jamarchKingston, Jamaica: – Peter Tosh’s notorious Stratocaster M16 guitar will be auctioned by the Flashpoint Film Festival on eBay, November 26 – December 3.
At 10pm on Sunday, November 26, Reggae fans, and guitar enthusiasts will be able to bid for Peter Tosh’s ‘one of a kind’ M16 guitar. The auction will run on eBay for 7 days and end at 10pm on Sunday December 3. Online computers will be set up for patrons to bid at the festival from Friday, December 1 – Sunday, December 3, 2006 at The Caves, Negril.
Born Winston Hubert McIntosh in Jamaica in October 1944, reggae’s most committed revolutionary, Peter Tosh pioneered musical crusades for the legalization of marijuana and the dismantling of South Africa’s apartheid system. During his 1983 tour of Europe, Peter unveiled a new instrument to fight against injustice. That instrument was a Stratocaster guitar, which he requested to be shaped like an M16 rifle. It was through the sweet sound of his guitar that he cried out for freedom. Concerning his newly fashioned guitar, Tosh had this to say: “This guitar is firing shots at all them devil disciples. Music is my weapon to fight against apartheid, nuclear war and those gang-jah criminals”. Peter Tosh died at the age of 42 on September 11th, 1987.
When asked how Peter Tosh’s M16 guitar ties in with Flashpoint, Paul Bucknor, Co-founder of the festival, responded: “Peter Tosh’s M16 Guitar is a Jamaican icon that has been misunderstood as promoting violence when in fact it’s quite the opposite. Tosh used music as a weapon to fight injustice and so too film is our weapon to fight the misconceptions about life in our home, Jamaica. Flashpoint wants to make Jamaica better understood through films”
While shooting Scoundrel in Gordon Town, Paul Bucknor met up with his long time friend Andrea (Marlene) Brown, Peter Tosh’s common-law-wife. The topic of the guitar soon came up and Marlene told Bucknor that she in fact owned the M16 guitar, which had been locked away in a closet in the US for the last 19 years. Peter Tosh’s M16 Guitar has finally returned home to be auctioned, the proceeds of which will go to The Penfield Orphans Home & The Cedar Valley Home.
Peter Tosh’s Stratocaster M16 guitar will be auctioned by the Flashpoint Film Festival on eBay, November 26 – December 3. The 2006 staging of the annual Flashpoint Film Festival is set for Friday, December 1 – Sunday, December 3 at The Caves, Negril. Firefly Films, The Caves, Island Outpost, JAMPRO, Phase 3, DB&G, Rockers Its Dangerous, Palm Pictures, Final Draft, Digital Edge, On Que Productions, CVM TV and HYPE TV sponsor the festival.
For further information please visit
www.flashpointfestival.com or www.myspace.com/flashpointfilmfestival
For interviews, pics or additional info, please contact:
Alison Young
[email protected]
876-365-3734
Media Writer
