Tag: ska

Devizes Scooter Rally; Best Yet, Ranking Full Stop!

If there’s been hearsay and ballyhoo about the date clash of two major but individually different events in Devizes this week, I hold my hand up for stirring the pot, yet try to attend both and find fair balance. But at the dawning of them, as magical as the FullTone Festival is, it cannot be argued, Devizes Scooter Rally was the success story this weekendโ€ฆ..

My afternoon was spent, Muck & Dundar piรฑa colada in hand, in the magnificence of FullTone’s mighty stage, Vivaldiโ€™s Four Seasons striking out with the acoustics of the gods, in awe at glitter-faced violinist Katy Smith and the orchestra behind.ย 

It is unquestionably a fantastic event. Though Devizine isn’t my employment, neither a public service, it’s a hobby, its opinions driven by the personal preferences of the authors. As much as I pretend to be classically cultured, there’s another gig I’m impelled by preference to explore; Devizes Scooter Rally.ย 

Handbags and gladrags for a cider guzzling retrospective camping adventure on the future site of FullTone, Park Farm. The scope for expansion for FullTone is available here, even if townsfolk accustomed to a freebie from their deckchair on the small green might whinge, at least the date will not clash and Devizions can enjoy both next year, if they so wished. Yet if the clash must remain, my devotion is towards the Rally, because it’s more my cuppa.

I’m standing upfield with the โ€œColonelโ€ of Devizes Scooter Club Adam Ford and his partner Lauren Gibbs, watching the sun setting across the vast expanse of tents, campers and scooters; neither sure nor fussed over stats, but the site is at least 25% fuller than last year, which was recordbreaking too. They, club members, and volunteers have been here all week, setting up this magnificent spectacle, now feeling the fatigue but maintaining smiles, and the bar staff continue regardless of lost voices and aching feet. The club built the fantastic bar themselves, and once the rally is opened this testament to their conscientiousness never creates a dull moment.

The sound reputation the rally has built, both locally and nationwide has boosted attendance figures, the headlining of Ranking Jnrโ€™s incarnation of The Beat assisted. A bold move to introduce a renowned name, but the Club needs to discuss just how willing they are to expand the rally, the issues it may raise, but in general the consensus seemed to be that in fear of losing the communal and hospitable atmosphere, this yearโ€™s Rally might be as large as they are willing to take it. I like this, for the atmosphere is sublimely buzzing, yet it retains a friendly, family vibe.

The spirit of the attendees, or the overall โ€œvibeโ€ is key to its success, and something no matter how much dosh you throw at the mechanics or promotion of an event, you canโ€™t manufacture. It just happens, via the altruism and motivation of the organisers, presenting an affordable occasion welcoming all. The scooterists flock here from every corner of the country, the locals are now keen to come too, because thereโ€™s no boundaries or prejudices dividing them. It is also, undoubtedly the nostalgia they all love, a merger of youth cultures of yore, and, for the younger attendees, its influence on today. This, and the certitude ska, reggae, and soul is irresistibly danceable, and for the locals, genres something rarely provided here.

Devizes Scooter Rally is top of its own class. Other largescale rallies have debatably lost their communal atmosphere through their expansion, and those at the lower end of the scale do not pack the same powerful punch. Five bands are booked, thereโ€™s lengthy breaks between them filled with the renowned DJ Terry Hendrick, and no one batters an eyelid in botheration. This isnโ€™t exactly a festival even though it might appear so, more a gathering of likeminded, out to party like thereโ€™s no tomorrow! They gather to chat, drink and be merry; thatโ€™s the motto reflected.

The Butterfly Collective, the penultimate Saturday night act seemed far more polished and diverse than last year, and took us on a grand historic musical journey of covers, relevant yet era-spanning and anthemic. What would finalise the live acts was bubbling the anticipation and excitement of the crowds jamming themselves into the marque.

Two-Tone pioneering bands striving towards chart success in the early eighties attempted it in different ways. The Specials upheld politically-motivated teenage anguish, The Bodysnatchers used their frontgirl for feminist awareness, Madness locked into a carefree fairground sound to appease the youngest, but The Beat achieved it by combining musical styles which would change the nature of pop. Punk, ska, soul and reggae, even Latino influences were not off the cards for The Beat. Though, as seemingly mandatory of the Two-Tone style, an Afro-Caribbean toaster was provided, and his unforgettable name was Ranking Roger.

2019 Ranking Roger sadly passed away aged just 56. We heard a heartwarming homage to him in both speech and song from his son Matthew Murphy, aka Ranking Junior, and though subtle not to sombre the mood, it was emotional. The remaining time was spent absolutely and categorically rocking the crowd with a combination of self-penned songs in the skanking fashion of The Beat yet updated with subtle dancehall and obviously classics from the original lineup when the concentration leaned on his father rather than Dave Wakeling. In so much we weren’t treated to tunes like Canโ€™t Get Used to Losing You, but at the height of the party mood, Mirror in the Bathroom, Full Stop, Hands Off…She’s Mine and an updated Stand Down Margaret did more than suffice. 

It was off the scale, a perfect balance of testament to his father and his own progression, akin to Ziggy Marley, a high but deserved accolade. Through his youthfulness was the drive in the show, the same zest and raw energy his father wouldโ€™ve delivered in his prime, and that was simply delicious, respectful and infectious.

Once the steam had lessened and the night bit in, Terry would supply the other end of the musical difference of contemporary scooterists, Northern Soul. So if the soul dancers were persuaded by genre to hover outside while Ranking Junior’s The Beat took on this timeless extravaganza, the dancefloor was now theirs to show off their fancy moves, and they did!

What a fantastic, peaking blinder on our doorstep, I only hope Iโ€™ve done it justice trying to express how bloody marvelous it was, especially the afternoon after the cider I consumed! Devizes Scooter Club, friends and family sure know to throw an unforgettable shindig, and maximum respect to them for the diligence and efforts they put into putting this rally firmly on the map, again. It just gets better each time! 

Two-Tone Icons, The Beat Headline Devizes Scooter Rally 2025

Matthew Murphy, or Ranking Junior, son of the late Roger Charlery, aka Ranking Roger vocalist of eighties Two-Tone ska band, The Beat and new wave collective General Public has settled into the shoes of his father and now fronts a reformation of The Beat, which tours extensively. This includes our blossoming scooter rally in Devizes this coming summerโ€ฆ.

If thereโ€™s two types of scooter rally and scooterist festivals in the UK, the boss events like Skamouth and BSRA nationals, and those locally-based eensy events constituting little more than a beer garden with DJ, showy hairdryers and undercooked hotdogs, Devizes Scooter Clubโ€™s annual rally has sat between the opposing levels, aspiring to better the value of municipal rallies. In its fifth year, Devizes Scooter Rally sets a president above them, striving to create the kind of environment more suitable for those mainstream โ€œbossโ€ events, yet retains the communal atmosphere of smaller events; thatโ€™s its magnitude; it is a blessing to our town to host it.

It does this by staging an impressive, tried and tested lineup in a hospitable and affordable atmosphere. Itโ€™s the Mardi Gras of the club, and members work tirelessly to welcome guests and design the perfect setting. This is not me flattering them, last year I spoke to several guests at the rally, from all over the UK, who stated, (in their own subtle and slightly dribbling way) the reason they love this event is precisely this balance between the electric atmosphere of a local event yet packing the punch of an established larger oneโ€ฆor words to that effect!

Whilst music at the rally has always been first-class, names might not be so recognisable to those outside the scooterist niche. This is set to change, as Birminghamโ€™s The Beat were one of the key bands in the UK ska revival of the late โ€˜70s and โ€˜80s, and managed to crossover to the mainstream. Youโ€™ll all remember Mirror in the Bathroom, Hands off Sheโ€™s Mine, and so many others, my personal favourite, Canโ€™t Get Used to Losing You. Youโ€™ll all be up dancing, and making that essential Full Stop, Iโ€™m sure.

Set for the weekend of 25th-27th July, the rally for 2025 also boasts The return of the Butterfly Collective, Small Faces tribute, Small Fakers, Wardour Street, Cardiffโ€™s The Brew, and DJs of the Soul Pressure sound system, but, thing is, youโ€™ve only a couple of days to get your early bird wristband. Facebook message the Devizes Scooter Club, or call 078088 49965 now!

Goldsteppers at Devizes Scooter Rally 2024

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Lady Nade; Sober!

Dry January, anyone? Well, Lady Nade just plunged into an outdoor 4ยฐC eucalyptus sauna for a social media reel. But whilst I’d require a stiffโ€ฆ

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Rooks; New Single From M3G

Chippenham folk singer-songwriter, M3G (because she likes a backward โ€œEโ€) has a new single out tomorrow, Friday 19th December. Put your jingly bell cheesy tunesโ€ฆ

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Assassination in Pewseyโ€ฆDโ€™Ska Assassination!

