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: Hub City Stompers "Haters Dozen"

Altercation Records
CD
2018

(Review by Steve Shafer)

From the cover art of Haters Dozen--a baker's dozen of cupcakes with hands of various hues and genders giving us the finger--it shouldn't be a shock to know that New Jersey's Hub City Stompers have always clearly relished being the defiant bad boys and girls of ska, taking the piss out of everything and everyone (they refer to their fans as droogs), and letting the chips fall where they may. Their targets on their sixth album Haters Dozen are legion (abusers, cheaters, fakers, leaches, and haters) and they take them on with a mix of sharp humor and deadly seriousness--all delivered in this fantastic collection of catchy ska songs that will end up taking permanent residence in your head.

With an intro from Mr. Symarip--Roy Ellis--himself, the album kicks off with "Hub City Stomp," an "East Side Beat" of sorts for the New Brunswick scene ("This is your day of independence/For skinheads, punks, and their descendants/Let that wicked word be spread..."), but then, on a Judge Dread-sounding cut, HCS set their sights on "Mr. McFeely" (about a seemingly anodyne, older character on the scene--like the delivery man on "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood"--who's actually a predator: "Mr. McFeely, tell me where you been?/Fallen pied piper of the punks and skins...Mr. McFeely, in ya come to creep/When she's passed out drunk, when she's fast asleep/Mr. McFeely, won't ya come outside?/Or will you stay in and hide?"). Fake friends can't put one over on ever-vigilant singer Travis Nelson (the primary songwriter of the album) on "Keepers": "I see snakes creeping’, I ain't sleepin’ in the poppy field/I see the daggers flying towards, but they don't see my shield/With all the cold that I behold you'd think that I would freeze/But I'm just basking in the heat of all my enemies" (love the "Wizard of Oz" reference!). The always-great King Django guest chats on "Father's Day" (about victims of child abuse falling into similarly abusive relationships as young adults). On "What's She Got?" (a real showcase for Jenny Whiskey), rejection and jealousy have never sounded so good: "What's she got that I ain't got?/She's got you/That's what she's got, that's what she's got/Looking for a place in your will/That silly trick is just a midnight thrill/You'll be thinking of me every night/Once you bust your nut and turn out the light."

With its demented, but hilarious "Send in the Clowns" opening, "Bring Back the Dorks" calls out all of the Slackers wannabes: "Yeah, I hope that you’re ready/For my (pretentious) hipster rocksteady tonight...white noise from white boys"), while the ska-core-ish "Night of the Living" goes after scene hijackers and cultural appropriators with equal fury ("We’re zombies who reclaim this rotted wasteland of a scene/It once was fatty bacon, then you made it Sizzlean/A silly, plastic world of kissing ass and dropping names/We never puckered up and didn’t play your reindeer games/Your head went up your anus when ska went Hollywood...No white, suburban kid came off of the banana boat/And if you went to Kingston they would cut your poseur throat/Remember that next time you’re pushing your skathority").

Two bright topical spots are "Philly, What The Fuck?" ("...why is your accent so fucked up?") and the  kind of sweet, no regrets, love-song-of-sorts "Weeks Worth of Wednesdays" ("Lone Stars at night shine bright/And alter what's in your sight/What a mess, what a mess/There were a week's worth of Wednesdays up in that dress/I confess, I confess/That I couldn't have settled for less"). The centerpiece of the album, though, might be trombonist James Kelly's wonderful tribute to HCS' friend, the late Roy Radics of The Rudie Crew, in "Distance Water" (which was his nickname; a reference to how Radics had traveled across the Atlantic from his hometown of London to his adopted New York City). This largely instrumental track features P-Dub of Predator Dub Assassins, some Radics snippets, and phenomenal toasting by Coolie Ranx: "Hey, Mr. Radics, Mister Hot Topics/The law's on the lamb/No, they just try to stop it/You try to protest/Dem jumping on your chest/They don't want the truth to be told/Him try to shed the light on the black man's plight/When we standing up firm/When fight for your rights/No retribution when dem take a life/They don't want no civil war...Nah, we no love dem games that dem play/And the conversation is lame/We don't care what dem say/'Cause we've been fighting power from back in the days..."

Hub City Stompers bring their ace tunes, their considerable chops, and tons of barbed fun for a first-rate album that might just end up making them kind of respectable, despite it all.

