Duff Review: The Selecter "Deepwater" (Single Version) from the 40th-Anniversary Deluxe CD Reissue of "Celebrate the Bullet" (Chrysalis Records)

(Review by Steve Shafer)

I've written a fair amount about The Selecter's brilliant but unfairly maligned second record, Celebrate the Bullet (read my appreciation of the album and my interview about it with Selecter guitarist/songwriter Neol Davies first published in my book The Duff Guide to 2 Tone). So, I didn't expect to have too much more to add to the (late to the game) 40th-anniversary release of Celebrate the Bullet, which has been remastered and issued on heavyweight, clear vinyl and as an expanded triple-CD deluxe version (which contains a 20-page booklet with new liner notes from the band; the unreleased "Deepwater" single and its version; the Celebrate the Bullet BBC sessions from 1980; and an unreleased live concert recorded at Birmingham's NEC in 1980).

Both editions sound fantastic and are worth picking up--particularly if your old LP or cassette copy of Celebrate the Bullet has seen better days (or some misguided review put you off buying it in the first place). But the Rarities disk in the CD box set features a real gem--a previously unreleased take on Pauline Black's track "Deepwater" recorded with The Jam's producer Pete Wilson in April 1981. The intent was to issue it as the record's second single, but Radio 1's ludicrous ban on the "Celebrate the Bullet" single obliterated sales of the album, which quashed any thoughts of releasing a second single. ("Celebrate the Bullet" is an anti-gun/violence song, for Pete's sake--shouldn't Radio 1 have played that in the wake of John Lennon's murder and the shooting of President Reagan?)

As Neol Davies explains in the liner notes: "Even though disco had become unfashionable, I felt that dance music was about to re-emerge in a different form. We tried a new arrangement, keeping a mix of rapidly changing styles of pop music at the time in mind." And in 1981, that new style of pop music in the UK was driven by the New Romantics and synthpop. While it seems shocking to characterize it this way, the re-recorded take of "Deepwater" sounds like Selecter-meets-Duran Duran (whose sound at that time was deeply indebted to Japan and their Quiet Life album and associated single "Life in Tokyo," produced by Giorgio Moroder). But when you consider the timing of Duran Duran's debut single--"Planet Earth" was released on February 2, 1981, and skyrocketed to the #12 spot on the British charts by the end of that month--it all makes sense.

In an audacious move, the single version of "Deepwater" was refashioned with atmospheric synths, a disco bass line, Nile Rogers' Chic-era guitar work, and a Scary Monsters-influenced distorted/processed guitar solo (Davies was listening to Bowie's latest album at that time). As preposterous as this seems typed out on the screen, the results are super catchy and shimmeringly brilliant (and the altered chord progression and Black's vocal line during the "I never wanted to be in Deepwater again" lyric that leads into the chorus--is phenomenal!).

If you're listening Chrysalis Records, please consider releasing the single version of "Deepwater" and its instrumental remix on a vinyl 45 for an upcoming Record Store Day.

For a band attempting to figure out how to stay relevant in an ever-shifting pop landscape (and spark sales for a superb album that was tanking commercially), this radical departure might have worked had it been released--and permitted The Selecter to live on for a bit longer.  It would have been fascinating to see what they might have done next, had they survived. Many diehard 2 Tone fans surely would have cried "sell-outs," but consider the musical paths most of The Selecter's peers went down within a year or two. Later in '81, Fun Boy Three split from The Specials (right after the triumph of "Ghost Town"!) to make minimalist African rhythm-driven new wave pop. Madness were releasing increasingly pop-filled albums (with hit singles like "It Must Be Love" and "Our House"), and The Beat died so Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger could play Motown new wave pop.

In her notes for this song, Pauline Black explains her motivation for writing "Deepwater": "Once we had been the big fish in a small pond, now we were an international band with four hit singles. I felt as if we were drowning in the big pond of the music industry, unable to set a course and direction in the wake of an onboard mutiny [the departure of Desmond Brown and Charley Anderson just as the band was starting to record Celebrate the Bullet]." How ironic it would have been if the "Deepwater" single had been released back in 1981 and turned the commercial tides for the better for Celebrate the Bullet...