There was an assassination in Pewsey last night โ€ฆ a ska assassination; pick it up, pick it up, Pewsey!

Like buses, ska bands are around these backwaters, which put me in a dilemma. Safe in the knowledge those Killertones will skank up the Southgate in Devizes, I sought to head east to the vale of Pewsey where Eddie Prestidge’s Wiltshire Music Events hosted a new one on me, at the Bouverie Hall, south west’s own D’Ska Assassins.

Salisbury based Wiltshire Music Events have fast become renowned for putting on events of the highest quality, here they gave us CrownFest, a Devizes Corn Exchange sellout with The Marley Experience and countless pub gigs. In the spire city their Tunnel Rat studio is bringing the best out of upcoming artists, but they also love gigging out in the sticks!

The sum of these parts equates to a gig with my name all over it. You know, or should do by now, how much I love my ska. You’ve got to have eclectic tastes to do a thang like Devizine, but influenced by the pop of my childhood and discovering my dad’s old Bluebeat and Trojan records, my penchant for the offbeat remains paramount.

House-duo Illingworth kicked off the proceedings of this Motor Neurone Disease Association fundraiser, which though may sound unlikely, being mature skinheads mingled with Pewsey’s curious or retrospective aficionados, their unique brand of pop-rock classics mounted to a massive appreciation from the audience. End of the day, most skinheads are aware musical links between reggae and rock are close-knit, and hey, they just love music, period.

Therefore the warm up was complete and refined, John and Joylon did their thing exquisitely as ever, to encourage skinheads to dance to Dolly Parton is one thing, but they pulled great Bowie and Boomtown Rats covers out of their bag of tricks, and everyone loves a finale of Hey Jude no matter how much hair is on their heads.

It was a quick changeover for a seven-piece ska band, which backfired somewhat, as the engineering hadn’t the opportunity to soundcheck. I sighed as adjustments were quickly made, the enthusiasm of the band seemed to wane too, and on the grounds amateurish ska cover bands we get aplenty here, often murdering the sound I love, I feared this could go Pete Tong. They slammed straight into fifth gear with archetypal upbeat Bad Manners and Madness covers and the crowds were aptly enthused. But picky me felt it wasn’t the greatest of its kind I’ve bore witness to, fortunately I was proved wrong rather abruptly.

Seems the name Dโ€™Ska Assassins doesn’t include the assassination of the sound at all, and it felt like the band were merely warming up. All my fears were quashed, three or four songs in, like someone stuck a rocket up their butts. D’Ska Assassins suddenly came alive. Rock steadying the pace a smidgen, here’s my surprise; for a ska cover band to come booming out to such an upbeat intro is unusual, normally they build up and Madness and Bad Manners classics are savoured for a finale. Now concerned they’d played their trump cards too soon, despite a renovated faith D’Ska Assassins had something special; they proved me wrong a second time!

There’s always plenty of upbeat classics in a repertoire of Two-Tone, and D’Ska Assassins, after slowing the pace in the middle of the set, laid down those Specials and The Beat covers thick, fast and accomplished; the latter D’Ska Assassins frontman expressed their joy at supporting at the Cheese and Grain. It was a fairytale ending, with moonstomping in boots and braces, as the crowd didn’t really stop dancing throughout the proceedings. Equating to a brilliant and memorable night. D’Ska Assassins came, saw, and shone like proper job Bobby Dazzlers.ย 

All the typical elements of a decent ska cover band they pulled out of the hat, astutely handling stage banter, especially when the keyboardist nipped out for cigarette halfway through the set, else covered Ranking Roger’s vocal contribution to Stop! But the true magic was their ability to sustain the pace and enjoyment, slipping in a few original pieces, which is rare, and rarer still, sound at best with the slower reggae tunes. Other unusual elements to the D’Ska Assassins show compared to the archetypal Two-Tone cover bands was the strength of the brass with only one, rather sublime female trumpeter, and lead guitar solos akin to Junior Marvin accompanying Bob Marley and the Wailers.

They perfectly balanced all the elements they broke the moulds of, together with those you’d expect from a ska gig, covering those versed classics, encouraging audience participation and wearing Fred Perry shirts, and they produced a frenzied and highly entertaining trouble-free show at the rather welcoming community venue Bouverie Hall.

As for Wiltshire Music Events, you only need to stay tuned here as we’ll blow their trumpets for them, they’re going from strength to strength. Finalise carnival night in Devizes with a trip to the Corn Exchange where they’ll show off their link to Kinisha Morgan-Williams from Manchester, the finest Tina Turner tribute you’re ever likely to see.

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Devizes Scooter Rally Rules, OK?!

If it’s been a fantastic weekend on Devizes Green with the orchestral Full-Tone Festival, further out of town scooterists, mods, skins and anyone else with a penchant for the merger of such retrospective subcultures gathered for an equally thrilling event, Devizes Scooter Rally 2024, backed by the shack of a soul boss, most turnin’, stormin’, sound o’soulโ€ฆ.

You’ll have to excuse parts omitted and see this as an overall piece, because in trying to juggle both events there were times I was going between them, times I stopped home for my chips, and times when I generally slouched on the sofa contemplating getting my arse in gear! But what I did catch at Devizes Scooter Club’s most prestigious annual do, was off the scale brilliant; I expected no less based on their past rallies.

It might also be a smidgen inequitable on Full-Tone that I spent more time at the Rally. It’s walking distance from home, not having a scooter myself, and such is my right to satisfy what’s more my cuppa; the dirty down jollity of working class revelry! Note, then, despite eclectic tastes required to do this blog, my first music love will forever be ska and consequently reggae; it’s the offbeat, see? It’s that little jump, mek ya wanna skank up da riddim, not forgoing the heavy basslines or class brass. Unfortunately, itโ€™s something we’re rarely blessed with here, so when it is in my neighbourhood, anything and everything else must get put on the backburner. 

And moreover, when we do get ska or reggae around these backwaters, it’s not usually of the quality we’ll see today at the Rally. And there lies my reason for savouring the opportunity against an orchestral happening elsewhere in town, fantastic as it was. The epiphany came with the finale of the Saturday, when London’s Goldsteppers stepped up to the challenge and truly blew me off my little dancing feet.

Band changeovers were quicker than the queue at the bar, which is no fault of the exceptionally hard-working bar staff, rather the given after navigating winding B-roads on a hairdryer on wheels, the punters camp up, and drink, they drink a lot!

After an electric set by Southampton’s Butterfly Collective, who had already raised the level with a varied melting pot of Kinks to Happy Mondays, and finishing on a reggae classic, I arrived back in the tent to be sublimely slotted into my comfort zone by these Gold-stepping Bobby Dazzlers. The beautiful sound of ska, seemingly attentive to original ska and rock steady, an often overlooked linkage between ska and reggae despite being the most creative period in Jamaican recording history, rather than the commonplace Two-Tone cover bands.

Alton Ellis, early Wailers songs and other cherry-picked rarities were given the Goldsteppers makeover, and it was something to behold. I could say this was the best ska band I’ve seen, but I’ve seen Desmond Dekker, Jimmy Cliff et al, so I think they’ll understand and be satisfied when I say this was the perfect and best homage to that golden era of reggae Iโ€™ve witnessed for many a year.

Staying true to the original compositions and delivered with an unmatched tightness, so accomplished were Goldsteppers, their own originals didn’t sound out of place, and were welcomed by the frenzied crowd. The archetypal Pressure Drop from The Maytals, the classics came brassy and bassy, with astute attention to detail, passion and pitched with perfect banter. And while we’re talking brass is class, it should be noted the enthusiastic frontman, who introduced himself to me as Sam, unless I misheard, also blew saxophone with incredible clout; legend! Dammit, if they even, for humorous effect, ska’d up a cover of Wham’s Edge of Heaven and made it sound like Justin Hinds & The Dominoes recorded it in 1964! 

But what Goldsteppers did for reggae greats, headliners on the Friday, All That Soul, did for The Motown and Stax years. I’ve seen this show before, The Scooter Club booked them for a gig some years ago, this time only furthered my conviction that there’s no better homage to sixties classic soul in the UK, currently, than All That Soul. They were divine, on vocals, timing and showmanship, creating a sensation impossible not to savour in awe. Are we on Soul Train in 1969 right now?! No, still in a field near Devizes!

You could say this would suit a function, like a wedding, and many function bands attempt classic soul covers, varying in quality; it only depends on the level of your alcohol intoxication in how enjoyable they are! But not with All That Soul; you could go stone cold sober and come up dancing, because thereโ€™s nothing commonplace about them, neither clichรฉ; it’s a billion levels up from the best function band you could possibly book with any amount of generosity from your bank manager!  