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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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King Hammond "Revolution '70" and "Tank Tops and Hot Pants" CD

Limited edition CD

2014

(Review by Steve Shafer)

Back in the late 80s, Bad Manners' bassist and prolific songwriter Nick Welsh followed up on his stellar work for their 1989 Return of the Ugly album (Nick wrote "Skaville UK," "Since You've Gone Away" and "Memory Train"--and co-penned "Rosemary" and "Return of the Ugly"; this album remains one of Bad Manners' best) with a persona and record that celebrated the late 60s/early 70s skinhead reggae explosion in the UK: King Hammond's Revolution '70 (released on Buster Bloodvessel's then newly-revived and licensed Blue Beat label). At first, almost on a lark, Nick promoted King Hammond's debut album as a long-lost Jamaican gem of the skinhead reggae era, but he quickly fessed up about the charade in order to lay claim to all of the accolades the album was (deservedly) receiving.

After reading George Marshall's review in his essential (and very much missed) "Zoot" skazine (see the scans below from my personal copy), I mail-ordered the Revolution '70 LP from Unicorn Records and when my needle hit the record was immediately struck by Welsh's fully-realized sound and vision for King Hammond. The organ-centric music (in more ways than one!) pays loving homage to the skinhead reggae keyboard greats like Harry J, Jackie Mittoo, Winston Wright, Glen Adams, Ansel Collins, et al, while sounding thoroughly original (which it is--the cuts here are all Nick's). In fact, two of the vocal tracks on Revolution '70--"Stay with Me Baby" and "Oh Lorna!" are really pop-hits disguised in boots 'n' braces (Nick revisited "Stay with Me Baby" on his terrific Soho Sessions album, where he re-worked many of his greatest ska songs from the 80s and 90s on acoustic guitar).

George Marshall's review in Issue 13 of "Zoot" (1989)

Thematically, these songs cover skinhead reggae appropriate pop culture topics--which Nick clearly relishes--such as Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns ("One Dollar Hotel" and "Hammond's Showdown"); Bruce Lee/martial arts films ("Enter the Dragon"); gothic horror movies, no doubt, of the Hammer Horror variety featuring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing ("The Satantic Rites of King Hammond" and "King Hammond vs. The Exorcist"), the soft-porn pop songs (with lots of sexually suggestive moaning) of Serge Gainsbourg (did you know that in 1979 he released a decent album of French reggae songs with Sly and Robbie called Aux Armes et Caetera?), and the hilarious rude records (for those of us with dirty minds to read into all of the double-entendres) of Lloyd Charmers (AKA Lloydie and the Lowbites), Prince Buster, Laurel Aitken, Judge Dread, et al (sample lyric from King Hammond's, ahem, "Pussy Power": "You must succumb-ah to my cucumb-ah").

From "Zoot" Issue 13, 1989

All of these keyboard-heavy tracks (most which include all sorts of wonderfully over-the-top spoken, shouted, or sung exhortations--many sublime in their outrageousness) are top-notch and were particularly unique back in 1989, when most bands were in the vein of either The Specials or The Skatalites. No one was doing skinhead reggae (with the exception of the now late, but always great, Laurel Aitken--though even his recordings at this time with the Potato 5 and the Pressure Tenants were typically 60s-style Jamaican ska, even if the arrangements sometimes took on more contemporary elements). While I love all of the tracks here, the two that are my favorite are probably "The Satanic Rites of King Hammond" ("Take off your hot pants and suck...This is the Hammond House of Horror, dig the beat, kids...Let me take you to a deserted graveyard, where the bones lay rotting...I will lay you down on a grave and I will raise...raise with me baby! You may be Dracula, you may be Frankenstein, but nothing can save you from King Hammond! I'm coming to get you!") and "The March of the Skinheads," which opens with an air raid siren and briefly salutes The Ethiopians' skinhead reggae anthem "Train to Skaville" before heading off on its own course (Nick was also honoring his father here, who co-wrote a song for the Artie Scott Orchestra with the same title--and I can only describe it as the type of quirky instrumental pop song you'd hear on a light Doris Day-type movie soundtrack from the 1960s).

