www.wailer.de

hi my friends and hi dear readers of this site

started to read lowells marley blog iii last night. pretty entertaining. thought i should have wrote such a thing over the years. so many stories. i decide to give you a rough ride. i hope you do enjoy.

Summer 1978
i am age 13. learning english in school is heavy. learning english by listening english speaking musicians is much better.
saw The Harder They Come in German TV.
thought, thats pretty different to soul and p-funk that i was listening at the time.
but sound is good. how is this called? reggae? have to check what is this.

1979
found a cheapo various artist album called „Reggae“ by K-Tel with some 20 Island Records tracks in a supermarket and my mom was so nice to buy it for me.
incluced are third world – now that we found love, i jah man – jah heavy load, desmond dekker – israelites, cake – reggae woman, steel pulse – prodigal son, althea and donna – uptown top ranking, peter tosh – no sympathy, jimmy cliff – sufferin in the land, bob marley and the wailer – no woman no cry, owen gray – fire in a trenchtown, robert palmer – best of both worlds, melodians – rivers of babylon, black slate – sticks man, inner circle – one big happy family, zap pow – this is reggae music, reggae clinic 65 – take five, toots and the maytals – reggae got soul, dillinger – cocaine in my brain.
this record i play more often as others. have to see if i might find some of these tracks on original lps.
hearing that bob marley is the king of reggae. hmm. don´t like kings. i will first check some others.

later in 1979
bought my first full reggae album by an artist. peter tosh´s mystic man. so good it comes with the lyrics. i am singing along with peter and not much later i have all the lyrics in my mind. now have to try to understand what this man means with all this. sounds he quotes sometimes the bible. one time have to read that old book. dreadlocks. how this may look on my head? growing hair long will be a fight with my father. let us see. ganja. is there something around in germany? but where? what does this do? i will see. maybe.

even later in 1979
bob marley kaya album is now in the special price record shop and a couple other reggae lps. pretty cheap for an album. i go buy this one.
what a nice album. king of reggae? i dont know. but i like the sound. easy skanking. how can i do this?

1980
buying more bob marley albums. uprising, survival, babylon by bus, live!, catch a fire, burnin´. all are good.
see bob marley live at reggae sunsplash II in a students cinema. amazing. this sound is so hot.
so this is skanking to de riddim. all right. i try by myself. each time i go to a reggae live show people give me four square meters free space to dance wildly. that´s fun. dance to third world. dance to peter tosh. dance to black uhuru with sly and robbie. dance to toots and the maytals. great great. this music will conquer the world.
and these rasta guys are so freaky. my hair is growing longer but no dreadlocks appear. how they do this? ah, it is because of their african origin. i am an african too , when i understand peter tosh correct. interesting. i am thinking about my own roots.
hmm. these guys know their origins as africans. what´s my origin? german? with some generations before me having lived where now is poland. ok. history of my family. before me some of my forefathers were pioneers to the east. cutting wood and building a town, raising cattle and planting seeds. funny to get to know this. if they had went to west, i would have become a cowboy maybe. there might be a bit of pioneer spirit in myself because of that. wanna try something new, something different to my father who is a worker in a factory.
went to holland by bike. all right. so that´s ganja. i see. helps a lot to fall in love and feel free and open and and and. maybe it was good that i grew to the age of 17 before starting such things. would not be good for a school kid. a proper education should come first.
but why these few young dutch called me nazi when i drive along with friends having long hair flying in the wind? history for a german is a difficult thing. what the hell i have to do with that dead hitler? what a man does in his life can have long enduring effects on generations to come. i should be careful what i do in my life and what effect this may have on others.
i might invite these dutch guys for a smoke or peace. no. i better drive along. don´t think they would like to be invited by me. have to check that german – dutch history one day.
anyway. i might be an african. people originally coming from africa, so they say about ancient times. somehow somewhen africans became white. so i am. hmm.

1981
bob is now 36. i am 17. and i have now all the bob marley album after buying natty dread and rastaman vibration. great man. this will be my music for life.
happy from 11th grade on our government gives me some money to supply and my parents allow me to use it as i want. can smoke ganja. can buy some reggae albums, now having circa 60 albums. the first 4 albums of third world, dillinger´s cup of tea, the second steel pulse album. i jah man – hail i hymn pt2, ricos man from wareika. last two albums i played 100s of times. so great. one day i might move to jamaica. that seems to be even better as holland where not all like us germans.

may 1981
went to school. a friend told me at 8 in the morning that bob marley died. thought that cannot be. went home to find this to be true. news saying this. oh man. played all bob marley albums in a row. i think i didn´t weeped a tear when my old grand-dad had died. but now i am weeping. later opened the window and looked the sky. what is this? clouds look like bob marley. he is smiling. i feel he is there and all right. i should not wail. don´t know what to do with this. but teardrops stopped. rasta live for-iver. dead is no final force. life is the real force.
have to think what to do in my life. have to know more about jah and bible and all this. some friends now also play some reggae. but i feel i should take this more serious. if i might find a rasta community in germany to live with? difficult.