I only caught the end of the Decatonicsโ€™ set, but they sounded bloody awesome too, guess I was caught chatting to all those friendly faces on arrival. Because Devizes Scooter Rally is so communal, so hospitable it borders on one big happy family occasion.

Aside from bringing financial gain to Devizes as scooterists putt-putt off on ride-outs and to explore town, itโ€™s an asset to our locality through being a well-organised and respected event. Our blossoming Scooter Rally is an attraction midway between your average scooter rally, which can often be no more than a local cover band and a bloke flogging hotdogs while enthusiasts chat shop, and an over commercialised large scale and renowned rally which borders festival proportions and consequently losses its edge and appeal.

So, while thereโ€™s space to grow this event, itโ€™s perfect the way it currently is, and damn, itโ€™s one amazingly unforgettable weekend for locals with only a passing interest, as much as it is for all the national aficionados who gathered on the site with the winks of knowledge that theyโ€™ve discovered a secret rally on top of its prime right now.

Devizes Scooter Rally is set to rev into 2025 already, set on the 25th-27th July. Same time, same place next year then? You betcha life, from me, and you really need to experience it too, with me, on the dancefloor, with your boots and braces! We got three million miles to reach the moon, So let’s start getting happy now….

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Award-Winning Devizes Scooter Club Revving for Rally!

Devizes Scooter Club put their braces together and their boots on their feet, for a moonstomping win of the Best Turned-Out Club at the 25th Isle of Wight Lambretta Day. Congratulations also goes to member Gary Chivers for winning best Lambretta tooโ€ฆ.

There’s colossal pride and respect in Devizes Scooter Club, which transforms into motivation in staging their events, and none more grand than the Devizes Scooter Rally, set for 26th-28th July this year at Lower Park Farm; backed by the shack of a soul boss, most turnin’, stormin’ sound o’soul!

To presume a scooter rally is akin to a caravan club, where enthusiasts saunter a field gawking at each other’s hairdryers all day, endlessly waffling about cylinder head nuts, is partially true; your atypical rally could be only this, sprinkled with warm lager and a DJ if you’re lucky. But in just its 4th year Devizes Scooter Rally is not this niche, it’s family-orientated fun for anyone with so much as a passing interest in scooters, enveloping retrospectiveย mod, soul and skinhead cultures.ย 

This thing, I swear, borders festival proportions and ethos, with camping and showers, a busy bar, food, vintage clothes and parts side stalls, and boasts six tried and tested live music acts. And the music doesn’t stop while a band sets up; you’re treated to Terry Hendrick’s Soul Pressure sound system, undoubtedly the UKโ€™s finest Northern soul, boss reggae and ska DJ. Terry showed me a picture once of him hanging out with the late Toots Hibbert, and it didn’t feel too much like gloating!!

We’re lucky to have this on our doorstep, last year I chatted with a young lone mod who rode up from Crediton, and traditionalย skinheads from Manchester. It’s all bringing money to our area, but more importantly it’s a brilliant weekend.

There’s a mixture on the lineup, All That Soul we’ve not seen since a Scooter Club gig of yore, the most entertaining homage to the Motown sound. Similarly with The Dectonics. The Butterfly Collective debuted the rally last year with an engaging set of mod classics and undetectable originals. There’s a wildcard Slade tribute, and Goldsteppers and Skamageddon are new to me, but the latter speaks for itself!

The vital element to this unique and soul-fuelled weekend of boss reggae vibes, talc on the dancefloor and scooter ride-outs is its affordable price tag:

A weekend wristband is ยฃ30.00 includingย camping. Friday and Saturday all-day passes are ยฃ15.00, to camp add ยฃ5. Saturday Day only (10am – 5pm ) is ยฃ5. Accompanied children under 18 go free.

Reason for mentioning it at all is, if you’re thinking, “hey, that might be something I’d enjoy but fear it might be a bit insular and I’d be going home early, crying into my Ed Sheeran CD,”, you won’t be if you give it a try! You’ll find those scooter lot are a frivolous and friendly bunch who not only know how to party, but will welcome you to join them!

So, work it up one time, work it two time, shack it, back it! Devizes Scooter Rally is on, baby love, my baby love! I need you, oh, how I need you, but all you do is treat me bad, break my heart and leave me sad! Don’t Throw your love away, get a wristband HERE.

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Ska Icons The Beat Announce February Show at The Cheese and Grain

With Ranking Junior now taking centre stage, Two-Tone ska icons The Beat will be coming to Fromeโ€™s Cheese & Grain on 24th February as they look to energise audiences with some of the most famous ska and reggae tracks ever written….

One of the key bands in the UK ska revival of the late โ€˜70s and โ€˜80s, The Beat still bring the near-perfect balance of pop melodies and taut rhythms that made them stars and won them worldwide acclaim.

Based in Birmingham, The Beat released their debut single โ€œTears of a Clownโ€ through The Specialsโ€™ 2-Tone label in 1979. The single went Top Ten in the UK and they soon struck a deal with Arista to distribute on their own Go Feet label.

Their debut studio album โ€˜Just Canโ€™t Stopโ€™ went Gold in England, and included the now-cult single โ€œMirror In The Bathroomโ€. The bandโ€™s ferocious live performances and clever blend of personal and political lyrics continue to make them stars to this day, and theyโ€™ll be diving into their back catalogue at these new shows.

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Devizes Scooter Rally 2023

Have rally will travel; seemingly the scooterist’s motto, chatting to various friendly clubs nationwide, and individuals too, such as a dapper lone mod who rode up from Bridport on a three hour trek, while loitering with a pint of Thatchers in a field at Lower Farm on the Whistley Road. Overall, it’s more than fair to say, thanks to Devizes Scooter Club’s valiant and sedulous toil, Devizes is firmly on the map of must-do scooter ralliesโ€ฆ.ย 

It would, without this blossoming national appeal have been a massively lesser affair; scooter culture being niche and though a blanket term retrospectivelyย  incorporating mod, skinhead and punk subcultures, isn’t, perhaps, appealing to enough locally to have successfully created something on this grand scale. Those local aficionados, or even with a passing interest in the scene therefore are truly treated, as Devizes Scooter Rally this weekend was spectacular.

There’s various reasons for saying this; a hospitable atmosphere throughout the event from attendees and organisers, a controlled and diligent attitude to structure, the underlying notion you’re not going to get ripped off at the bar or elsewhere, a donation to The Devizes & District Opportunity Centre, a worthy charity indeed, a calculatedly perfect site design from bar, venue to campsite, a wide variety of side stalls, and an apt music programme of talented bands and DJs, but mostly, it was the combination of them all which made it as fantastic as it was.

41 Fords

I spent the finale late night moments with some of the club’s valid members, as they reviewed an overall of the weekend, discussing rights against possible improvements. And with expandable site potential, just how far the annual rally could blossom before it becomes less congenial. As such they’ve set the date for 2024, 26th-28th July; if you missed this weekend put it in your diary, if you went I’d imagine you already have!

Sharp Class

So, I rocked up to wet my whistle on Friday, eager to catch up with those Trowbridge rockabilly stalwarts, 41 Fords, and witness Brighton’s revitalised mod marvels Sharp Class. Being there was another day to come, and I wanted to see you there Saturday, I knocked up a quick review of it: HERE. Saturday though, I’m on Shanks’s pony and up for a party; which was delivered to me uncompromisingly.

Apologies, too late to catch The Butterfly Collective, but my arrival coincided with the Roughcut Rebels’ set. Haven’t seen them since Mark moved to pastures new, but Jimmy Moore makes for a great frontman stand-in for Finley, and it was business as usual for this locally renowned Britpop mod band who plucked covers, like Wonderwall, otherwise clichรฉ if not delivered by such an enthralling group from their extensive repertoire.ย 

Roughcut Rebels, with added Jimmy Moore!

Next up a rare treat, Cath and Gouldy concentrating rather on wider variated Day Breakers outfit, and folk duo Sound Affects, but to have them back under The Killertones guise both more apt for the occasion and a delightful return to their new-wave-two-tone covers set. It was as whatever guise they operate on, perfected and bewitching, with vast improvements from already proficient young drummer, Katy York.

The Killertones

There was me figuring they’d peaked too soon, after ska classics like Pressure Drop, to speed into uptempo two-tone, like The Specials’ Little Bitch and Rancid’s Timebomb, but a sublime set slid nicely into new wave, particularly adroit being The Chords’ Maybe Tomorrow; dammit if Gouldy didn’t go all Morten Harket on us with an offbeat Take on Me, such a rework finale left the crowd spellbound and me realising how much I’d missed these guys!