King Hammond's follow-up, Tank Tops and Hot Pants, didn't see a proper release (mostly due to the demise of Buster's Blue Beat label and Nick's split with Bad Manners for the reformed Selecter with Neol Davies and Pauline Black), but one of Trojan Records' subsidiary labels Receiver Records (which released the excellent live Selecter Out in the Streets CD) issued the mega 25-track CD Blow Your Mind in 1992, which contained both the LP-only Revolution 70 and the newer cuts, though the track order jumbled up songs from each album (interestingly enough, this reissue drops a few cuts--"King Hammond's Magic Roundabout," "Crossroads," "Kinky Version," "Baby Version," "King Hammond Shuffle," and "Right On King Hammond," the last two were featured on Skank Records ska compilations). I really wish Tank Tops had come out on its own on vinyl--look at that cover art by Steven Friel (who provided ska-themed comic strips for "Zoot!," illustrated many of Unicorn Records' album covers, as well as Bad Manners' Return of the Ugly and King Hammond's Revolution '70)!

Tank Tops picks up right where Revolution left off, with more stellar skinhead reggae songs about sex ("Psychedelic Pum Pum" and "Pussy Got Nine Lives"), Westerns ("Hammond Rides Again" and "Spaced Out Cowboy"), blood suckers ("Dracula AD 72"), and simply great tracks with suggestive names ("Confessions of an Organist," "Suck/Lick It Up," and "Soul Up"). The album ends with the only sung song--"Skinhead Revolution"--a brilliant, funky and soulful, power-to-the people early reggae track with a great "nah, nah, nah" chorus right out of early 70s ("Skinhead on a violent street/dances to a different beat/Get ready, get ready!/Revolution on the floor/To the sound of '74/Get ready, get ready!/Nah, nah, nah/Skinhead revolution/Tank tops and hot pants everywhere/Sexy skin chicks with skin cut hair/Get ready, get ready... "). After hearing this, you'll be eager to sign up for King Hammond's musical movement, too.

The Blow Your Mind is a hard CD to find and fetches a high price on the collector's market (as does the Revolution '70 LP). One expects that this limited-edition version of Revolution '70 and Tank Tops and Hot Pants will be similarly valued and very much treasured by ska and skinhead reggae fans, too.

New Album from Nick Welsh: "The Life and Times of a Ska Man!"

Fans of King Hammond--and we proudly count ourselves amongst that crowd--will want to be in on the pre-order of the new album from Nick Welsh, titled The Life and Times of a Ska Man, which contains new acoustic versions of Nick's songs from his vast catalogue of stellar songs from the past 20 plus years.

Here are all of the details from the man himself:

"My album The Life and Times of a Ska Man is now finished and I am now taking pre-orders for it. The price is £10 (including p + p) in the UK or £12 for the rest of the universe. You can pay via the King Hammond webpage. The first 100 people who order will receive a free N.1. Records album and a lovely badge. All the money made from this release will go into funding the next N.1. album, which will be Hot Skin Music by King Hammond."

Nick has had an extraordinary musical career, spanning from the post-2 Tone days of the mid-80s to the present day (the cover of his new album is a collage of many of the fantastic records he's released over the years--some of which are my all time favorites). He's served as the bass player and songwriter for Bad Manners (Return of the Ugly), Buster's All Stars (Skinhead Luv-a-fair), The Selecter (The Happy Album, Hairspray, Cruel Britannia), and Big 5 (In Yer Face, Popskatic), as well as his own groups, Skaville UK (1973, Decadent, Devil Beat) and his skinhead reggae alter-ego King Hammond (Revolution '70, Blow Your Mind, The King and I, Jacuzzi, Showbiz!, Dancing in the Garden of Evil). Plus, he's worked with ska stars like Lee "Scratch" Perry (picking up a Grammy in the process), Dave Barker, Judge Dread, Prince Buster, and Laurel Aitken.

(In addition, Nick is in the midst of writing his autobiography with Paul "Willo" Williams, which is also titled "The Life and Times of a Ska Man"--read an exclusive excerpt here.)

We've pre-ordered our copy of The Life and Times of a Ska Man...now it's your turn!

Duff Review/Over the Transom: The Toasters' "House of Soul" single, Dr. Ring Ding's "Kalipso Times" 10", and Solomon Jabby's "Showdown at the Altarsound" single!

