1 In 33 (And A Third)

This morning, David Barker, editor of Continuum’s 33 1/3 series of books on significant albums of the past forty years, posted the master list of proposals he received as a result of his latest call for books to be published in the series—all 597 of them. That’s 147 more than he received last time. Shows you what I know. I thought there would be fewer proposals this time, not more. Last time he received 450 proposals, and accepted about 20 of them: the odds of getting accepted were about 1 in 25. But his time, assuming about 20 or so are again accepted, the odds are . . . well, roughly 1 in 33.3. Perhaps that’s as it should be.

The list is remarkably diverse, which pleases the editor. And although they rescinded the “one book, one artist” rule for this round of proposals, he’s also pleased by the relatively few number of proposals on albums by artists already the subjects of books in the series. “I was really expecting a deluge of Dylan, Pink Floyd, Velvets, Smiths, Stones and Radiohead pitches,” Mr. Barker writes, but “Instead, we get Slint, Ween, and Britney….” This fact may suggest something about the demographic reading and hoping to write for the series, I'm not sure. But excluding the fifteen proposals for “Various Artists” compilations, the band with the greatest aggregate number of proposals is the Talking Heads (8), followed by Slint (7, all on 1991’s Spiderland), Liz Phair (5, all on 1993’s Exile in Guyville) and Ween (5). For my part, I was pleased to see this time around proposals on Van Morrison (Astral Weeks), the O’Jays (Back Stabbers), Phil Ochs, Public Image Ltd. (Metal Box), Scott Walker, The Specials, The Mekons, The Residents, Underworld, John Cale (Paris 1919) and The Zombies (Odessey & Oracle)—and someone, lo and behold, finally proposed a book on Elvis Presley! (The Moses figure to the 33 1/3 series—he enabled the series in the first place, but will never be a part of it.) There were some surprises: 10cc, Gene Clark, Dennis Wilson (Pacific Ocean Blue), the Electric Prunes (Mass in F Minor), and, of all things, Steppenwolf’s Steppenwolf Live. The choices for Bob Dylan albums were unusual as well, but there’s no way of knowing until you see the proposals, of course. And there were the usual number of obvious—too obvious—choices. The oddest proposal: Wilco, “Forthcoming 2009 album.” Isn't that a lot like calling dibs?

Unless the series turns itself over strictly to books about cult albums of the past two decades or so, the toughest nut to crack, in my opinion, is another book on The Beatles, although a few proposals were submitted this time (Beatles for Sale and The Beatles, aka “The White Album”). I say this not because a Beatles album is already the subject of a book in the series (Let It Be), and not because another book doesn’t need to be written about their albums. I say this because it will be hard to surpass Dave Marsh’s book, The Beatles’ Second Album (Rodale, 2007), a model text of how you go about writing about rock music. Not everyone shares my opinion about his book, of course (see the reader comments on Amazon’s website by clicking on the link), but for sheer passion about a subject, characterized by good writing based on solid research, it is hard to surpass. Essentially Marsh used the The Beatles’ Second Album as means to gauge the band’s immense impact not only on popular music, but American culture as well, and in that regard he succeeds admirably. He’s attempting something very difficult, which is, as he calls it, to bridge “a canyon of time,” attempting to invoke precisely what sort of musical and cultural revolution The Beatles’ initiated, using the band’s second American album to do it. I don’t think, as some have claimed, he’s trying to compete with the fine books on The Beatles by Bruce Spizer, but rather to attempt a colossal act of historical reconstruction. My memory of those times—and the significance of The Beatles—jibes with his. For instance, one insightful observation (out of many) Marsh makes is as follows:

One of the great discrepancies between living through Beatlemania and the way that Beatles history has been recorded is the small role that the rock ‘n’ roll haters play in the annals. As the tale is usually told, it’s as if there were a few days, maybe a couple months, during which general disapproval of the Beatles, individually and as a group, and of the music—theirs, what they drew upon, what they inspired—ran rampant. Then adults quite jovially saw the light and, with the release of “Michelle,” all became sweetness and a quick transformation took place to “All You Need Is Love.”

