9/27/2012 Rocket Ship Ska Trip

 (9/27/12)

Check out this week's "Ooh" ...it contains more ska, rocksteady and skinhead reggae oldies making their RSST debut than any Ska Trip in a lo-o-o-ong time, including a Lloyd Charmers weirdie that manages to evoke images of Bond... James Bond... galloping through the Old West on a horse! The famous Bond guitar riff, doubled by the bass, alternates with Hammond organ fragments of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, the Magnificent Seven... and somehow even Guns of Navarone works its way into the mix! The real, and very Greek, island of Navarone, in the Aegean Sea, was the (German-occupied) home of two gigantic Nazi guns trained on British forces stranded on nearby Kheros during World War II.  The story was told by a 1957 novel and the 1961 movie whose opening title theme was redone for the soundtrack album by Mitch Miller (listen to that for "Niiiii-troglycerin, niiiii-troglycerin!") in a version that does NOT appear in the movie! Of course, we know that the theme also became a huge hit for The Skatalites, who have recreated it in numerous live recordings since, including the one from the Teatro Armenio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that became part of the Grover live cd In Orbit vol. 1, and is part of this week's GotchaSKAvered selection (the other part being "Guns" as done up by The Specials) that kicks off the Home Stretch. Other features of this week's Stretch include a 5@5 made up entirely of '60s-vintage ska from outside Jamaica... check that set out for the rollicking, raucous Hammond wailing on Lester Lanin's "West Indies Ska" ...who was that guy?  In the middle, Sherwood made up for last week's dearth of Shiina Ringo recordings, as well as spinning his usual lively blend of old cha-chas, sambas, space jazz, big-band jungle jams and something with a vibraphone on it... just 'cuz it ain't really Sherwood's Planet without the occasional vibraphone popping up here and there!