1982
listening rodigans rockers on bbc radio. some good but sounds are changing. now in jamaica they play dancehall. some is ok. but no like that so much. roots rock reggae music is the thing. i will not follow all new direction. i will go on playing good old roots music.

1983
school´s out for summer. 13 years of education are over. and now? no real idea. can i go study rasta on university? how do i manage, that my dad don´t like me to smoke. what the hell he would say, if he would know, what i do smoke in fact? parents house too small for my mind moving here and there and everywhere. decided to study comparing science of religion and philosophy what i was taught in school during the last three years. this will never provide a living for me. but first i have to find a few more answers to know what i know and what i want to stand for. left wing politics bring up many themes at the time. and all in all a lof of pressure and anti atomic bomb action. i see there many long haired people even some dreads. but politics don´t seem to be my way. all poli-trix. all lyers. i move from cologne to bonn and start studies.
in bonn i found, i didn´t took into conciderations many things. i dont know anybody around. i don´t know where to find my ganja. in fact i don´t know a thing about life. this turns out different as i had thought. i like to be open-minded. but in shirt term my apartment became home of thiefs and bad guys. not so easy to find a way in real life after being well-cared of at home.

1984 – 86
a korean guys knocks at my door. although all is covered in thick smoke i do open. to see a smiling man trying to find the right german words to invite me to a bible study. surprise. he don´t have dreadlocks but also likes bible. what i wanted to know more about. finding people. finding nice talk. maybe i tell them about rasta. maybe i will help them grow dreadlocks. we will see.
in next two years i am struggling with rasta telling about haile selassie to be god and this group telling me jesus to be god. found selassie never said to be god. thought these rastas may have misunderstood a thing. from bible context if selassie would be jesus who came back, then now all history would have ended and now we all would be in heaven what we are not. this rasta philosophy don´t seems to answer my questions. these guys from korea always have an answer in the bible. i start reading bible daily and go worshipping on sundays. getting more and more involved in this group. finally started living with them. thought i might have went too far when i decided pro jesus and against rasta and even sold my record collection. individuality seems to fade more and more. they teach me jesus. i no teach any longer about rasta.

1986-1994
from outside i now live as a fundamentalistic christian and each day focus on bible and try to tell these to my stduent colleges what they don´t like at all. i like to take rejection as a confirmation as this rejection if foretold in the bible. see me fading into something pretty much too far for everybody around that community. but just to leave would be contradictionary to what i now had learned. i feel caught. trapped. maybe in some truth, maybe not. but caught for sure. now talks go into the direction of marry a christian woman and go to russia as a missionary after studies that now had changed from religious science to the law subject. failed here and there in studies but finally passed the first big exam. decided to quit with law and live as a professional missionary in near future. only thing what seems strange is that nobody likes my straight christian life and some people say this group would be a dangerous cult. jesus tells me to be a light of the world. but inside i don´t have so much light. no contact to old friends, no contact even to family except they come visit a worship. some – better to say many – maybe even better to say all – aspects seems to be wrong to my heart. i have to follow my heart. i leave the group after ten too long years. i was misled.

1995
a new year starting. a new life? we will see. i find me fooled and brainwashed. but not so easy to get rid of such. i find me to be someone who allowed them to fool me. later i learn that was not my fault. they are professional mis-leaders. in a spcific situation everybody can be mis-led. i learn they use a psychological trick called love-bombing. it goes like this: show love to someone and never critisize him. just accept all, hear what he say, remember this, and wait. wait long. after years he will be used to this and then start to put pressure on him. then he cannot leave easily. bad bad tricks. i feel like bombing a church. this church. i remember bob´s song. he felt like doing so but never did. he was no killer. i also am no killer. i decide not to bomb that church but try to get back my own life. many years went by. my brother said, it was that i lived at the dark side of the moon. obviously i am not aware what happened during the last 10 years. oh.
germany now reunited. oh. sowjet union gone. oh. reggae went digital what is awful. now much cocaine in the ghetto. hmm. i think i go back and start again from where i was ten years ago. i have to get back my reggae records. i buy whatever record i can buy. i see every movie i never saw. i check also other music of many styles. over the next yeas i try to erase that brain washing i was into. i realize that is not so easy. nightmares and again. nobody who can understand me. really lonely. often think of suizide. i listen bob marley music that always has calmed down my soul. slave drivers. yes, thats what these guys are to me. i feel the pain.
i try to find a basic strength in me to live. started to find my own opinion for some times in telling others about what wrong i had learned in that group. found one day i should overcome this. as long as i think of these times, i still am affected. but more and more i start to think about other topics. so many things to learn. so many things to experience.

