Way back before Episode 01 of Cut the Chit Chat I had scoured the internet trying to find the newest bands and the newest tracks. But I always felt the episode still wasn’t reflective of the unique time/space location that is late 2007. Luckily for me, the episode opened some doors with several prominent labels. Since the begining of this series, I’ve been swamped with samples from bands that I’ve never heard of.

New Skool and Traditional Style Ska are seeing a huge push in Europe and South America. Not to be counted out, the old USAok has it’s share of Traddy bands dotting it’s wide landscape.

Let me tell you a little bit about each band featured on this episode:

Downbeat Alley – Django Kill – Born from Royal Roost this group delivers heavy organ Reggae.

Deal’s Gone Bad – Rough and Ready – Chicago’s up and comers with a cut from the new album.

New Town Kings – Fire In the Hole – Do the Dog Records sent me this song, it’s fast, it’s rockin’ but it’s not typical.

The Dualers – Money – I found these guys on MySpace and was immediately impressed by their unique sound.

Bedouin Soundclash – Trinco Dog – See? I like them.

Miss Mad-e Ruthless – Dia De los Muertos – This fellow ska enthusiast has decided to lay down some tape of her own with this pretty song about scary things.

The Pepperpots – Be My Baby – Less of a band and more of a Ska Review, The Pepperpots prove their slickness with this classic cover.

3 Minute Warning – Sussed Out – Another Do the Dog offering seems to blaze past in an flash of high energy.

Green Room Rockers – Divided – A Soul Reggae group from West Lafayette, IN of all places, unplug their instruments and criticize foreign policy.

Rebelation – Minor Incident – This instrumental track takes it’s time and allows for so many solos; it might be my favorite cut on their whole cd.

Lord Mike’s Dirty Calypsonians – Rub My… – Classic Calypso tune- raised from the dead by this Chicago Revivalist group.

Ticklah/Victor Axelrod – Mi Sonsito – If you don’t have this cd- get it! A member of Easy Star All-Stars and many other dubby projects, Ticklah is Axelrod. But is the converse true?

The Slackers – Wanted Man – Vic and the guys cover the result of a Johnny Cash/Bob Dylan team-up.

Kingston Kitchen (Dr. Ring-Ding) – St. James Infirmary Blues – Another classic cover, with the Doctor taking on a very Tom Waits style voice.

The Pietasters – G to F – One of the best songs of last year. Great album great song.

The Toasters – Run Rudy Run Redux – I talk a lot of shit about the silly side of ska. But I’ll let you in on a little secret: I have a huge soft spot for cheezy spy-style ska. Run Rudy Run was on the second ska album I ever owned and this reworking of the classic Toasters track is really fun.

As I state on the show, this will be the last episode of the Cut the Chit Chat series. However, it is not the end for Ska Blah Blah. Expect a new interview series in January, and the blog will continue throughout. So keep your subscriptions active and you won’t miss a thing.

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Comments (3) Nov 13 2007

It’s the day after the sites big move, and the only major issue I’ve discovered is a broken link to my most recent episode of Cut the Chit Chat.

After tweeking the original post a million times, to no avail, I’ve decided to repost the link in a new post.

To read the original show notes, click here.

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Comments (2) Nov 09 2007

This Episode of Cut the Chit Chat isn’t the pretteiest or the most accessible; I’ve made- but it’s one that I’ve been dying to make for a long time. The reason being that I’m an amateur tape trader, and I get very few excuses to show off some of my rare stuff.

If you put up with the raw mixes and the loud hisses, you’ll be rewarded with alternate takes and a backwards engineered reflection of the recording process.

The introduction to the show features what can’t be aptly described as a demo, but is just as scratchy and hard to find, as anything else in the show- Bob Marley’s Rudie Cut. I started the first set off with three rare Slackers tracks that embody their early Two-Tone style, including the earliest version of You Don’t Know I, that I’ve ever heard. I keep the sound in NY for the next couple of demos by Mephiskapheles: Doomsday and My Three Favorite Americans. The first set ends with tracks from Fishbone and The Toasters, respectively. These tracks aren’t exactly rare, but might serve as a curiosity to those who haven’t heard them before.