With Terry Hendrick’s Soul Pressure on the wheels of steel while the headliners set up, a fashion to see the rally into the wee hours, betwixt it regulars at the rally, the south-coast’s longest established ska ensemble Orange Street ripped the roof off.

Terry Hendrick

I could’ve predicted it such, but it didn’t affect the show’s infectious appeal. At an eight-piece complete with brass section, Orange Street are a highly capable homage to Jamaica’s “first national sound,” which infatuated the youths of sixties Jamaica, and thereafter spread worldwide through era-spanning waves. The second wave most memorable to Britain through Windrush exports appealing to mods; the tsunami known as Two-Tone. And to which the band rightfully nodded to, but also provided original engaging material which fits like a glove into such a set. 

Orange Street

The effect is akin to the attraction of the offbeat backwards shuffle, ska, which Prince Buster accidentally discovered during a recording session at Duke Reid’s studio Treasure Isle, not only reflects in the band name, the studio alongside Coxonne Doddโ€™s Studio One, both located on this legendary Kingston street, the equivalent of Nashvilleโ€™s Music Row for reggae, but also in their performance which kicked off with a interlude of Madness’s Buster tribute, The Prince. Though it wasn’t long before the opening medley flowed neatly into the Specials’ Dog the Dog, and thereafter the whole spectrum of ska UK chart hits from Bad Manners to The Beat.

While other similar bands attempt to fuse later reggae styles, punk, or general electronica, Orange Street remain faithful to the roots and are therefore a premium choice for an event like this, cradled by a culture nostalgically devoted to it too. And in such, the event is so encapsulating there’s a jollity in the air impossible to hide. Coupled with the wider appeal outside the atypical scooter rally, with this extended and blossoming setup which had taken the Scooter Club weeks to set up, this is rather of festival proportions and equally as brilliant. 

It only leads be to heartfeltly thank and congratulate The Devizes Scooter Club for bringing us another astounding event which offers diversity to our local music circuit, a jolly good beano, and also attracts nationwide fans to our areaโ€ฆeven if I’ve been hearing their hairdryers zipping back and forth the dual carriageway all weekend!!

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The Lost Trades Float on New Single

Iโ€™ve got some gorgeous vocal harmonies currently floating into my ears, as The Lost Trades release their first single since the replacement of Tamsin Quinโ€ฆ

Barrelhouse are Open for Business with New Album

Rolling out a Barrelhouse of fun, you can have blues on the run, tomorrow (7th November) when Marlborough’s finest groovy vintage blues virtuosos Barrelhouse releaseโ€ฆ

Ruzz Guitar Swings With The Dirty Boogie

Bristolโ€™s regular Johnny B Goode, Ruzz Guitar Blues Revue goes full on swing with a new single, a take on The Brian Setzer Orchestraโ€™s 1998โ€ฆ

Joyrobber Didn’t Want Your Stupid Job Anyway

A second track from local anonymous songwriter Joyrobber has mysteriously appeared online, and heโ€™s bitter about not getting his dream jobโ€ฆ.. If this mysterious dudeโ€™sโ€ฆ

Devizes Chamber Choir Christmas Concert

Itโ€™s not Christmas until the choir sings, and Devizes Chamber Choir intend to do precisely this by announcing their Christmas Concert, as they have doneโ€ฆ

Devizes Scooter Rally Revs Up

First day back from my holibobs and though duties are to unpack and cut the flying ant infested grass, twist my arm, I reckon I can squeeze in a trek down the Whistley Road. Usually just a rat trap you take at your own risk, this weekend is home to hundreds of camping scooteristsโ€ฆ.

Devizes Scooter Club’s third Scooter Rally and things are looking exceptionally organised. Post-lockdown they set up here last year, relatively a slighter thing than this weekend, I understand. If you consider this a niche market, Devizes Scooter Rally has a festival feel, scooter enthusiasts have gathered from afar, but not to make it feel insular, Devizes Scooter Club invites locals too, and has laid on a shuttle bus from The Pelican; they certainly pull out the stocks.

There’s an extensive campsite, with showers, and stalls are plentiful from Jamaican food to clothes and scooter essentials. Fish n chips to brownies and parkas to engine oil surround a large marquee for a northern soul to ska disco, dispersed with some live acts.

From the music tent extends a plentiful seating area which flows nicely to the bar; the effect is functional and professionally designed; especially given this unpredictable British summer climate. It’s an impressive sight, dammit if they havenโ€™t even got a pool table in there!

Day one done, this is going to go off tonight too. But for now we were treated to the wildcard, Trowbridge’s finest purveyors of feelgood rockabilly, 41 Fords. They never fail to enthuse the party, and if rockabilly isn’t usually on the agenda at a scooter rally, their infectious assortment of covers always raises a smile and taps a foot.

Headlining is Brighton-based Sharp Class, a young trio of highly accomplished Jam-like aficionados, and with fire in their hearts and an enthusiasm to mimic the mod culture they can effectively slip in a few akin originals between covers of The Jam and Clash, to Spencer Davis and The Kinks and make them not look misplaced. Sharp Class is a show of pure energy, verging on a tribute, though slyly original too, adroitly slipping between the two and hardly coming up for air.

Today’s (Saturday 29th July) lineup doubles the fun, The Butterfly Collective are on at 2pm, with our own The Roughcut Rebels at 6pm, Swindon favourites with added Sound Affects Cath & Gouldy,ย  The Killertones from 7:45pm and the grand finale of one of the finest contemporary ska bands on the circuit, Orange Street. Then, naturally the Soul Pressure sound system, including legendary Northern soul DJ Terry Hendrick takes it to the wee hours, and Saturday all nighter tickets are a snip at ยฃ15, so polish your boots and give me some of that old moonstomping!

41 Fords Park Up at The Southgateย 

With the happenings at the Arts Festival taken care of, and twenty/thirty something’s pilgrimage to The Three Crowns for the delights of our most famed cover band, People Like Us, I’m in Devizes for the wildcard; Trowbridge trio of nutty rockabilly/skabilly 41 Fords are playing The Southgate; arm twisted for a cider or three.….

Currently camped at some festival or another as they accidentally double-booked, they hot-footed it from the site delighted to be here. Told me of their love for the Gate, not the only thing we have in common. Though they regularly play our hospitable and stalwart, offbeat live music pub, it was never intentional that I missed them, but going on the strength of their debut album, Not Dead Yet, which we fondly reviewed back in April, 41 Fords were understandably on my must-see list.

Job ticked off and far from disappointed, they shook the rafters with high-energy rockabilly adaptations of a wide selection of pop hits. A guitar, drums and double-bass trio, it’s a simple template to stamp their own style on everything and anything from Adam Ant’s Goody Two Shoes to Green Day, and The Primitives’ Crash to Hall & Oates, but dammit if it doesn’t work like a charm. Rousing the slight audience with lively upbeat versions, the fun simply doesn’t stop, other than for a twanged guitar string; they couldn’t even cover Ben E King’s Stax classic Stand By Me without a frenzied rise of tempo!

To be niggly, I looked forward to some originals from said album, but they felt it best to do covers, a trusted judgement paid off, and besides, Deborah had chalked them up as such on the board. If flat-caps worn with anything other than country-gent attire usually connotes the cheekiness of a cockney sparrow, and there were a lot of them floating about tonight, similarly does a double-bass without it being an orchestra. Given said instrument is adorned with second gen ska’s checkerboard black & white tiles and a slogan reading “get lucky” in friendly font, you get the general gist this is punk-fused rockabilly, yet without the grave characteristics associated with psychobilly. It is, simply, as much fun as you could possibly squeeze into a gig, the result was precisely that.

Unusual their trump card, as the drummer tended to vocal the cheesy eighties pop covers, aforementioned Adam Ant, but Tracey Ulman’s Breakaway being particularly amusing, whereas the guitarist vocalising on the earlier or more apt classics, from the Jam to Tears of a Clown bending on The Special’s version, and probably the golden nugget tonight, Dion’s Runaround Sue. The double-bass player simply displayed the cheeky grin of Jason Statham as Bacon in Lock Stock, but anyone spinning a double-bass wins, they don’t got to say anything!

By the time the second half of this frenzied show of confident and proficient uniqueness played out, it really didn’t matter what they covered, they could’ve done Save All Your Kisses for Me for all it mattered, though I don’t believe they did. Everything was fantastic, 41 Fords are undiluted footstompin’ goodness and bring the party with them as standard issue. What a lively fun-filled night at The Southgate, as ever!

Don’t forget, it’s the monthly Jon Amor at the Southgate today at 5pm, and you can find 41 Fords at Devizes Scooter Rally.

Boots & Braces Ready For Devizes Scooter Rally 2023?