1996
now hardly any reggae in germany. but there is a growing movement that is interesting. they call it goa or psychedelic trance. they do parties for a whole weekend. old hippies and new hippies meet in the woods to dance. i try x-tasy and speed and a bit of coke to find me doing no good. came across lsd. hmm. that has some healing effect however. first time after ten years i realize i do feel a thing. i feel happiness. i feel freedom. i feel i can speak now more open about me and life. i see me surounded by many people that share my opinions in life and feel a bit of home.

1997-2003
getting more and more involved into goa. even organize some rebel parties. biggest has 1.000 guests and 100 friends were involved in the work. if all would have happened as i wanted it to happen this would have been really nice. sadly not everybody was that easy minded as me. some people steal. some people rob. some people tell even about rape. many go to jail. very similar as the hippies had altamont with one guest killed by security goa had antaris 2002 with five people dead and that was the end of this movement in germany. after quiet some lsd trips i decide to say, this is enough. my mind indeed was freed from the old groups philosophy. i had broken on the other side – for me this was coming back to life from the dark side of the moon. other had broken into a life of mental patients. good for one, bad for the other. a risky thing this is, like all drugs. might be a medizine for one for some time, but all in all a poison. i see i found that i am back again what i am and thats ok and now i have to think for myself what to do in life.
meanwhile by some miracle i had experienced how to act, live and work in this society. i even had managed to learn how to drive a car. and more as this i had won the fight for the second law exam so that i became a lawyer.
found in all germany only one man in church is involved in anti-cult work and that man met me and told me, my life is great. i might be the only one in germany who left such a group after ten intense years and have started a new life successfully. i start to see this as a part of the histiory of my life. i am curious for the next chapters of this history.
my record collection now has 1.000 reggae albums and 1.000 non-reggae albums. i also have 1.000 videos and i think, now i got it made to fill the black hole of history 1984-1994 in my mind. i start to let go some things i collected. material is not the thing. life is the real thing.
same with people. i tried to be open to everybody. so i came across many different people. 200 loose so-called-friends is nice to know. but 1 or 2 real friends are better. i start to establish friendships. i start to talk to people i met online deeper. i do enjoy having a friend in canada, and some in uk, in france, in italy, in spain, in usa, even in new zealand. beautiful people.
world had changed a lot. i have changed a lot. my life sure is somewhat unusual. sure people don´t really understand all this. but i am what i am. at least i learned a lot about what i don´t want. and a bit of what i want in life. i like the positive way. i like the natural way. i like the open minded way. it had been a lot of struggle and sometimes pain. but when i think about most people i feel compassion. they go to school, learn a profession, get married, have kids, not so rarely divorce and then start to think about what is important in life when they are old and grey. i had a life with my parents. i had a life dealing with religion. i had a life like a hippie. and now i live a life of a reggae worker and a lawyer. not so bad. sometimes i talk to other more typical lawyers. i feel compassion. poor rich people they are. i am not rich in material sense. but i feel rich in experience. and i feel when i speak to people, they do like it and receive something from this talk. nice.

2003-2011
i registered www.wailer.de. i could hardly believe but that web address was free. it was waiting for me. a friend helped me to start my website and to write about bob marley. that man bob marley was not white nor black but in between and so i felt also. bob marley tunes are like modern psalms. i listen them 1.000 times and still don´t have enough and still learn a new thing from listening and studying the lyrics.
so great that now bruno blum and people had released the complete bob marley and the wailers 1967-1972. all his music i never was able to find i now can listen. what a joy. same with the heartbeat ska cds with the liner notes by roger steffens. even this old history i now can follow and compare and study deeper and deeper. great. more and more relations to other reggae artists appear. everybody plays a bob marley tune. even in some dance clubs they play bob marley in remix. this man´s music will never stop.
when i thought, i had written on my site, what i know about bob marley, roger steffens released his complete discography of the wailers. and a bit later jeremy collingwood released his book bob marley. i study these two books and check my website and do one revision after the other. large portions are identical but each new additional info was a great find. my wants list had been nearly empty but now again a couple dozen tracks had to be added into a new wants list. if i ever find them all? nice to have ebay so that i can buy one thing or another but some remain unfound by me.
after having found over 90 per cent of the released bob marley i tried the unreleased.
how to start? i see traders lists with 100s of sets i don´t know and a wants list i don´t know even more. started to record some vinyls. asked them if i might trade a unreleased cdr for a cdr of vinyl transfers. amael from suisse agreed. i am amazed to listen unreleased bob marley demos. really interesting to hear such alternate versions or mixes. it will take me two years to convince him to send me all the demo sets traded at the time. there are a few more rare ones left for later. i will come back to him when i might have found a thing he dont have.
thought about live shows. came across derek from usa. that guy pretty easy. he just send me 10 live shows in return to a few vinyls transfers and some demos. of what he tells me later he had all before. but anyway he loved the sharing. good minded people. he continues to send me things. one day i have to go to tax office and have some talk but then got 111 cdrs bob marley live cdrs. oh my god. i am busy for months to listen them.
meanwhile also checked other reggae artists music. each time i open one door and go into i see me in a room with two or three more doors to knock at. collected over 400 artists and groups albums and see there are 1.000s of other artists. never ends. how can this come that in that small island so much good music was made? i should not try to understand from the outside. i should try to go more into the inside.

