The Specials - classic or dud?

I think the lame scene mr. adultery refers to might be the lame rehasehed American scene that still flourishes a bit and is rather pathetic, as opposed to the original UK scene which was fantastic and excellent. At least I hope so...

Agreed.

any ideas oh obsessed massive?

i think they never released anything but 7"s — possibly just one in fact

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/coventry_warwickshire/7335284.stm

The Specials, whose records highlighted rising unemployment and social problems in Britain 30 years ago, have confirmed they have reformed.

The Coventry ska outfit, whose hits include Ghost Town and Too Much Too Young, were hugely influential in the late 70s and early 80s.

Singer-songwriter Neville Staples said the group had recently been rehearsing.

Former lead singer Terry Hall is said to have rejoined the line up, after leaving because of a rift.

Speaking to BBC Radio 6 Music earlier this year, he said no tour dates had yet been confirmed.

"Well we're still trying to put dates together, but hopefully September or October time.

"We need to spend the summer rehearsing... I think it's taken me 30 years to realise we could do it really well."

Band members Terry Hall and Lynval Golding made surprise appearances at last year's Glastonbury Festival.

I wish they would only write new stuff and play nothing from the glory days

Is Jerry Dammers involved in this? Or is it going to be Fun Boy Three play the Hits of the Specials?

Not that I can see.

Last time they did this there were Monkees songs.

in re: the original post: the specials debut is a classic, but not as classic as the Toots and Prince Buster they remake. then again "Ghost Town" is one of the great songs of all time

the specials debut is a classic, but not as classic as the Toots and Prince Buster they remake

I beg to differ. Songs like Gangsters and Stupid Marriage are brilliant, imaginative updates of the Jamaican originals.

Specials def classic, and must agree with Daniel Giraffe that their covers are imaginative takes on the origs. Better? Can't say. But fucking good.

What do you all think of the flawed third album? I tried to start a thread about it the other day, In The Studio, but it got nowhere!

Much like the album itself.

Unfocused, and not helped by the fact that all its decent and half-decent tracks had already been released as singles. The first Fun Boy Three album seems to me a more logical follow-up to More Specials as well as preparing the ground for Tricky, Cypress Hill, Roots Manuva etc.

Also, the Fun Boy Three had already released both their albums - and already had their career - by the time In The Studio came out. So the whole project came across as decidely after-the-fact, and not to mention po-faced ('...Girlfriend' aside).

Specials reunion? If it aint Dammmers...

Lame scene? It became lame, wasn't at the time.

big piece in Mojo this month and Dammers did seem to be making snidey remarks about the others in it. struck me as a bit odd, all these years after the fact, but in light of the reunion it makes more sense.

How exactly has Jerry Dammers been making a living these last 20 years or so? Surely he can't be getting by on "Ghost Town" royalties alone?

I know he does a lot of DJing and suchlike, but even so.

Well he did have a part to play in The Music Library, that project he did with Johnny Trunk. But I guess that doesn't tell us how he's been making ends meet in the intervening years.

I saw Neville Staple (who has for some unknown reason dropped the final "s" from his name) playing live last month. He was unexpectedly fantastic, and his band were even more unexpectedly HOT HOT HOT. Best atmosphere of any gig I've been to this year.

Warning warning nuclear attack!

Was Staple/s playing under his own name? He's been down here a couple of times in recent years as The Special Beat, I think once with Ranking Roger included and once without...

(had a look at mojo interview again last night and couldn't find the bits of jerry dammers being snarky so i guess it was somewhere else (or someone else). the specific complaint was, i think, last year's lily allen glastonbury appearance (which was great btw))

xpost: yes, under his own name, and supporting the Ranking Roger-led band that trades as The Beat (the drummer being the only other original member, with Roger's son "Ranking Junior" also on vocals).

The Staple band were so great that they really should have been headlining. The Beat were good, but they could only suffer by comparison.

the drummer being the only other original member

I thought Saxa was turning out for them these days (despite the fact that even back in the day he must have been at least 100 years old). Everett Moreton, by the way, is one of my favourite drummers ever ever ever. His style seemed to work so well with Cox and Steel's bass and guitar.

I saw Neville Staple and band a couple of times last year, and it was immense fun. I loved their ska version of The Lunatics

I saw something on Teletext: Basically, Jerry Dammers isinvolved in the current Specials reunion. According to himself, he's had one reheasal so far, not with every member involved, so far so good, etc...

whoa. thats really good news .. and somewhat unexpected

I got (cheap) an advance of the first 'Special aka' reunion, it was decidedly poor. No doubt dammers will have none of that 'synthydrums' virus.

