The Slackers: A Documentary is a documentary about The Slackers, directed by Ben Levin.  Now that we’re all on the same page, on with the review…

The documentary starts with some concert footage of The Slackers playing Married Girl, then goes into the roots of the band, starting with Vic Ruggeiro’s days in Sic and Mad with bassist Marcus Geard.  From there, it goes into the formation of the Slackers by Vic with Marcus, original drummer Louis Zuluaga, Q-Maxx, and T.J. Scanlon.

Vic talks about how they were a two-tone band in the early days and he desperately wanted to be Paul Weller.  From there, the DVD goes into how Dave Hillyard and Jeremy Mushlin helped shape the Slackers into the form they currently have, ditching two-tone in favor of traditional ska.  From there, the formation of Hellcat is covered, as it Redlight and the coming of Glenn Pine.

Once Glen’s arrival is covered, the remainder of the DVD is talk about life on the road, thoughts about ska in general, and a lot of concert footage.  The Interpunk page lists these songs but this isn’t the order they appear on the DVD.

• Sarah
• Wasted Days
• Married Girl
• I Still Love You
• What Went Wrong
• Watch This
• Peculiar
• International War Criminal
• Keep It Simple
• No Good To Be In Love

Why this Documentary was awesome:

• The behind the scenes glimpses of The Slackers while they weren’t on stage were well worth the price of admission.  While we’re enjoying watching the Slackers play live, it’s easy to forget the miles they drove to get to us.
• The concert footage was top notch.  I actually preferred the recordings on this to the ones from Live at the Flamingo Cantina.
• Seeing Vic and Glenn practice What Went Wrong was worth the price of admission.
• Hearing the band’s thoughts on making the music, touring, etc, was quite something.  In particular, Vic’s talk of giving something back to the music that gave him so much was powerful stuff.

What I Wish They’d Done Differently:

• There’s not a lot I would change about this documentary, honestly.  I wish it would have been twice as long, though.
• I wouldn’t have minded the documentary covering the departures of Zulu, T.J., Q-Maxx, and Mush-1.
• I also wouldn’t have minded something talking about Ara Babajian and Agent Jay joining the band.

The Thrilling Conclusion:
If I wasn’t already a diehard Slackers fan before watching this documentary, I would have been by the time I was finished.  This dvd is a clear indication that The Slackers are doing what they love and loving what they do.  If you’re a fan of The Slackers, and you should be, you owe it to yourself to buy this DVD.

Highest possible recommendation!

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Comments (0) Dec 29 2011

Hey, gang! For my first contribution to Ska Blah Blah, I thought I’d take the lazy way out and re-post something I wrote on Goodreads over the summer. I hope you like it.

Ska: An Oral History by Heather Augustyn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ska: An Oral History covers the history of ska music from its inception to Jamaica through the ska boom of the 90′s, all the way up to present day.

Lean closer everyone, I have something to reveal. I became a ska fan when I got my first CD player in 1993 and my neighbor gave me a copy of Ska Core, the Devil, and More by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. I’ve remained a fan of the music ever since, though these days I’m more into the more traditional ska sound of The Slackers, Mr. T-Bone, and Dr. Ring-Ding. Anyway, on to the review…

The chronicle starts in Jamaica, naturally. Pioneers like Derrick Morgan, Prince Buster, Desmond Dekker, Toots Hibbert, and The Skatellites were given their due. Some of the stuff, like Don Drummond murdering his girlfriend and dying in the insane asylum, I was familiar with. Others, like the feud between Derrick Morgan and Prince Buster, I was not.

From there, the English skinhead reggae scene of the 60′s is covered, primarily focusing on Laurel Aitken and Judge Dread. The focus shifts to the two tone era of The Specials, the Selecter, Madness, and Bad Manners. It really put me in the mood to dig out the Specials debut album. Actually, I’d say a bit too much time was spent on the two-tone era. I could have done without entire chapters detailing The Beat, The Selecter, and Bad Manners. It seemed a bit like padding.

The third wave was covered, starting with the Toasters and Bim Skala Bim, and moving along with Fishbone, Let’s Go Bowling, the Scofflaws, Agent 99, Jump with Joey, and the New York Ska Jazz Ensemble.

Hepcat was mentioned next and I began getting excited. Then radio ska bands like No Doubt and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones were mentioned. Deals gone bad was mentioned and then Agent Jay of The Slackers and Isaac Green of The Skalars talked about how the scene died because most of the people going to shows were in bands and nobody was buying records. Which I witnessed first hand in my first couple of years of going to ska shows.

