Duff Guide to Ska: Year of Reviews--2019--Part V: Mark Foggo's Skasters, Lee "Scratch" Perry!

(Reviews by Steve Shafer)

Mark Foggo's Skasters Ska Pig Returns (LP, Jump Up Records, 2019): For anyone counting, Mark Foggo's Skasters released their debut album Ska Pig 30 (!) years ago (I first encountered them in '89 on Skank Records' Ska For Ska's Sake compilation), hence the title of their new album, Ska Pig Returns. Throughout the decades, Foggo and Co. have been remarkably consistent in creating album after album of incredibly high energy, sing-song-y, slightly demented, but always entertaining 2 Tone-influenced ska (think Madness' "Land of Hope and Glory"/"Baggy Trousers" meets Ian Dury and the Blockheads' "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick"/"Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3") and their latest record doesn't disappoint! There's a stomper about encountering a woman on a train and thinking "she was the one, I was sure" but having her turn out to be the dreadful Theresa May and telling her off; a song about trying to make the best of things in increasingly dire times what with the planet dying and "Trump as boss" ("Eat Up Your Weeds": "Things are never as bad as they seem/But you never wake up from this one bad dream..."); and "Dum Diddy Die," a powerfully dark nursery rhyme of nonsensical sounds and disturbing couplets ("I've got to get a gun/And I got and fight the enemy/There's a very good chance/That maybe it's the end of me." But then there's the upbeat "Do The Monkey" (detailing the indignities the monkey in the zoo must suffer to get on); "London" is a really lovely, New Wave-tinged, unconventional tour of London ("Saw the queen and changed the guard/Breaking in, it wasn't hard/I just used my Oyster card/Had to beat the Scotland Yard/When I tried to steal the crown/The Beefeaters came and cut me down"); while the awesome "Rats and Mice" is about taphophobia, a fear that was much more widespread during the Victorian age ("Please build my coffin air-tight/But leave me for the rats and mice/And put me in a shallow grave/In case there's been a mistake/And I'm still alive!"). As you might infer from all this, Mark Foggo's Skasters' Ska Pig Returns seems like a blast--'cause it is!

Lee "Scratch" Perry Heavy Rain (LP/CD/digital, On-U Sound Records, 2019): This is the wild and massively good dub version of Perry and Adrian Sherwood's recent collaboration Rainford (reviewed by the Duff Guide here)--that actually overshadows its source material (and they include a few new cuts, too!). Heavy Rain plays to Perry and Sherwood's strengths as versioners; they're masters at revealing the dub versions not represented by, or hidden within, the official version (even if they created it in the first place). Perry and Sherwood have made space for the Rainford tracks to recombine, mutate, and augment--and their work reimagining the songs and adding effects, and blips and beeps both natural and synthesized is nothing short of brilliant. The deserved attention-getter is the incredible "Here Come the Warm Dreads" (the dub of one of Rainford's best tracks, "Makumba Rock"), with Brian Eno (get the punny title of this track now?) working his magic on everything coming out of your stereo's right channel. Perry's anti-capitalist/greed broadsides are largely traded in for the truly great Vin Gordon's melancholy, yet all-vanquishing trombone lines--and Gordon's playing is nothing short of magnificent on the now jauntier "Crickets in Moonlight" (original: "Cricket on the Moon"). Perry's "Autobiography of The Upsetter" is transformed into "Heavy Rainford," a wonderful conversation between a bluesy harmonica and reggae trombone (Vin Gordon, again!). The three new tracks that they slip in here are of the same calibre and fit in seamlessly. "Dreams Come True" is a slumberous cut that creates a musical twilight zone between the real and imagined (and this is apparently some of what Perry sees: "Mick Jagger/Tripe and banana/Rolling home from work work/Feeling kind of peckish/Flying to his home/To have his favorite dish/Ackee and saltfish"). "Above and Beyond" features both violin and sax lines ebbing and flowing over a strutting riddim, while "Mind Worker" (Perry: "I move brains and I transfigurate minds") has these amazing jazz piano breaks in the midst of a serious reggae groove. Heavy Rain has to be the best reggae album of 2019 and is certain to go down in history as another Perry/Sherwood masterpiece.

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Duff Review: Arthur Kay and The Originals "Rare 'N' Tasty" Reissue!

