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...

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Duff Guide to Ska Fast Takes: Madness and T-Killas!

(Reviews by Steve Shafer)

As my friends at Stateside Madness recently pointed out, even though there have been loads of Madness compilations released in the UK over the years, only four have been issued in the USA--and none of them have included tracks past 1986! So, the release of the twelve song Our House: The Very Best of Madness (CD/LP, Union Square Music, 2021) is more than overdue and will help the casual Yankee Madness fan catch up on what they've been missing as of late. There are cuts from 2009's outstanding The Liberty of Norton Folgate (read my review of the album and film) and 2016's Can't Touch Us Now (read my review of it here)--wot, nothing from 2012's Oui Oui, Si Si, Ja Ja, Da Da?--plus the 2019 digital single "Bullingdon Boys" (read my review here), which has never previously received a physical release! Even though I have all of their albums, I'll sheepishly admit that I picked up this comp just to have "Bullingdon Boys." Such is the life of an obsessive vinyl collector. (Also make sure to check out Stateside Madness' brilliant interview with Madness guitarist Chris Foreman!)

I'm not exactly sure why Germans have such a knack for making really great ska. But if you like The Busters, No Sports, The Frits, The Butlers, El Bosso und Die Ping Pongs, Bleichreiz, Skaos, The Braces, Dr. Ring Ding, The Senior Allstars, Bluekilla, Masons Arms, Yellow Cap, etc. as much as I do, make sure to add T-Killas to the list. Their incredible new album Awareness (CD/LP, Fire and Flames Music/Grover Records, 2020; and available in the USA through Jump Up Records) is a mash up of melodic 2 Tone/early '90s Krautska (particularly The Busters/No Sports/The Frits), and The Clash, The Jam, and The Adjusters (and note that those last three bands were fiercely leftist). In the midst of seemingly everyday songs about going out and having fun, pursing women or men, and just trying to earn enough to get by in life, T-Killas pointedly include messages that are anti-fascist, and pro-socialist and gender equity. Ska fans longing for new protest songs to address some of the many injustices and evils out there have another album for their arsenal!

In what is clearly the single of the album (that I first heard through the Do the Dog Ska-A-Go-Go, Volume 3 comp), the irresistible knees-up singalong "Dandy and Rude" gleefully trades in bad-ass myth-making while celebrating rudies/workers' unity and purpose:

'Cause tonight I'm out with the most special one
When he's out he spills entire bars and more
He burns whole blocks dancing to the rebel sound
He roars like a lion until he sleeps on the ground

He's so dandy and rude--you will never get this fool!

'Cause tonight I'm out with the most special one
When she starts to rumble, the jungle is gone
She drinks the enemy's blood out of her red bowl
Who says you got to be tall to kick the shit out of an asshole?

Fight, drinking all night long
Chanting beloved workers' songs
Crew love, AFA skinheads
Nothing to prove--black and red

"Rudie's Struggle" challenges gender stereotypes--particularly rude boy/skinhead machismo: "'She's so soft and she's so sweet'/You think she's not a street warrior, oh please...He or she/Poor categories/Do you want to preserve the classic roles?/Or a counterculture without sexual harm for all?" Maybe a little is lost in translation, but you get the gist. "Gonna Go" is a sweet reggae love song about that special someone you can always rely on. "Riot Ground" sounds like a Billy Bragg/Joe Strummer punk rock collaboration sending up a flare to the powers that be to take note that not all is hunky dory with the masses: "You give 'em hope, you give 'em peace, education and disease/But is going on--if there's a fucking wake up call?" And perhaps the most powerful track on the album is the anti-capitalist/pro-socialist and shout out of solidarity with the workers of the world mod cut "Calling for Stars":

I don't get no money for my rent
I just keep on slaving till the end

This is another good goodbye
To our empty life
It's another calling for the black, black star
And it's another calling for the red shine
It's another calling for the red, red star
And it's another calling for the black light

As someone living in a country plagued by white supremacy and enormous income inequality--and where far too many people fear and don't understand--and don't care to understand--what socialism and antifa actually mean, it's both striking and heartening to hear catchy, positive songs about both. We really need them, so keep 'em coming!

