3/21/2013 Rocket Ship Ska Trip

3/21 in a nutshell…

My, my, what a diverse “Ooh” we have this week! In the first four tracks alone, we have U.S. ’60s ska from Tracey Dey (the Bob Crewe-produced “Ska Doo-Dee-Yah”), a lost-decade British goodie from ’68 (the Trojan All Stars’ “Yorkie Special”), a straight-up Skatalites-propelled Johnny “Dizzy” Moore cut from the Top Deck sessions, and some sunshine rocksteady by Chinese singer (and not Chinese-Jamaican, from what I read online) Stephen Cheng, backed by Byron Lee & the Dragonaires. Always together, even if I do quote the song title directly in that assessment! Sherwood, meanwhile, marks the Voovie Doo debut of Johnny Guitar, and we don’t mean Mr. Watson! This Thai string-slinger’s mid-‘60s Lucky Bamboo release Suphan Nahong yields the slow, atmospherically-percussive “Sri Nuon” this week, part of a SE-Asian electric-guitar-exotica set also involving HK’s The Quests (listen for the lush blend of organ and sitars here!), Singapore’s legendary Shadows-influenced The Stylers and the cha-cha-driven All Star Orchestra.GotchaSKAvered’s Lollipop-of-the-Week kicks off the Home Stretch with none other than Teresa Brewer, and single-digit (Fahrenheit) winter chill inspired us to mix up a set of tunes we usually save for late December, including The Dualers’ “Jack Frost” and Gichy Dan’s “Winter on Riverside Drive”. The 5@5:05 recycled an old Ska Beatles set featuring The Brass Circus (“Strawberry Fields Forever”) and Ernest Ranglin (“You Won’t See Me”), among others, and then it was all-over-the-map time (including Jimmy Cliff’s “One More” and Tim “Timebomb” Armstrong covering “Too Much Pressure”, and by the way absolutely DO check out the eclectic treasure trove of online “45s” Tim and friends have posted to YouTube!) ‘Til next time, tune in… and stay tuned!