Long overdue is our annual poking our nose into Devizes Scooter Club, see what peaky blinders theyโ€™re pulling off, including of course, the Devizes Scooter Rally 2023; because no matter what the people say, this sound leads the wayโ€ฆ..

While Iโ€™d half-heartedly shrug at critics giving it scooter rallies can be a niche market, retrospective lager-fuelled skinheads admiring each otherโ€™s hairdryers in an overgrown field while some northern soul DJ spins his 7โ€ rare grooves, this is where Devizes Scooter Rally differs from the status quo. Of course, appeasing the diehards who will trek vast land to amass at such events is crucial, but on its third year, Devizes Scooter Rally never feels insular, rather itโ€™s the genuine article, affordable fun and welcomes curious townsfolk and those who may only have a passing interest in the scene. That’s its beauty, and long shall it be so.

You only have to check the interest when the club ride the carnival parade looking dapper in suits and braces, to note this is more than a retrospective cult; the merger of youth cultures of yore, the mod, the soul boys and skinheads and all inbetween is something impossible for those caught up in to let go off, simply because itโ€™s irresistibly beguiling, and fun. To relish in soul and reggae of yesteryear is valid, as all mainstream pop since relies so heavily on its influence. 

So, weโ€™re talking the weekend of 28th-30th of July, when the club invites all to gather at Lower Park Farm, just off the dual carriageway on Whistley Road, where scooters will be on show, and will ride out no doubt, but thatโ€™s not all. Activities for the children will be added, with food stalls and of course, the bar! And all raising funds for such a wonderful organisation, The Devizes & District Opportunity Centre, our most fantastic pre-school for children with disabilities and learning difficulties.

Expect legendary Northern Soul DJ Terry Hendrick of the Soul Pressure sound system to be spinning tunes between bands, and the bands are, a reunited, I believe, Killertones, the perfect ska outfit of Cath and Gouldy from Sound Affects and the Day Breakers, who are stalwarts on the local scooter scene. Those trusty Roughcut Rebels, who never fail to bring the party with them, as is their era-spanning repertoire of anything from swinging sixties to Britpop.

The other locally-based act is perhaps the wildcard; Trowbridgeโ€™s 41 Fords play with all the vigour of ska, but are decidedly more rockabilly with a dash of scrumpy & western folk. We fondly reviewed their debut album Not Dead Yet, last month. Hereโ€™s a shining example of what I mean about the congenial and welcoming mesh of subgenres youโ€™ll find at Devizes Scooter Rally, see, rude boy? There were no mockers in eras past, theyโ€™d have been fighting each other! Thus the scenes merge and itโ€™s a one love happy aura for everyone to enjoy as, which is ironically the entire ethos of reggae and soul in the first damn place!

And reggae Iโ€™m certain youโ€™ll find there, of the boss variety of yore, predominantly, and of course itโ€™s predecessor ska, which though saw a second generation influx through Two-Tone in the eighties, thrives today on the scene. Now, if you know me, youโ€™ll know Iโ€™m something of an aficionado of this, and seen many a great ska band; Orange Street, named after the location of Duke Reidโ€™s legendary Kingston studio, Studio One, are one of the tightest ska bands Iโ€™ve witnessed, blowing my socks off at the inaugural Devizes Scooter Rally in 2019; having them return is the icing on this cake.

Going in blind for the last two in the line-up, first, Sharp Class, with a corporate identity akin to The Jam causing me to ill-conceive it would be an old bunch of mods knocking out Jam and Merton Parkas covers. Rather this young, fresh-faced London-based trio have a sharp image, hence the name, and original songs grounded in realism and spattered with an English essence. Merging punk and soul into power-pop and Britpop, they claim. Theyโ€™ve recently released a debut album โ€œTales of the Teenage Mind,โ€ and are set to tour Boston this month, but you can say you saw them in Devizes!

And the Butterfly Collective, Southampton based ska, soul and mod covers and originals five-piece, heavily influenced by The Who and the Mod/Rock fraternity including Oasis, Ocean Colour Scene, Kinks, Small Faces and The Hiwatts. They have become a renowned band within the Scooter and music scenes across the U.K. Being The Devizes Scooter Club tend to evaluate their lineup based on past experience touring other rallies, Iโ€™m assured weโ€™re in good hands, and this weekend will deliver a damn fine spectrum of entertainment to get you snapping your braces and skanking up the Whistley Road!

Now, if youโ€™re thinking where the catch might be, itโ€™s only your two-tone trouser suit, with a weekend wristband at just thirty notes and cheaper day options, youโ€™ve got to hand it to Devizes Scooter Club for maximum dedication to making this jumping jiving rally affordable and irresistible.

Prior to skanking up Whistley Road, the clubโ€™s base at The Cavalier in Devizes sees Slade tribute Sladest on May 13th, and following the rally, Bristolโ€™s big boss sound of Ya Freshness and the erm, aptly titled Big Boss Band will make their Devizes debut on Saturday September 9th. Self-styled rude boy Ya Freshness has worked with two-toneโ€™s best, from the likes of Neville Staple, and made groundbreaking original work with Bristolโ€™s retrospective reggae greats through his label Strictly Rockers. If you recall my radio show on Boot Boy Radio, those shout-outs were by this absolute legend.

Then, on 28th October itโ€™s the mandatory skalloween night at the Cavy, with ska band Skamageddon, and the club see of 2023 with a NYE party. Though as I said, thereโ€™s a welcoming atmosphere for those with a passing interest, local scooter enthusiasts should contact the club for ride-outs, social get-togethers and beanos to other rallies and clubs are organised. So get up on your feet, put your braces together and boots on your feet, and give me some of that old moonstomping!   

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Steatopygous go Septic

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The Wurzels To Play At FullTone 2026!

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DOCAโ€™s Young Urban Digitals

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Jol Roseโ€™s Ragged Stories

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Vince Bell in the 21st Century!

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41 Fords are Not Dead Yet!

Damp morning, about 3:30am Iโ€™m descending Pelch Lane in Seend, like a sack of potatoes dropping. If you donโ€™t know the track itโ€™s a steep one, with a bend which keeps on giving; not the ideal place to whip out your phone and change the tune when youโ€™re pinning down a heavily-ladened milkfloat! So, first taster of the debut album from Trowbridgeโ€™s 41 Fords, Not Dead Yet goes on loop, and I shrug, as itโ€™s no hardship, โ€œlet it roll for another round.โ€

I wasnโ€™t sure what to listen to next anyway, and to be honest, this took me by pleasant surprise. Sure, weโ€™ve registered their name on our gig list several occasions, regulars down the trusty Southgate (next date is Saturday 3rd June), but Iโ€™ve not had the opportunity to pay them a visit. I see now theyโ€™re on the roster for Devizes Scooter Clubโ€™s annual rally in July, which if I had of noticed before it mightโ€™ve given me a closer inkling what to assume.

coincidently, wristbands have just gone on sale for this!

But psychobilly was unexpected, neither is it a subgenre which usually floats my boat. Akin to heavy metal, the late-eighties fusion of rockabilly and punk is characterised with negative symbolism; itโ€™s all ultraviolence, death, B-movie horror pastiches, and other delinquent and discouraging subject matters, and I like to think Iโ€™m optimistic, least too old, to relish in morbidity.

But if I am to pigeonhole the 41 Fords, itโ€™s unlike the wrecking of The Meteors, or the all-out hellish nature of Demented Are Go, and not as offbeat as the skabilly of Roddy Radiation; this is matured psychobilly with all the negativity stripped away. It retains the lively rockabilly stance, the foot-tapping upright double-bass, the nods to western swing, jump blues and boogie-woogie, and breathing fresh air into it with punkโ€™s insolence, and gypsy folk goodness.

Yet their themes tend on maturing romantic affairs, often generation X mod-pop in nature. And for this blend, itโ€™s truly unique, beguiling and for want of sitting down, youโ€™ll be incapable; my highest point-scoring goes on the sheer energy these guys never seem to let up on.

Recorded at Nine Volt Leap studio in Melksham, Not Dead Yet is out on 1st May, and you really need to look out for this, I bloody love it! To break down exactly why isnโ€™t simple. The album kicks off mod, think hillbilly The Jam with double-bass, perhaps. A girl-infatuation themed Emily, opens, and from the off itโ€™s got me hook, line and sinker. For itโ€™s upbeat throughout, captivating, and optimistic; this is The Housemartins do psychobilly, and I mean this in the best possible taste, for you cannot prevent foot-tapping to Happy Hour, surely?!

