The Jolly Boys returned to New York City for their first public show here in decades like a Model T with a new CD player in the dashboard.(Pareles is referring to the fact that the band was covering New Wave and rock hits--by New Order, Iggy Pop, The Stranglers, Blondie, The Door, Lou Reed, Steely Dan, etc.--inna mento style.)
As with many printed publications, the skazines that connected and informed the fans during much of the late 80s and throughout the 90s were decimated by the rise of the internet [insert ominous sounding music here]. And, really, why should the skazine editors go to the trouble and expense of laying out, printing / copying, and distributing a tangible publication (and no doubt lose money doing so), when it suddenly became way easier and cheaper to set up a website or a blog to serve the same function and potentially reach ska fans around the globe? (Having said that, I miss them--will there ever be a new edition of Hoi Polloi again?!--and I greedily treasure the ones that I have in my possession, particularly my old copies of "Zoot!")
The March 2011 issue of MOJO with Nirvana on the cover (hard to believe that all that grunge hoopla was 20 years ago--I was a young man with no big plans back then) has several items that will be of interest to ska and reggae fans. 
In advance of their upcoming performance at the Dirty Reggae Party 8 (on February 25, 2011 at The Lake in Bushwick), Latin ska band Kofre are offering a free download of their new single "El Tinku."
There is a fantastic interview with Masaya Hayashi, the founder and owner of Japan's Drum & Bass Records (quite possibly the premier source for vintage Jamaican vinyl in the world) and the Rock A Shacka re-issue label, on PartyXtraz.com (a Jamaican entertainment scene blog). This is a must-read for anyone interested in the origins of this store and label--and/or wants some insight into the Japanese ska and reggae scene.
...Moon paid for my baby. 
The latest project from the decaying minds of the Ska is Dead peeps comes this spring (if winter ever ends, that is) with The Young Guns 2011 Tour--featuring some of the best, new(ish) American ska bands on the scene--with Detroit’s We Are the Union and New York City’s The Forthrights as co-headliners. Supporting bands along the way include Nashville's Stuck Lucky (4/15-4/22), Boston's Brunt of It (4/23-4/28), Long Island’s The Fad (4/19-4/27), and Indiana's Green Room Rockers (4/13 & 5/1) among others. It was punk's "summer of hate", 1977, and the required pose was a sneer, a leather jacket and something hacked about – a spiky haircut, a ripped T-shirt, a sawn-off school tie. And, of course, no flares, the despised flag of hippiedom. But at the cold, concrete roots of Britain a very different aesthetic was also in the ascendant, one calling for an oversized tam, dreadlocks and a display of "the red, gold and green", the colours of Rastafari. Flares? Fine!+ + + +
The two looks represented the different worlds inhabited by young white and black Britain, worlds which a year previously had been remote from each other but which by the summer of 1977 were unexpectedly and often uncomfortably rubbing shoulders. At Hackney town hall, under portraits of whiskery Victorian aldermen, I watched the Cimarons chant down Babylon while Generation X snarled their way through "Wild Youth". In Brixton, I gaped as the Slits, the acme of unruliness, shared a stage with Birmingham's Steel Pulse, the most militant of Britain's proliferating reggae bands.
More than just the "Punky Reggae Party" Bob Marley had playfully celebrated on disc that summer, these were gigs that signalled the birth of a new Britain, one in which the neofascist National Front was consigned to the margins and musical cross-pollination became the norm. Rock-reggae bands such as the Police, ska revivalists such as the Specials and home-grown reggae acts such as Janet Kay would soon occupy the charts. Further down the line would come UB40, Culture Club, Soul II Soul and then the current era in which, to quote Soul II Soul singer Caron Wheeler: "You can't distinguish between colour any more – it's just people."
These days, punk is to be found in the cultural academy, in lecture halls, art galleries and fashion history books. By contrast, British reggae remains half-forgotten and little praised, represented mainly by the Specials' "Ghost Town" as the default tune for any retrospective on the bleak, Thatcherite early 80s.
Vinyl rules! Rebelling against the unfortunate dominance of easily disposable-erasable-pirated (and somehow soulless) digitally downloaded music, the fantastic Ska is Dead 7" of the Month Club has been issuing a series of limited edition split vinyl singles (on seriously thick black and white wax with cool, printed outer sleeves--love the tattered Walt Jabsco zombie!) from top shelf ska bands of all stripes (i.e.: vintage ska, 2 Tone, ska-punk, etc.). All of the featured cuts by these bands are new or unreleased--and this is the only place to find 'em, as they will not be released in any other form! (The Ska is Dead 7″ Club is a joint effort between Dave Kirchgessner of Mustard Plug and his Ska is Dead tour company, Asbestos Records and Underground Communique Records, that combines their collective obsession with dead genres and dead formats.)In the mail today, I received the first copy of my new paperback book The Duff Guide to 2 Tone --and am thrilled to announce that it is now...