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Duff Review: Smiley and The Underclass: "The Way to the Bomb" EP

Timeless Records
Vinyl/digital
2020

(Review by Steve Shafer)

This is not an upbeat record. But, given the times and Smiley and The Underclass' passionately held left-wing beliefs, how could it be? By all accounts, things have gotten considerably worse since they unleashed their blisteringly good punk 'n' reggae debut album Rebels Out There in 2017, which I reviewed here (see the mass sickness and death caused by the incompetent response to the global covid-19 pandemic, the rise of white supremacists and authoritarians in decaying democracies, ever-worsening economic inequality, accelerating climate change, etc.). The fury and frustration at our ongoing descent toward personal, societal, and planetary ruin fuels the outrage in Smiley and The Underclass' dark but stellar The Way to the Bomb.

The party kicks off with the catchy and danceable (seriously) "The Return of the Vampire," a Hammer horror take on UK (and US) politicians preying on their own citizens, leaving agony and destruction in their wake: "Britain is in chaos/America is in flames/Nutters and demagogues rule the airwaves...Oh, I've got a smartphone/Now I'm a smart slave/I-man stepping higher to Zion/I'm climbing over barbed wire/I got the pliers/There's fires burning miles and miles/What's gonna happen to the next generation?/All I see: sufferation!" (Make sure to check out the killer, digital-only "The Return of the Vampire (Ronin's Lockdown Dub).")

Continuing with the horror show theme, in "We Are Monsters," both social and consolidated corporate media have been manipulated by predatory capitalists and right-wing goons to reap great profits, amass power, and sow division among the people (whose potential solidarity could easily upend the status quo), transforming us as if by mad laboratory-concocted pathogen into our own enemy: "We're just here for you/To ensure you don't miss the main eulogy/We blow blood bubbles or are they red raspberries/Over the graves of deceased democracies/Killed off by years of tabloid-led hypocrisy/Now tell me truthfully, don't be a liar/Fighting between two vampires for hire/Fangs made of fibre and wires/Mr. Jones, listen--tell me your desires." (The "Mr. Jones" mention might be a nod to The Psychedelic Furs' broadside aimed at the false, yet highly seductive, idealized imagery constructed by Hollywood and Madison Avenue to sell tickets and goods: "Movie stars and ads and radio define romance/Don't turn it on, I don't wanna dance!" Those were simpler times.)

The deeply mournful and angry (and Jam/Clash "Call Up" referencing) "FLAG" notes how the now ubiquitous cruelty and hatred unleashed in one's own country has left everyone hollow inside: "There's no birds/In the garden/Just plastic bottles and a hole in the fence/Used to dream of an English Rose/But he don't dream no more (and he wonders)/What am I supposed to feel?...I can't read the sign of the times." A town called Malice, indeed. Yet, Smiley and The Underclass do offer a glimmer of hope and encouragement to their fellow humans trying to get by in a hostile world. "We All Get Like This" reminds the listener that we're often our own worst critics and shouldn't allow that self-doubt and self-sabotage to get us down: "Nobody's ever sorted/Not if they're really truthful."

Everything ends with the frenzied skabilly cut "Wanna Blow Up the Whole World." It's all bloodlust and sex--expressing humanity's knack for efficiently doling out violence on our own kind, and our innate attraction to self-destruction: "Tear gas in your heart/Razor wire in bed/All I could see was her legs/She played your part/When she breathed in your ear/'Here's what I want from you dear...'"

The vivid images in the mirror that Smiley and The Underclass hold up for the listener sure aren't pretty, but at least to you can readily sing along and dance to their songs. It's a great soundtrack for these seemingly end times.

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Duff Review: Heavyball "Black Eye Diaries"

Magnetic North Melodies
CD/LP/digital
2015

(Review by Steve Shafer)

Heavyball's second album When Can You Start? was one of our favorite albums of 2017 (read The Duff Guide to Ska review of it here) and is still in frequent rotation on our turntable. So, when we learned through Kevin Flowerdew's essential Do The Dog Skazine that Heavyball's debut album Black Eye Diaries (Ten Uplifting Songs About Death and Disappointment) was back in print, we got our hands on a copy as soon as the Royal Mail could deliver it to our lair in New York City. Whereas When Can You Start? is a brilliant mod-ska-Brit pop opera of sorts about a week in lives of workers both high and low in the UK, Black Eye Diaries focuses on the indignities of living in the middle of nowhere, stuck in an existence with not much good going on, and of life (and people) letting you down badly. Sounds like a bummer of a record, but as the subtitle of the album states, it delivers as advertised: these are terrific, upbeat songs about life's hard truths.

