Man In The Street - The Hooters Take The Skatalites To The People

I grew up in Central New Jersey and went to college at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. It was equidistant to both New York and Philadelphia from where I lived. Though I was always drawn to New York for concerts and records, there were some interesting things going on ska wise in Philly in the early 80's. Through word of mouth I heard about The Hooters. I liked their first independent album Amore which has a ska/reggae feel. After getting signed they re-recorded many of the ska sounding songs as rock songs and went on to MTV fame and fortune. I lost interest.

Believe it or not, when the Hooters started out in the early 80’s they could have been described as a ska band(including melodica on many of their tunes, hence the band name Hooters). Their very first recording, a demo that got a lot of airplay on WMMR in Philadelphia in 1980 (where they were a popular local band) was a version of Don Drummond’s ‘Man In The Street’. It was never released commercially. I didn't know at the time that it was a cover, but I remember thinking it was an amazing song. Only later did I make the connection that it was a great cover version of what has become one of my favorite Don Drummond/Skatalites songs.

Once again it is interesting to see the way ska and reggae has really influenced and changed the sound of so many bands. Too bad that The Hooters didn't stick with the sound. I think they could have been the US version of The Police.

Below is a live version of The Hooters performing "Man In The Street". The band has taken Drummond's classic trombone melody and turned it into a great guitar riff. To all you skeptics shaking your heads take my word and give it a listen. Its really good.

Fishbone Documentary: Everyday Sunshine

Last night I happened to watch this awesome documentary about The Ramones. As I watched I was thinking to myself, what other great American band mirrors The Ramones in so many ways? (childhood friends who start a band, blow up big, conquer the musical world, influence a generation of other bands, fight with one another, lose members, replace members, continue to carry on etc).

I don't even know what to say that hasn't already been said about Fishbone. Hands down one of the best live bands I have ever seen. I remember hearing their first record being played inside Tower Records in NYC around 1985 when it first came out. I was a ska freak even back then and when I heard "Party At Ground Zero" blowing through the store's speakers I ran over to the counter and asked the clerk what was on the turntable. When he told me "Why Fishbone of course!" I bought the LP on the spot. They've been a favorite band ever since.

Well imagine my surprise at learning a documentary about Fishbone is in the works. About time really. In my mind its long overdue. Here is the documentary description: From the shifting faultlines of Hollywood fantasies and the economic and racial tensions of Reagan's America, Fishbone rose and became one of the most original bands of the last 25 years. With a blistering combination of punk and funk they demolished the walls of genre and challenged the racial stereotypes and the political order of the music industry and of the nation. Party At Ground Zero is about music, history, fear, courage and funking on the one. Everyday Sunshine traces the band’s past and present, while providing a comprehensive view of the historical and cultural forces that gave rise to a legendary Black Punk Rock, Funk, Ska, Metal, Reggae, and R&B band from Los Angeles that continues to defy conventional categories and expectations.

I like the description of the documentary. I know I will go see it when it comes out next year. Despite the rock, funk and metal, I will always think of Fishbone as a ska band, I believ at their very core and despite their forays into metal, funk, rock, etc, ska is the lifeblood of the band.

Below are two clips from the documentary.

Sunless Saturday


Cheyenne Star Forever Moore

2-Tone Archive - Toni Tye's Photos Capture The Scene in B/W

Every key music scene has photographers and photos that capture it's true essence and flavor. Between February and May 1980 Toni Tye took some iconic photographs of the current 2 Tone ska scene, including the bands and their devoted fans, but then they were lost! Luckily for everyone she was able to revive some shots from rough prints and they are now available.

In 1980 while living in The Midlands, Toni Tye was invited to shoot stills (for a proposed book on 2 Tone) at the rehearsals and the gigs being filmed for the film ‘Dance Craze”. She focused mainly on the unique scene, the kids, the skins, the fashions and the bands backstage. The Body Snatchers, The Selecter, Madness & Bad Manners were shot variously on location at Hemel Hempstead, Lewisham Odeon, Electric Ballroom, Wembley, Coventry, Aylesbury, Sunderland and Shepperton between February 28th-May 3rd 1980.

Many believe that Toni Tye's photos of the 2-Tone bands and their fans from that iconic time are the definitive illustration of an era in UK music history. In fact Tye's photos have been exhibited across the UK. Most recently in 2006 and again in 2007 as part of celebrations around the founding of 2-Tone in Coventry and Skinhead Culture in the UK.

