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In anticipation of The Specials upcoming reunion, you may find yourself wanting to get up-to-speed on the band’s music, videos and even do some light reading. Check out the following sources and you’ll be able to impress friends at cocktail parties in the months leading up to this highly anticipated and long-rumored event.

In case your old vinyl records, cassettes or CD’s got tossed out along with your creepers and pork-pie hat, you’ll want to pick up The Best of The Specials. This two-disc set features 36 of the best tracks from the bands’ first two albums, as well as the haunting single “Ghost Town” and some lesser-known but worthwhile tracks from the Special AKA “In The Studio” album. In addition, there is a DVD containing video and live footage of the band during their hey-day.

Speaking of video, YouTube has an official Specials page containing 15 videos – a couple of which are live – including “Ghost Town”, “Gangsters” and the classic “A Message To You Rudy.”

Now, if music and video is not enough, you can pick up a copy of bass player Horace Panter’s book Ska’d for Life: A Personal Journey with The Specials. The book is somewhat of a diary of Panter’s time with the band, and should prove interesting for fans both old and new.

No word yet on what the reunion will consist of, although anything more than tour dates (another studio album perhaps?) is probably wishful thinking. Let’s hope they will make their way back to the U.S. Having seen the two re-incarnations of The Specials back in the 1990’s, I can say that they put on a great show, even without two key members in Terry Hall and Jerry Dammers. Since most of the members seem to have kept their chops up by consistently performing in various solo efforts and spin-off bands for the last couple of decades, I would expect nothing less than an incredible live show with an energy that should be explosive. Given the troubled world we all live in, it seems like a good time for a band with the biting social commentary of The Specials to return to the stage.

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From the band…

Catch-it Kebabs from Yorkshire in England are one of the hardest working bands on the UK scene, notching up over 100 gigs a year . This year sees the 18-legged ska-beast turn 7 years old, and to celebrate this they are giving away their *NEW SINGLE* for *FREE* for 1 month prior to the release. To get this *FREE* goodies all you have to do is register before the 27th June!

You can register by visiting: www.catchitkebabs.co.uk and filling the form in (Takes 30 secs max.), and you will receive the track on the 28th/29th June just before it’s official release.

We are also building up a database of peoples age, music pref etc. so we can build up an idea of the current scene. So please reply to your email and help create the ska census 2008.
Thanks guys.
Jamie
Feet First Records
info@feetfirstrecords.com

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Ska music is starting to gain more of a modern web presence with the launch of sites such as SkaPedia.com and SkaToob.com. As you can probably guess, these websites seek to emulate the success and popularity of behemoths WikiPedia and YouTube, albeit with a focus on ska bands and music.

SkaPedia.com is a standard wiki site, and it looks like (based on some band searches) much of the content comes directly from WikiPedia – not an uncommon practice in the wiki world. Still, there does appear to be original content, and SkaPedia does not have some of the silly restrictions regarding what content can be included in a wiki page. Hopefully the wiki-nazis won’t take over like they have at WikiPedia.

SkaToob.com appears to have quite a bit of content, and its focus on ska music means that people looking for ska videos don’t have to filter through the immense collection at YouTube just to find footage of their favorite underground ska bands. I think this is a great idea for a website – someone looking for ska videos is presented with focused content, and will be more likely to find what they are looking for, and possibly get turned onto something new. Sure, SkaToob will not boast the viewership numbers that YouTube has, but then again, ska is a fairly niche market. Just because you’re on YouTube, doesn’t guarantee that millions are going to see your video.

Both sites are part of the SkaSpot network.

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  European-based ska label Megalith Records has announced a US distribution deal with MVD (Music Video Distribution). According to the Megalith website, this means that the Megalith catalog will be available for US record stores to order from.

The deal comes on the heals of a new Toasters Live CBGB recording that is also released by MVD. Hopefully this means that US ska fans will be able to purchase more European ska at local record stores. Of course, Megalith does not only put out releases by European bands. One of their latest releases is from southern California’s RiceRokit , and band that plays a SoCal flavor of reggae, with ska influences.

