Letters to my sons.

Dear Son,

I was listening to my iPod on the way home from work and getting a little frustrated at the sound quality. I’m not sure if the problem is the iPod its self or the headphones or a combination of the two but I don’t get any bass response at all.

The three types of music that I listen to require bass:

1. Soca
2. Dub
3. Trance

The other stuff I listen too doesn’t have the bass emphasis. The classical music I listen too sounds fantastic but with the Soca I can’t get that Tragrette Road experience. Having said that to get that experience I would need a sound system on a lorry. The last time I spent too long next to a sound truck – on the Pure Lime sound lorry – I was deaf for a good few days. I don’t suppose it would be practical to have a sound truck following me around on the off chance that I wanted to listen to Jumbie by Scrunter but listening to it on my iPod is frustrating. The bass comes in but I can’t hear it and the feeling that I got at 4am covered in mud, grease and paint playing J’Ouvert with Mudders International in Port of Spain is missing.

I’ve just done a little experiment and it’s the iPod Nano that fails to cut the mustard. I’ll have to wait to see what the new iPhone can do. Steve Job’s didn’t mention the bass response in terms of my musical likes when he made his keynote speech on Monday – he talked about 3G and GPS and how easy it is to write apps for the iPhone but no mention of Machel.

Wining up in ah band
Jammin on ah woman
shakin down in de stand

Ah musical jumbie is roaming through de land
It have me uneasy, ah just cyah understand
Any whey ah go it like meh shadow
Make me lose control when it touch meh soul
Meh body shakin, ah doh want to stop
Cause if ah do dat, it go lick me up
It have meh…

White man cyah wine? For this one it depends on how much rum has been drunk, the more I drink the less pain I have in my knees.