Here is an interview with Tye from Blow-Ups, a site that has turned some of her photos into very cool t-shirts:

Who approached you in the first instance to join the tour?
I was introduced to the director Joe Massot by an old friend, Robin Hogarth, who liked my documentary portrait style. He suggested I come along on their shoots for ‘Dance Craze’ & do my thing with the idea we would produce a book of images to go with the film.

How did your approach differ from the other photographers on the 2 Tone tour?
The film crew were shooting the bands’ on stage performances & I mainly turned the camera on the fans...the nutty scene; the fashions, tattoos, skanking….With an all areas pass I also shot backstage/dressing rooms, quieter moments with bands & roadies...I really had no idea who was who.

Do you have a personal favourite image?
Mirror image of Rhoda Daker of Body Snatchers

How did you manage to lose the originals!?
I went to the West Indies for 2 months & left all my negatives & transparencies (dumb) & my choice of prints with the production team to use for publicity & start their work of selection for our book. On return I found the film had premiered (in haste as the scene was moving on) & a very basic fanzine of my pics had been produced. No one could tell me where my originals had gone... supposedly lost at the printers! (right). No royalties paid... I just had a box of my small rough prints left from which all my archive work has been generated.

Which band member was the least camera shy?
Madness collectively posed on every sight of the camera!

Do you have images that didn’t make the final cut?
Alas…hundreds…all lost

What was the atmosphere like backstage between the various bands?
Well, front of stage you’d find bands dancing to each other's sets along with the fans

How would you describe the fans at the gigs?
Mainly very young… school kids at the afternoon gigs with all the gear on…really relating to the speedy energy & the lyrics. Then there were the Skins…mostly cool….some heavy energy & classic fights at later gigs.

Did you dance at the gigs?
Certainly! Who could stand still….

What made the scene unique in your opinion?
This was/is street music….seemed like fans & bands, black & white were in it together.

Are there any current bands or youth movements you would be interested in photographing?
Idea to shoot ‘Women in Ska’….where are they?

Here are just a few of the fantastic pictures on the site. They are available for sale on Toni's site. A great gift idea for the Rude Boy or Girl in your life.

Charlie from The Selecter signs autographs for kids

Coventry kid with Selecter album

Rhoda from The Bodysnatchers



Sara Jane from The Bodysnatchers



Buster Shaving



Fans at a show


Selecter Interview

Neol Davies - The Selecter

I've been meaning to post about The Selecter for some time now and Neol Davies in particular. I have a very soft spot in my heart for him and for Pauline Black. The first real tour my band ever did was during the summer of 1991 with The Selecter when they re-formed for a one-off tour to play shows in the U.S. They were both very kind to us and Pauline remembered us recently when I saw her last summer. I'll post more about Pauline at another time.

Neol Davies was a massive mover in the 2-Tone movement as the lead guitarist and songwriter for The Selecter. If Jerry Dammers was the President of 2-Tone then it was surely Neol who took the vice-presidency. While The Specials were busy experimenting with irony, it was The Selecter who really drove home the message of unity with Neol’s hard-hitting compositions. Songs like On My Radio, Three-Minute Hero and Too Much Pressure will always be rightly linked to him but there’s a whole lot more to Mr Davies than just The Selecter. Pre-Selecter days saw him playing in bands like the bluesy Cat’s Grave, Mead, Chapter Five and the seminal Transposed Men. His post-Selecter days gave him the chance to champion his love for the blues once more with The Box Of Blues, a project that included Horace Panter & Anthony Hearty.

I've always been very interested in how all the 2-Tone bands got started. It turns out that many members of The Specials and The Selecter travelled in the same circles in mid-70's Coventry and were in bands together. One that was key to the birth of The Selecter was the Transposed Men. The line up consisted of Neol Davis, John Bradbury (before he defected to the Specials) Kevin Harrison, Desmond Brown (later in Selecter) and Steve Wayne. Kevin Harrison has added an early rehearsal sudio recording to his personal history site of On My Radio. This is just a rehearsal tape but shows the song in development with some different musicians before Selecter was born a little while later.

On My Radio - Transposed Men

Neol's musical career has continued evolving. Below is a live performance of the Skatalites classic "Ali Pang" re-arranged and performed by Neol and his 8 piece instrumental ska band in 1995. Apparently this is the only video recording of the band that exists though there is an unreleased album. Now he is best known for his band Box Of Blues which features Horace Panter on bass. For more information on Neol's musical endeavors and a detailed history of his life in and outside The Selecter please visit his great web site.

