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numetaljackdog · 1 year

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what i'm listening to 8/5/2023 (SKAUGUST SPECIAL) (song notes under cut)

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bonjour tout la monde :3 i see you're all working on that first course...... perhaps you'd like another? :3c

now. this is no ordinary WILT. bc as i've mentioned i have been absolutely INFECTED by the skaucous skanking energy of SKAUGUST!!!! i might do a mini-WILT later in the month with some other stuff i've been listening to, but for now this is an ENTIRELY SKA playlist ^w^ well...... almost entirely. there is one exception, of course....

Laura Les - Skaunted: it's skaunted. by laura les. i really did try to find a ska cover for this but as far as i can tell there is none. get on that, people.

Streetlight Manifesto - Everything Went Numb: very likely my favorite ska song i've ever heard, this one's been with me for a good few years now. there's just such a drama to it, lots of storytelling gravitas rather than just a fun pop song. and the HOOKS they cram into this thing, good lord. the rapid-fire lyrics and layered horn section and difference in dynamics all work so well together.... i always find myself running through the part "i don't wanna hear, i don't wanna be near, i do what i gotta do, just to keep my nose clean" over and over and over again. that and the quiet part "a little something like this, na na na na na na, na na na na na na na" i've never heard a band that made na na na's work as well as these guys, and you can take that as an insult to whichever pop punk band you like if you really want, but one way or another this is a fucking golden track and you HAVE(!!!) to listen to it at least once okay?

No Doubt - Just A Girl: probably one of the most if not just the absolute most commercially and culturally successful moments that ska has had..... and it's not hard to see why. this song is a fucking ALL TIME crusher, it's got hooks for days, the little synth part is all crunchy, it's a bona fide feminist pop anthem, and, if we can all take a second to be real with ourselves here, gwen stefani is an excellent performer for stuff like this. i have no trouble imagining young teen girls in 1995 seeing this shit on mtv for the first time and having their lives and brain chemistries irreversibly changed. this and spiderwebs but there's only so much room in the playlist, folks

Madness - One Step Beyond: considering what we still have yet to get to in this list, it's a real testament to how much i instantly loved this one that it's placed so high. it's goofy as shit but it represents so many things i love about 2 tone. first of all, the just intrusively obvious british lameness of it is quite charming, and also just really interesting from a historical perspective. as we'll see, a lot of 2nd wave ska bands hailed from the uk, likely bc of the genre's connections with new wave, which began largely as a british export. and then with third wave ska, the usa became the new hub of ska music, but i feel like that british influence remained a crucial part of the way ska presented itself even then. very interesting, if you're as big a nerd as me. i feel like this is also a tune where you can hear some of ska's jazz influences, which is awesome to think how this revival movement for jamaican dance music not only preserved its basic rhythm structure but also some of its influences. i ALSO like that it hardly has any words - they were just like here's some of the tastiest fucking riffs you've ever heard and a guy yelling "ONE STEP BEYOND" what else do you need? and i was like nothing 😌 you've given me all i need you bunch of goofy suited skanksters

Catch 22 - 9mm and a Three Piece Suit: i see this one as sort of a companion to everything went numb, which makes sense bc streetlight manifesto actually covered the entirety of keasbey nights at one point. 9mm predates streetlight's stuff by a good number of years, and i do prefer the roughness of the original version. it's more of that very fast-paced storytelling type of songwriting, and i've had this song with me for several years as well. not really much i can say about it that wouldn't be repetitious, but definitely love this one to death as well

Choking Victim - Crack Rock Steady: coming from a background of hardcore heavier music, it makes me so happy that people saw the rise of ska punk and said yeah man we need a way to make this all heavy and nasty too. and we'll sing about killing cops. and they did! ^w^ and so enter the creators of a genre named after this very song (though by my understanding of its influences it could have easily been called "crust ska" - but that wouldn't have been a fun pun now would it?). i just love that you could easily get up and skank to this song, it's very upbeat and lively, but it is also VERY about killing cops. like there is no mistaking that this is cop killing song from first lyric to last. so that's dope. or i guess it's crack

