Cultural Awareness Day

Another of the tapes I found at Mom's said Anarchy in the PM on it, but in the documentary enthusiasm of those relatively early days of home recording I taped over it with the dulcet sounds of my band, the Unity Rockers, practicing in the rec room. That's right, the Unity Rockers, the only 13-piece all-white (no black people were listening to reggae at the high school then) reggae band in history. I hope.

And hearing us clunk through "Police and Thieves" brought back another fine memory. It was our senior year in high school, and as such we Unity Rockers were filled with a desire to spread culture throughout the school system, so we hied ourselves off to Phillips Junior High School and convinced the principle, the esteemed Herb Allred, that he should let us perform for his kids for a "Cultural Awareness Day" where we would teach them about reggae culture. Though we wouldn't say "jah" or "Rastafari" because we knew it was ridiculous for white suburban kids to be playin that.

So the big day came. To fit the whole school in we had to do two shows, one before lunch, one after. I think we lectured them a little about reggae, talked to them about 3-drop drumming or whatever you call it. But basically we knew little. And we played. I'm sure we were awesome.

One thing's for sure. Kids snuck out of class to see the second show. We were the big thing, for once! And who was the man, who got the girls screaming? Niklaus boyzu Steiner, that's who. Wearing a gaucho hat, marking the beat with his magic tambourine, toasting in Swiss-German like so few have since, he captivated the younguns fully. For a day, we were all stars, but Nick was the man.