Duff Review: Smiley and The Underclass: "The Way to the Bomb" EP

Timeless Records
Vinyl/digital
2020

(Review by Steve Shafer)

This is not an upbeat record. But, given the times and Smiley and The Underclass' passionately held left-wing beliefs, how could it be? By all accounts, things have gotten considerably worse since they unleashed their blisteringly good punk 'n' reggae debut album Rebels Out There in 2017, which I reviewed here (see the mass sickness and death caused by the incompetent response to the global covid-19 pandemic, the rise of white supremacists and authoritarians in decaying democracies, ever-worsening economic inequality, accelerating climate change, etc.). The fury and frustration at our ongoing descent toward personal, societal, and planetary ruin fuels the outrage in Smiley and The Underclass' dark but stellar The Way to the Bomb.

The party kicks off with the catchy and danceable (seriously) "The Return of the Vampire," a Hammer horror take on UK (and US) politicians preying on their own citizens, leaving agony and destruction in their wake: "Britain is in chaos/America is in flames/Nutters and demagogues rule the airwaves...Oh, I've got a smartphone/Now I'm a smart slave/I-man stepping higher to Zion/I'm climbing over barbed wire/I got the pliers/There's fires burning miles and miles/What's gonna happen to the next generation?/All I see: sufferation!" (Make sure to check out the killer, digital-only "The Return of the Vampire (Ronin's Lockdown Dub).")

Continuing with the horror show theme, in "We Are Monsters," both social and consolidated corporate media have been manipulated by predatory capitalists and right-wing goons to reap great profits, amass power, and sow division among the people (whose potential solidarity could easily upend the status quo), transforming us as if by mad laboratory-concocted pathogen into our own enemy: "We're just here for you/To ensure you don't miss the main eulogy/We blow blood bubbles or are they red raspberries/Over the graves of deceased democracies/Killed off by years of tabloid-led hypocrisy/Now tell me truthfully, don't be a liar/Fighting between two vampires for hire/Fangs made of fibre and wires/Mr. Jones, listen--tell me your desires." (The "Mr. Jones" mention might be a nod to The Psychedelic Furs' broadside aimed at the false, yet highly seductive, idealized imagery constructed by Hollywood and Madison Avenue to sell tickets and goods: "Movie stars and ads and radio define romance/Don't turn it on, I don't wanna dance!" Those were simpler times.)

The deeply mournful and angry (and Jam/Clash "Call Up" referencing) "FLAG" notes how the now ubiquitous cruelty and hatred unleashed in one's own country has left everyone hollow inside: "There's no birds/In the garden/Just plastic bottles and a hole in the fence/Used to dream of an English Rose/But he don't dream no more (and he wonders)/What am I supposed to feel?...I can't read the sign of the times." A town called Malice, indeed. Yet, Smiley and The Underclass do offer a glimmer of hope and encouragement to their fellow humans trying to get by in a hostile world. "We All Get Like This" reminds the listener that we're often our own worst critics and shouldn't allow that self-doubt and self-sabotage to get us down: "Nobody's ever sorted/Not if they're really truthful."

Everything ends with the frenzied skabilly cut "Wanna Blow Up the Whole World." It's all bloodlust and sex--expressing humanity's knack for efficiently doling out violence on our own kind, and our innate attraction to self-destruction: "Tear gas in your heart/Razor wire in bed/All I could see was her legs/She played your part/When she breathed in your ear/'Here's what I want from you dear...'"

The vivid images in the mirror that Smiley and The Underclass hold up for the listener sure aren't pretty, but at least to you can readily sing along and dance to their songs. It's a great soundtrack for these seemingly end times.

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Duff Review: Smiley and the Underclass "Rebels Out There"

CD/LP/digital download
Bredda Records
2017

(Review by Steve Shafer)

I knew I probably was going to like Smiley and the Underclass' LP when my mail ordered copy arrived in NYC from the UK with the following request on the back of the mailer: "Dear Mailman, if you pass Trump Tower, stick a middle finger up for me." (Hopefully, he or she complied!)

