3/14/2013 Rocket Ship Ska Trip

(3/14/13)

Rocksteady, as a connecting bridge between Ska and Reggae, does the job quite well. A Hopeton Lewis tune like 1967’s “Sounds and Pressure”, heard here, is Rocksteady/Reggae in tempo, but full-on Ska in rhythmic execution, right down to that fat Lloyd Knibb-style groove emanating from the drumkit_ and the stunning mile-wide clarity of the sound engineering puts you right on stage with the band. Wotta way to kick off the RSST this or any week! By comparison, the rest of the “Ooh” sounds like you’re listening to the guy on the radio spinning a bunch of records… which, by the way, you are! But hey, that’s why you tuned in, right? And these platters, by artists ranging from steel drummer Selwyn Baptiste to Justin Hinds & the Dominoes to the Cavaliers Orchestra, should have you bouncing around the room wearing holes in your soles in no time. Well, in an hour:15, anyway. Then it’s time to float on through the airlock into Sherwood’s orbital flying party palace, where Cedar Walton segues into Lyly “Spud” Murphy, then into a Cook 45 of Johnny Gomez & his Orchestra launching into “Gloria” …but not THAT “Gloria” …different tune entirely! Gotta love those… In the Home Stretch, GotchaSKAvered’s Lollipop-of-the-Week is the one Millie Small took worldwide. Back in January, we played her mixed German/English version, but this is the one a hundred different record labels around the globe put out on 45 and made a certifiable smash out of… including Smash! The 5@5:05 shuffled the Ska_ e-ven-LY-e-ven-LY-e-ven-LY, even if sometimes the groove would stray into straight-8th territory, and that’s as much music theory as I’m going to spill here. After all, as the guys in Fishbone like to remind us (as we groove to their irresistable “Unyielding Conditioning”), Give A Monkey A Brain And He’ll Swear He’s The Center Of The Universe. Tune in, and stay tuned!