album To Reggae-Websites Around The World. Noone Was
more Surprised Than I When The Album Started Getting These Fantastic
reviews From Very Reputable Reggae Sources From All Over The Place
and When Ron Hammond An Employee Of Steel Pulse In England Sent Us An Enthusiastic Reply Saying He Loved The Album And Was
going To Make Sure That David And Selwyn Got Copies Of The Album
right In Their Hands I Was Thrilled. And When It Turned Out Both David
and Selwyn Really Liked The Album I Was In 7th Heaven Being A Long
term Steel Pulse Fan Of Many Years. Next Thing That Happened Was
that We Got An E-Mail From Eric Jones The President Of ReggaeCD.Com/
Ejaness Reggae Comprehensive In New York Saying He Had Listened
to The Snippets Of Our Album On Our Website And Said "Bob's Bar Was
"the Most Impressive Independantly Released Debut Album They Had
ever Heard" And Offered Us A Distribution Deal For The US Right Off The
bat! Imagine That! Here I Was Thinking That Maybe We Wouldn't Be
taken Seriously By The Reggae Community At All Since We Were All
white And From Sweden Except Bamma B Ofcourse And All Of Sudden
all This Fantastic Response Came Pouring In. Ron Hammond Came Over
to Sweden For The Releaseparty Of "Bob's Bar" In May Of 2005 A Show
that Marked The Live Debut Of Urban Tribe That We Only Had 2 - 3 Full
rehearsals To Prepare For Since Most Of The Members Of The Band Are
full-Time Musicians With Pretty Full Schedules. Then What Do I Do?
I Decide To Record Our First-Ever Live Performance For A Live DVD...
this Is Symptomatic Of Most Things We Do It Shouldn't Be Possible But
somehow It Works Anyway. In April I Sent An E-Mail To Eric Jones President Of Ejaness Reggae
Comprehensive/ReggaeCD.Com Suggesting He'd Surf By Our Site And
listen To The Snippets From The Album. Next Thing You Know He Offers
us A Full Distribution Deal For The Album In The US! After Just Hearing The
snippets He Said It Was "the Best Independantly Released Debut Album
he Had Ever Heard". So On July 5 "Bob's Bar" Was Officially Released In
the US Something That No Other Scandinavian Rootsband Ever Had
accomplished Before. So You Could Say That Things Were Going Very
well Very Fast The First 6 Months For Us. When We Later In July Got Con-
firmation That We Were Going On Tour In Scandinavia Opening For
my Heroes Steel Pulse I Started Thinking We Were Well On Our Way
to Having It Made! We Did Three Shows In Malmoe And Gothenburg Sweden And Oslo Norway The Twelve Of Us Riding In Three Cars
stuffed In Like Sardines And Living In The Cheapest Possible Hostels.
But We Had A Great Time And The Shows Went Very Well Despite The
fact That We Got Virtually No Time For Soundcheck At All. If Internal Dread
hadn't Tagged Along Doing Our Sound We Probably Wouldn't Have
sounded That Good. So There We Were In The Fall Of 2005 Thinking That The World Was Our
oyster I Was Doing Radiointerviews With American And Canadian
radiostations Ejaness Were Planning To Sign Us To Their Label And
work Was Well Underway With Obtaining Workpermits For The Whole
band To Tour The US. This Is Where Things Sort Of Ground To A Halt...
Since I Was Funding All The Promotion For "Bob's Bar" In The US Myself Promotion Was Virtually Non-Existent. This Lead To Very Poor Sales And
when We Had To Cancel/postpone A Tour Of The US For The Second Time
due To The Fact That Getting Workpermits Seemed More Or Less Impossible Ejaness´enthusiasm Started To Dwindle Considerably. So Despite The
fact That We Were Officially Invited By The Assistant Mayor Of Harrisburg Pennsylvania And Backed By Their Congressman There Would Be No
shows With Urban Tribe On American Soil. Without Any Tours A Music-
video And An Even Half-Way Decent Promotion Budget We Finally Gave
up The Fight For The US Market Sometime By The End Of 2005 At Least
temporarily. During The Fall We Had Approached All The Major Reggae-
labels In The US I Have To Mention Melinda Turner In Washington DC
at This Point She Did A Lot Of Legwork For Us But We Got Absolutely No
interest At All. Finally Ron Got The President Of Ras Records To At Least
talk To Him On The Phone And When He Asked Him What He Thought Of
Urban Tribe He Said "the Band Sounds Great The Songs Are Fantastic We Are Not Interested..." Naturally This Lead To The Question Why And
to This He Answered "they Are Not Black And They're Not Jamaican".
So There You Have It. We Had Basically Wasted 6 Months By Focusing
totally On The US. The Good Thing Though Is That The Album Recieved
quite A Bit Of Airplay On The Radio In June 2006 It Peaked At Place
22 Over The Most Played Reggae-Albums In America. And It Also
recieved Great Attention And Airplay Not Only In The US England
and Mainland Europe But Also In Places Like Jamiaca Ghana Uganda Brasil And So On. Not Bad For A Still Unsigned Band Just
starting Out! One Notable Thing That Happened In The Fall Of 2005 Was That Tessan
Andersson Left The Band. During The Steel Pulse Tour There Was Quite
a Bit Of Tension In The Backing Vocals-Section Which Then Simmered
over To The Rest Of The Band. So It Was A Good Thing Tessan Quit -
she Basically Beat Me To It Meaning I Wouldn't Have To Fire Her. I Had
kept In Touch With Linda Rönnbäck Who Did Some Shows With
Positive Vibration In 00 - 01 Probably Because On Some Unconcious
level I Regretted Not Having Asked Her To Join From The Beginning.
