I spent more time than I should have last Saturday afternoon clicking the replay button on YouTube.
The video clip I kept repeating consisted of bland still shots of Lee "Scratch" Perry's sublime smile as he huddled up close to the earnest gaze of Andrew W.K.
But the music was an irresistible fusion of Perry's wacked-out, hypnotic vocals and W.K.'s thunderous party beats. The song was "Pum Pum" (pronounced "Poom Poom"), the first single from Perry's forthcoming Repentance, set for release in August.
The album is produced by Andrew W.K. Perry explains the album's title online in a promotional clip. "I make myself over. When you decide to smoke the ganja you're abusing it, and I was abusing it, too."
After drenching my ears in several listens, I'm betting that "Pum Pum" will become Perry's entry into 21st-century Top 40 radio. The song is infectious in a mass-appeal way. It's tailor-made for contemporary hit music stations like Z104.
Perry turned 72 in March. He's already established himself as a reggae legend. He's widely viewed as the inventor of dub and the DJ scratch technique.
Perry and W.K. are the second great marriage of musical minds recorded in the last year. Alison Krauss and Robert Plant showed the possibilities of pop music collaboration in October with their Raising Sand release.
The two pairings have a lot in common. They both come off as odd couples. With Krauss and Plant, the king of heavy metal met the queen of delicate bluegrass. And with W.K. and Perry, a founding father of reggae meets an excitable son of club land.
In both instances, the recording digs past the initial incongruity to reveal the artists' surprisingly shared roots. Krauss and Plant found common ground in rhythmic acoustic blues. Perry and W.K. discover their harmony in big-beat dubs and chanted vocals.
Perry's eccentric nature hasn't faded over the years. On his MySpace page, he introduces himself as "an artist, a musician, a magician, a writer and a singer. I'm everything.
"I'm a man from somewhere else, but my origin is from Africa, straight to Jamaica through reincarnation, reborn in Jamaica."
He's sure to bring a heap of personality to the Majestic on Wednesday night.
Lee "Scratch" Perry, Wednesday, July 9, Majestic Theatre, 8 pm