That’s not how it played out—not in my hometown, and not for anybody I’ve ever talked to who lived through it. (48)

It wasn’t like that in my hometown either, Dave. It wasn’t just about the music, as anyone who lived through those times perfectly well knows: it was cultural warfare: about politics, morals, race—it was about whether you were an American or not. Those four lads from Liverpool were perceived by some as a menace, out to corrupt American youth. Of course, it wasn’t just about The Beatles; I remember the days when buying a Dylan album was a transgressive act. But, I digress. My point is that some of the latest proposals have a tougher hill to climb than others, although I admire those who have chosen to take this more challenging and arduous route.

The editor of the 33 1/3 series, David Barker, is entertaining a plan to whittle the roughly six hundred proposals down to a final one hundred. While I hope my proposal is among those ultimately accepted, if it is not—as strange as it may sound—I hope it is cut in the initial round rather than remaining in limbo, as it were, among the final 100. Even if it were one of those final 100, it would, in fact, be no closer to the final goal, to be selected for publication, than it was at the beginning of the selection process.

Now the waiting starts. Whatever the result, I look forward to further books in the series, as the quality has been very high. Good luck to all.

Dave Dee, 1943—2009

British pop star Dave Dee, born David Harman—who holds the distinction of having one of best whip cracks on record in pop music history—died early this morning at the age of 65 following a long battle with cancer, the BBC has reported. Originally a police officer before entering the music business (legend has it that he was one of the officers at the scene of the car accident that killed Eddie Cochran and injured Gene Vincent in April 1960, although he would have been a mere seventeen years old at the time), Dave Dee was the lead singer of the inimitable Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, a group named after the members’ nicknames. Incorrectly perceived as a bubblegum act, the music of DDDBMT (as the band is referred to in its acronym form), actually employed a number of musical styles, and while they didn’t shy away from the fuzzy, distorted guitar of early psychedelia, they might best be characterized as “power pop,” although that term didn’t gain currency until the early 70s, by which time DDDBMT had disbanded. The band learned its chops in the same Beat clubs in Hamburg in which the Beatles played, and during their career the group had a run of eight Top 10 hits in the UK, including a #1 single in early 1968, The Legend of Xanadu (click on the link for the video), in which Dave Dee, famously, cracks a whip, a la Zorro. Other hit singles included “Bend It!,” “Save Me,” “Zabadak”—and of course “Hold Tight!” (1966; check out the video), the song on the radio in Quentin Tarantino’s GRINDHOUSE (2007) feature, Death Proof, during the brutal car crash scene.

According to the BBC report, in the 1970s Dave Dee “was a founding committee member of the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy charity and was actively involved in fundraising and increasing the profile of the organisation for more than 30 years. He later worked as a magistrate in Cheshire,” although DDDBMT continued on as oldies act; they’d in fact recently performed dates in the UK and in Germany. No doubt, due in large part to Quentin Tarantino, a younger generation has discovered the music of DDDBMT, and that is a good thing. The band’s first album (1966) has been released on CD with a number of singles-only tracks, B-sides, and other rarities, and is well worth tracking down. Gotta love that whip!

Buffalo Springfield Again

A few days ago, in my post titled “Year One: Reflections,” I mentioned that my interpretations of pop songs such as “Judy In Disguise (With Glasses),” “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon,” and “Crimson and Clover” have consistently received hits through web searches over the past few months. I neglected to mention in that list my discussion (from last June) of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth”—the entry is available here—which has also received a good number of hits over the past few months as well. Looking back on that post after the distance of a few months, however, left me dissatisfied with my discussion, not because I think I was especially “wrong” about the song, but because the discussion stopped short, leaving unstated the larger point I was trying to make.