The Specials - A Message to You Rudy: the specials cover an enduring jamaican ska classic... it's a tale as old as time. i love the arrangement on this soooo much, and the pretty and subtle harmonizations. this is almost kind of a dreamy song to me, the way it just floats through the air. that has more to do with the base melody itself, but i do like the dandy livingstone original a lot as well! once again, only so much room on the playlist. the specials join madness as the two bands that i would deem most prominent and influential in the second wave, but i think the specials were a little less new wave and had some more of the original ska spirit in them. not a dis on madness, of course, i've already expressed my enjoyment of them. just an interesting difference between the two

Rancid - Time Bomb: just a girl might be ska's big moment for a lot of people, but for ME, it was time bomb. i heard this one on the radio as a kid, and it was one of the first ska songs i was exposed to, and i LOVE IT. it's definitely a little basic but it just epitomizes the phrase "ska punk" to me. so guitar-forward and with super rough vocals but also so fun and real and bouncy with an absolutely endlessly repeatable chorus. i love you time bomb

We Are The Union - Morbid Obsessions: oh, i'm sorry. did you think i was gonna make a list of my current ska favorites and NOT include a selection from we are the union's 2021 album ordinary life which documents the lead singer's journey and self-discovery? well you thought fucking wrong, dumdum!!!!!!!!!!! this was such a big album for me when i was. uh. how old was i in 2021. when i was like seventeen. i would almost go so far as to say that this album was my "transgender dysphoria blues" if not for the fact that i was also listening to that album a lot around the same time. there were some discoveries happening. but anyways this is such a great little album, i really recommend the whole thing. chewy tasty indie pop with a delightful ska base. and the band even has jer (of skatune network fame) on trombone!! how cool is that!!!! also AGAIN i kept it to only one song but if you only check out one other track from this record, listen to the closer "december." that shit makes me cry

Smash Mouth - Walkin' On The Sun: I'LL ADMIT IT. THIS IS ONE OF SEVERAL TIMES THAT I'M GOING TO CHEAT ON THIS WILT. in the sense that this isn't really a ska song - it's a song by a ska band, and has some ska flavor in there as an influence. can you evar forgive me 🥺 but also like. look. it's fuckin smash mouth, okay. and this song is Loaded with them fucking HOOKS babeyyyyy. and it really is interesting, how smash mouth managed to be so commercially successful that they really existed as a goofy corporate pop rock band that had a couple big all-quadrants hits. but like you can feel that they have background in "The Scene." you can practically smell the punk on these guys, the same way you can smell the nu metal on sugar ray. these are always bands that used to be Something Else and that Something Else is undeniably cooler than what they are now, but what they are now is definitely catchier. so. walkin' on the sun! i like this better than all star, for the record, but it could also be a matter of overplay on the latter's part

The Selecter - On My Radio: this and one other song we'll get to are like the epitome to me of how second wave ska had huge crossover with new wave. the first time i heard this one i was kinda like ehhh yeah it's cool i guess. and then after a couple more listens i realized how well constructed of a song it is, and how great the performances are. the lead vocalist here is a real treat, apparently some people call her the "queen of ska" which is fucking awesome. also i love a good song about a radio, especially in retrospect now where it's like eh yeah you darned kids had better learn about what's what on the radio bc back in my day-

Operation Ivy - Sound System: this is like, the birthplace of ska punk/third wave. okay maybe not this particular album, but you could certainly make an argument for that early op ivy ep! point is, they were on the ground floor, and sound system is definitely the catchiest song i've heard from them. and, not dissimilar to songs about radios, i can get behind a song about a sound system! love it! honestly, despite being rough and punky, this song's almost... cute? like aw :) the sound system is the one thing he can depend on. i'm glad he has that kind of relationship in his life!

