The Duff Guide to Ska: The Crabs Corporation Meets King Hammond Bring Down the Birds (Flying High Mix)

Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Crabs Corporation Meets King Hammond Bring Down the Birds (Flying High Mix)

Record Kicks
2010
7" vinyl single (also available as a digital download)

The outstanding Buenos Aires-based "early reggae" practitioners The Crabs Corporation join forces with the prodigious King Hammond--a perfect pairing of musical talents and vision, really--for a trippy, skinhead reggae reading of Herbie Hancock's "Bring Down the Birds" (this is a brilliant choice of a cover--it's from Hancock's soundtrack to Michelangelo Antonioni's classic mod 1966 film "Blow-Up"). KH produces and boasts, while The Crabs Corporation bring the amazing noise. Let's hope this augurs more collaborative projects from them in the future (my one minor beef with this release is that there is no second cut, both sides are the same, and I want more!). Definitely worth tracking down (Jump Up Records carries it in the US)--and a must for all King Hammond completists!

Duff Guide to Ska Grade: A

2 comments:

daniel said...: wow!! what a nice surprise... I am a regular Duff Guide reader and I happen to play keyboards with The Crabs Corp! Glad you liked this thing we did... We put out another single with Record Kicks, and also a couple o tracks in two comps they did...
Again, thanks!
d.; August 13, 2010 at 9:00 PM
Steve from Moon said...: Thanks for your kind words, Daniel! As you can see, I really dig this track and am in touch with Jump Up to get a hold of a copy of the single you and The Crabs Corp. did with Dave Barker and Jennie Matthias. I plan to review it, too...

Best regards,

Steve; August 13, 2010 at 9:42 PM

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Steve Shafer/The Duff Guide to Ska
For most of the 1990s, I was the promotions, marketing, production guy for Moon Records (RIP). It was one of the best jobs I ever had. Seriously, I miss it badly. During 1999/2000, I ran 7 Wonders of the World Music, the first digital download-only ska label that was too ahead of the curve for its own good (RIP).

I filmed and edited this Toasters video for $2,500, which made its debut on MTV's 120 Minutes. I also put together these compilations for Moon: the first three Skarmageddons; Ska United: A Global Ska Sampler; Skank Down Under; This Are Moon Ska I, II, and III; and Moonshot!

Here's an old interview with Adam Monkey from Read Magazine that covers my days at Moon and 7 Wonders. I also did a somewhat more recent interview with Read Junk.

I've been interviewed about ska music and Moon Records for The New York Times, Heather Augustyn's "Ska: The Rhythm of Liberation," Aaron Carnes' "In Defense of Ska," Kenneth Partridge's "Hell of a Hat: The Rise of '90s Ska and Swing," and Marc Wasserman's "Ska Boom: An American Ska & Reggae Oral History" (I also wrote the introductory chapter "1985: The Year American Ska Broke" for Wasserman's book).

And I'm the author of "The Duff Guide to 2 Tone," which can be ordered from Amazon--and is available in the US from Jump Up Records, and in Europe from the 2 Tone Village Shop (Coventry, UK), Champion Sound Records (Hull, UK), Aggroshop (Nijmegen, Netherlands), and Copasetic Mailorder (Hamburg, Germany). Plus, my book was on sale in the museum shop for the "2 Tone: Lives & Legacies" exhibition (May 28 - September 12, 2021), curated by Simon Reynolds, Cory Barrett, Pete Chambers, Jennifer Otter Bickerdike and Daniel Rachel, at the Herbert Art Gallery Museum in Coventry, UK.

I'm now working on my next book, "Calling All the Rude Boys: The Duff Guide to The Toasters, 1981-1992," to be published in 2023.

If you have a ska or reggae release that you'd like me to consider reviewing, please send an e-mail to Steve at duffguidetoska@gmail.com. You should know that I am old school and prefer music in tangible formats (plus I might use your music when I DJ ska events). I'd also appreciate any news or tips you may have about bands.

All reviews and interviews posted on The Duff Guide to Ska are copyrighted and are the sole property of Steve Shafer. Please contact me for permission to reproduce anything on this blog.

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Check out The Duff Guide to Ska Video Channel for footage of ska bands in action in clubs around NYC, as well as unusual and rare ska videos from the 90s! Bands featured include The Toasters, The Bluebeats, The Forthrights, Across the Aisle, The Caroloregians, The Moon Invaders, The Rudie Crew, Tip the Van, Hey Stranger, Beat Brigade, Bigger Thomas, King Chango, The Scofflaws, UB40, The Hard Times, Jah Love and the Valentinians, The Shifters, Rudies Don't Care, Big Audio Dynamite, Stranger Cole and Patsy with Crazy Baldhead, Queen P of Ocean 11, King Hammond, The Snails, King Django, Doomsday! The Ultimate Tribute to Mephiskapheles Consisting of Former Members of Mephiskapheles, Destroy Babylon, The Frightnrs, The Pandemics, Los Skarroneros, The Bullbuckers, The Scofflaws, The Reggay Lords, The Copacetics, Rude Boy George, Dave Hillyard and the Rocksteady 7, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, The Specials, Roddy Radiation and Lynval Golding, The Ladrones, Chris Murray, Radio Riddler, UB40 featuring Ali Campbell, Astro, and Mickey Virtue, Barbicide, The Twilights, Bim Skala Bim featuring John Bunkley (Gangster Fun), The Pomps, and more!

Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Crabs Corporation Meets King Hammond Bring Down the Birds (Flying High Mix)

2 comments:

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