While I think my essential point is correct—that the song, upon close inspection, really doesn’t express a coherent position about much of anything—in retrospect I think I was foolish, for one thing, to expect a pop song to express a coherent position about politics, much less complex social problems: pop songs are basically reactionary in nature. But more importantly, the larger, theoretical, point was left unstated. What I was trying to say is that the song is a sign without a referent: it means, but it doesn’t refer. The song doesn’t depict any “real” or actual event, despite being putatively inspired by the so-called “Sunset Strip Riot” in November 1966. (“Riot” was the word used by the media to represent the event, presumably instigated by discontented youth; whether it actually was an event of such proportion I have no idea.) Bertrand Russell illustrated the distinction between meaning and reference in his famous example, “The King of France is bald.” The sentence means, but it doesn’t refer—because there is no King of France.

Records, like movies, are signs without referents. As Robert Ray explains:

...behind Casablanca or “Fight the Power” lies no single, “real” event that has been transcribed and reproduced…. In 1967, situationist leader Guy Debord warned that in “societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.” (How A Film Theory Got Lost, 69)

Debord’s last sentence can be amended to say, “What was once directly lived has moved away into a construction”—whether that is a record titled “For What It’s Worth” or a movie called Riot on Sunset Strip (1967). Simon Reynolds observed, “The power of pop lies not in its meaning but its noise, not in its import but its force” (Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock, 10)—as this performance of “For What It’s Worth” from American television in 1967 should remind us. The television appearance occurred in 1967, the same year as Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle was initially published. Ironically, Neil Young explicitly acknowledged the replacement of the live by the recording during the TV appearance.

Pop Aphorisms: XI

1. Keith Richards drinks and smokes, Madonna works out—while the display of the body is central to rock culture, their bodies reveal distinct obsessions: one with the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, the other with money and power.

2. Spandex is to flannel what Arena Rock is to grunge: each reveals the impact of commercial budget on musical form, but more importantly, how musical taste determines fashion.

3. There would have been no such thing as “Art Rock” or “Progressive Rock” had not the vinyl “Long Play” record—the LP—been embraced as the basic material artifact of rock ‘n’ roll.

4. Rock ‘n’ roll privileges the record, while jazz privileges the live performance: the unstated reason why rock music’s most successful acts always sound, in concert, like their records.

5. Mixing is to recording what editing is to the cinema: the assemblage of fragments into a simulacrum of live performance.

6. Alternative: Punk Rock that makes money.

7. Silver Threads and Golden Needles—poetic expression for an aging rock star with a drug habit.

8. The greatest recordings in rock history were a consequence of making all the right decisions about technical problems.

9. Cult Album: record made by an artist or artists who understood that high-minded political correctness equaled artistic death.

10. Rock stars, like movie stars, seldom grant interviews: the secret of their success is to make it impossible to determine the fictive from the real.

No Fun: Ron Asheton, 1948-2009

Ron Asheton, guitarist with The Stooges, has been found dead at his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, according to this report; he was 60 years old. Police indicated the musician’s death appeared to be from natural causes. Ranked as the 29th greatest rock guitarist by Rolling Stone magazine in 2003, Asheton also acted in a few low-budget horror films beginning in the late 80s, most recently appearing in the horror comedy FROSTBITER: WRATH OF THE WENDIGO (1996). The Stooges, which included Asheton’s brother Scott on drums and the late Dave Alexander on bass, are among the nominees for the 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class this April. One hopes that they will be inducted.

Year One: Reflections

Yesterday, January 4, represented the first anniversary of 60x50. I made my first post one year ago yesterday. As of yesterday, I have posted 222 entries on this blog, which averages out to about one post every forty hours over the past year. Not bad—considering that during that time I also completed an extensive essay on Ingmar Bergman’s THE SERPENT’S EGG (1977) for a forthcoming book on European horror films, continued to write reviews for VIDEO WATCHDOG (although the number was down from previous years, which doesn’t please me at all, as Tim and Donna Lucas are my friends as well as editors), completed two book proposals (one of which I mentioned on this blog just a few entries ago), presented one conference paper, and directed two plays for my University Theatre: Eugene Ionesco’s THE LESSON this past spring and Mary Chase’s classic comedy, HARVEY, this fall. Directing those two plays was a wonderful experience for me, as well as a privilege, and in that sense 2008 was a great and productive year. And I continue to work on POE PICTURES, to be published by Tomahawk Press (UK). I anticipate completing that book this summer, and I thank Bruce Sachs very much for his patience with me given my other commitments this past year—one of which has been this blog.