Exclusive: Interview with Lynval Golding about The Specials Reunion

Last night was a real treat for me and my band mates. We opened a sold out show for The English Beat at the Sellersville Theatre in Sellersville, PA. We've been lucky to play with them 6 times or so over the last 2 years, but there seems to be something extra special about the shows we've played with them at the Sellersville Theatre. The staff at the club are great and treat us so nicely. The people who come out to the show are always so appreciative and kind to us when we play there. I think it may be one of my favorite places to play a show these days.


We arrived around the same time that Dave Wakeling and his band rolled up in their tour bus. Dave walked in and sat down to talk with us and tell us about the current tour which has been going great with sold out performances up and down the East Coast. As we were talking Lynval Golding walked in guitar in hand. I could not believe my good fortune. Not only is Lynval one of my musical heroes, but he is a true gentleman and always willing to talk to fans. He treats everyone with respect and I love that about him. It turned out he had joined Dave for this tour and the band was planning to play a number of Specials songs in the set (they played Message To You Rudie, Do Nothing and Enjoy Yourself).

I had briefly met Lynval before, but I walked over to say hello and while he tuned his guitar, I asked him about The Specials rumored reunion. So here is the scoop and it seems pretty legitimate. It turns out Lynval and Terry Hall are the driving force behind the reunion and that Neville, Horace, Brad and Roddy are all on board. According to Lynval he has rehearsed with Terry, Brad, Horace and Roddy and the songs they have played sound amazing. Unfortunately a lot of the band meetings have included lawyers and managers and that has made it slow going to pull it together. Lynval said that he and most of his band mates recognize that this reunion is for the fans and they all realize that the time is right to do this. Initially they plan to play 12-13 shows around the UK this October and November and based on how the shows go they will discuss booking shows in the US.

In terms of how everyone is getting on, it sounds like Jerry is the major stumbling block here. Lynval mentioned that Jerry has "a lot of baggage" and that while they have told him they want him to be the musical director of the band, he is having trouble accepting that all 7 band members are now on equal footing and its not his band anymore to say what will happen and when. That seems to jive with the recent interview with Jerry I posted here recently where he expressed his concerns that the band was not ready to play out live. Lynval confirmed that the other members are committed to playing together and that the reunion will go forward with or without Jerry.

Further to my informal conversation with Lynval about the reunion here is a interview with him that was recorded in Seattle at the end of April.

English Beat Live - The Palace Theatre, Hollywood, CA 3/8/83

My band Bigger Thomas is opening for The English Beat tomorrow night at the Sellersville Theatre in Sellersville, PA. Its always a thrill to play with them and I always enjoy getting a chance to talk and hang out with Dave Wakeling and the members of the band (Wayne Lothian on bass, Rythym Epkins on drums and Fernando Jativa on Saxophone). In honor of the show I've posted a great live show by The English Beat from The Palace Theatre in Hollywood, CA from March 8, 1983.



The set list and performance is absolutely brilliant and shows off the band when they were really at the top of their game and on the cusp on breaking big in the US. This bootleg features 23 songs pulling heavily from the first and third albums with three songs from the often overlooked 2nd album "Whappen".

Enjoy and if you happen to near Sellersville, PA tomorrow then be sure to stop by.

The English Beat - The Palace Theatre 3/8/83

Blue Riddim Band - America's First Reggae Band

A few weeks ago I called The Untouchables America's first ska band. In that same vein the Blue Riddim Band were America's first reggae band. I picked up their only LP "Restless Spirit" at the famous Princeton Record Exchange in the mid-80's on a whim and it became a staple on my turntable. They had a minor underground hit with "Nancy Reagan" in the mid-80s and they also recorded a great and very hard-to-find 12" remix of the song featuring Ranking Roger called "Nancy Goes To Moscow."

Never heard of them you say? Well then you are in for a treat. This group of blue eyed, white dudes from Lawrence Kansas have the distinction of being the very first American reggae band to be invited to play at a Reggae Sunsplash concert. Their 1982 set as dawn was rising over the stage is legendary and they earned 2 encores from the crowd of 20,000 Jamaicans who were mesmerized by their "blue eyed reggae." They toured the US non-stop in the mid-80's. Their Sunsplash performace was nominated for a Grammy for best reggae album. Chances are if you were in college at that time and had a penchant for reggae you crossed paths with BRB.

Here is a great read on the band written by Mike Warren in The Pitch in 2002, a Kansas City entertainment newspaper. Unfortunately singer and trumpet player Scott Korchak passed away in September 2007.