(By Steve Shafer)

Arthur Kay and The Originals Rare 'N' Tasty (LP, Mad Butcher/Black Butcher Classics, 2016 re-issue--available in the US through Jump Up Records): Back in 2008, MOJO Magazine dubbed Arthur Kay (nee Kitchener) as "the unsung hero of ska" and included one of his tracks in their Dawning of a New Era compilation CD, alongside The Specials, Desmond Dekker, Toots and the Maytals, Rico, Bob Marley, Laurel Aitken, Dandy Livingstone, and others. But his inclusion with such illustrious company surely left many casual ska fans scratching their heads. While he had built a considerable following of die-hard ska fans during 2 Tone and the late 80s/early 90s British/Euro ska revival, Arthur Kay never quite achieved the level of popularity and recognition that was his due, despite being a UK ska pioneer who had been in the right place at the right time with great and undeniably catchy material.

A first-generation South London mod in 1965, Kay had played bass in The Next Collection, which performed a mix of Tamla and Stax soul covers as well as their own songs at venues like the famed Ram Jam Club (where they played a week after Jimi Hendrix's debut there). Like many other mods, Kay also had caught the ska bug via the Prince Buster singles that were seemingly ever-present on the sound systems of all the clubs he frequented that year. In a development that further galvanized Kay's interest in ska, The Next Collection had the great fortune to back the great JA ska trombonist Rico Rodriguez and jazz trumpeter Harry Beckett during their first-ever recording session. But by 1966, Kay had left the band to become a session bass player at Chalk Farm Recording Studios in Camden (owned by The Next Collection's manager Vic Keary and Blue Beat Records/Melodisc owner Emil Shalit), where Kay appeared on many reggae recordings released on Trojan Records.

Just before 2 Tone hit in 1979, when there was no galvanized ska scene in the UK to speak of, Kay released his "Ska Wars" b/w "Warska" single for a local indie Red Admiral Records, which seemed to anticipate the looming ska craze (though Kay's ska sound had little in common with what The Specials, Selecter, and Madness were about to unleash--it was more of a stripped-down, often minor-key affair, devoid of any punk rock influences or hint of its origins in rhythm and blues). With only limited radio play and no major label backing, all 10,000 copies of the single still managed to sell out quickly, yet it never charted. The even stronger follow-up 45 on Red Admiral "Play My Record" (by Arthur Kay and the Originals), about how radio playlists are largely pay-to-play and dominated by the deep-pocketed major labels, was released during the fever pitch of 2 Tone in 1980, but failed to attract any significant national attention (and a potentially momentous tour with The Bodysnatchers had to be turned down due to scheduling conflicts with various members of The Originals). Two other excellent singles--"No One But You" b/w "High Flyer" (by The Originals) and "Watching the Rich Kids" b/w "Doctor Bird" (by Arthur Kay and The Originators)--were recorded during the 2 Tone era, but not issued.

During the UK ska revival of the late 80s (which featured such extraordinary acts as the Potato 5, The Trojans, Laurel Aitken, Loafers, Bad Manners, Judge Dread, The Deltones, Maroon Town, The Hotknives, etc.), Skank Records, as part of their Invisible Ska Years series, collected all of Arthur Kay and The Originals' released and unreleased 2 Tone-era recordings and issued Rare 'N' Tasty in 1988. At the time of its release, all of the 1979/1980 cuts on Rare and Tasty were right in synch with the contemporary UK ska scene, which must have been particularly satisfying to Kay--even if he had been ignored by the music industry and press, the kids had paid attention. Arthur Kay and the Originals clearly had influenced many of the late 80s UK ska acts (all of which were all decidedly non-2 Tone in sound); you could hear it in The Loafers, The Hotknives, The Riffs, and others. Kay's music had helped spawn the next UK ska scene and, in doing so, revitalized his career.

Interest in the band surged after the release of the Skank comp and Arthur Kay's Originals went on to record and release three albums (Sparkes of Inspiration in 1989, The Count of Clerkenwell in 1995, and Live in Berlin in 1996) with yet another iteration of the band (who also sometimes served as Judge Dread's backing band until his death in 1998).

As I was writing this post, I remembered that the reviewers in George Marshall's amazing late 80s Scottish skazine Zoot! had been huge fans of Arthur Kay. So, I dug my treasured copies out of my closet and found the review of Rare 'N' Tasty in Zoot! #9 (all of Zoot's reviews were always spot-on and brilliantly succinct). The rave write-up, which notes the injustice of Arthur Kay's exclusion from the history of UK ska/2 Tone, concludes with this line: "If I was a millionaire, I'd make sure everyone had a copy."

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