The task I set for myself with 60x50 (you can read the full explanation on the right)—to find a process that will bring about new things I would not have thought of if I had not started to say them—has, for the most part, been successful. I discovered things by writing for this blog, things I would not have learned had I not imposed this writing requirement upon myself. I cannot say that there weren’t some duds among my posts of the past year: if Sturgeon’s Law is correct, then 96% of them were duds—which means only about 4% (i.e., about nine of them) were any good. Some achieved more success than others: my interpretations of pop songs such as “Judy In Disguise (With Glasses),” “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon,” and “Crimson and Clover” consistently garner hits through web searches, and certain posts—such as the one on Bob Dylan and existential cool—did extremely well, as did my “pop aphorisms” series (a series I promise to return to very soon). My discussion of the relationship between psychedelia and bubblegum has also done very well. Are those the nine posts of quality that verify Sturgeon’s Law? A few kind souls, Tim Lucas and Bent Sørensen among them, have been generous enough to serve as blog rollers for me (providing a link to my blog on their respective blog sites), and all in all the experience has been a positive one.

There is, however, a downside, and it is the amount of work this blog requires given the number of page views it receives. I checked the page views a moment ago; subtracting those that have visited since midnight last night, I calculate a grand total of 24,119 views over the past year. (Just think if my friends weren’t blog rolling for me.) I’m quite sure there are sites that receive that number every day, other sites that receive that number every week, and others that receive that number every month. Subtract from this grand total the hits that can be attributed to roving web bots and such, then it becomes an even more paltry number. Foolishly, I neglected to attach a site meter until the end of February last year, meaning the figure above really reflects about a week plus ten months, but the fact is, the amount of work this blog has required hardly seems worth it given the number of visitors. Given that the first month’s visitors would have been negligible because I had just started up the blog, the total number above is reasonably accurate, I think. Make no mistake—I appreciate each and every visitor I have had over the past year, and I appreciate those who return to my blog on a regular basis. I am grateful for all the visits I’ve had over the past year. But as a wise old mentor of mine used to say, “Sam, always ask yourself whether the increment is worth the excrement.” If I were to apply that sage piece of advice to the question of whether to maintain this blog, then the answer would be very simple: NO.

My blog has a number of problems. For one thing, to employ the language of cyberspace, my site is “sticky”—it doesn’t consist of “news,” where readers come for current or up-to-date information, then move on. In other words, readers have to make a dedicated effort to get here (by web searches, mostly), and to get out. Moreover, it’s focus is not entirely clear. It has gravitated toward popular music (primarily the Sixties, as the blog title would suggest), but not the current scene (although I would hope that most if not all of the insights I’ve made are applicable in theory to the “current” music scene nonetheless—the pop aphorisms, for instance). Additionally, my posts are for the most part unusual in that they read more like essays than blog entries. I am not claiming that this is bad, since it’s a form I prefer. The topics I write about I have set as assignments or tasks for myself, in order to teach myself something. So when I look up information, and track down information, I pass those sources of information on to others, but that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t read like an academic essay—a form many readers, I’m sure, dislike. Lecturing for most people often is, as it is for myself, counter-productive. I think this is why my posts such as the pop aphorisms have been so successful, because they fit the sound bite form preferred in the cyberspace environment—the technology drives the form, in other words (nothing new there).