+ + + +

Duff Review: Rhoda Dakar "The Man Who Sold The World" b/w "The Man Who Dubbed The World"

Sunday Best
7" picture sleeve vinyl single/digital
2022

(Review by Steve Shafer)

In celebration of what would have been his 75th birthday (January 8), David Bowie acolyte Rhoda Dakar has released a great reggae cover of "The Man Who Sold The World" that captures the wonderful grandiosity, drama, and tension of Bowie's 1970 original, while recasting it so fits right in with her recent output (see my review of her "Everyday Is Like Sunday" single). The song also takes on another dimension in these gender-fluid times, since Dakar doesn't alter the pronouns in the lyrics--which are about a man meeting his spiritual or corporeal twin/self (read a fascinating analysis of this song at Pushing Ahead of the Dame); though it should be noted that Bowie and his Pin Ups-era band backed Lulu's 1974 cover of this track, too (which Bowie and Mick Ronson co-produced). The repeating guitar riff of the original (performed by Ronson) is replaced here by Joff Watkins' harmonica--a fantastic touch--and celebrated reggae keyboardist Roger Rivas also contributes keys. Lenny Bignell's warm production and dub are excellent, as always. And Pete McKee's Clash-referencing cover art tops off a fine, heartfelt tribute to the Thin White Duke.

+ + + +

Reissue of "Absolute Beginners" Soundtrack (Tracks by Jerry Dammers, Laurel Aitken, Smiley Culture)

The soundtrack for "Absolute Beginners"--Julien Temple's 1986 film adaptation of Colin MacInnes' cult novel about teenagers and mod culture in late '50s London--is being reissued on July 17, 2020. What's particularly noteworthy for ska/reggae fans is that this soundtrack featured the first post-Special AKA recording by Jerry Dammers (the epic, jazzy "Riot City"), in addition to songs by Laurel Aitken ("Landlords and Tenants", which utilizes The Ethiopians' "Everything Crash" riddim) and Smiley Culture ("So What?").

The CD version of "Absolute Beginners" will include all 22 songs from the soundtrack (the 1986, 1991, and 2010 editions were truncated) and the gatefold, double LP of the album will be available once again (previously, only certain runs of the 1986 LP were issued in this format).

While the film itself received mixed reviews, the soundtrack is excellent.

The track listing is below:

‘Absolute Beginners’ – David Bowie
‘Killer Blow’ – Sade
‘Have You Ever Had It Blue?’ – The Style Council
‘Quiet Life’ – Ray Davies
‘Va Va Voom’ – Gil Evans
‘That’s Motivation’ – David Bowie
‘Having It All’ – Eighth Wonder ft Patsy Kensit
‘Rodrigo Bay’ – Working Week
‘Selling Out’ – Slim Gaillard
‘Riot City’ – Jerry Dammers
‘Boogie Stop Shuffle (Rough And The Smooth)’ – Gil Evans
‘Ted Ain’t Dead’ – Tenpole Tudor
‘Volare (Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu)’ – David Bowie
‘Napoli’ – Clive Langer
‘Little Cat (You Never Had It So Good)’ – Jonas (24)
‘Absolute Beginners (Slight Refrain)’ – Gil Evans
‘Better Git It In Your Soul (The Hot And The Cool)’ – Gil Evans
‘Landlords And Tenants’ – Laurel Aitken
‘Santa Lucia’ – Ekow Abban
‘Cool Napoli’ – Gil Evans
‘So What? (Lyric Version)’ – Smiley Culture
‘Absolute Beginners (Refrain)’ – Gil Evans

+ + + +

Singles Going Skanking: Susan Cadogan's "Breakfast in Bed," Danny Rebel and the KGB's "Spacebound"

(Reviews by Steve Shafer)

Danny Rebel and the KGB's most recent album, 2017's Lovehaus, was a phenomenal ska-reggae-soul-pop gem packed with incredibly catchy and evocative songs, so it's great to finally see a new release (even if it's only one track) from this spectacular band. The beautiful but melancholy "Spacebound"  is a "Space Oddity" of sorts for our times (with a little "Man Who Fell to Earth" mixed in) and sequel to their apocalyptic track "When the Lights Go Out" from Lovehaus. Instead of tentatively reaching out to explore the final frontier, it's concerned with escaping the goddamn mess humanity's made of everything here below: "With this clock here going in reverse...When I'm fed up and wanna quit/I'll shimmy on down to my rocket ship/All the madness on this Earth just makes me sick." (Danny, how much room do you have on that ship? 'Cause there are a whole lot of people who want to join you on this ride...)

Over the past few years, legendary reggae singer Susan Cadogan has issued a string of consistency  amazing new releases in conjunction with producer-songwriter-musician-King Kong 4 man Mitch Girio (see The Duff Guide to Ska reviews of Mitch and the King Kong 4 here)--and her latest digital single ("Breakfast in Bed" b/w "Don't Burn Your Bridges Behind You," digital, 2019) does not fail to impress. This time out, she covers Dusty Springfield's classic "Breakfast in Bed" (written by Eddie Hinton and Donnie Fritts), which also has been recorded by Hortense Ellis, Lorna Bennett, Scotty, Bongo Herman and the Harry J Allstars, Sheila Hylton, and UB40 with Chrissy Hynde, amongst others over the years. This terrific rocksteady version of this song--about being the "other woman" comforting someone else's boyfriend/husband--is joyful, playful, and lusty, where Dusty's is tinged with heartache that their time together can only be sporadic and fleeting. I was completely unfamiliar with "Don't Burn Your Bridges Behind You" by 1970s, NYC-based soul/disco band Ecstasy, Passion and Pain, which apparently was a huge hit in Jamaica in 1974. While the original is offered as an admonishment (to someone who's going to light the matches, anyway), Cadogan's sprightly take is more like good advice from a trusted friend.

