At the invitation of Island Outpost, Editor in Chief Arnie Weissmann inspected Strawberry Hill and GoldenEye, then finished his visit to Jamaica spending 48 hours at Pantrepant with CEO Chris Blackwell. Weissmann interviewed Blackwell for several hours there. Below are snippets of their conversation that didn't fit the flow of the Island Outpost overview but seemed too interesting to leave on the cutting room floor.
Here's what Chris Blackwell had to say about:
The differences between hospitality and the recording industry:
The good thing about the record business is that you finish the record and you mix the record and the record stays mixed. Hotels are an incredibly difficult business because things are constantly changing and your work is never done. You figure you've got everything right, and the next day you go into a room and it's changed: The pictures aren't straight, and the lampshade's all crooked. It's constantly, constantly, constantly changing.
Other projects he's involved in:
We're producing a musical now, a Bob Marley musical set from the end of November 1976 to the end of April 1978. That's the period when Bob was shot and then went to England and then he came back and did the Peace Concert in Jamaica.
It's initially going to open in London [in the fall]. It played for five weeks last May in Baltimore. It opened the same day as the riots. Outside there was burning and looting, and inside people were singing the song "Burning and Looting." It was extraordinary, really uncanny because Bob's [work], and what he was all about, it was totally relevant."
The perception that Jamaica is dangerous:
There was a period, quite a while ago, things were definitely not good, and that damaged Jamaica a great deal. Most third-world capital cities are a bit rough, you know, and there was a lot of gang warfare, political warfare. But it's not like that now, it's really different. I think that's partly because Jamaica's got a little bit better and the rest of the world has got a lot worse. There are a lot of places in the world you really can't go now.
Resort fees:
What's a resort fee?
South Beach:
When I first went to South Beach, I found this incredible place, and everything was closed up. There was nothing. There were crack houses. It was just a mess, so nobody would go. People say that when a place goes down like that, it can never come up, but that's not true. It usually starts with artists, gays, people who have an eye and can feel a place even though it's run down.
The Marlin is credited with being the hotel that started it all, but there were other ones there. It was such fun when I started. I loved it; it was like the Wild West. You'd look up and see a girl, topless, skating along.
I was there a couple of months ago, and I didn't like it at all, but it's incredibly successful now. Now it's all developed. It's all done.
Cuba:
I haven't been to any of the other islands [in the Caribbean] in a long time, to tell you the truth. I think Cuba opening up is going to make a huge difference. A lot of people in Jamaica are nervous, saying, "When Cuba's opened up, why is anybody going to come to Jamaica?" But I think it's so great, and I think it will be very good for Jamaica. Jamaica was thriving "BC" -- Before Castro -- and everybody was going to Havana and then coming to Jamaica because they have a very different feel.
Major hotel companies creating boutique, lifestyle brands:
It's not possible. Mind you, I base all my thoughts and direction on what has been my day job for most of my life, which is the record business. Whenever I would get somebody who was a professional operator doing things the way a large corporation does things, they want to do things the way that 80% of the people do things. I don't have that skill, I'm not a good enough businessman to be in a big business. And I'm not interested in that. I'm in the 20% business. The 80% business, at the end of the day, comes down to a commodity. But 20%, you're not for everybody. You don't have 1,000 rooms, you have 100 rooms.