Less Than Jake - Nervous In The Alley: LTJ is the first ska band that i really became a fan of, probably bc of how accessible they are, particularly to the typical pop punk or skate punk enjoyer. they have three songs in this playlist that i have enough history with to warrant including but i don't have much to say about any of them. the fast part of this song is the best part, obviously

The (English) Beat - Mirror In the Bathroom: it's so funny to me that they're called the english beat but only sometimes. sometimes it's just the beat. i understand why but it amuses me. anyways THIS is the total new wave song i mentioned, and like with on my radio i didn't really "get it" at first. but man, what a track. not only does it have great composition and a delightful balance of new wave polish and ska beat, it's also just kind of a unique concept for a pop song. self-obsession pushed to the point of madness, framed entirely through the listing of different common objects one can look at themselves in while carrying out everyday business. just an interesting little chune :3

Less Than Jake - Bomb Drop: honestly this one could probably go higher i fucking love bomb drop. but once again i don't have much to say about it. i will say that i didn't realize until watching the music video while making this list that this is apparently about like, cyberbullying? the video's kind of lame honestly, but the intentions are good. i've had this song so long i forgot how recent it is, but i guess it's a testament to how consistent LTJ has stayed, and perhaps as a consequence, how little they've changed. you could send this song back to 1998 and apart from the slightly slicker production nobody would bat an eye

Derrick Morgan - Tougher Than Tough (Rudie in Court): had to get at least one first wave song that wasn't a 2 tone cover in here, right? this is another classic that earns the title of "rude boy anthem." without getting too serious, i do think there's something to be said about rude boys' existence as a subculture and the way that blends with the punk ethos later but also how the term exists more in isolation in jamaican ska. as the title suggests, there's definitely an element of getting into trouble here - was that something that inspired the revival of ska at the hands of rock bands later on? i can't say. but i think about it

The Aquabats! - The Shark Fighter!: if i'm 100% honest i don't tend to really like the aquabats. i wish i did but i don't. but this song is sooooo catchy. i did watch the full episode of the super show that the song appears in (which is in the youtube playlist btw) and it was some campy fun but not anything that made me want to watch more. what i will say is that not long ago i was rewatching robbydude's vods of reel fishing: road trip adventure, a vod series that contained a lot of ska references (not the least of which relate to the title and the continued botching of it to instead say "reel big fishing"). but one of the bits was that every time he went to catch a hammerhead he would play this song. so now it's lodged in my head forever. go make the same happen for yourself

Less Than Jake - Goodbye in Gasoline: some b-side action for you. the video for this one that i have in the youtube playlist is so funny, it's from SUPER early youtube and it's just a bunch of stupid random pictures over a low-quality mp3 of the song. there's only two comments and they're both people being like "this is dumb why did you make this." as far as i'm concerned this may as well be the official music video for goodbye in gasoline

Rancid - Hooligans: HOOLIGANS! rancid! RUDE BOYS! rancid! HOOLIGANS! rancid! RUDE BOYS! rancid! on a loop forever in my mind

Lazy Town - We Are Number One: once again i am super cheating bc this shouldn't count as a bonus track really, it's just not on spotify anymore. so whatever there's 20 songs, sue me. i don't need to introduce you to this song but what i do have to say is MAN is this a banger or what?! like yeah it's a kid's song and yeah it's a meme, but i really do love it! i've never seen an episode of lazy town in my life! i remember a tomska & friends video where they did a meme review of the 2010s and tom (who, as you may guess, is a noted ska fan) picked this song for 2018 or whatever fuckin year this blew up, but he noted that while he didn't really have very strong feelings about it one way or another, he had to take the opportunity to be excited that a ska song had become popular online. i can respect that. rest in peace of course to the actor who played robbie rotten, he seemed like a nice man and i'm glad we all are preserving something he worked on so passionately :)

wouaghhh. so that was the skaugust special!!!! thanks for reading, i hope your love of ska is improved by the work we've done here :3 i feel the need to give thanks to the wonderful violet of the gec (hi :3), fellow musicgirl and the creator of skaugust, because. oh man. i have not felt this energized to listen to and talk about music in MONTHS. in case you were confused about the thing i said about a first course earlier, go check out vi's batch of songs for some more certified bangers. do it NOW. okay thankies see you next month ^w^

#for reference the way i do these is i collect all the songs and then i sit down for an hour or 2 straight and write the entire post #so at the end i'm always like wow. time to fucking. go to bed -w-#*char noises*#talking pop

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randomvarious · 4 years

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Bad Manners - “Walking in the Sunshine” (live recording) Ska Giants Song recorded in 1988? Compilation released in 1997. Two-Tone / Ska

