Category: Ska

Saturday Matinee – Ren Gill, Mocca Garden & Laid Back Country Picker

Ren Gill is a Welsh musician / performance artist who tells heavy (and often dark) stories in his songs and videos.

I was about to categorize him as merely a talented multi-media character actor until I read his horrific story in the Daily Mail. In 2009 he woke up severely ill with what he described as the worst hangover he’d ever had, but it didn’t go away. After years of misdiagnoses that included physical and psychological treatments, specialists eventually identified the culprit as chronic Lyme Disease in 2016.

Mocca Garden is a ska / reggae band from Thailand. Can’t find much about them, but this (translated) page explains what to wear to their shows.

Laid Back Country Picker (LBCP) is guitar slinger LB, Honey Bun on drums, and that’s about all anybody really needs to know.
[h/t Gorehound]

Have a great weekend folks and we’ll deal with the balloons tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – Raoul Servais, Doo Rag, Flat Duo Jets & Raskahuele

Harpya, by Belgian animator and filmmaker Raoul Servais, is based upon C.L. Moore’s 1933  creepy short story Shambleau.

Music video for the song Trudge by Tucson, Arizona duo Doo Rag, shot on 35mm film. Pure roots blues industrial punk is kinda hard on the earballs, but I like it.

Flat Duo Jets  performed a cover of Benny Joy’s Wild Wild Lover on Letterman in 1990, with backup by Paul Schaefer’s Late Night band. Don’t know how I missed these psychobillies. Dexter Romweber was/is an animal.
[h/t Gord S for both Doo Rag & FDJ.]

L.A.’s Raskahuele is tight  My Spanish is too slow to translate, but sometimes I don’t need to know the words.

Have a great weekend, see you back here tomorrow, at least for a while.

Saturday Matinee – Aaron Moloney, Markus Proske & Lollypop Lorry

Aaron Moloney‘s Toast (2017) won an RTÉ 60 Second Short Award.

Markus Proske‘s 4-string electric cigar box guitar.

Lollypop Lorry covered the Wailers’ / Skatalites’ 1964 hit Simmer Down in style – wait for the trumpet solo. Not bad for a ska band from Russia.

Okay, outta steam, outta time, gotta go, be back tomorrow, seeya.

Iatromathematical Hot Links

Sea Cruise, Rico (1980) One of the most prolific session players of Jamaica’s pre-ska era, trombonist Rico Rodriguez (1934-2015) also recorded as a solo artist. He was an honorary member of The Specials, and was a longstanding member of Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra.

Written by Huey “Piano” Smith, Frankie Ford scored a gold record with Sea Cruise in 1959.

If I was a bug.

Saharan sand.

1844-pack of PBR.

Instant Karma.
[via Feral Irishman]

Dinousaurs ate bees.
[via Memo of the Air]

Cornered waterspout.
[via Mme. Jujujive]

The 1933 Miami Air Races.

The Donora Smog Museum.

Animals chasing laser pointers.

Aliens – the honest movie trailer.
[ht/Wheels.]

The number of European pigs per sq. km.
[h/t Possum]

[Top image: Photocollage of the colors of the moon by Marcella Giulia Pace, h/t Paul Y.]

From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.

Saturday Matinee – Avner the Eccentric, Khruangbin & Raskahuele Estridente

That’s some class clowning. While street performing in Paris,  Avner Eisenberg (aka Avner the Eccentric) was once arrested for buffoonery in public.

Space surf funk jazz mixed with world music = Khruangbin.
The name is Thai for “aeroplane,” and they make their recordings in a barn in  Burton, Texas (pop. 300). There’s more about them here than on their cool website.

Formed in 2004, L.A.’s Raskahuele Estridente is sort of a latino version of Fishbone, and I like their style.  Their song topics include socio-political / immigration issues mixed in with fun stuff.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, fight for the leftovers, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.

