This is always one of our favourite gigs and last Thursday’s was no exception.
We were very lucky to have Rachel Musson guesting with us on tenor sax, who played some great solos.
There was a good crowd who seemed to enjoy themselves, inclduing some regulars. And Roger, the sound guy, is one of the best we ever work with.
We had two sets – and this was what we played.
Chinatown
Guns Of Navarone
Latin Goes Ska
Tide Is High
Mood For Love
My Baby Just Cares for me
Work Song
Mambo Number 5
Enola Gay
Mad World
London Calling
Monkey Man
One Step Beyond
Hall of the Mountain King
Come Dancing
Simmer Down
Pata Pata
10 Out Of 10
Tainted Love
Rudy A Message To You
Baggy Trousers
My Boy Lollipop
Gangsters
And it’s always good to see our name (almost) in lights. Let’s hope we get to play there again soon, and that by then the owners have stopped victimising their staff and pay the living wage.
We had a terrific gig at Croydon’s Oval tavern last night.
The pub was packed, and there were people dancing almost all the way through both our sets.
We took the opportunity to try out four new numbers:
My Baby just cares for me, which although a song from the 1930s will always be associated with Nina Simone. But while sme may not have been aware of it, it is very definitely a ska rhythm going on in her right hand.
London Calling – there’s lot of reggae and ska influences in the Clash, but perhaps not so much in the original of this. Now it is ska.
Hall of the Mountain King is from the Peer Gynt Suite by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. We thought turning this into a ska tune was wildly imaginative – and then we found that Madness had done a version.
Come Dancing is a great Ray Davies song that was a hit for the Kinks. We just like it a lot.
Each seemed to get a good reaction from the crowd, which is not always the case. Sometimes something can sound good at rehearsal and then be a bit of a flop.
This is what we played in our two sets. And we hope it won’t be too long before we get invited back.
Thanks to Stephen Russell for taking this great set of photos. You can see more of his photography here.
London ska band
rocksteady and unusual covers
female vocals and blazing horns
festivals, weddings and functions
most age and clique smashing sound I have ever heard’
1London ska band2rocksteady and unusual covers3female vocals and blazing horns4festivals, weddings and functions5most age and clique smashing sound I have ever heard’
Dumplins Live ska is a monthly night at the Fiddler’s Elbow close to Chalk Farm in Camden.
It is probably our favourite gig.
The crowd enjoy their ska, and are happy to hear rarities and new stuff as well as the old favourites. There is always great sound – both out front and on stage.
There’s no sense of their being a support and headliner – both bands get the same time and equal billing.
We were very happy to play there at the beginning of August (though holidays have intervened to stop a write-up until now).
Thanks to Michelle we have some great pictures from the night, some of which are below.
We thought that we were on particularly good form, and certainly got a great audience response. It was also good to share a bill with the Estimators , who love their traditional ska as much as we do.
This is what we played – the first time we have played Doctor Who live for a long time.
We spent yesterday in the recording studio and laid down five tracks.
Thanks to Andy at RMS studios for helping make it a productive day.
It’s our first time in a proper studio. Earlier recordings – including our cd – have been diy affairs. And while we were pleased with those, it was so much easier using a proper studio with great acoustics, good equipment – including microphones well outside our budget, and someone else operating the controls with both good ears and years of experience at getting good recordings.
It also meant that we were able to play as live. In the past we have always had to record the rhythm section first and then add horns and vocals as overdubs. But yesterday we were able to get down Latin goes Ska, all playing together, on the second take at the end of the day when we were running out of time.
The tracks we recorded were:
The Tide is High
Tainted Love
Paranoid
Dr Who
Latin goes Ska
Now comes the slower job of mixing and mastering, but another advantage of having a great recording to start with is that this is much easier than with less upmarket equipment.
We also have some video, though that was a lower priority, and hope to have enough to put together one of us playing Tainted Love.
We played five new songs at our first gig of the year at the always great Dumplins Live Ska last night at the Fiddler’s Elbow in Camden.
That is almost half the set.
Brave, foolish or what?
This is what we played.
Chinatown
Latin Goes Ska
Harder They Come
Man In The Street
Tide Is High
Enola Gay
Johnny Too Bad
Paranoid
Pata Pata
Tainted Love
Our first new song was The Harder they Come, first sung by Jimmy Cliff for the film of the same name. And while it is absolutely of Jamaica of the 1960s, its rhythm cannot easily be described as ska or rocksteady.
The Tide is High is probably best known today through the Blondie cover (or even that by Atomic Kitten), but was first sung by the Paragons – a fine rocksteady group.
Johnny Too Bad has also been covered by very many people. The John Martyn version is good, but very far from the original by the Slickers – also on the soundtrack of The Harder they Come.
Paranoid comes from our bonkers covers book. We think we may be the first band to give this a ska treatment.
Pata Pata is of course from the great Miriam Makeba. The reformed Skatalites did an instrumental version of this, which gave us the idea. It is likely to be the only song we do in Xhosa.
We had new photos done today. While we wait for the very talented Michael to come back with the finished photos, here are a few Nigel took of the photoshoot in progress.
We used the Cavendish Arms for these as it has just the right retro feel – or at least red velvet curtains.
We had fun playing the Ritzy in Brixton last week.
So did the audience from the amount of dancing that went on.
We played our version of Chariots of Fire – which of course is now Chariots of Ska – for the first time – and revived our version of Dr Who which we haven’t played for ages.
This is what I think we played. And there are some photos below.
London ska band
rocksteady and unusual covers
female vocals and blazing horns
festivals, weddings and functions
most age and clique smashing sound I have ever heard’