When the second ska wave hit in the UK between the late 70s and the early 80s, there was a collection of five bands who ended up ruling the scene: The Specials, The Beat, The Selecter, Madness, and, of course, Bad Manners. And do you know which out of all of those bands formed first? Bad Manners did, in 1976. The rest of those top-billed groups merely followed in their footsteps. But Bad Manners also had something that none of those other bands had: an inordinate amount of lovable zaniness, which set them apart from their peers

It was sort of like cheating in a way. Bad Manners was a band that prioritized spectacle over substance and it worked beautifully. They were to two-tone what KISS is to hard rock and what GWAR is to metal. They’re good at the music, but they’re not exceptional. It’s all the other stuff that puts them over the top and makes them really memorable. People went to Bad Manners shows because they loved two-tone but also because they had no idea what was going to happen. And that played a huge role in earning the band its legendary status.

Front-and-center in Bad Manners is a huge specimen of a bald-headed man who calls himself Buster Bloodvessel. He is both tall and wide and is said to have weighed 30 stone (420 (blaze it!) pounds) at one point in his life. It’s through Buster that the band earns its clown prince reputation. He is their leader and lead singer and is responsible for most of the antics. Bloodvessel is like a rejected pro wrestler persona; a guy who bounds into the ring with a bucket of paint and pours it on himself for no apparent reason other than to drive home the point that he’s certifiably insane as his opponent puts on a face of bemused horror; a guy who escaped the asylum to become the village idiot; an oafish clown without his makeup. While performing live on Italian TV, Bloodvessel once famously pulled down his pants and showed his immense rump to the camera, leaving an indelible memory in countless Italian minds, an image that all who saw will carry to their grave, including Pope John Paul. Needless to say, Bad Manners were swiftly banned from performing on Italian TV after the stunt. Out of sight, yes, but Bloodvessel’s giant ass was certainly never out of mind for so many.

1980-1983 were the peak years for Bad Manners. They charted twelve times, with four of those entries hitting the top ten. They had at least one song on the UK charts for 111 consecutive weeks. One of the band’s biggest hits was “Walking in the Sunshine,” which managed to peak at #10, and came off of their third album, 1981′s Gosh It's... Bad Manners. Look at how, no matter what the setting of the video is, Buster Bloodvessel always manages to be silly in some way, from the absurd ways he walks and dances, to the exaggerated movements of his large mouth.

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But by the mid-80s, the popularity of two-tone had waned. Some of the big five had packed it in and Bad Manners landed on an American label, with their new music unavailable to their UK fans. In ‘87, they broke up, and Buster formed a new band called Buster’s Allstars. But all of that was short-lived. Buster’s Allstars dissolved and a new, downsized, reinvigorated iteration of Bad Manners then formed.

That brings us to the year in which I think this live performance of “Walking in the Sunshine” was recorded, 1988. The liner notes on the many Bad Manners compilations, as well as the various artist comps the song also appears on, don’t provide much detail, so I’m left to form my best educated guess as to when it was actually performed. I won’t say the live version’s better, but I won’t say it’s worse, either. The original and this live recording from seven(?) years later both have their merits. But one thing they most definitely have in common is the overall feeling of haziness generated by the instruments. You know when you’re driving on a hot day and you look as far as you can up the road, and it’s all wavy like Dali’s clocks?

Well that’s what the organ on this song feels like, in both versions. And the lingering last of the three-note horn section tags also largely contribute to that haze. But there’s some big differences between the songs, too. While Bloodvessel’s vocals on the original have a considerable amount of reverb, which also add to that hazy feeling, there’s no vocal reverb on the live recording. Instead, the live recording boasts a much thicker and richer set of horns, almost like that of a big band jazz group, and the live version has a much more prominent bassline, too.

Two-tone had long had its moment in the sun by the late 80s, but Bad Manners showed they still had a lot left in the tank at that time. You can’t see this song’s performance, but you can pretty much guarantee that Buster Bloodvessel was still dancing like a self-aware, fun-loving idiot, just like he had been doing since 1976.

A live recording of a classic from these daft legends of the UK’s two-tone era.

#two tone #2 tone #ska #ska music #second wave ska #2nd wave ska #music #80s #80s music #80's #80's music #80s two tone #80's two tone #80s 2 tone #80's 2 tone #80s ska #80's ska

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