The subject of reunion with a former partner is slam-dunked next, F. Scott Fitzgeraldโ€™s Daisy Buchanan style, The Great Gatsby offers nothing more than Emily in topic, only the literatural reference. Yet while romance is a running-theme, ballad doesnโ€™t appear in their vocabulary; 41 Fords do not come up for air. Marriage problems raises its ugly head, against a penchant for nightlife in the following track, and another girlโ€™s name title, Tabitha continues this sunny side of the street mood. ย 

If it goes on this leitmotif for a staggering twelve tunes, it all hinges on their magnum-opus for pop catchiness, the fifth tune, Peaky Blinders. Surely anthemic, it takes the humorous route of Del-boy lovable rouges; Chas & Dave does the Cockney Rejects!

Through this three-minute hero, you might wonder if cockney musical hall will continue being cited, but while Not Dead Yet maintains everything which has so far made this album sheer brilliance, 41 Fords swerve gradually into a more Anglo-Irish folk feel, like Shane MacGowan finished his pint and jammed with these Housemartins, doing psychobilly, with an overall Merton Parkas type fusion.

Ah, see now Iโ€™m worried Iโ€™ve given the impression this is all sounds cluttered, like thereโ€™s too much going on, but na, me old China plate, this is flows, smoothly operated with such individuality itโ€™s a tricky one to pin down. If, like me, youโ€™re willing to take onboard the Cramps, and be done with psychobilly, this offers a maturity in themes, wrapped in addictive danceable congeniality.

The Wonder of The Sky is perhaps the standout track towards the finale, for it encompasses everything great about the 41 Fords, who know precisely what buttons to press to write and deliver a pop song with retrospective wow, but refuses commercialisation. It doesnโ€™t verve to create a Stairway to Heaven or a dub-lampoon either, each tune is kept at the three-minute proximity, and each one does what you expect it to do; charges 240 volts into your blue suede shoes!

A Christmas Song, titled thus, finishes, and yeah, it has a Fairy-tale of New York feel, really bringing out the folk oblique which I believe breathes something local into it too, like Somersetโ€™s proclivity for Scrumpy & Western. In all, you could fit 41 Fords into a scooter rally bill, but equally into a Somerset cider brawl with the Boot Hills. And in that, if pigeonholing matters not when youโ€™re in the moment and the music takes you on a dancing voyage, 41 Fords are seamless. This album truly is a must-have.

Bung them a like on Facebook, for updates, and Iโ€™ll thread this review with links when the album comes out in May; youโ€™re in for a treat!

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Bopping Up Alfredโ€™s Tower; A New Chippenham Band Stronghold

See, Iโ€™m not sure olโ€™ Alfred the Great wouldโ€™ve approved of the whopping gurt folly erected in his name near Bruton. He was there to rally Saxon troops for the Battle of Edington, and if youโ€™re planning to go kick some Viking butt you need to be inconspicuous, not have a hundred-and-sixty-foot redbrick tower sticking out like a sore thumb. He might well have liked this though, a new Wiltshire four-piece named after the tower; because good tunes can be a real morale boost when going into battleโ€ฆโ€ฆ

And good tunes they are, though the group cite from Chippenham on their Bandcamp page, substantial mileage from the Stourhead estate where Alfredโ€™s Tower is situated. Perhaps itโ€™s the connotations of Alfred being the founder of English liberty, as these four tracks they sent us have a Brit โ€œmodโ€ tinge, and mods are patriotic at best. I didnโ€™t like to ask, through fear of coming across all history teacher, and Iโ€™m all out of leather elbow patches for my Tweed jacket. The important part is thereโ€™s some beguiling original songs on offer here, uplifting in a manner Paul Weller, at his most optimistic.

Parachute Baby is a prime example, itโ€™s sauntering along on the sunny side of the street of a crazy world, where only the attention of the object of his desires matters to this character, and itโ€™s got that apt harmonica riff to lighten the darkest of moods. Though, if itโ€™s got it, Roy Orbison style, switching to the next tune, Nothing Good and weโ€™re foot-tapping on an offbeat, bouncy one-drop reggae melody, which counteracts the more dejected romantic theme; Iโ€™m smitten.

Though weโ€™re getting ahead of ourselves now, for these two tracks are forthcoming, the first one out around Christmas time and the latter in the new year, but their Bandcamp page has two other songs equally worthy of your attention. This World is their inaugural release, and while uplifting too, itโ€™s tender and mellowed. With a soulful piano intro, itโ€™s certainly anthemic, with an allowance to note the astute writing, and showy in Alfredโ€™s Towerโ€™s potential.

It is however in the amalgamation of all these tunes which displays their diversity, an EP is a necessity, I feel. The second released single, So Long, is soulful again, along similar lines to This World, but balancing a poignant electric blues element, akin to a meld of The Who at their smoothest and Pink Floyd does pop. And perhaps thereโ€™s a clue to the chosen name in this; itโ€™s a tower of variety, influences wise, reaching for the skies in uplifting narratives, strengthened by some skilfully executed original designs. Catchy within a rock classic formula, oh yeah, if this is foundational, the construction of Alfredโ€™s Tower is one to watch. Like โ€˜em up on Facebook for updates on said progress. We NEED to see them live!

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Oh Danny Boy!

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A Quick Shuffle to Swindon

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Weekly Roundup of Events in Wiltshire: 19th- 26th Oct 2022

Hereโ€™s our weekly summary of things to do over the coming week. It saves you surfing every individual event calendar, and saves me waffling on about some unrelated rubbish, which I admit I have a tendency to do, but in the words of the great philosopher, KC, and, of course, his Sunshine Band; thatโ€™s the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like itโ€ฆ… oh, Iโ€™m doing it again arenโ€™t I?!

Onwards, not forgetting further details and links can be found on our event calendar, itโ€™s too time consuming adding them a second time, and besides, there you can scroll away until your heartโ€™s content, planning future weekends.

Best way to kick off live music early is Swindonโ€™s experimental dub duo, Subject A, are at The Bell on Walcott Street, Bath, on Wednesday 19th; consider it highly recommended. Meanwhile, Beth Nielsen Chapman plays The Cheese & Grain, Frome.

Thursday 20th sees a Very Hungry Caterpillar, on show at Neeld Hall, Chippenham.

Mr Love & Justice are at The Beehive, Swindon, Hannah Sanders & Ben Savage at Chapel Arts, Bath. But the link to Faustus at Salisbury Arts Centre seems to be broken, unsure if thatโ€™s still going ahead.

Friday 21st and Trowbridgeโ€™s Pump is the place to be, Matt Owens of Noah & The Whale headlines, with the amazing Concrete Prairie in support.

The magical Lady Nade plays Pound Arts, Corsham, The Little Unsaid at Chapel Arts, Bath.

Hatepenny at The Three Horseshoes, Bradford-on-Avon, The Reservoir Hogs at The Old Ham Tree, Holt. And in Marlborough youโ€™ll find @59 at The Wellington, and the incredibly good fun, Dr Zebos Wheezy Club at The Bear.

That just leaves me with the tributes, Queen tribute, Majesty at Melksham Assembly Hall, while Fleetwood Bac are at The Cheese & Grain, Frome.

Devizes, I have got nothing at all for this Friday, unless you know different? When near-on every known pub in town put live music on last Friday night, with a guaranteed crowd-puller from Longcroft at the Corn Exchange too! This town isnโ€™t a competition, guys, please try to coordinate, through us, if you like, but it works better for you all if we do. Rant over!

Swiftly onto Saturday 22nd, itโ€™s Trowbridge Carnival, plus Lego Club at Chippenham Museum, free and at 3-4pm every Saturday; everything is awesome!

Thereโ€™s an evening of Irish classics with Asa Murphy and Shenanigans at the Devizes Corn Exchange, and the unmissable Eddie Martin Band is back for some blues at The Southgate.

Daz n Chave at Neeld Community & Arts Centre, Chippenham sounds a laugh, and thereโ€™s a Melksham Rock n Roll Club dance this week, with Glenn Darren & The Krewkats.

Full-Tone Orchestra presents their Symphonie Fantastique at Marlborough College, and if you check the quote on the poster, yes, I said that! Itโ€™s always nice to be quoted, on the rare occasion I say something nice, that is!

Sheer are down the Trowbridge Town Hall, putting on Lucky Number 7 and the Lindup Brothers, with promising local teen band Boston Green in support. Meanwhile The Forgetting Curve play The Three Horseshoes, Bradford-on-Avon. A tribute to Pearl Jam at The Vic, Swindon, Earl Ham, and Tundra plays The Woodlandโ€™s Edge.

But if you want to boss the night away with some serious skanking, I cannot recommend Bristolโ€™s legendary ska and reggae skinhead, Ya Freshness, of Strictly Rockers Records enough, who is with his Big Boss Band at Odd Down Football Club in Bath. Fiver a shot for a cracking knees up. In fact, what the heck, letโ€™s make this one Editorโ€™s Pick of The Week!

