11/15/2012 Rocket Ship Ska Trip

(11/15/12)

Let’s work this thing outward from the middle (Sherwood’s Planet) this week, just because… you just know it’s a Town Without Pitney when you’re hearing Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass do Gene’s famous song, kicking off a whole string of tunes with “town” somewhere in the title, followed up by a batch of tracks with actual names of towns (Atchison, Topeka, Santa Fe, New York, Calcutta, etc.) in their titles! The psychedelically percussive Hal Blaine’s November selection is “Wiggy”, and YMCK’s “Kira Kira” is delightfully frantic. Back in the “Ooh”, speaking of frantic, how ‘bout The Angels’ hypercaffeinated “Jamaica Joe” for openers? Perhaps a couple of Dr. Don Drummond’s “Dew Drops” will mellow things out… Skipping over into The Home Stretch, GotchaSKAvered is conspicuous by its absence this week (two Monkey Men next week, we promise!) and the 5@5:05 had its 2nd consecutive single-label feature… 5 cuts culled from a series of v.a. releases on the SKANKlabel, reissued by Dojo. Long-term Ska fans might remember these:Licensed to Ska, Ska for Ska’s Sake, and 10 Commandments of Ska. The 10 were expanded to 15 for the cd reissue, and the cd reissues are what we brought. Earlier in the Stretch, Moon Hop did not cover David Bowie; instead they wrote their very own “Under Pressure”, and it sounds mighty fine to us here at the RSST. ‘Til next time, Tune In...  and Stay Tuned! More on that next week!