Editor's note: In an attempt to catch up on the huge backlog of releases that are awaiting my review--and to counter my obsession with solely composing long, in-depth write-ups (something that I just don't have time to do as much as I'd like to, sadly)--I'm launching this new series of brief, paragraph-length reviews. Titled "Over the Transom," my inside joke with Marc Wasserman about sneaking in ska releases and merchandise to our homes without attracting the attention of our respective wives, these batches of reviews are intended to give props to the many bands still recording and issuing great ska music, as well as alert ska fans as to which releases are worth their hard-earned cash.

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(Reviews by Steve Shafer)

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The Toasters
"House of Soul" b/w "Going Home"
Megalith Records
2013
7" vinyl single w/picture sleeve

While there have been several vinyl LP re-issues of Toasters material on Megalith/Jump Up over the past few years (and the band practically has been on a non-stop tour of the globe), there hasn't been a Toasters release of new material since 2007's One More Bullet (kind of a shock, since I remember the brighter days when each year brought a new Toasters album). This is, no doubt, a reflection of the deleterious impact of illegal file sharing on sales of recorded music rather than an omen of the creative well running dry. To dispel any worries about that, all one has to do is place the needle on The Toasters' "House of Soul" single, a superb new tribute of sorts to Motown, which will sate the cravings of both newbie and long-time fans for Bucket's patented and beloved NYC ska sound. For a musician now based in (and frequently touring) Europe, it's fascinating to note how these songs are (still) so strongly influenced by 60s black American music (and express deep nostalgia for "old time music," "beat up 45s," and music delivered via mono transistor radios and hi fi sets--all of which are okay by me). "House of Soul" ("Take a boat ride down the delta/and a train right down to Atlanta, too/Take a quick trip up to Chicago, Illinois/To find the home of the rhythm and blues") is another of Bucket's ska history tracks--acknowledging the vital roots of Jamaican ska--that could be the companion track to "Chuck Berry" off Hard Band for Dead. "Going Home" is a ska-via-New Orleans musician's road warrior song ("I've met a lot of people/Ugly, good, and bad....I've broken a lot of hearts/but none of them was mine/Now I'm standing at the crossroads/In the middle of the square/I don't know where I'm going/but it feels like I'm almost there/I'm going home to the one who is waiting for me there"). Good stuff. Bucket says that "House of Soul" marks the first of many new singles from The Toasters--here's hoping that in the near future the band takes more breaks from touring to hit the studio to lay down the next batch of killer tunes!

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Dr. Ring Ding
Kalipso Times
Ring Of Fire Records
2013
10" vinyl EP

Packed with more slack double entendres that you could shake a...um...stick at, comes Dr. Ring Ding's Kalipso Times EP (which I was able to mail order through Interpunk in the USA). Anyone paying attention to the ska scene over the past two decades will know that the good Doktor is an extraordinary master of vintage Jamaican ska, but his forays into Trinidadian calypso are equally as magnificent. Side A of this EP features an excellent original tune done inna Mighty Sparrow style called "The Cat and the Rooster" (I'll let you work out what we're really referring to here) concerning the struggle for dominance between men and women. More reggae than calypso, "All Because I Love You" is a rather sweet and straight-forward declaration of love and devotion that was also featured on the recent Dr. Ring Ding Ska-Vaganza CD Piping Hot.  Side B contains a cover of Might Sparrow's deserved 1966 hit "Obeah Wedding" and “The Needle,"a reggae take on Lord Kitchener's “Dr. Kitch" (also a favorite song to cover by the great and late Judge Dread), which is not exactly about syringes and medicinal injections (both of these tracks have previously been available on a Grover single and Jump Up's release of Dr. Ring Ding's Back and Forth CD). It's all pretty hilarious, in good fun, and very well done.

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Solomon Jabby
"Showdown at the Altarsound" b/w "Tone Wheel Express"
Jump Up Records
2013
7" vinyl single

Though known more for his Christian reggae, Solomon Jabby showcases his early reggae instrumental work on these two fine keyboard-centric tracks. "Showdown at the Altarsound" (Altarsound is the name of Jabby's backyard studio, a la Lee Perry's Black Ark) is an energetic organ workout, while "Tone Wheel Express" is a proud, almost strutting track. Fans of The Aggrolites, The Caroloregians, and 2000 Tons of TNT will be more than pleased to have this single in their collection.

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