For a mellower experience in Bath, try The Tom Petty Legacy at Chapel Arts.

The Grief Opera, Love Goes On at St Andrewโ€™s, Chippenham, Shift Social presents I Was Born in the Wrong Decade at Salisbury Arts Centre, and a Vintage Bazaar is followed by Moments of Pleasure, The Music of Kate Bush, at The Cheese & Grain, Frome.

Halloween Scavenger Hunt at Hillworth Park on Sunday 23rd October, PSG Choir hold an autumn concert at Devizes Town Hall, and the Chas Thorogood Trio play an afternoon session at the Southgate.

Kavus Torabi, Richard Wileman & Amy Fry at The Vic, Swindon, Richard and Amy appear on our Juliaโ€™s House compilation album, show them your support if possible. Always in for a great night with the Joh Amor Band, who play The Three Horseshoes, Bradford-on-Avon. And oh, CSF wrestling at the Cheese & Grain finishes our weekend off.

Got nothing through the weekdays Iโ€™m afraid, but lots of updating to the calendar still to do, so check in from time to time. That is, of course, until Wednesday, the 26th, when White Horse Opera presents Lโ€™elisir Dโ€™amore at Lavington School, which is running until 29th October, and also running on the same dates, Female Transport at the Rondo Theatre, Bath.

And thatโ€™s your lot for this week, can I go now?!

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With Ranking Junior now taking centre stage, the mighty Beat will be heading on tour, taking Swindon, Bournemouth, Leeds, and Hull to get audiences dancing to some of the most famous ska and reggae tracks ever written.….

Ah yes, did a song called “Stand Down Margaret,” if memory serves me well; perhaps a change of name and a little history repeating, fingers crossed.

One of the key bands in the UK ska revival of the late โ€˜70s and โ€˜80s, The Beat still bring the near-perfect balance of pop melodies and taut rhythms that made them stars and won them worldwide acclaim.

Based in Birmingham, The Beat released their Smokey cover debut single โ€œTears of a Clownโ€ through The Specialsโ€™ 2-Tone label in 1979. The single went Top Ten in the UK and they soon struck a deal with Arista to distribute on their own Go Feet label.

Their debut studio album โ€˜Just Canโ€™t Stopโ€™ went Gold in England, and included the now-cult single โ€œMirror In The Bathroomโ€. The bandโ€™s ferocious live performances and clever blend of personal and political lyrics continue to make them stars to this day, and theyโ€™ll be diving into their back catalogue at these new year shows.

And they’re skanking up Swindon on Saturday January 7th, at Meca, tickets are up for grabs now. Also at the Cheese & Grain Frome on March 4th, which is (hint) close to my birthday! Tickets here.

The Bakesys, Thursday Night on my Television

The Bakesys have a new album out this week, to get your flux capacitor firing on all cylinders…โ€ฆ

Though Perry Como got the ball rolling for a possible “10 songs which stick in your head” nonsense article today, I’ve been pleasantly reminded of eighties German outfit, Trio. A kind of poor man’s Europop Ian Dury, their only UK hit ‘Da Da Da’ definitely fits the bill.

But in turn it reminded me I’ve an album review to prioritise, a track on which reeks of Trio, and not the popular chocolate biscuit of the era. With its upfront ZX Spectrum game backbeat ‘Six O’clock Already‘ is like techno never happened; you can virtually see Jet Set Willy entering the banyan tree.

If you need Google to comprehend that reference, Newbury’s The Bakesys’ ‘Thursday Night on my Television,‘ย  might skyrocket over your head. Inspired by late eighties third wave ska bands, The Bakesys formed in 1990, and frontman Kevin Flowerdew is now editor of the superlative ska-zine ‘Do The Dog.’
I fondly reviewed their last outpouring, Sentences I’d Like To Hear The End Of, in which a variety of sixties news headlines are given a fourth gen ska makeover to poignant and danceable effect. This latest album is a different ballpark.

Through retrospective compilation, Thursday Night on my Television, relies entirely on that post-punk pop era, where no subgenre in the clutter of youth cultures could avoid the onslaught of electronica. It was a do-or-die age of experimentation, free of the trend of sampling. And unlike the previous Bakesys’ album, there are no samples, just rich of culture references harking of the kind of sounds dripping from that era, and deliberately clunky.


Fun Boy Three’s Our Lips are Sealed gets a counter-reaction, Molly Ringwald gets a mention, in a song akin to Kirsty McColl’s guy down the chip shop, and the best ballad themes around the subject of Bunking Off School, Jumping on Buses, leaving no doubts The Bakesys are either Dr Who, or lived this time, and are reminiscing on both reality-driven romance and fantasising, of John Hughes characters.

With shards of Two-Tone, new wave and post-punk, no pre-electronica subgenre is left behind, as it merges into this experimental period, this album will have you recollecting all from The Damned and The Beat, to Blancmange and Sparks, if you don’t remember ‘Beat the Clock,’ your memory will be jogged by this retrospective outpouring, and in the words of Kenny Everett, “all in the best possible taste!”

For it might take a couple of listens to be fully immersed, for what was avantgarde might now be clichรฉ, The Bakesys home in with such a degree you’re drawn into reliving rather than attributing, like your Harrington jacket, Doc Martins and Fred Perry polo shirt have been hanging in your wardrobe all this time, waiting for you to stop staring at that fading Kim Wilde poster on your wall, and nip to the arcade to play some Space Invaders until a fight breaks out….. which kinda makes it alright.

But, it took me by surprise, expecting ska, when even the most ska-ish track, Money all the Time, has the electronic plod of Depeche Mode. It’s a synth-pop marvel, with a notion to matured retrospection, rather than delinquent melancholy, and it works on a level above the archetypal 80s tribute, to the point I’ll be avoiding white dog shit on the street, and I can smell that bubble gum you used to get in trading cards!

Trending….

Talk in Code Down The Gate!

What, again?! Another article about Talk in Code?! Haven’t they had enough Devizine-styled publicity?! Are their heads swelling?!ย  Didn’t that crazy toothless editor catchโ€ฆ

Recommendations for when Swindon gets Shuffling

Swindon’s annual colossal fundraising event The Shuffle is a testament to local live music, which raises funds for Prospect Hospice. If you’re ever goingโ€ฆ

Errol Linton at Long Street Blues Club

In a remarkable finale to the season for Long Street Blues Club, London-based The Errol Linton Band presented Devizes with a sublime lively blues blend of delta and RnB, incorporating jazz, funk, reggae and ska too. But if the bandโ€™s proficiency in implementing this melting pot sounds erratic, the perfection was in the precision of switching through subgenres. The result was simply infectious.…..

Itโ€™s rarely mused, given the contemporary influence of Jamaicaโ€™s musical export, that prior to reggae its route lies with the removal of shortwave radio stations provided for American soldiers stationed on the island after WW2. As they disembarked Jamaica they left a blossoming sound system culture, the entrepreneurs of which set up recording studios as supply of US 45s declined.

They pulled from the influences they heard, jump blues particularly, and within these walls is the fabled Duke Reid session with Prince Buster, whereby copying the offbeat experiments of Fats Domino and Barbie Gaye, as was popular on the sound systems, and riding the shuffle beat style of T Bone Walker, a timeout was called and the guitarist ended by running the shuffle backwards, accidently creating โ€œthe ska.โ€

Even less widely known; initially Duke Reid wasnโ€™t in favour of ska, but as the government promoted it for tourism as โ€œJamaicaโ€™s first national sound,โ€ obviously he felt heโ€™d lose out if he didnโ€™t follow the trend. So, pre-ska, and even during its explosion, the Jamaican studios continued to put out as wider variety of sounds as they heard on US Radio, from blues to doowop and even country. This is a necessary backstory to capture the ethos of Errol Linton and his band, as Errol and two-thirds of the band have Jamaican heritage, are keen to emphasis this, and however subtle, everything mentioned gets a nod in their performance.

Errol is also an accomplished artist, creating portraits of his influences gives clear indication of who he is citing, the blues legends, from Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Louis Armstrong and beyond. Yes, the band deviated from blues, to throw down a jazzy number, to increase levels of danceable funk, and with a narrative of Howlinโ€™ Wolf visiting Jamaica, they covered Howlinโ€™ For my Darling with a matchless ska offbeat. Particularly diverse was an original โ€œCountry Girl,โ€ as while maintaining one-drop reggae, the chorus verged onto a dancehall riff. It was right up my street and knocking loudly on my door, but I paused to observe the more blues aficionado regulars enjoying it equally as much as I!