OK, soz, 'Specials' reunion. The track listing looks um, alright. But it is not.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/aa/Today%27s_Specials.jpg/200px-Today%27s_Specials.jpg

avoid.

Just reading Horace 'Gentleman' Panter's Specials book "Ska'd for Life" and it's OK so far.

They are classic plus one.

Great band, and a pretty darn dapper one as well (see the video of their 1980 Montreux appearance).

As for the reunion, if Dammers is there, I'm there.

Dammers would appear not to be there and therefore there's no point (apart obviously from paying some recent tax bills).

Doesn't Terry Hall look more and more like Pete Townshend these days?

Brad looks like Bruce Foxton! (plus 10 years...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxHcx7FO8nI

One of my most favorite shows, Lynn Massachusetts, circa 1980-82.
j

theres a really nice fred perry shirt on the specials web site - its 60 quid though, but it is really really nice.

Erm, I meant to have a paragraph before the shirt bit - sorry.

Anyway, what I said in that paragraph was that the reunion concerts were really really good - there was an feeling of they were meaning it (ironic in that a lot of the songs are about being young and not wasting it) - compared to say the magazine reunion which was a fine night of excellent music... this felt like it had a point to make(as well as a fine night of excellent music).

Did anyone else think the reunion shows were much better than they expected?

Heads up, this is making the rounds:

THE SPECIALS

3 x 2CD SPECIAL EDITION REMASTERS OF THE ALBUMS:

On March 30th, 2 Tone Records/Warners Catalogue will release Special Editions of three exceptional, ground breaking albums by one of the most important British bands ever - The Specials. These reissues have been liaised and approved by the band’s founder and main songwriter Jerry Dammers.

Formed in Coventry in the mid-1970s, The Specials (formerly Coventry Automatics) was the idea of musician Jerry Dammers, who brought together an eclectic array of individuals to fulfill his vision of a multi-racial band, fusing the energy of punk with the legendary but, at the time, often overlooked, sound of Jamaican ska. This was a fusion which proved to be explosive. The seven individuals – Dammers (keyboards), Terry Hall (vocals), Neville Staples (vocals), Lynval Golding (rhythm guitar), Roddy ‘Radiation’ Byers (lead guitar), ‘Sir’ Horace ‘Gentleman’ Panter (bass) and John Bradbury (drums), along with legendary Jamaican ska trombonist Rico Rodriguez and trumpeter Dick Cuthell - not only fully realised Dammers’ vision, but their exuberant, uncompromising sound and ‘message’ music reached the top of the charts. Their third single, ‘Too Much Too Young’, was amongst a tiny handful of live recordings that have ever reached no 1 on the singles’ chart*, (an amazing achievement for such a new group, and testament to the phenomenal excitement and energy generated by their live shows). The resulting popularity of the band and its music was considered by many, to have a hugely positive influence on race relations in late ‘70s/early ‘80s Britain, helping to create unity amongst disaffected youth.

Dammers’ vision also included a record label, 2 Tone Records, which took its blueprint from such disparate elements as anarcho punk band Crass, Berry Gordy’s Motown label, Jamaican ska and the Buzzcocks’ independently pressed Spiral Scratch EP. The label would release not only The Special AKA’s debut single ‘Gangsters’ (UK Top 10) and The Specials’ debut album ‘Specials’ (November 1979 , reaching no.4 in the album charts), but also singles by bands who shared 2 Tone’s musical ethos, including: Madness, The Selecter and The Beat. With a striking aesthetic based on a chessboard logo, designed by Dammers, which incorporated a cartoon mascot based on Peter Tosh from the Wailing Wailers album sleeve, christened Walt Jabsco after a vintage bowling shirt, 2 Tone spawned a musical and cultural movement that defined a generation and still resonates around the world to this day.

Following the success of their debut aIbum, the band released the non-album single, Rod Byers’ class war polemic ‘Rat Race’, which reached the Top 5 in May 1980. This was followed in September by the groundbreaking ‘Stereotypes’, which mixed dark lounge core, spaghetti western themes and dub reggae, and reached the Top 10. The song was the first hint of what was to come on the band’s second album.

