Rocket Ship Ska Trip

5/30 in a nutshell…

Back from a week’s well-earned vacation, the RSST re-jiggered the duration times of the show’s segments to 1hr.:20mn. each. It delays the start of Sherwood’s Planet, but it also gives both the “Ooh” and the “Planet” an extra 10 minutes, even as it cuts into the Home Stretch’s runtime. We were a week late for Prince Buster’s birthday, so we made up with some tracks by the man himself (“Madness”, “Hard Man fe Dead”) appearances on his self-named label of artists such as Dawn Penn (“Long Day, Short Night”), Lord Creator (“Evening News”) and, of course, Buster’s All Stars (or “Buster’s Group” under which name they recorded “Baby Face Nelson”). We saved Buster’s appearance with Suggs and Georgie Fame on Jools Holland’s one-off “Spring Hootenanny” ‘til the Home Stretch. Through the airlock and into the Voov, we caught Sherwood’s musical zero-g shenanigans, notably absent from which was Shiina Ringo, so we “Ringrolled” you with “Mayonaka wa Junketsu” in the Home Stretch. But Sherwood did indeed take note of the back-to-back birthdays of the late, great Godzilla soundtrack guys Akira Ifukube and his jazzier contemporary Masaru Sato, in a set peppered with everybody from Ken Nordine to Caravan Palace to YMCK. And you can’t miss Mastretta’s epic “First Exit” clocking in at 14:05! In the Home Stretch, besides the aforementioned “Ringroll” and Buster’s Hootenanny “Madness/Enjoy Yourself” medley, you got “Lollipopped” Canadian style by Quebecers La Famille Staunton, and served-up 5-in-a-row from bands associated with Jerry Dammers’ 2Tone label appearing on other labels… including (the ’90s edition of) The Specials, from their vastly-underrated Guilty ‘til Proved Innocent! The mighty TSPO reminded you to “Open Your Eyes” as the merry band of coffeemakers were preparing to serve up your freshly-brewed Morning Blend (immediately following KFAI’s wee-hours programming Mon.-Fri.), and I remind you to… tune in and stay tuned!

5/16 in a nutshell…

The “Ooh” that got away! From us, anyway. A few wrong-disc/wrong-track/wrong-player errors culminated in the Opening Oldies Hour airing the brand-spankin’ new Caro Emerald/Lokee remix of “Tangled Up” which, fortunately, is a really cool tune! We got things back under our control ‘til a certain UFO from ’47 crashed into our playlist! Oh, well… it was piloted by our own Froggies, and gave us a chance to line up the rest of the “Ooh” which pretty much went off without a hitch. Sherwood then took us around his Planet with the sounds of Matt Wilson’s Arts & Crafts, Eddie Cano, Owen Bradley, YMCK and more, and the Home Stretch saw Brave Combo doling out this week’s Lollipop. The theme of the 5@5:05 was “Night and Day”, including the actual song bearing that title, performed here by After Hours. Bad Manners and Kingston Kitchen (twice!) also figured into that set. The pop/ska “Bang Bang Boom Boom” was by somebody named Beth Hart. She’s entirely new to us, but apparently her recording career dates back to the ’90s! Most of what she does is solidly blues/rock, but whatever she’s singin’, she’s put it over the top with everybody from Joe Bonamassa to Jeff Beck to Les Paul his bad self. Nice pop/ska number, by the way. OK, skassengers, the RSST has the week of the 23rd off to make room for KFAI to mount 24 solid hours of Native American programming, so Tune In… and Stay Tuned! Back in 2 weeks.

5/2/13 in a nutshell…

We noticed The Night Sky Turning Blue during the Home Stretch, and we broke out our favorite Buford O’Sullivan song, which will have greater longevity on this year’s playlists due to the extra hour we didn’t have at this time last year. The 5(+1)@5:05 was strictly East Coast-themed, and opened with Boston greats The Void Union and Bim Skala Bim, and also included New York legends The Toasters. Margherita’s “Tu Sei Pallido”, one of two Italian “Lollipops” in our possession (the other being the feisty Rita Pavone’s), comes from a record whose overly long title misidentifies the geographical origin-point of “Ska” (U.S.A. according to the 45 sleeve… ), but nevertheless isn’t actually a bad version of the song. Sherwood changed his meteorological pitch up, observing the wet weather with Ken Nordine (“Looks Like It’s Going to Rain”) instead of the Soil & “Pimp”/Shiina Ringo collab usually heard here when we’re “feelin’ a change in the air”. Ringo still mentioned rain, though… it turns up in her “Suberidai”, which we heard just before Walter Wanderley launched into “Song of the Jet”. May’s “calendar album” tracks were Emil Richards’ “Emerald” and “Flower Society” by the psychedelically percussive Hal Blaine. The “Ooh” spun ska oldies mostly Jamaican, but also from Mexico (Toño Quirazco), South Africa (Soweto Stokvel Septette), the US (Lester Lanin) and the UK (Colonel Elliott & the Lunatics). Tune in… and stay tuned!

4/18/13 in a nutshell…

This week, let’s fast-forward to the Home Stretch. 2 weeks ago, due to the lack of a 5@5:05, we promised skassengers a 5×2@5:05 the following week, which we didn’t actually deliver last week. So this week, we decided that the whole Home Stretch (except for the Mutant Frogs bumpers and, of course, of course, “The End”) would be Japanese ska, or as we like to say around here, “Skapanese”, including the J-Lollipop unwrapped by Mie Nakao, whose version of “My Boy” manages to liberally reference that other Lollipop, the one by The Chordettes. In a then-future century, an outfit called The Dreamlets would do likewise, but this week we spun their “Nina”, inspired as we were by Sherwood B. Funn’s unplanned airing of Nina Hagen’s delightful “Flying Saucers”. Another Home Stretch highlight: a hat-trick of Runa Miyoshida goodies, one each from her first three Ska Flavor albums, albeit not in numerical order. But back to Sherwood… Imagine Herbie Hancock’s vocoderized voice scatting along with Grappelli and Reinhardt over spaciously chilled trip-hop beatz, and you’ve pretty much got the gist of “Star Scat”, a truly hallounginogenic confection from electro-swingers Caravan Palace. Don’t worry, you’re just hearing things… and I’m spinnin’em! While in Sherwood’s orbit, Shiina Ringo gave us a current weather report (“Rain’s a-comin’ down, rain’s a-comin’ deaaownn…”) while Weather Report gave us Wayne Shorter’s “When It Was Now”. Seriously, as I type this up, rain’s still a-comin’ deeaaoowwnnnn… let’s make it fly back up as we reverse the flow of time and back up into the “Ooh”… what a well-rounded selection of fine old ska goodies we have here, ranging from Clue J. to Stranger & Patsy, from The Dragonaires to The Upsetters. No real theme except, “Ooh, I like this one… and this one… and hold on, we haven’t heard that in a while!” Y’know… wingin’ it. Tune in… and stay tuned!