Duff Review: Various Artists: "Staring at the Rude Boys: The British Ska Revival (1979-1989)"

Pressure Drop/Cherry Red Records
3xCD
2021

(Review by Steve Shafer)

Named after one of the greatest non-ska tributes to the scene (by The Ruts, of course, who also appear on this comp backing Laurel Aitken), Pressure Drop/Cherry Red's Staring at the Rude Boys: The British Ska Revival (1979-1989) does a superb job of documenting the UK ska scene from the rise of 2 Tone through the "New Ska" scene that emerged in its wake in the latter half of the 1980s and was promoted by Unicorn Records (which coined the "New Ska" moniker), Staccato, and Gaz's Rockin' Records. This compilation presents 69 tracks over three CDs--with mostly excellent liner notes on each song/band (though there's a cringeworthy error in the Laurel Aitken/Potato 5 entry)--and while the 2 Tone and New Ska cuts are terrific (if not already featured on many other likeminded comps), the real treasure here are the dozens upon dozens of cuts from lesser-known, obscure, and even one-off novelty tracks that capitalized on/took a bit of the piss out of 2 Tone (see The Charlie Parkas' "Ballad of Robin Hood" and Max Headroom & the Car "Parks'" "Don't Panic"). Some of these non-2 Tone songs are more rough than ready, but the majority are good to great, and many of the original records now nearly impossible to find or quite pricey. Even though I'm a long-time fan/collector of UK ska from this decade, a surprising number of these songs are new to me, and this compilation fills in a big gap in my knowledge and collection (and may do the same for you, too). 

With its quality control so high, it's hard to go wrong when selecting 2 Tone tracks for inclusion, and the songs collected here are mostly deeper cuts (such as The Specials' "Little Bitch," Madness' "Bed and Breakfast Man," Bad Manners' "Inner London Violence"; and I'm particularly pleased with the choices of The Selecter's "Street Feeling" and The Beat's "Whine & Grine/Stand Down Margaret"). JA ska legends Rico, Desmond Dekker, and Laurel Aitken who were involved with or active during the 2 Tone-era are well-represented (with "Sea Cruise," "Rude Boy Train," and "Big Fat Man" respectively), as are Judge Dread (with the atypically non-slack "Ska Fever," where he's backed by The Cimarons) and Arthur Kay (an original '60s-era mod and musician who recorded with Rico and appeared on many Trojan releases; his "Play My Record" is included here). 

Among the lesser-known 2 Tone-era cuts are real gems from Ded Byrds ("Rich and Nasty"), Rockers Express ("Phoenix City"), new wavers Graduate (many know that this band featured future Tears for Fears-ers Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, and their Elvis Costello/Madness pastiche "Elvis Should Play Ska" is irresistible), The Akrylykz ("Spiderman," with future Fine Young Cannibal Roland Gift, of course), The A.T.'s ("One More for the Road"), The AK Band ("Pink Slippers"), the pre-Ska-dows Sax Maniax ("Never Gonna Lose Me"), Case ("Oh"--this act featured Neil Pyzer, who would go on to Spear of Destiny, and more recently serve as producer, songwriter, and member of Pauline Black and Gaps Hendrickson-led version of The Selecter), Plastic Gangsters AKA oi band the 4-Skins ("Plastic Gangsters ("I Could Be So Good for You)"), new waver Kim Wilde ("2-6-5-8-0"), the Dublin-based Resistors ("Jeanie"), and The Ska-dows ("Ska'd for Life"--for some reason, back in the late '80s I failed to pick up the 1988 reissue of their only LP, but like them so much that I just tracked a copy down now on Discogs). Interestingly, some of the best tracks also come from moonlighting mod bands--The Merton Parkas ("Give It To Me Now") and The Lambrettas ("Poison Ivy"). 

The last two-thirds of disc three spotlight many of the incredible mid-to-late '80s New Ska bands, including Laurel Aitken & the Potato 5 ("Mad About You"), Burial ("Sheila"), Buster's Allstars ("Skinhead Luv-A-Fair"), King Hammond ("King Hammond Shuffle"), Mark Foggo's Skasters ("Skadansk"), The Hotknives ("Dave and Mary"), Maroon Town ("Pound to the Dollar"), The Loafers ("The Undertaker"--their keyboardist Sean Flowerdew would go on to organize dozen of London International Ska Festivals, play in Special Beat, form Pama International, and create Happy People Records), The Deltones ("Stay Where You Are"), The Riffs ("Blind Date"), and others (what, no Trojans?). If you're not already familiar with these New Ska acts, get ready to track down many more releases--they issued a ton of essential records within the span of a few years.

Overall, you'd be hard pressed to find a better compilation that attempts to represent this key decade in British ska than Staring at the Rude Boys.

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I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Kevin Flowerdew's recently released The Ska Librarian's 2 Tone Time Machine, which makes a stellar companion piece to Staring at the Rude Boys. Flowerdew's first skazine Rude began publishing in 1989, right at the tail end of the New Ska period, and ran through 1996, when he switched its name to Do the Dog Skazine to match the record label he launched (both continue to this day). With The Ska Librarian's 2 Tone Time Machine, Flowerdew covers the UK and international ska scenes as if he had been producing Rude from 1979 through 1988. Unsurprisingly, there's a fair amount of overlap between the bands featured on Staring at the Rude Boys and those that Flowerdew writes about in The Ska Librarian's 2 Tone Time Machine--and he provides some really helpful context and history that will only deepen your enjoyment and appreciation of this comp. 

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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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