That’s pretty much it. The book did a good job of detailing the history of ska but I think it focused on the two tone era a little too much and could have used more than a mention of The Slackers, since they are by far the biggest touring American ska band at the moment. It also wouldn’t have hurt to mention that ska has a much bigger audience in Europe and Japan, evident by the turnouts that Mr. T-Bone, The Moon Invaders, and Dr. Ring-Ding see. For being released in 2010, it doesn’t feel current to me.

Man, it’s hard to settle on a rating for this. I’m giving it a three. I’d give it a four but the writing seemed choppy in places, especially during the transitions between topics.

View all my reviews

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Comments (0) Dec 29 2011

I really like this social examination of Jamaican Album art, from a design point-of-view from Smashing Magazine.  Blogger, Dan Mayer, takes an in-depth look at the early chapters of JA albums from Ska to Dancehall and right up to contemporary reissues:

“…while many covers evidence a conscious Afro-centric opposition to Western society, many others adopt, mimic or are swallowed up by the conventions of American music and movies. You can see every chapter of Jamaica’s modern social history?—?the burden of colonialism, the optimism surrounding political independence, the social and economic problems that greeted self-rule?—?reflected in the typographic, illustrative and photographic choices made by its album cover artists over the last fifty years.”

Sound like something you’d like to read?  I thought so.  You can read the whole Social History of Jamaican Album Covers over at Smashing Magazine.

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Comments (0) Aug 28 2011

You think you know Rocksteady… You’ve been listening to it for years, you can navigate the subtle differences between the various JA styles and you fancy yourself somewhat of an expert on the matter.

I know, because I once felt the way you do, I used to think that I knew Rocksteady. But compared the man, Brian Keyo, you and I don’t know jack.

The name may not ring a bell, but if you’ve got more than a handful of killer Trad Ska or Early Reggae compilations, you probably own one of Keyo’s gift’s to the world. Not only does he have a massive collection which has served as the basis for many of his comps, but he’s also been given unprecedented access to music vaults and written some of the most definitive liner notes about this music. These liner notes are where Keyo’s legacy really shines. Remember how you don’t know anything about Rocksteady? Well, what you DO know was probably taught to you by Keyo in one CD booklet or another. He’s a major player, for sure and you can learn even more about the man in an amazing three-part interview over at Go Feet Radio (highly recommended!).

Now Keyo has written a Primer for Rocksteady: From The Aces to The Zodiacs over at his site, Tallawah.com. The introduction alone is so informative, I challenge you to NOT learn something new before the primer even begins!

So yeah, maybe we don’t know all that we thought we did about our beloved music- but at least we’ve got Brian Keyo on our side, sharing his fire!

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Comments (1) May 11 2011

It’s been a few years since I’ve heard anything from the filmmakers behind Legends of Ska, a purportedly in-production documentary/concert film project.  But the project is not dead yet!  Behold a new Facebook Page. Built around the all star concert of the same name from 2002, I can only imagine that the producers have spent the past few years editing additional footage and getting the money thing in order.  It’s always the money thing, idn’t it?

The big concert in ’02 featured (among others) Prince Buster, Lord Tanamo, Patsy Todd, Stranger Cole, Owen Grey and the topper, in my opinion, Lord Creator- and I’ve been kicking myself for not making the trek to Toronto ever since!   Considering that many of the artists featured in the documentary have since passed away, the need for this DVD is greater than ever.

Event Poster from '02

You may recognize this concept from Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae, which found DVD distribution last year, and you’d be right.  But considering ska’s contribution to rocksteady, it seems only fair that both find release, right?  I’m not sure what we, the fans, can do to help at this stage other than showing our support and spreading the word.

Maybe the Legends Of Ska folks should take a note from Samuel Gursky, who’s started a KickStarter page for his new documentary project, Brooklyn Rocksteady- which is generating a fair amount of buzz in the ska community, or the makers of Laurel Aitken – Live at Club Ska, which found international distribution.  However they do it, I just hope we get it soon, Legends of Ska sounds amazing!

UPDATE:  Looks like great minds think alike- you can support the Legends Of Ska production and lock in your copy of the DVD and soundtrack, by pledging at the LOS Kickstarter Page.

Related Posts:

New Vic Ruggiero Documentary
Roots Online: Dub Echoes Documentary
Roots Online: The Aquarius Reggae Documentary
Ska Online: Original Ska Documentary

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Comments (0) Mar 10 2011