The next set kicks off with the Violent Femmes’ Reggae-licious demo of Please Don’t Go (compare this to the original studio version to note the progress of this amazing bass solo). A pair of Hepcat demos follows, early cuts of Nigel and Take Dat. Although, these versions have never been released, you’ll find a lot of Hepcat fans already have these tracks on their ipods. The 7 Song Demo that Hepcat made for Moon Records is standard fare for Ska bootleggers. Following right behind comes some early Specials, or rather, The Coventry Automatics. This (hornless) version of Dawning of a New Era has been released dozens of times, but is very much a rough outline of the track we all know and love. And much the same could be said of the next demo track by The Clash, Rudie Can’t Fail from the Vanilla Tapes- not hard to find, but not quite ready for the big leagues.

The final tracks are what I believe will be of most interest to my listeners- but first, a bit of history: I’m sure many of you remember when the first Give ‘em the Boot compilation dropped. Nearly every track on that $5 cd was steller, but one song stood out over all the others, in my opinion. The Silencers’ Policeman was that song- ghostly and urban, the sound was very Two-Tone, faster than The Slackers but not as Punky as Rancid. The liner notes confirmed that this was a team up between Vic Ruggiero and Tim Armstrong, and promised a forthcoming album. Years go by and still no sign of a Silencers record. Ruggiero mentions in an interview, that an albums worth of songs were, in fact, recorded an are just waiting for some attention, but also, to not hold our breath. Then, about two years ago, I found (through a P2P service) a folder labeled, Life Won’t Wait Demos. Sure enough, many of the files were early demos of songs that would end up on Life Won’t wait, but the last few in the folder were unique. They would never become Rancid songs, and they featured Ruggiero more prominently. I believe this session, the Life Won’t Wait demos, to be all there is to The Silencers rumor. But please correct me if I’m wrong. This also reconfirmed a theory of mine, that Ruggiero had a great deal of influence on Rancid’s Life Won’t Wait. To finish the show, I picked two tracks from these bootlegs, the demo for Policeman and a much lower-fi version of the Rancid B-side, Brad Logan.

Also, check out the previous episode, Ska Rap, to hear another Silencer Sessions cut, Express Yourself (an NWA cover).

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Comments (2) Oct 23 2007

This episode was born from a post I submitted a few months ago, where I told you all about a strange Acid House/Ska remix record I found. After that, I found a bunch of other tracks that feature a similar DJ meets Ska sort of mash-up.

You’ll hear some Rap Ska tracks from Wyclef Jean, Dr. Ring Ding, and DEL tha funkee homosapien; as well as House, Electro, and Dance tracks by artists like Asian Dub Foundation, Roughneck, and Pama International. Plus, if you stay tuned til the end you’ll hear a cut from the ultra-rare Silencers/Life Won’t Wait demo sessions, in which Tim Armstrong and Vic Ruggiero cover Express Yourself.

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Comments (4) Oct 01 2007

I drove from St. Louis to Knoxville, TN to attend the big Ska Weekend, in the hopes of snagging a few interviews and catching a bunch of live sets from today’s top Ska artists. And wouldn’t you know it? I did just that.

While this piece tracks my day, the people I talked to and the music I was most interested in, it is by no means a report on the event as a whole. You’ll hear live songs by Deals Gone Bad, Westbound Train, Dr. Ring Ding feat. The Drastics and The Slackers. Plus, interviews with King Django, Anthony from the Drastics, Dr. Ring Ding and Agent Jay Neugent.

Links of Interest:

Ska Weekend Website
Musical Occupation’s coverage of the event

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Comments (1) Sep 19 2007