Twenty-three years ago, Bob Marley played Hoch Auditorium at the University of Kansas. Local fans knew and loved Marley's music, but their regular exposure to roots-reggae came from the opening act, Pat's Blue Riddim Band, and that group's frequent visits to KC's Parody Hall and Lawrence's Off the Wall Hall. Kansas City's PBR, as it was, and frequently still is, affectionately known, held its own with the king of reggae that night.

Pat's Blue Riddim Band had a reg-gay old time in the 70's. "We were the first guys down the pike -- we had that opportunity," longtime Blue Riddim drummer Steve "Duck" McLane says, warm memories audible in his voice. "What was really cool [in our career] was having a chance to open for Bob Marley, Sly and Robbie, and Black Uhuru. Every night we'd get clobbered by them, but we'd climb up another notch. It was a real chop-builder."

In its earliest incarnations, PBR consisted of friends who graduated from Shawnee Mission East in '67 and '68. "We were born out of that late-'60s Kansas City scene -- the Vanguard, the Aquarius -- places where people were hanging out," McLane says. "We'd all played jazz and R&B together, in all different kinds of aggregations." McLane, who started hearing reggae when he played in New York and south Florida in the early '70s, immediately knew it was something he wanted to do.

"I came back to KC and said, 'We really ought to try to play some reggae music,'" McLane explains. "It was big-time dance music, and we all love dance music, so we started experimenting. By '74, we had something that was workable, a band called Rhythm Funkshun. That band, basically a rhythm section version of what became PBR, broke up because it was a little bit ahead of its time.

"About a year and a half later, we started PBR," McLane continues. "We were playing 10 percent ska, 10 percent calypso, maybe 25 percent straight-up R&B, and the rest of it would be reggae. People were just everywhere, on top of each other, dancing."

During the early '80s, PBR toured nonstop, burning through two vans and 42 of 50 states. "We just had our nose to the grindstone and never stopped," McLane says. "We really should have taken more time out to record, but it was 'dollar a day, give us what you can' and keep moving. When it got to the point where we could actually play it good, we made a record [1981's Restless Spirit]."

PBR made several trips to Jamaica, where it learned from the genre's best practitioners. "Jamaican musicians are really approachable, and we'd hang out with them -- a cultural exchange," McLane explains. Equally accessible were Jamaican DJs. "When I flew down there in late '81, I brought a box of 25 records, and I thought, What the hell. I'll drive them up to [Kingston radio stations] RJR and JBC. While I was driving to JBC, I heard the song come over RJR -- and I just about drove off the road. I thought, I'm driving around Jamaica, and I'm hearing my own music on the radio!"

Six months later, Blue Riddim became the first American band to play Sunsplash in Jamaica. "We were voted co-'Best Band' of the entire festival," McLane says. "It blew me away that we blew them away. I was expecting pineapples and cantaloupes thrown at us. We're playing these old songs, and we're also from America, and we're also white. It's five o'clock in the morning, and they're going, 'What in the ... ?'

"The lyrics from the very first song, "Smile," are It's best to arrive with a smile on your face, and just at that moment, the sun was creaking up over the mountain and shining down onto the field," McLane recalls. "People are getting the sun in their eyes right as they hear these lyrics, and they started screaming and bawling and jumping up and down. All of a sudden you had 20,000 people jumping up and down." That performance, released in 1984 as Alive in Jamaica, earned the band a Grammy nomination.

Twenty years later, the Blue Riddim Band returns home for an encore. Longstanding veterans, including Scott Korchak (vocals, brass), Jack Lightfoot (trumpet), Jeff Porter (vocals, guitar), Jack Blackett (tenor sax), Joe Miquelon (keyboards) and Todd "Bebop" Byrd (bass) will be joined by folks such as Stephanie Cox (trombonist for the Loose Cannon Brass Band -- still another of PBR's permutations). Says McLane, "It's like any band that's been around for this long -- whoever's left standing who wants to show up can play.

"We lost Bob Zohn, a great singer and songwriter from Florida who died several years back, but basically the core of the band exists here in good ol' Kansas City," McLane explains. "It's great, because a lot of SDI [Strategic Dance Initiative] alums have come into the Blue Riddim fold, and we all play together. For this particular show, we'll have a taste of SDI, a taste of New Riddim [a more recent dancehall version of the band], older Blue Riddim, newer Blue Riddim -- whatever we're serving up at that particular time." For old fans -- and new -- it's a chance to get reacquainted with a band that made the Caribbean feel as if it were just next door.

The bands LPs and CDs are all out of print and hard to find. Here are You Tube versions of live performances:

Nancy Reagan Live at Reggae Sunsplash 1982

Live in San Francisco in 1982