Thursday, February 14, 2008
Yes, They were Special
There is a very cool new DVD called The Specials: Too Much, Too Soon that features nine vintage performances of various format (videos, concert footage), a bunch of Super 8 Sound stuff filmed in 79, and four or five Specials AKA music videos. The less said about the last of these categories, the better.
Damn, they were a band. Watching Lynvall Golding onstage is an amazing spectacle, but even more so when you simultaneously check out the moves of Roddy and Sir Horace that take place behind him. The monotone with an attitude delivery of Terry Hall pounds into one's head like a whinining jack hammer. "Ain't He Cool? No He Ain't. He's just another burden of the Welfare State." There is also a drummer who doesn't miss a fill and Jerry Dammers, frightening toothless when he grins, whose keyboards kind of orchestrate all of the madness. I remember the energy of their Saturday Night Live appearance where their black beauty induced energy could was too much and overfilled the stage.
The first wave of Neo-ska in 79-80 made quite an impression on me. I was a listless in early twenties and the every other beat bounce along with the blend of snotty plus clever of the Specials really connected. I had just started a service job, and was convinced that would keep me out of the Rat Race "Your just wasting your time...You ain't no friend of mine." In those quasi-nihilistic days, I recall listening to the song Do Nothing from their second More Specials album "I'm just living in a life without meaning, I walk and walk and do nothing." There is an excellent television show performance of this song on the Too Much Too Young video where they are wearing ski sweaters like you would find at the time in a JC Penney advert. Ski Sweaters? How cool was that.
The first album was a kind of hyperlink for me. From it, I indulged in the first wave of Jamaican ska and rock steady. That led, obviously to the early Bob Marley, which led to my first really close listens to Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions, Marvin Gaye and others.
I actually was more appreciative as the second album, with its moodiness and post bouncy bounce shape shifting. It kind of became my signature record for a while in a way. The musical sandwich placed between the snotty readings of "Enjoy yourself, It's later than you think" broke out of the off beat grind with lots of interesting textures but kept the attitude. One of my favorites is not on the Too Much Too Soon collection, so I submit it here for all of you Stereo Types. It is a fan scrap book compilation with the album tracks from YouTube, but I wanted to embed it so I could have access to this song while editing or submitting dispatches to this buffet. It's just too bad it isn't the long version complete with Lynval's toasting. Enjoy anyway. It may be later than you think.
posted by well-executed buffet at 6:30 AM
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