11/29/2012 Rocket Ship Ska Trip

(11/29/12)

As promised last week, we busted out a 5:05 5×2 this week, all ska Beatles covers… or “Skeatles” as we used to call ‘em_ til we found out (we found out!)… there’s an actual band by that name. Naturally, they kicked off the set, which also included Ringo Ska, ARTS, Brass Circus, The Skatalites and more. During the “Ooh”, we teased that we were going to spin an actual current hit during the last 1/2-hour of the Home Stretch. That cut happens to be Pitbull’s “Don’t Stop the Party”, which rides a loop of Toots & the Maytals’ “Funky Kingston” bumped up to a ska tempo… oh, and by the way, it smokes, boss. And, speaking as we were of Toots, we also had two Monkey Men in the mix, one each by Melt-Banana and The (live) Uptones. Sherwood kicked off the weekly orbit of his Planet with a slice of KFAI history… the “News” theme from the long-gone Little City in Space show. It’s a King-label 45 by the Tokyo Happy Coats called “Tea-A-Wanna Whistle”. Listen later for Raymond Scott, featuring the chipmunked vocals of Dorothy Collins, and all sorts of wonderfully silly nonsense about a cow, the Moon, a dish, a spoon, jumping and running away. So much of this that it takes two songs to tell it all! Sherwood also answered the first hour’s “Marjie” (the Blues Blasters on Studio 1) with a “Margie” (same song) by Cy Seymour and his group on Golden Crest. And speaking of different spellings, we also had Rico and Reco (same cat) blowing his trademark trombone licks on two different 45s. And that, dear skassengers, is the tip o’ the iceberg… don’t sink!