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San Diego ska band Buck-O-Nine has posted on their MySpace page that they will be supporting punk rock band Rancid on the first two shows of Rancid’s North American Tour 2008. Buck-O-Nine will make the trek from southern California to Tucson, AZ and El Paso, TX for the shows on June 10 and 11. Tour information posted on the Rancid website shows east coast counterparts Big D and the Kids Table playing the support role on some east coast dates, as well as some east coast hardcore legends such as Murphy’s Law (anyone remember “The Murphy’s Law Ska Song”?), Sick of it All, and H20. Asian Man Records labelmates Bomb the Music Industry will also play support at one of the NYC shows, during a streak that sees Rancid playing five nights in a row at the NY Fillmore.

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Probably no one outside of San Diego ever heard of this band, but Spy Kids was a 2-Tone ska band that played shows around southern California for a year or so during the very early 1990’s. They mostly played parties and small clubs in San Diego, as well as a few shows up in Orange County and the Inland Empire.

The band opened up for some notable regional acts such as The Specs, Gangbusters and The Imperials (who all appear on the California Ska Quake Vol. I compilation). In addition, Spy Kids opened up for Hepcat and The Selecter.

Spy Kids released a 4-song demo tape and sold it at their shows. Now one of the former band members has digitized the demo tape and posted all four songs on a MySpace page. An interesting footnote is the song “Cheeto,” which was written by former members of Gangbusters and another San Diego ska band called Multiple Choice. Two Spy Kids members had previously been in a band called Double Barrel with the song’s composers, and when that band split up, Spy Kids incorporated it into their set. The songs can be freely downloaded from the MySpace page.

After the band parted ways with the lead singer, they gradually disintegrated, as most of the remaining members moved on to other musical projects such as Unwritten Law, Buck-O-Nine, Pivit and Flogging Molly.

If you’re looking for a sampling of what the southern California underground ska scene was like before the third-wave exploded, click here to check out Spy Kids.

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I was browsing the web in search of some good information regarding ska music’s formation in the early days, and stumbled across a great, if brief, article on the National Geographic website. What I like about the article is that it paints a great picture of how ska most likely mutated out of Jamaican interpretations of American R&B and boogie.

Most people know that there are many people who claim to have invented ska – what this article puts forth is that the actual creation of the ska sound, with its accent on the second and fourth beats, may have been an accident. Click here for the article.

In addition, National Geographic has an informative write-up of guitarist Ernest Ranglin that documents his influence on Jamaican music – from early ska, to rocksteady and onto reggae. Read about this musical godfather here.

Articles such as these bring up what I think is an important point – that ska music was created by artists of great talent and impressive musical pedigree. When reading about ska’s origins, it is easy to dismiss it as simply Jamaican youth trying to emulate what they heard on American and Cuban radio. Although this is certainly part of the story, there is much more to learn and explore regarding the contributions of some serious musicians to what has become a musical style that has gained worldwide popularity.

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New Brunswick’s Hub City Stompers plan to release a new CD, titled “Ska Ska Black Sheep” this spring, on Stubborn Records. The band’s website promises six new songs, plus dub versions of HCS favorites. If you haven’t heard their music, you can pick up their latest release, “Dirty Jersey” directly from Megalith Records.

HCS will be playing lots of east coast gigs throughout the spring, check out show dates here. Definitely try to check out their live set, as it’s full of energy and these guys know how to bring the music to the stage.

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If you are curious about the history of ska music, which dates back to the 1950’s, here are a couple of websites worth checking out. Backy Skank has a nice article called “Ska for the Unitiated” that traces the history of ska music back to its pre-ska roots, with information about how Jamaican culture, as well as jazz, mento and the Jamaican music industry influenced the birth of ska. The article even includes a ska bibliography for those interested in further reading.

The BBC’s website has a brief yet interesting history of the 2-Tone movement’s beginnings in Coventry, England.

For something a bit more multimedia, check out this YouTube video which is a powerpoint-style clip accompanied by some classic ska sounds.

Now that you have boned up on your knowledge of ska music, head on over to the Wikipedia ska entry and help beef up the page by adding to it. Just make sure to include citations along with your facts.

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Tickets go on sale today at 10:00 am PST for the upcoming Bad Manners gig at Hollywood’s Key Club on Sunday, March 30. The cost is $18 advance – not too bad a price for the opportunity to see a classic 2-Tone era ska band.

Friends of mine saw Bad Manners last time they were in San Diego, and said they put on a really good show. It’s been years since I last saw them, but they never fail to impress!

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