Friday Flashback

Words cannot describe the legacy of Lee "Scratch" Perry. Below is a minor sampling of his staggering body of work which spans five decades. "The Riddim of the Ghetto and the Lyrics of the Streets"; 70 years old and still recording and touring, Lee Perry is credited with over 70 albums.

Eccentric? Unbalanced? Genius? In his own words:

"Good evening and greetings to you people of the Universe - this is Lee "Scratch" Perry, the mighty Upsetter, madder than mad, dreader than dread, redder than red, dis ya one heavier than lead. We are here at the turntable terranova, it means we are taking over..."

"I am an alien from the other world, from outer space, I don't have no land, no estate, no property, no house. Not on this earth. I live in space - I'm only a visitor here. Some people are only here to collect property. I am here with my suitcase to collect only the good brains."

"I, Pipecock Jackson, Jack Lightning, Jesse The Hammer, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Daniel Dandelion the Lion, Jah Rastafari the crumbler, the ghost of King Arthur, put a curse on BBC radio and television, and BBC government, that they can never undo until they start playing Mr. Perry records morning, noon, and night, and around the clock - tick tock."

Rainy Night Dub


Skanking Dub w/ King Tubby


Zion's Blood


Have a great weekend!

~Sham, Quixotic Referee

43 Candles

or "Is this the year my Wife finally gives up and just puts one big candle on my Birthday cake?"

Today I turned 43 years old. I continue to feel like a kid most of the time. I still have a vibrant spring to my step and I always run when using the stairs for some odd reason. I'm still luckily glasses free and easily passed my eye exam last week. My musical preferences have never matured and I listen to the tunes of my adolescence to this day. My two boys keep me young and there is rarely a quiet moment in Casa Sham. It's been a great 4.3 decades and I hope the next 4.3 hold much of the same.

Aside from Friday Flashbacks, the blog has been relatively quiet this summer and will likely continue to be given my normally busy fall schedule. Although little if any of this is newsworthy to most readers, I do want to highlight some happenings in August of particular note.

Searchers of the Unknown, Nicolas Dessaux: An elegant minimal one-page RPG based on D&D. I love this thing, and plan to mold it a bit for my own use in the future.

Scavengers & Spacewrecks, Sean Wills: Speaking of the future, here's one man's version of a Sci-Fi Searchers of the Unknown. Excellent stuff!

Fight On! Issue 6: The top-notch fanzine continues to impress. I'm lucky enough to have a contributor's PDF to peruse, but you too can order the latest issue now. The cover is all kinds of awesome!

Lamentations of the Flame Princess, James Raggi: In case you haven't noticed, Jim is getting it done and pushing out honest to goodness self-published gaming material in the true DIY spirit.

Swords & Wizardry, Mythmere Games: The 0e retro-clone nabs the Silver Ennie at GenCon for Best Free Product. Congratulations to Matt Finch and crew on the award. A special nod to Chgowiz for receiving the award in Matt's absence.

As for me I've been enjoying a nice break after hammering out The Darkness Beneath: Lower Caves which makes it's first appearance in Fight On! #6. I'll have plenty more to discuss in regard to that submission in the near future, after readers have had a chance to receive their copies.

Behold the superb cover art by Mark Allen:



~Sham, Quixotic Referee

EDIT: I was just directed to two more reworks of Searchers of the Unknown. Check these out as well:

MUTANT SCAVENGERS of the RUINED EARTH, Kyrinn Eis of The Grand Tapestry, and

CYBORG SAMURAI ARE GO!, Sean Wills of Bite the Bulette with yet another version.

Hats off to Nicolas "Snorri" Dessaux of Wizard in a Bottle fame for inspiring these nifty micro-RPGs!

Friday Flashback

This week we indulge in the Dub stylin' of the late, great Mikey Dread.

Dub? You don't know what Dub is do ya?

Mikey is here to learn ya:










Have a Dub-ful weekend.

~Sham, Quixotic Referee