Less than a year after their debut, Dammers was determined to make their follow up an equally musically innovative album. ‘More Specials’ (October 1980) was to be ambitious and totally unique, expanding the group’s musical palette into areas never previously explored in ‘rock’ music. As well as the aforementioned genres, it also encompassed muzak, nightmare exotica, bossa nova, northern soul, and calypso. It was a commercial success, hitting the UK Top 5, and, as well as ‘Stereotypes’, the single ‘Do Nothing’ was also a Top 10 hit.

In early 1981, the group re-entered the studio to record another non-album single, one that would eerily soundtrack that summer’s widespread rioting and assure the group’s place in music history. ‘Ghost Town’, (B/W ‘Friday Night, Saturday Morning’ and ‘Why?’) influenced the dystopian sounds which were to dominate the Bristol “trip hop” scene, and in turn pass into much British music since, up to and including dubstep. Capturing a mood of inner city anger and alienation in an uneasy amalgam of Eastern melody, skank reggae and heavy dub bass, with an inimitable and mournful trombone solo by Rico Rodriguez, the song reached no.1 in the charts, but sadly, after what should have been an occasion for celebration, Hall, Golding and Staple left to form the Fun Boy Three and Byers left to tour with his band the Tearjerkers.

The remaining members, Dammers, Bradbury and Panter, briefly toured backing Rico in Germany, then Dammers recruited guitarist John Shipley from The Swinging Cats, ex-Bodysnatcher Rhoda Dakar (who’d guested on ‘More Specials’) and lead vocalist Stan Campbell. The new line up set to work on the ‘In The Studio’ album, reverting to the band’s original name of The Special AKA. Released in 1984, the album was a brave mix of bold and challenging music, with a strong political, social and moral conscience. The album made it into the Top 40, and while it might not have been a huge commercial success, it was, and still is, an astonishingly unique work: a haunting, claustrophobic mix of lounge, soul, reggae, jazz (foreseeing what would later in the decade become known as ‘acid jazz’) and Arabic rhythms, with uncompromising subject matter. It featured two brilliant singles: the joyous, yet serious rallying anthem for the then imprisoned South African ANC leader, ‘Free Nelson Mandela’, and ‘What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend’, a rare outing for Dammers on vocals (later covered by the band’s debut album producer, Elvis Costello). As time has gone by, the status of ‘In The Studio’ has grown, and today it is rightly viewed as a genuine lost classic.

Parts of the above press release are based on the extensive sleevenotes written by Mojo’s Lois Wilson, available on request.

The 2015 Special Editions have been remastered by Tim Debney at Fluid. As well as the original albums, they include all the band’s EPs, non-album singles and b-sides, the ‘Too Much Too Young EP’, ‘Rat Race’, ‘Ghost Town’ (full version), ‘Friday Night, Saturday Morning’ and ‘Why?’ (extended version); a rare, previously unreleased on CD, frenetic concert recorded for the BBC at the Paris Theatre in December 1979 plus John Peel BBC radio sessions and instrumentals of six tracks from ‘In The Studio’ mixed at the time, (which perfectly demonstrate the album’s groundbreaking experimentation). All three Special Editions include new and extensive sleevenotes by Lois Wilson, as well as rare and previously unseen Chalkie Davies’ photos of the band, some of which have been used to create variations on the albums’ original cover photos.


Tracklistings:

SPECIALS (2 CD Special Edition)
CD 1 :
The debut single and original album by The Specials:
1. Gangsters
2. A Message To You, Rudy
3. Do The Dog
4. It’s Up To You
5. Nite Klub
6. Doesn’t Make It Alright
7. Concrete Jungle
8. Too Hot
9. Monkey Man
10. (Dawning Of A) New Era
11. Blank Expression
12. Stupid Marriage
13. Too Much Too Young
14. Little Bitch
15. You’re Wondering Now

CD 2: EXTRA SPECIALS

Too Much Too Young EP (live) by The Special AKA:
1. Too Much Too Young
2. Guns Of Navarone
3. Skinhead Symphony
a) Long Shot Kick The Bucket
b) Liquidator
c) Skinhead Moon Stomp


BBC In Concert At the Paris Theatre (15/12/79) by The Specials:
1. (Dawning Of A) New Era
2. Do The Dog
3. Rat Race
4. Blank Expression
5. Rude Buoys Outa Jail
6. Concrete Jungle
7. Too Much Too Young
8. Guns Of Navarone
9. Nite Klub
10. Gangsters
11. Medley:
a) Long Shot Kick The Bucket
b) Skinhead Moonstomp
-------------------------------------------------------------

MORE SPECIALS (2 CD Special Edition)