London's Smiley and the Underclass occupy the same fantastic punk 'n' reggae space as The Clash, The Ruts, and Citizen Fish--and are equally as outspoken in the face of injustice as those aforementioned bands. Their fiercely good debut album Rebels Out There (engineered by Nick Manasseh) is filled with indelible songs of outrage and lament over our thoroughly screwed up world--societal breakdown ("Babylon is Spiraling Out of Control") and environmental apocalypse ("Another Kind of Human") loom on the horizon throughout the course of these songs--but the band often posits that the solutions to these myriad issues will only come about if the listener becomes involved and takes action. However bad it is out there, it's not hopeless (yet).

Indeed, on the anti-conformist title track, Smiley repeatedly wails "Are there any rebels out there?" and then urges the listener, "Don't pay your mortgage, don't pay your tax/Take your money out of their banks/Know your neighbours, secret town halls/People means us, politics means wars/Real rebels grow food, don't eat that shit/from a pale faced clown who wants to kill off the kids/Mother nature's dying while we're running this race/Can we look our grandkids in the face?" Likewise, in the brilliant "Want Stuff/Make Stuff," Smiley and the Underclass want to shake you out of apathy/complacency to actively lead your life, no matter what your station or circumstance: "We're living and swimming within a time that's getting harder/No money, austerity, predatory while the rich hide in the larder/But I love ya, I love ya, no matter where you're heads at today/So I say/Want stuff? Make stuff/Want love? Make love/Want truth? Make truth in the booth..." (presumably both the voting and recording booths). And there's a great environmental plea wrapped within ("So, all I really got to say in case the Earth should pass away/Please be kind and use your mind and plant a zillion trees a day!"). Do be sure to check out all of their song lyrics on their Bandcamp page (they're not included with the LP).

Other standout tracks include "It's All England" (featuring Vin Gordon on trombone), which is about feeling and being disenfranchised in your own, completely familiar land ("When I think of England I don't think of black cabs and cops/I think of chain links and locks/Dirty looks and chicken shops, tower blocks/and a wrap of weed in my socks"); the skabilly "Machiavelli Blues" (what you get when you live in a society that values duplicity and self-interest above all else); the Jim Morrison referencing "No-One's Getting Out," a song from the perspective of life itself (as if it were a character in "The Seventh Seal"); their powerful cover of Johnny Osbourne's "Truth and Rights"; and the gleeful, you-have-to-sing-along anthem of empowerment and rebellion, "Jump the Barrier."

People looking for potent protest music for the Trump/May era need look no further than Smiley and the Underclass' dynamite Rebels Out There.



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Duff Review: Usual Players "Street Ska, Volume 1"

One Thirty-Four Records
2011
CD

North London band the Usual Players produce a spirited brand of spiky post-2 Tone ska that could be best described as what you'd hear if Dick Lucas of Citizen Fish were ever to front The Toasters. (Yes, Usual Players singer Lewis Norton's voice is strikingly similar to Lucas'--compare this Citizen Fish track to one of the UP's tracks below). As the album's title might suggest (and the singer's working class accent re-affirms), the world perspective presented here is that of the average man in the street--but the kicker is that all the lyrics here essentially relate to having lived long enough and been let down so often that you've become completely disappointed by life.

Songs on Street Ska include those about being totally uninspired by corporatized, rebellion-free modern rock ("The Soul of Rock and Roll (is Dead)"); guiltily trolling for semi-anonymous sexual liaisons on Facebook ("Fancy a Facebook"--a new crude phrase for the digital age!); dysfunctional relationships with the opposite sex ("Free" and the stuck-in-my head "Cool Girl"); disgust at a political system that only rewards the powerful and rich ("Right on John"); a tale about an immigrant from Italy who pays her way through prostitution (the reggay-ish "Santa Maria"); and struggling to find an escape from the boredom and monotony of school and work, but finding yourself trapped in the same old same old and being painfully aware of your life slipping away ("Bad Pills," So Whatford"). Despite all the cynicism, disillusionment, and bleakness on display here, it's not all grim. There is much wit and humor to be found in the Usual Players' lyrics (from "Tatt's Too Bad": "Hooligans with Buddha on their arms/but they can't even tell you what religion reads the Qur'an")--plus it doesn't hurt that the songs are get-up-on-your-feet catchy!

