Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

The Specials - reunion and their legacy

doctorbeck

13:49 / 02.12.08

reforming and touring next april. are you exited?

i sure am, jerry dammers almost certainly not involved but just about everyone else is. i saw them back in the day, ghost town was at number one, the economy was collapsing, fighting in the streets and the dancehalls. an awesome time, i was 14, really formative stuff.

in fact i think the specials were largely responsible for keeping me away from national front politics, which were active on my estate, and getting me into jamaican music and probably did that for a lot of other people too.

i don't even mind jerry not being involved in the reunion. not exactly integral to their live show was he?

Char Aina

14:52 / 02.12.08

I dunno... I think he's the musical heart of the band.

doctorbeck

14:33 / 08.12.08

yes, totally agree, but a high octane best-of live show won't suffer without him. just as long as they don't make an albumn.

was out at a reggea club on saturday and the dj played prince busters al capone to celebrate the reunion and i remembered how good it used to be.

Alex's Grandma

00:35 / 09.12.08

'Ghost Town' is a good tune admittedly, but apart from that, God how I hated this group, at the time. I'm not entirely sure why - they looked awful, but it wasn't that. I think it was maybe that the lyrics seemed so affectedly banal. To my eight year old self.

They'll clean up on the reunion tour, for sure, but then these days, who wouldn't? At the current pace of artistic decline on the live circuit, wouldn't The Housemartins be a safe bet as headliners in the O2 stadium, midnight on Dec 23, 2012? Supported by The Wedding Present, and Billy Bragg. With Nick Hornby and Phil Jupitus as MC's/DJ's.

Everyone will be able to bring their children along. There will be a long queue at the bar for cokes and water, but no beer, although Buster Bloodevessel might be stumbling about the place, totally shit-faced, and on the bill.

The Police, I think, were right to rip that scene off.

A line has to be drawn somewhere. What's next, an Iron Maiden revival?

doctorbeck

10:35 / 09.12.08

dude iron maiden never went away, they sold out twickenham in 5 minutes.
i think the specials were culturally one of the most important bands of their generation both for crossing jamaican music over into the mainstream and for getting young hoodlums like myself to think twice about the deeply ingrainined racist attitudes we had in the early 80s, they sang about everyday life and everyday politics and you could dance to them.

agree with your point about jupitus et al and the cold dead hand of their dad rock aesthetic on popular culture. but just because they like the specials doesn't mean the specials are part of that. they were as dangerous as pop music gets.

Alex's Grandma

00:53 / 10.12.08

In what sense were The Specials dangerous? All right, they were a mixed race band, but then again, so were Culture Club.

(Anyone who's thinking about suggesting that Culture Club were in any way a counter-cultural force in society should be aware that they might be responsible for an old lady's lonely suicide, if they do).

Not musically dangerous, I figure. More socially. No Specials would have meant no Madness, and in turn, I think, less support, these days, for the BNP. There wouldn't have been the annual 'Madstock' crypto-fascist hatefest, for example.

It's a bit much to lay at the group's door, perhaps, but with social tensions rising, what's such a potentially inflammatory band doing back on the live circuit?

It's not like a Buzzcocks reunion, or whatever. The concerts are likely to be much more charged.

doctorbeck

14:55 / 11.12.08

yes, and charged in a good way, with a staunch and impeccable anti-racist message for one thing.

i saw them live back in the day, the specials attracted a lot of bone head borderline nazi skins who i would like to think had their views challenged.

also for me and a lot of others it was a first look at another culture, black kids in the audience, a mixed race band on stage, in rotherham 1981 that was very radical believe me, i'd never met anyone who wasn't white and had fallen for the national front line peddled around the estate.

i see jerry d is moaning about the whole thing in the nme at the minute. says he wasn't invited.

as for culture club...about that which i cannot speak i'll keep me gob shut.

doctorbeck

14:55 / 11.12.08

Tsuga

21:59 / 11.12.08

Everyone will be able to bring their children along. There will be a long queue at the bar for cokes and water, but no beer
Wrong thread if you want to go hatin' on the old people.

I hated Culture Club at the time, mostly because of the insipid music. But the whole continuation of the androgyny tradition was generally a good thing at the time, as was the ska revival's (and especially the Specials')generally strong opposition to racism. Musically I didn't love all of their songs, but I think they had a few really good ones (more than The Selecter, in my opinion).

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:57 / 12.12.08

So. Who else is going?

doctorbeck

18:09 / 14.12.08

couldn't get tickets. probably phil jupitus in front of me hogging them all.

sadly only tenuous link i have is a mate who has worked with jerry dammers on the love music hate racism stuff so no chance of one through there either.

i wish them well though, and hope jerry gets up on stage for a spinal tap moment of moving reconciliation. i think he still hates terry and linval for running of and forming fun boy three without telling him.

Jupitus is a greedy man, certainly.

Between the J-ster, Baddiel, Hornby and Ross (he's a big kid!) the shows were probably sold out before they were announced.

There's gonna be some serious, light entertainment-related skanking going on down the front, that's for sure!

astrojax69

00:49 / 15.12.08

i'd be excited if they were touring to oz... ;(

they were a fantastic band and are seminal to my own yoof, bangin' about sydney's ska scene in the early eighties. i was in the car on a long sunday drive yesterday listening to a nouvelle vague - fab outfit! - cover of 'friday night, saturday morning' and was reminded by this anthem of many wondrous friday (and other) nights in the specials' company.

the problem with reunions so long after the event is that that magic element that made the band so 'special' [pun intended] is long gone and it might as well be a cover band doing specials (or whoever's) songs. i shan't be off to see roger and pete in their touring 'who' next year, either, for the same reasons.

but the specials were, to my mind, equalled only by 'the selecter' & 'bad manners' for that hard edged ska, and 'the beat' for ska of any sort in those halcyon two-tone days. ahh, memories...

Add Your Reply