CD 1: The original album by The Specials:
1. Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)
2. Man At C&A
3. Hey, Little Rich Girl
4. Do Nothing
5. Pearl’s Café
6. Sock It To ‘Em J.B.
7. Stereotypes/Stereotypes - Pt. 2
8. Holiday Fortnight
9. I Can’t Stand It
10.International Jet Set
11.Enjoy Yourself (Reprise)


CD 2: MORE EXTRA SPECIALS

Singles, b-sides and rarities by The Specials:
1. Rat Race
2. Rude Buoys Outa Jail
3. Stereotypes Pts.1 & 2 (John Peel session)
4. International Jet Set (single version)
5. Rude Boys Outa Jail (version) (featuring Neville Staples aka Judge Roughneck)
6. - Do Nothing (single version) (featuring Rico with the Ice Rink String Sounds)
7. Maggie’s Farm
8. Raquel
9. Why? (extended version)
10. Friday Night, Saturday Morning
11. Ghost Town (full version)
12. Sea Cruise (John Peel session) (featuring Rico)
13. You’re Wondering Now (Kid Jensen session)
-------------------------------------------------------------

IN THE STUDIO (2 CD Special Edition)

CD1:
The original album by The Special AKA:
1. Bright Lights
2. Lonely Crowd
3. What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend
4. House Bound
5. Night On The Tiles
6. Nelson Mandela
7. War Crimes
8. Racist Friend
9. Alcohol
10. Break Down The Door

CD2:
Rarities by The Special AKA:
1. The Boiler ( Rhoda and The Special AKA )
2. You Just Can’t Get A Break
3. Jungle Music ( Rico and The Special AKA )

BBC Peel Session 12/09/83 by The Special AKA:
4. Lonely Crowd
5. Alcohol
6. Bright Lights

Instrumentals by The Special AKA:
7. Break Down The Door
8. Racist Friend
9. War Crimes
10. Theme From The Boiler
11. Bright Lights
12. Nelson Mandela


*NB Trivia: Along with The Specials’ Live EP, Chuck Berry’s ‘My Ding-A-Ling’ is another of the tiny handful of UK number one singles recorded live. Bizarrely, it was recorded at the same Coventry venue as the second side of The Specials live EP and Jerry Dammers was present at both gigs!

Hmm, wonder why "Braggin' and trying not to lie" been missed?

I mean, it was Roddy's song and all that...

regardless, I couldn't be more excited for this.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/dec/29/john-bradbury-of-the-specials-dies-ages-62

RIP

contact points coming closer...

The 'Young Ones' curse

Just saw them live Saturday night. They're down to 3 longtime members (Terry Hall, Horace Panter, Lynval Golding) with the rest new and they did the fan faves well, and Hall got grumpy between songs whining about the History channel, and the candidates for US president.

Whoa no Neville? Why isn't he in the band anymore?

Never thought we'd see the day when it was Terry Hall leading a road warrior illegitimate version of the band

Because that would make them 'The Fun Boy Three Plus One'

I think Neville's health might be an issue as he toured with them in the recent past.

What does Jerry Damners do these days? I mean he said he would only be part of the band if they did new songs. I guess he's not writing any new ones with others?

Actually I think Neville Staple is just touring with his own band now

http://www.tonedeaf.com.au/481205/ska-legend-neville-staple-announces-2016-east-coast-tour.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqtfl0gt5fM

In addition to Terry Hall, the new album features a line-up that includes two other original members, bassist Horace Panter and guitarist Lynval Golding.

Just going to leave that there..

Any thoughts on the new album "Encore"?
I really like what I've heard so far. The band appear to have grown up and taken risks.

I mean 'grown up with elegance and grace'.

it's alright. it's not 'necessary' but it's hardly embarrassing. sounds like another good Specials album.

the bit of gangsters that i heard on lamacq the other week sounded like terry hall had given up singing for lent. and the new single has more than a touch of ghost town about it.

the glastonbury set from some years ago was solid gold though, hit after hit.

Something about "Vote for Me" gave me "Racist Friend" associations; I'd guess not deliberate, but well played if it is.

Saw some version of the Specials touring behind some version of a new Specials album several years back and they were awesome. Saw a different, more intact lineup version of the Specials more recently and they were also awesome.

Anatol, the intro is an echo of Ghost Town but it definitely moves into Racist Friend.

akm, it might not be strictly necessary, as you put it, but as a fan I feel really proud that it's as good as it is.

Don’t call me Scarface!

Bernie Rhodes knows: don’t argue!