In "Right on John," Norton's sung criticism of "how things are" is pretty sharp and furious (but not off the mark): "We like to keep the dog well fed/by keeping half the Third World dead/Fueling our homes and our cars/by the means of illegitimate wars/There's no such thing as climate change/just another one of their controlling aims/Using fear as a way of tax/to keep us on the straight, narrow tracks." But then later in the song, he deflates any trace of self-righteous Bono/St. Bob pomposity by stating, "Don't you just hate the song/when politics are spoken by some musician/It's not that you disagree with the opinion/It's just lame/I know I should do more, join a march/or rally for some cause/But that just seems long/So for now I'll protest in this song." He's got something to say, and the platform to share it...but feels that it's unlikely to change anything (though Billy Bragg might want a word with you, boys).

But what seems to truly raise the hackles of the Usual Players is how all of the obligations and responsibilities that come with adulthood eventually corrupt and grind you down--so that complacency sets in, you make all sorts of moral compromises, and forgo your dreams of greatness for something much less. In "So Whatford," Norton can barely choke back the bile as he blisteringly sings: "Spend your days in the same jobs/Spend your nights in the same pubs/Forty pound for cocaine, that's a shame, mate/You've been taken for a mug/You're poncing money off the government/Exclaiming it's to be your entitlement/You blame everything on immigration/And you call yourselves honest men...No ambition/Just repetition/This is the story and this is the mission/Calling all town rats and estate cats/Your life is over/That's a fact." (Guess it should be mentioned here that the exact town the band is from is Whatford--so this barbed attack is on their own.)

Yet there's a way out and he's taking it (and wouldn't mind it if you'd join him): "Council estate boy that is me/I'm from a place called South Oxhey/Forget what I'm told, I get a bit bold/It's a massive world out here you see...I've got ambition/I hate repetition /This is my story and my mission/Calling all town rats and estate cats/Time to kick off and react...Just stand up and fight it/Shake your heads and reject it/Go take everything/No matter what it costs/Be more than just Whatford."

So the Usual Player's story is that our way of life sucks and just about everyone you know is going to let you down--but their mission is not to surrender. These are rebel songs to see you fight another day in the Age of Austerity...

Duff Guide to Ska Grade: B+/A-


Usual Players - Right on John - One Thirty Four Records by Usual Players

Usual Players - Fancy a Facebook - One Thirty Four Records by Usual Players

Usual Players - Cool Girl - One Thirty Four Records by Usual Players

Usual Players - Santa Maria - One Thirty Four Records by Usual Players

Usual Players - Bad Pills - One Thirty Four Records by Usual Players

Usual Players - So Whatford - One Thirty Four Records by Usual Players

Dirty Revolution - It's Gonna Get Dirty...(EP)

Do the Dog Music
2008

Wales-based Dirty Revolution offers up a good hybrid of rough and ready, guitar-based punky-reggae/ska similar to Citizen Fish, though this band sports alternating male and female vocalists (always welcome in ska--why aren't there more female-fronted ska bands?!--Reb Sutton has a terrific, powerful voice, reminding one of Rhoda Dakar). On this five-song CD EP (all tracks can be sampled on their MySpace page), Dirty Revolution also share many of the same concerns as Citizen Fish with their socially-conscious lyrics promoting peace, understanding, unity, and freedom (no complaints here).

"Dirty Revolution" is the band's fired-up manifesto: everything that is messed up in the world can only be solved by all of us getting our hands dirty, so to speak (Everybody knows the times are changing/Everybody sees the mess we're making/Everybody's in the fight we're facing/If it's set on fire only we can save us"). "I Love Reggae" recounts the tale of being tripped up by subcultural signifiers--trying to pick up a skinhead she assumes is anti-racist...("I said I love reggae/I said I love ska/He said he loved Screwdriver...You can call me naive/call me stupid/I can't believe people still listen to nazi music...Him and me wear the same clothes?"). Either way, an ironic lesson in judging a book by its cover, eh?

"Failure to Communicate" features a great melodica line, while noting how far too many people talk at each other and, as a result, solve nothing ("Now everybody's talking and I think that what is missing/Is ability to listen to what is being said/Instead of blankly nodding your head/Ignoring what you hear 'cos you're waiting for your chance to speak"). "50p" is a funny, kind of sweet deflating of idiotic superstar posturing (a la 50 Cent and Britney), while the hard, angry reggae skank of "Police" (melodica here, too!) bemoans the fact that the coppers never seem to be around while things are going to hell, but "as soon as you deviate from the norm/then they'll come/then they'll swarm."

Dirty Revolution is certainly an up-and-coming band to keep tabs on--can't wait to see what they're going to bring to the barricades next time...

Grade: B/B+