+ + + +

Boy George: "People Who Don't Like Reggae Music Are Quite Disturbing"

Culture Club have a new album coming out soon (called Life), so Boy George has been making the rounds with the music press to promote it. And that's how I came across this incredible exchange from the October 19/26, 2018 issue of Entertainment Weekly:

EW: "A few of the tracks, including the single "Let Somebody Love You," have a strong reggae vibe. Did you listen to a lot of that while making Life?"

Boy George: "I've always liked reggae music. I'm always surprised when people don't love it, but there are people out there who don't. Look, there are people out there who don't like Bowie! I've met them! I've met people that have said to me, 'Yeah, I didn't ever really get into Bowie.' I'm like, 'Well, which period did you not get into?' Because there's so many different parts of Bowie. And I think the same thing with reggae music. People who don't like reggae music, I think, are quite disturbing."

Boy George released a fantastic album called This Is What I Do back in 2014 (which we reviewed) that contains a good number of reggae tunes (roots and dancehall)--and is absolutely worth picking up, if you haven't already.

+ + + +

Duff Review: "Outside The Lines: Lost Photographs of Punk and New Wave's Most Iconic Albums"

Matteo Torcinovich with Sebastiano Girardi
Octopus Books
2016

(Review by Steve Shafer)

The subtitle of this beautiful collection of photographs is a bit of a misnomer, as the previously unpublished shots presented here are from the same photo sessions that produced many of the iconic punk and new wave album covers that we've come to know and love and were mostly just long forgotten in the photographers' archives. Rather, these are the contenders that, for whatever editorial and aesthetic choices were made at the time, didn't make the cut (maybe it would have been more punk rock to call these series of pictures the "rejected photos..."). Either way, it's a fascinating, "backstage" look at what might have been, had any of these alternative shots been used on these classic punk and new wave LPs.

A few years ago, Italian graphic designer and punk/new wave afficionado Matteo Torcinovich was looking at the LP cover for the Damned's debut album and wondered if there were other, associated shots from that session. So, he contacted the photographer Peter Gravelle and, to Torcinovich's surprise, they began a long correspondence, which resulted in Torcinovich getting his hands on the unused Damned album cover pictures, which fueled his desire to track down many more of these discarded cover shots. After combing through his own record collection, selecting 150 of his favorite punk and new wave records from 1976 to 1982, Torcinovich reached out to all of the photographers involved and the results (if the photographers were alive, cooperative, and hadn't lost the negatives to time) from 46 cover photo sessions (for bands like the Ramones, Ian Dury, Ultravox, Blondie, Elvis Costello, David Bowie, Lene Lovich, The B-52's, The Cure, PiL, John Foxx, Echo and The Bunnymen, Suicide, Bauhaus, and more) are presented in "Outside the Lines."

Ska fans and long-time readers of this blog, in particular, will want to take a look at Chalkie Davies' alternate shots for The Specials' debut record, one of which (the blue tinted shot) is pretty fantastic.

There are several essays that provide pop-cultural context for this musical era (the best is probably the one by Glenn O'Brien, known for his columns in "Interview," "Art Forum," "Spin"--and in one of Torcinovich's two essays, the biggest revelation is that he discovered who took the cover shot of Iggy Pop's The Idiot--it was always assumed to be Andy Kent, who took the Lust for Life photo--but was, in fact, a one-off, black and white Polaroid taken by Iggy's friend and collaborator David Bowie!), as well as short introductions to each series of photos related to these album covers. Some of the intros contain fascinating and insightful quotes from the photographers about their work (such as Martyn Goddard's recollections about shooting The Jam's In the City cover and Jim Rakete's on the Nina Hagen Band cover), but all too often you're left craving more details and factoids. Having said that, the images and contact sheets presented here are generally nothing less than stunning and will be eagerly sought out by new wave and post-punk fans (if you have "This Ain't No Disco: New Wave Album Covers" on your shelf, this book is for you!).

+ + + +

The Duff Guide to Post-Punk: In Remembrance of David Bowie

David Bowie in NYC by Jimmy King.