So, in reflecting upon the past year, I’ve concluded that 60x50, while not an utter failure, isn’t a success, either. It exists in that liminal space somewhere between (mediocrity?), which, rather like a visit to the “twilight zone,” isn’t an ideal place to be. I’m not quite ready to give it up, as I still have hopes for it (although don’t ask me to enumerate precisely what they are), but I don’t see myself continuing on at the rate I have—posting over two hundred times during the next year, for example. The research component for many posts is extensive, and while I hope readers have found my research valuable, I have done it for free. I will continue to assess this weblog’s personal importance to me as well (I have many other proverbial “irons in the fire” to which I can dedicate my time), and set out to determine the answer to that fundamental problem, a problem I’m quite sure other bloggers struggle with as well: whether the increment is worth the excrement.

Twitch And Shout

The death of a rock star is not without commercial potential. I was reminded of this truth by this afternoon’s programming on TV LAND, which has devoted several hours of its programming to Elvis Presley, whose birthday is fast approaching (January 8). While the deaths of Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke, and Brian Jones antedated the 1970s, the sheer number of deaths of rock stars in the 1970s—Elvis’s among them—was significant, and the number of books published since serve as constant reminders that they are still dead (see the partial bibliography below).

Having recently submitted a book proposal on the subject of Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night (June 1975), the issue of those who “lived and died for rock and roll” has preoccupied me (even if that dedication is perhaps ironic). Young’s album is dedicated to his friends, guitarist Danny Whitten (died 1972) and roadie Bruce Berry (died 1973), but there were any number of other deaths that preceded the release of Young’s classic album:

Duane Allman (The Allman Brothers Band), 1971
Darrell Banks (“Open the Door to Your Heart”), 1970
Bobby Bloom (“Montego Bay”), 1974
Graham Bond (Graham Bond Organization), 1974
Bill Chase (Chase), 1974
Miss Chrissie (GTOs), 1972
Arlester Christian (Dyke & the Blazers), 1971
Brian Cole (The Association), 1972
Jim Croce, 1973
King Curtis (“Charlie Brown”), 1971
Bobby Darin (“Splish Splash”), 1974
Nick Drake, (Bryter Later), 1974
Don Drummond (The Skatalites), 1971
Cass Elliot (The Mamas & the Papas), 1974
Mary Ann Ganser (The Shangri-Las), 1971
Pete Ham (Badfinger), April 1975
Lee Harvey (Stone the Crows), 1972
Jimi Hendrix (The Jimi Hendrix Experience), 1970
Janis Joplin (Big Brother & the Holding Company), 1970
Jerry Lee Lewis, Jr. (son of Jerry Lee Lewis), 1973
Billy Marcus (New York Dolls), 1972
Clyde McPhatter (Dominoes; Drifters), 1972
Robby McIntosh (Average White Band), 1974
Jim Morrison (The Doors), 1971 (Parisian grave is pictured)
Barry Oakley (The Allman Brothers Band), 1972
Lowman Pauling (The “5” Royales), 1973
Rod “Pig Pen” McKernan, 1973
Gram Parsons (The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers), 1974
Steve Perron (The Children) 1973
Bobby Ramirez (White Trash), 1970
John Raynes (Monotones), 1972
James Sheppard (The Heartbeats; Shep & the Limelights), 1970
Billy Stewart (“Summertime”), 1970
Rory Storm (The Hurricanes), 1972
Vinnie Taylor (Sha Na Na), 1974
Tammi Terrell (duo partner with Marvin Gaye), 1970
Gene Vincent, 1971
Clarence White (The Byrds), 1973
Paul Williams (The Temptations), 1973
Al Wilson (Canned Heat), 1970
Harris Womack (Valentinos), 1974

Readings:
Gary J. Katz, Death By Rock ‘n’ Roll. Citadel Press, 1995.

R. Gary Patterson, Take a Walk on the Dark Side: Rock and Roll Myths, Legends, and Curses. Fireside, 2004. Note: A revision and expansion of Hellhounds on Their Trail: Tales From the Rock ‘n’ Roll Graveyard. Dowling Press, 1998.

