3/7/2013 Rocket Ship Ska Trip

3/7/13_

We’ve been on this “Ska’s Lost Decade” kick over a year now, but this week we’ve gone all-out: in addition to a 5(+1)@5:05, the entire “Ooh” is made up of “Ska from the Early Reggae Era”, ranging from Val Bennett’s 1968 sax shuffle skankdown “Jumpin’ with Mr. Lee” and Prince Buster’s 1969 “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da” hot on the heels of The Beatles, all the way to Belgian Lou Deprijk (alt. spelling “Depryck”), of both Plastic Bertrand and the Hollywood Bananas, represented here by “Dance Dance” (Bertrand), on the riddim made notorious in the ’60s by Prince Buster as “Ten Commandments”, and “Kingston Kingston” (Bananas), recorded with a Jamaican band on the changes of "Dr. Ring Ding" (itself a cover of Alvin Cash's "Twine Time") when Lou was living in Jamaica in ’78, the year before Jerry Dammers launched 2Tone. Along the way, we hear a bona-fide 1974 Studio One ska gem by Jennifer Lara (“Impossible”) and Zap Pow’s uptempo 1976 stomper “Wild Honey”. Add some skinhead classics from both Yard (Vincent Gordon & the Dynamics)  and the UK (Count Suckle with Freddie Notes & the Rudies) plus then-future YMO co-founder Harry Hosono’s 1975 project Tin Pan Alley with their presciently-titled lounge-ska rarity “Yellow Magic Carnival” and you have a well-rounded international sampling of Ska’s Lost Decade. Sherwood, meanwhile, drops “calendar” tracks “Kaleidoscope (March)” and “Bloodstone (March)” by Hal Blaine and Emil Richards, respectively, before embarking on an unannounced International Women’s Day salute, massaging your ears with original Mothra twins The Peanuts, Misty Morgan (as “Jacqueline Hyde” complete with Moonfolk), Combustible Edison (complete with Liz Cox as “Miss Lily Banquette”), Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band (complete with Cory Daye, who needs no alias) and more than the usual dose of Shiina Ringo. Hey, we gotta have our fix! The Home Stretch gives us someone named Maggie Mae (Rod Stewart didn’t know her) singing “My Boy Lollipop” in German, a “Lost Decade” M Music 45 from 1974, and Morgan Fisher’s pre-2Tone skank-up of “MacArthur Park” from January of ’79… a fitting end to Ska’s Lost Decade!