Blennophobic Hot Links

No More Doggin’, Roscoe Gordon (1952)One of the original Memphis “Beale Streeters,” Roscoe Gordan‘s breakout hit Booted made No. 1 on the R&B singles charts in 1952; No More Doggin‘ made No. 2 the same year. Gordon (and Fats Domino) influenced Jamaican pianist Theophilus Beckford, and Gordon’s back-beat style is credited as the foundation of Jamaican ska, bluebeat (Jamaican R&B) and reggae.

Rivers.

Frog Game.

I need this hat.

Bozo Fish Mask.

Gumby’s final days.

Aikey Brae and stuff.

Bushman scares dogs.

“What are you, French?”

25 new buses lasted four years.

Dan Akroyd explains Bass-O-Matic.

Clay Head with Turkey, Cheese and Ants.

Go taste-tripping with synsepalum dulcificum. Everyone should try a “miracle berry” at least once.

[Top image from here.]

From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.

Saturday Matinee – A Banana, Бра́во, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones & Cam Cole

This banana comes with a cool Django Reinhardt vibe.
[Found here.]

Marty Robbins goes to Russia? Бра́во [Bravo] was founded in 1983 in Moscow, was one of the most popular underground acts.
Ветер знает [The Wind Knows] sounds just like the real deal. (There’s an English version here.)

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones‘ song intro has been stuck in my head for months and now that I’ve rediscovered it I can finally sleep at night. This live version is from 2011.

Cam Cole, busker, bluesman, rocker, recording artist, and “the most impressive one-man band you will ever see” nails the blues to your forehead and plugs it into your ears. This guy is definitely one to watch for.

Have a great weekend, something else will show up here tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – The Specials, Rude Pride & The Interrupters

The Specials in 1979, with A Message To You Rudy.
From the Utoobage comments:

“For those who do not know the story already, the “rudy” of this song is not a person. In fact, it refers to the slang term “rude boy” (rude boy-rudie-rudy) that originated in Jamaica in the early ’60s to define a specific sub-culture that used to listen to ska and rocksteady. As you can imagine, the term “rude” refers to the not exactly in-line-with-the-law lifestyle they had. [..] This particular subculture heavily influenced the mods and the skinheads, particularly in the look. And in in regards of music too , obviously, since the genre Oi! is heavily influenced by ska.”

Rude Pride is/was a band from Madrid (2013-2020) that played 1970s style Oi! Although the sub-genre is often misconstrued as music by racist pro-fascist bands, this is not one of them. I just like the song. (BTW, that’s the Flag of Jamaica on the wall in the background.)

Keeping with the accidental theme, let’s go with some nasty ska.
The Interrupters cover Billie Eilish’ Bad Guy, and their version is better. Duh.

I think that’ll do for now. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

Saturday Matinee – George Duke & Dweezil Zappa, MonoNeon & skArmy

George Duke showed up to play Zappa’s classic Uncle Remus with Dweezil Zappa‘s band in 2010. (If you like George Duke, this behind the scenes rehearsal from1978 is kinda fun. Jump to 02:50.)

Ignore the clickbait title – it’s a killer groove by MonoNeon. He’s right-handed, but plays left-handed on an upside-down right-handed bass. Dude can cover Zappa, too.

skArmy covers Save Ferris‘s cover of Dexy’s Mightnight Runners‘s Come On Eileen is a good one to wrap it up.

Have a great weekend folks, gonna do something tomorrow.

 

Saturday Matinee – The Big Lie, Bad Manners, Reel Big Fish & The Skatalites

The Big Lie (1951). Yeah, it was propaganda, but it was also true. I went to school with a guy whose family escaped from communist Hungary in a hot air balloon. You can laugh, say that “It can’t happen here,” but it IS happening here.

Bad Manners – one of my favorite Brit Ska bands.

Reel Big Fish. They were kinda awesome.

No one could out-ska the Skatalites.

1]Freedom Sound
2]Man In The Street
3]Guns Of Navarone
4]El Pussycat
5]James Bond Theme
6]Sugar, Sugar
7]Nice Time
8]Simmer Down / Turn Your Lamp Down Low
9]Rockfort Rock (El Cumbanchero)
10]Latin Goes Ska
11]Phoenix City
12]Freedom Sound – Reprise

Have a great weekend, folks. See you back here tomorrow.

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