The tension and limits of living in lesser metro areas are conveyed in tracks like the no future of "Small Time Hero" ("Your girlfriend is still in detention/You park up and smoke by the gates/Her song is playing so she can hear/Her teacher wishes you'd disappear...And you're never gonna leave this town/Where you can't afford to buy a round/And you're never gonna get too far/Flipping burgers in a fast food bar/And you're never gonna leave this place/Non-starter in the human race/And you're never gonna leave this town/'Cos you didn't even last the round") and a fantastic ska cover of Bronski Beat's mid-'80s synth-pop hit "Smalltown Boy," about a gay teen's experience with homophobia, gay-bashing, and familial rejection leading him to abandon his home town for the (hopefully) more tolerant (or anonymous) big city. "Another Country" expresses disgust at the increasing economic inequality between the very rich in London versus everyone else outside its city limits ("It's like living in another country/It's all ugly and it's all for show/Too many folk with too much money/Looking down on the one's below...Now I'm home I feel much better/So much better than I did before/It may be cold, I know it's wetter/I'll never be a city boy...Home sweet home/We're not wanted").

Then there are songs of bad decisions and dashed expectations. The top of that list is the hilarious, self-aware/regretful, still-in-love with your ex/drunk bar fight song "Black Eye Friday" that manages to work in a bit of Toots and the Maytals' "54-46 (Was My Number)": "I hit him one time/He hit me three times/I was talking, when I should've been listening..." (that last bit is something that singer/guitarist Bigface heard during a stint in the army: "I stole that quote from a corporal I worked with in the army. When the lads turned up for first parade on Monday morning, at least one would always have a black eye. He’d taunt them in a broad Sunderland accent 'Ah! You was talking when you should have been listening, eh?'"). Or the tale in "Wanted" of how she's left her boyfriend/husband and is literally running off with you, but it's changed the dynamics of everything in ways you didn't expect: "You got what you wanted/But you lost what you had/And if you got all that you wanted/Why do you look so sad?" (Which reminds me of this admittedly nerdy, but apt Star Trek quote spoken by Spock's character in "Amok Time": "After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.") The bitter, but completely rocking mod track "Lost Heroes" expresses the sting and anger of learning that the people you looked up to--pop stars and politicians alike--are complete frauds ("And I have seen everything I need/And I don't need anything I've seen"); there's an incredible live acoustic version of it here! The eerie ska cut "Hands Up" is (I think) about managing to survive the horrors of war and making it back home (which was all you wanted), but being so damaged by the experience that you end up taking your own life.

The album ends with "Unhappy Now," an extraordinary Revolver-era Beatles/Sound Affects-era Jam-influenced song about (guiltily) having to leave a dead-end town and a good friend mired in a rut: "No money to pay the rent/Now the money's all been spent/Because life is hard in our town/Being home just dragged him down...Moved deep down south for a life in the sun/I'm sorry that I'm the only one to go/People so unhappy now/Everyone's so unhappy now/And deep down I still miss him/But I've made my choice/And now I've got to go."

It's relatively rare to come across such a powerful collection of songs that ring so true and real in their depiction of--and ambivalence toward--modern life. Heavyball's Black Eye Diaries is a phenomenal ska-mod soundtrack for one's less-than-hoped-for existence.

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Duff Review: Various Artists "Gifted: A Ska Tribute to The Jam"

Specialized UK/Jump Up Records
Red or white vinyl LP
2018

(Review by Steve Shafer)

Gifted is the latest in a series of excellent ska tribute/Teenage Cancer Trust benefit CD compilations from Specialized UK, which have been released in part on vinyl by Jump Up in the USA; previous efforts have focused on The Specials, The Beat, Madness, Bob Marley, and The Clash. The selection of cuts on the abridged, vinyl version of Gifted (in its original form, this is a 4 x CD release!) are a mix of The Jam's hit singles (in the UK, at least), b-sides, and album cuts (many from Setting Sons; all of them brilliant)--and the vast majority of the covers here bring something different and compelling to each version of these songs. In sum, Gifted is a powerful and winning set of tracks that do The Jam proud.