(By Steve Shafer)

Last Friday, during a segment on NPR about the release of David Bowie's 25th album Blackstar (issued on his 69th birthday, January 8, 2016)--which I was looking forward to hearing, as I'd absolutely loved his previous record, The Next Day (2013)--the reviewer noted that Bowie's career spanned over 50 years, just a year or two longer than I've been alive. He's been with me and you for all of our lives--so much so that I thought he would live forever.

Groggily listening to a Marketplace segment last Monday morning on NPR about Bowie's past business dealings, I panicked when I thought that I heard at the end of the piece that Bowie had died. How was this possible? He had just released an album a few days ago, I thought to myself, as if that act could fend off one's mortality. I turned on CBS This Morning for confirmation and it was the lead story. Shocked (and with memories in my head of how I learned of John Lennon's assassination the first thing the next morning), I woke up my son (in my defense, he had to get up for school anyway) and broke the terrible news. His almost sobbed response was, "That's horrible!" And he then pulled the blanket over his head. Like I wanted to do to myself.

I can remember being introduced to his music in third grade in 1975. My best friend's older sister loved Bowie and Ziggy Stardust, Pin Ups, Aladdin Sane, and Diamond Dogs (as well as Lou Reed's Transformer, produced by Bowie) were always leaning up against their family's stereo cabinet in their living room with the green shag carpeting (because of these records, I'd forever associate rock'n'roll and its progeny with theatricality and reinvention). We'd put on Bowie's albums and listen to them while playing Stratego, Battleship, and Sorry or closely examine the LP sleeves for hints as to what each record and David Bowie were all about. Even at nine years of age, Bowie's glam androgynous look didn't phase me one bit--it was a cool, outrageous part of his act and, no doubt, helped shape my tendency to be tolerant and accepting of people's difference.

In high school, Bowie came back into view in the early days of MTV (which I had to catch at my friend Johnny's house in Inwood, in upper Manhattan, since we didn't have MTV yet in Yonkers) with the extraordinary "Ashes to Ashes" video (with that bulldozer on the beach looming over Bowie done up as Pagliacci), his collaboration with Queen on "Under Pressure," and the "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy" duet with Bing Crosby shown around Christmastime. And then there was the massive Let's Dance album, which completely dominated radio and MTV during the summer of 1983 with three enormous, inescapable hit singles: "Let's Dance," "Modern Love," and "China Girl." (Like the Pat Benatar girl in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," there was a girl at my school who styled herself after Bowie and always wore the same gaucho hat as he did in this photo.) I played tracks off Let's Dance at the parties we held at friend's houses in Yonkers and Riverdale, and soon picked up the ChangesOneBowie and ChangesTwoBowie compilations on vinyl, which I copied onto cassette to play on my Sony Walkman to keep me going when I'd go for night-time runs up and down Rumsey Road (side two of ChangesOneBowie really helped me keep my up pace as I tried to stay in shape for cross country and track). Right after college, Rykodisc reissued Bowie's back catalogue on CD (with loads of bonus tracks), which I delved into deeply, discovering all sorts of amazing cuts that I never caught/knew about the first time around (like the Velvet Underground-appropriating "Queen Bitch").

Of course, Bowie greatly influenced countless musicians who would go on to make the new wave/post-punk era (my absolute favorite period in the history of music!) so completely fantastic. In the first half of the '80s, Bowie's songs from the '70s--god, there were so many good ones like "Golden Years," "DJ," "Hang On To Yourself," "Rebel Rebel," "Aladdin Sane," "Sound and Vision," "Heroes," and so many more!--fit in almost seamlessly with the new wave soundtrack running through my head, playing on WLIR, and spinning on my turntable. Sub-genres like goth, synthpop, and the New Romantics simply would not have existed without Bowie and his constant musical experimentation in the 1970s. Don't believe me? Check out musicians as varied as Ian McCullough, Paul Weller, Gary Numan, Vince Clark, Nick Rhodes, Jim Kerr, Andy McCluskey, Billy Bragg, Holly Johnson, and more noting their fave Bowie albums and acknowledging his influence on them and their music.

I've spent a great portion of the last two days reading about Bowie (and always learning new things!), listening to songs from throughout his astonishing career, and even seeing some of his music videos for the first time ("Loving the Alien," "Blue Jean," and "Jump They Say"), which were always fantastically inventive and compelling. In a way, it's honoring his work and life, but also processing my memories of how his music was entwined with the momentous and banal moments of our lives--and mourning that there will be no more of it to come.

+ + + +

Watch the incredible video for David Bowie's "Lazarus," which is his last gift to us.

+ + + +

David Bowie's New York Times obituary

David Bowie's Guardian obituary

Read critical, track-by-track commentary on every one of Bowie's songs at Pushing Ahead of the Dame.

Read "Listening to David Bowie" at the New York Times.

Read Trouser Press' entry on David Bowie.

+ + + +