Jeff Pike, The Death of Rock 'N' Roll: Untimely Demises, Morbid Preoccupations, and Premature Forecasts of Doom in Pop Music. Faber & Faber, 1993.

Jeremy Simmonds, The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars: Heroin, Handguns, and Ham Sandwiches. Updated Edition. Chicago Review Press, 2008.

Dave Thompson, Better to Burn Out: The Cult of Death in Rock ‘n’ Roll. Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1998. Note: Dave Thompson is also the author of Never Fade Away: The Kurt Cobain Story.

Wunderkammer

Collecting—whether autographs, beer cans, baseball cards, comic books, stamps or records—is an activity that borders on the autistic. Autists, obsessed with the most obscure minutiae, are noted for their strange and unusual collections: birthdates of minor character actors of the silent film era, for instance, or even bus transfers. What distinguishes the autist collector from other collectors is the value of the collection: a collection of hundreds of bus transfers or obscure birth dates has little if any monetary value, while a record collection, in contrast, does, although the value of the latter may fluctuate wildly over the course of a decade.

Collecting of any kind is a parody of scientific endeavor. Like the scientist, the collector engages in empirical research, fieldwork, meticulous cataloguing, systematizing, and the diligent recording of exceptions, variations, and one-of-a-kind specimens. But like the stereotype of the exotic butterfly collector lost in the immensity of a vast and tangled rain forest, collectors are committed to a life of obsessive compulsion coupled with a willingness to engage without compunction in wasteful and extravagant expenditure: no sacrifice—typically of a financial kind—is too great. For the record collector, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of manufactured consumer goods (similar to the bewildering diversity of nature), dedicates himself or herself to the mastery and ownership of a discrete kind of material object. The activity borders on the autistic because its pleasure is derived from the illusion of mastery over what is essentially a vast, bewildering complexity, which is why collecting—in its excessively narrow focus—is a parody of the scientific enterprise. Record collectors gather pressings, editions, and variations with the single-mindedness of the most obsessive butterfly collector.

The goal of the collector—a mock profession in the sense that there is no income resulting from it, only a guarantee that the collection is, metaphorically, much like an investment—is the wunderkammer—the cabinet of wonders. The power of the wunderkammer is premised on being the biggest, the most complete, the strangest, the most outré—an assemblage premised on plenitude, extravagance, and—presumably because of its totality—beauty.

We ought to remember that collecting, as Theodor Adorno observed almost seventy years ago, is enabled because one can transform experience (for instance, the recognizing of a specific tune) into an object, thus making it capable of ownership.

Readings:
Theodor Adorno with George Simpson, “On Popular Music,” in Studies in Philosophy and Social Science 9 (1941), pp. 17-48.
Dave Marsh and James Bernard, The New Book of Rock Lists. Fireside: 1994.
Rosamond Wolff Purcell and Stephen Jay Gould, Finders, Keepers: Eight Collectors. W. W. Norton, 1992.
Lewis Shiner, Glimpses. Avon, 1993.

New Year's Day

I’d like to be able to say that the world is fundamentally different this morning from the way it was last night when I went to bed, but alas it is not. The daunting political and economic problems that existed last night still exist this morning; they didn’t vanish into thin air overnight. And so while change may be in the air in 2009, and holds the potential for positive change, on this New Year’s Day I can think only of these lyrics from U2’s “New Year’s Day”:

And so we are told this is the golden age
And gold is the reason for the wars we wage
Though I want to be with you,
To be with you night and day
Nothing changes on New Year’s Day

Have A Funky New Year!

Have a Funky New Year everyone! And thanks very much for visiting my blog! See you next year.