Of particular note are the Meow Meows' "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" (which takes on a whole new level of dread with a woman singing about being brutally mugged/assaulted by right wing goons...and worrying about her wife back at home, since the thugs have the singer's house keys); my old bandmates Rude Boy George's "Town Called Malice" (which decries the meager quality of life and dashed dreams of the masses in Thatcher's England); King Hammond's swinging "I Got By In Time" (with life experience comes wisdom); the Pressure Tenants "Strange Town" (about being alienated in one's own gray and unwelcoming land); Erin Bardwell Collective's very Beatles-y "English Rose"; The Amphetameanies' "Funeral Pyre" (with its allusions to fascist book-burnings--and a chart hit for The Jam just a few weeks before The Specials' "Ghost Town" went #1, when riots tore through many of England's cities, mainly due to high youth unemployment and the police's outrageous and despicable use of the Sus law to harass black people); Los Chicklet's Spanish-sung "Saturday's Kids" ("These are the real creatures that time has forgot/Not given a thought, it's the system/Hate the system, what's the system?"); The Crombies' Joe Jackson-like (think the New Wave ska of his "Pretty Boys") "Girl on the Phone" (concerning the bizarre experience of losing all privacy in the face of fame); The Skapone's "Smithers-Jones" (Bruce Foxton's warning of how workers who play the game and conform to capitalism's rules and societal expectations are ground up and spit out in the end; by the way, Paul Willo shines here!); and Lynval Golding and Contra Coup's wild, dancehall DJ-effects filled "Tales of the Riverbank" (an admittedly nostalgic longing for the innocence and freedom that comes with being very young).

The Jam's songs (and Paul Weller's and Foxton's enormous empathy for their songs' protagonists) continue to be surprisingly immediate and relevant three decades on (and oftentimes they're more accessible, as you can much more easily discern the lyrics in these versions!). Most of all, Gifted reminds the listener that being young and/or powerless in your own cruel and unjust country--when all you want to do is have fun, pursue your dreams, and earn enough to get by--is the same as it ever was...

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New Video of Rude Boy George's Cover of "Town Called Malice" for the "Gifted: Tribute to The Jam" Charity Comp

My former bandmates in Rude Boy George have just released the video for their fantastic ska cover of "Town Called Malice" for the four CD "Gifted: Tribute to The Jam" compilation, the proceeds of which will benefit The Teenage Cancer Trust, National Foundation for Youth Music, and Tonic Music for Mental Health.

Check out the excellent video below--and go to Specialized for more info about the comp/to pre-order it.



"The ghost of a steam train echoes down my track
It's at the moment bound for nowhere
Just going round and round
Playground kids and creaking swings
Lost laughter in the breeze
I could go on for hours and I probably will
But I'd sooner put some joy back in this town called malice."

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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!).

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New Romantics-1, 2 Tone-Zilch

We need to briefly revisit the recent Spin article on 2 Tone one more time. That was a shockingly good piece of music journalism--particularly for a relatively mainstream American music mag (gonna have to check it out more often when I'm at the magazine racks at Barnes & Noble).

Here's the money quote (from the eminently quotable Dave Wakeling, natch):

"Well, we were all destroyed by the New Romantics. All of a sudden our utilitarian gear looked plain next to these dandies. People wanted music as escapism again. There was a point where you'd have Elvis Costello, The Jam, and the Beat on Top of the Pops saying, 'Here's a brand new song about unemployment.'"

Ouch. Makes me want to burn my Human League LPs.

Also, any article that starts with a nod to one of my favorite ska-referencing scenes in moviedom--the part where the black punk in Sid and Nancy's circle shows up resplendent in his new tonic suit and pork pie and declares "I don't wanna be a punk anymore. I want to be a rude boy, like me dad"--is alright with me.