i asked around if someone would have an email of roger steffens. if that man would talk to me? he did. not so much as he busy with many things. but occasionally he does. i love this. to get to know good people is much better as just talk about music. years later i hear roger gives a show in germany. at the time i had prepared a 4 cdrs set of some rare bobmarley vinyl tracks. i said i try to meet him and give this to him. maybe we can talk a moment. when i entered i only found some 20-30 people around. was dissapointed at first. then i said hi to roger. first thing he wanted me to do is to give him my sign on his poster like all the other reggae workers in the room had done. boom. reggae people are great people. they show more love and respect as i even could have imaginated. i am amazed and later get his sign into his reggae scrap book. so beautiful. talked to his wife mary and some other workers in reggae who are doing this since decades. a small group but a nice group and somehow i am into this. i do enjoy fully.

a bit later i tried to reach jeremy collingwood. had some nice talk and found myself courageous enough to send him over what is left in my vinyl wants list. humble asked him if he might help me for one or two songs of these. again got blewn away. in fact he burned all the wanted tracks on some cdrs and sent them to me without asking for anything. and even added some dubplates i never even had heard about before. what a generous man.

meanwhile i had developed a bit of a relationship to christian from canada and traded with him some music and some informations supporting his website and getting helped for mine. one day he surprised me announcing to come to europe. we talk on reggae, and have a good time for some 10 days. via marley music even a friendship can be established crossing the atlantic ocean. so nice.

all few weeks or months a new man says hi and telling me he enjoy my website and like some trades. still wondering, are there any woman into collecting ? still i dont know. that would be special.

some people come, some people go, some people stay. experienced that not all is good in trading. some people only try to get what they could not get elsewhere. because of my lack of wisdom a few things appear now at torrents and everywhere that in fact are not meant to be there. i was too open. i made some people unhappy. i decide to be more careful and first check if people are found trustworthy. some are not. some other are. thats good. found an easy rule. for the first few years of trading i only trade tracks that are commonly traded. if people still are there after some years i still have enough to make them really happy. they do respect that.

one of such guys is allen from new zealand. many people say he is doing the best bob marley birthday online radio show. i am happy to talk to him about life and things and music and can support him with some good music.

in late 2009 i come across the name joe higgs. blame on me that i needed 30 years to be ready to ask for the music of the teacher of bob marley. what a great music this man had recorded. collecting his music is even harder as collecting bob marley. the name is known, the music is not. it takes me a year to collect what i think is basically all his music. i think this is too good to get lost. what i may do with this set now?

while searching for the last missing tracks of joe higgs and higgs and wilson my request is forwarded from one collector to another. to end up at keith scott. this man is one of the few survivors to witness the very start of jamaican music. what a blessing to talk to him, asking him and receiving accurate first-hand answers. it was special to talk to the previously mentioned people. it is special in square to talk to him and now learn the real story of jamaican music. i realize all this has led me to the center of all this. i have to be specially careful to treat these people and their knowledge well.

both roy wilson and marcia higgs trust me to help to re-issue the good old music of joe higgs and higgs and wilson. i am no business man until now. many things to learn. many new rivers to cross. meanwhile living in germany and earning money on an independant level has become more and more difficult. not so easy to handle all this at the same time, law work, reggae work, music work, home work. but each time i think back and remember, i receive new strength. and i see in the god times and in the bad times, somewhere there was always a bob marley tune in my head and mind, that had helped me this way or another. bob marley music and reggae is the sound track of my life.
to where this will lead me in the future i dont know now. but it looks to be challenge and an adventure at the same time. as i know some good guys and some good music is around, i know it will be beautiful.

one love

werner kajnath
www.wailer.de