As Soon As Me Charlotte Christian And Linda Got Together To Start
working On The Backing Vocals In December We All Started Feeling
great About The Working Atmosphere The Four Of Us Created - We Simply
had A Very Good Time Working. She Appeared With Us On Stage For The
first Time In January 2006 During Reggae Week At Mosebacke Here In
Stockholm. The New Album Was Recorded In Three Different Places - The Drums Bass
and Keyboards Were Recorded In My Old Studio In The Old Town Stockholm Which Was A Quite Small Studio On The Second Floor. I Had To Move Out
in December 2005 And Didn't Really Have Anywhere To Go So I Wound
up In An Old Bomb-Shelter Turned Into A Rehearsal Room. Four Concrete
walls - That Was It. This Is Where Everything Else Was Recorded So One
could Say That Album Number Two Was Recorded Under Less Than Perfect
technical Conditions. The Finishing Touches On It Were Done In May 2006
in The New Urban Tribe Headquarters A Small But Quite Cosy Sub-Terrain
apartment Turned Into Studio Only About 100 Meters Away From The
Internal Dread's Legendary Rubadub-Studio. The Beginning Of 2006 Marked A Different Strategy - We Were Going To
try To Become Big In Europe First. Back In 2001 We Played Reggaejam
in Germany And We Had Gotten To Be Good Friends With Bernd Lagemann Aka Sheriff Who Is The Organizer Behind The Festival. I Now Reached Out
to Him And He Put Together A Tour For Us In Germany - 6 Shows In A Week
in The Middle Of April. We Naturally Were Excited About It And Couldn't
wait To Get On The Way. During The Fall Of 2005 And Early 2006 I Had
written All The Songs For Our Album Number Two And By The Time We Set
sail For Germany The Album Was More Or Less Finished Only Finishing
touches Remained. The Tour Went Extremely Well And We Had A Great
time Although It Turned Out That Touring Germany During Easter Was
a Mistake - In Some German Towns It Is Actually Against The Law To
have Concerts During Good Friday...To Make A Long Story Short The Only
thing That Wasn't 100% Sucessfull Was The Attendance At The Shows.
One Lives And Learns... Meanwhile Back At The Ranch Ron Had Been
working On And Succeeding In Getting Both Selwyn Brown And David
Hinds Of Steel Pulse To Do Guestappearances On Our New Album By Then
named "Who Is The Enemy?" I Was Extatic Of Course! I Have Been An Avid
fan Since I First Heard "True Democracy" Badk In 1982 And I Think That
David Hinds Is The Greatest Now Alive Voice In Reggae So You Could Imagine
how It Felt Knowing That He Would Sing On One Of My Songs...Simply
thrilling. He Ended Up Doing His Vocal Overdubs In A Hotelroom In
Florida - Amazing How Easy These Things Are With The Internet. I Did A
rough Mix With His Vocals On Sent It Back To Him And Then He Called
me Up In The Studio With Some Thoughts And Feedback I Actually Had To
pinch My Arm At That Point David Hinds Calling Me On The Telephone...
amazing. As Was His And Selwyn's Vocals - It Simply Sounded So Damn
good! "Who Is The Enemy?" Was Finally Finished By Mid-Summer 2006 And In
August We Played At Uppsala Reggaefestival Before Heading Down To
Germany Again To Do Two Shows Reggaejam And Berlin. During The Last Part Of 2006 I Started Writing Songs For Our Third Yet
unnamed Album Right Now We Have 9 Semi-Finished Songs . In November
we Finally Had A Break Here At Home When It Turned Out That Legendary
Swedish Reggaeband Kalle Baah Said They Wanted To Sign Us To Their
own Label A Label They Only Have Released Their Own Albums On Up Til
then Becuase They Thought The Album Was So Good And It Was A Shame
that People Didn't Get To Hear It That Much. Truly Refreshing To Meet Some-
one Like Janne Karlsson The Drummer Of Kalle Baah And The Instigator
of Their Signing Us Who Goes Out Of His Way To Help Another Band And
puts His Money Where His Mouth Is And Actually Does What He Says He
will A Very Rare Commodity In The Music Business I Can Tell You. I Mean If Half The Things People Have Talked About And Planned For Urban Tribe
had Come True We Would Have Been Touring The World By Now...
So Finally We Will Have An Official Release Here At Home! At The Same Time
we Had To Modify Our Name Slightly Adding A "Stockholm" At The End.
This Is Due To The Fact That There Is Another Urban Tribe From Detroit Who Having Been Dormant For Quite Some Time Started Releasing Albums
again In 2006. So To Avoid Unnecessary Confusion We Decided To Become
URBAN TRIBE STOCKHOLM Instead. And This Is More Or Less Where We Stand Today. Good Things Are Planned
for The Future But The Less Said The Better Keeping What I Said Earlier About
not Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is In Mind 2007 Is Shaping Up Quite Nicely So Far Let's Hope For The Good Things To
keep Happening. Adam Atterby Jan 18 2007 read less