Junkie Business

Prompted by a notice in yesterday’s paper that on this December 29 Marianne Faithfull celebrated her sixty-second birthday, I began thinking about the records made under the influence of drugs—and the undeniably voyeuristic pleasures of listening to these records. I remembered a story British film director Stephen Weeks told me about the making of his movie GHOST STORY (1974), in which Marianne Faithfull had a supporting role. It was filmed in 1973, when, unbeknownst to Stephen, she was a full-blown junkie. He told me about shooting the scene in the film in which she approaches her brother (played by Leigh Lawson) across a ballroom dance floor. She was so loaded when she was being filmed for the scene that he had to have grips crouch down behind her, out of sight of the camera, and prop her up so she wouldn’t collapse on the floor. Happily she has kicked the habit and is now drug-free, but perhaps her greatest record, BROKEN ENGLISH (1979), was made while she was still struggling with addiction. While there are many songs warning of the dangers of drugs, none of them, unfortunately, approach the experience of listening to records in which the musicians were still gettin’ their kicks. I have assembled here ten instances of records made under the influence, although there are, of course, many others.

Chet Baker, Chet Baker Sings and Plays from the Film “Let’s Get Lost” (Novus)
Derek and the Dominos, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (Polydor)
Marianne Faithfull, Broken English (Island)
New York Dolls, New York Dolls (Mercury)
Charlie Parker, The Legendary Dial Masters, Vols. 1 & 2 (Stash)
Art Pepper Quintet, Smack Up (Contemporary)
Pink Floyd, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (Capitol)
Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street (Rolling Stones)
Sly and the Family Stone, There’s a Riot Goin’ On (Sony)
Neil Young, Tonight’s the Night (Reprise)

SKA-ASKA

In the dead of winter, you dream of warmer climes—such as the Caribbean. Jamaica, for instance. About the time Elvis was popularizing rock ‘n’ roll in 1956, a group of young black men in the ghettos of Kingston, Jamaica were transforming American rhythm and blues, that they picked up from radio stations located in Miami and New Orleans, into ska. The called themselves the Skatalites after the Jamaican English imitation of the music’s energetic rhythm, ska-aska-ska-aksa. While ska antedated both rocksteady and reggae (the latter a form of ska that incorporated Rastafarian-derived rhythms—or “ridims”), interest in late 50s and early 60s ska surged as a result of the 2 Tone movement in Britain in the mid to late 1970s, a form of music that developed as a result of British bands re-inventing the Jamaican music they heard growing up—bands such as The Specials, The Selecter, Madness, The Beat, Bad Manners, and The Bodysnatchers. While 2 Tone records were imported into the United States, those whose tastes inclined toward punk encountered the British form of ska through bands such as the Clash. The evidence for this can be found in the soundtracks of two films. Junior Murvin’s “Police and Thieves” (1976) appeared in Guy Ritchie’s LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (1998), a British film, while the Clash’s version (1977) was used in Wes Anderson’s THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (2001), an American film.

Interviewed by Michael Jarrett in May 1995, Mick Jones, former lead guitarist with the Clash, explained how reggae and ska became forms of music embraced by punk rockers:

Reggae was punk’s other chosen music. There weren’t enough good punk records, and so DJs used to supplement them with what was happening on the reggae scene. One of the main DJs was Don Letts.... He used to turn everybody on to new records from Jamaica. Also, where we grew up [in Brixton], there was a big West Indian population. There was bluebeat and ska--before reggae. We grew up around that music as well. In the way that the Stones used to cover the latest r&b hits, when they started, the Clash did “Police and Thieves.” It was the latest hit of that summer [1976]. That’s how we ended up doing it. We weren’t trying to do reggae. We were trying to do our approximation--where we were coming from. It turned out differently. It wasn’t like the Police doing a “wet” reggae thing. (166-67)

Recordings:
Various, A Checkered Past: The 2 Tone Collection (Chrysalis)
Various, The Real Jamaica Ska (Sony)
Various, Roots of Reggae, Volume One: Ska (Rhino)
Various, Respect to Studio One: 33 Dancehall, Reggae and Ska Classics (Heartbeat)
Various, The Rough Guide to Ska (World Music Network)

“Police and Thieves”:
by Junior Murvin - This Is Reggae Music, Vol. 3 (Island)
by The Clash - The Clash (Sony)