For all the diversity Iโ€™ve noted, and mentioned the pleasure was in how proficiently they switched, even mid-song, this tight arrangement was best at delivering blues, and did so second-to-none. Frontman Errol gliding between vocals and harmonica, cherry-capped pianist Petar Zivkovic lightening on the keys, Lance Rose in porkpie hat, chilled on the upright double bass, perfectionist timekeeper Gary Williams on drums, and guitarist Richey Green presented the funkiest dancing show during play, the combo was spellbinding.

But none of this happened before Devizes-own Adam Woodhouse delivered the textbook support slot. Confident, despite his first outing at this blues appreciation society in which regulars will aim all eyes on you, Adam kicked off with an Elvis rendition of Thatโ€™s Alright Mama, and with top-notch finger picking, continued covers with a remarkable Johnny Cash. Adam, a regular soloist at The Southgate and attendee of their celebrated Wednesday jam session, had some originals of his own, which were executed with panache.

A most memorable evening was had, in which frontman Errol reigned the moment, showing this natural ability accomplished over thirty years, since a busker of Londonโ€™s streets. This is British blues at its finest, individually stylised yet heavily drawing from his roots, a perfect blend to homage his heritage, entertain and packaged in such a non-pretentious manner, you couldnโ€™t dislike it; impossible!

An absolutely blinding night for the Long Street Blues Club, organiser Ian Hopkinsโ€™ smile said it all, as he clarified heโ€™s been trying to book these guys for a while, and made a promise to the crowd theyโ€™d return; you need to be there when it does. The next season starts on 20th August, with anticipated return of Skinny Molly. Worth mentioning though, being weโ€™ve discussed the early stages of Jamaican sound systems and Duke Reidโ€™s Treasure Ilse, competitor Coxsone Dodd over at Studio One gave fame to a majority of reggae artists, yes, including Bob, and another crowned King of Rock Steady, Alton Ellis, that Altonโ€™s son, Troy is on in Hillworth Park around about 3pm today. So, get your sandals on, unless you remain adamant nothing ever happens in Devizes!

Trending….

A Busy Week For Lunch Box Buddy!

It was great to bump into Lunch Box Buddy in Devizes today. Last week was hectic for him; first BBC Wiltshire stopped by his standโ€ฆ

Wither; Debut Single From Butane Skies

Whilst dispersing highly flammable hydrocarbon gases into the atmosphere is not advisory,  Butane Skies is a name increasingly exploding on local circuits. The young andโ€ฆ

Trowbridge Town Hall Rides into Spring

At the beginning of the month Devizine covered Trowbridgeโ€™s musical renaissance, highlighting The Village Pump and Town Hallโ€™s dedication to introducing a variety of upcoming local bands and performers. Explaining Sheer Musicโ€™s Kieran Moore had โ€œbig shoes to fill,โ€ taking over as chief event coordinator for the Town Hall from Gavin Osborn. Well, the proof is in the pudding, and that dish has made it off the serving counter and onto our table.….

Not forgoing, the programme is already in full-swing, with Truckstop Honeymoon at the Pump on Friday, (18th) a cider swigginโ€™ scrumpy and western hoedown with The Skimmity Hitchers and our great friends, and the Boot Hill All Stars supporting at the Town Hall on Saturday.     

Boot Hill All Stars

Such is the fashion for live music in Trowbridge, Fridays at the Pump, Saturday at the Town Hall, aside some great happenings at Stallards and Emmanuelโ€™s Yard, comedy and more commercial nights at the Civic. Gecko appears next Saturday at the Town Hall, and all-day Sunday thereโ€™s   fundraising session, Kalefest, a family-orientated mini-festival for some musical equipment for a teenager with a severe brain injury, in which Zone Club, Pete Lambโ€™s Heart Beats and The Relayz play.

Marching on atop this free six-week interactive course of workshops for 16- to 18-year-olds, covering all aspects of the music industry, next month sees a continuation of great bookings, of which we highlighted in the aforementioned preview, here. What weโ€™re here today for is to check in on Kieran, see if he indeed โ€œfilledโ€ those shoes for the ongoing season.

So, just revealed, April and May listings at the Town Hall and Pump, which have equally exciting news, as, perhaps, Mr Moore asks the shopkeeper for a shoehorn. Isle of Manโ€™s recent export to Wiltshire, Becky Lawrence, the musical theatre singer-songwriter who wasted no time fitting into the local circuit, joining established local bands, The Bourbons UK and Clyve and the Soul City Foundation, teams up Bristolian country singer-songwriter Zoe Newton to pinch-punch April at the Pump.

Zoe Newton at Bradford Roots Festival

Whereas, in the name of variety Iโ€™m surprised to see The Town Hall hosting a โ€œrum and reggae nightโ€ on Saturday April 2nd; itโ€™s as if theyโ€™re calling to me! Seriously though, Iโ€™d wager youngsters reading this are asking Siri what the hell a shoehorn is.

But nice surprises flow, as Gavin Osborn himself plays The Pump, Friday 8th, with his band Comment Section. Regulars at Stallardโ€™s, locally-based indie-rockers Riviera Arcade arrive at the Town Hall with Gloucestershireโ€™s electric-punk favourites, Chasing Dolls on Saturday, with (udated) Devizes/Swindon NervEndings headling the show.

NervEndings

Alcopops Recordsโ€™ Croydon duo, The Frauds play the Pump on the 15th, with Ipswichโ€™s experimental indie-pop darlings, Lucky Number 7, while Henry Wacey and Dan Oโ€™Farrell are there on Saturday. Surreal stand-up, Welsh hard rockers The Vega Bodegas are at the Town Hall on the Saturday, with support from Wiltshire-based metal trio newcomers, Last Alvor and self-confessed โ€œdegenerates,โ€ synth-punk noise-makers Benzo Queen.

If that weekend is atypical of what Iโ€™d expect Mr Moore to assign, the following, Saturday 23rd is different. Kieran is no stranger to asking what acts local giggers would like to see via social media, as Brightonโ€™s Chap-Hop legend Professor Elemental comes to the Town Hall, with support from my recommendation, Bristolโ€™s fantastic veganomic ska-punk-folk crazies, Boom Boom Racoon, whoโ€™ve we fondly followed in the past on Devizine.

Boom Boom Racoon

If Iโ€™m excited with boom boom coming soon, while โ€œSunday leagueโ€ songwriter Tom Jenkins finishes off April on Saturday 30th, May is positively booming too. Local soul-hip hop DJ, Mac-Llyod gets the crowd prepped for another of my personal favourites, Bristolโ€™s bouncy boom-bap virtuosos The Scribes, on Saturday 7th May. Aching to encourage these guys a gig more local than Salisburyโ€™s Winchester Gate, Iโ€™m delighted to see this on Trowbridge Town Hallโ€™s listing; theyโ€™re definitely calling to me now!

Pan-European ‘inventive and thrilling’ alt-folk duo, singer-songwriter Tobias Jacob and double-bass playing multi-instrumentalist Lukas Drinkwater play the Pump on Thursday 12th May, whereas Iโ€™m notified Saturday 14thโ€™s do at the Town Hall will be a โ€œpipe and slippers rave,โ€ of which I had to inquire if, as it sounds, itโ€™ll be an old skool DJ rave type thing, and this it was confirmed, โ€œthat’s exactly it.โ€ If theyโ€™re calling me, now theyโ€™re mocking; the feet in my slippers were stomping in mud when you were an itch, whippersnappers! โ€œHoney, whereโ€™s my whistle and white gloves?โ€

Sheffieldโ€™s award-winning finger-style guitarist, Martin Simpson breathes some folk to the Pump on Friday 20th May, while the Town Hall blow cobwebs off with Trowbridgeโ€™s own hardcore metal quartet, Severed Illusions. With nine years under their belts, they opened for Hed PE at the now defaulted Beirkeller in Bristol, and played metal festivalsโ€™ assemblage M2TM. Joined by doomcore fourpiece Eyesnomouth, and Salisburyโ€™s screaming metalcore Next Stop Olympus; thatโ€™s going to go off.

The Lost Trades

From here gigs are pencilled in, June sees Martin Carthy, Jon Amor with Kyla Brox, Hip Route and Billy & The Low Ground feature, but be certain the near-future looks bright and varied for Trowbridgeโ€™s live music scene, particularly as the last gig of May is our beloved folk-harmony trio The Lost Trades on Saturday 28th. Bring in the summer with Graham Steelโ€™s award-winning Phil, Jamie and Tamsin, what more could you ask for?

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FullTone Festival 2026: A New Home

It’s been a wonderful summer’s weekend, in which I endeavoured to at least poke my nose into the fabulous FullTone Festival, despite being invitedโ€ฆ

Song of the Day 43: Lollipop Lorry

As promised/threatened (delete as appropriate) I’m continuing on with the pledge to relaunch the Song of the Day feature, and today proves ska is universal.

From Yekaterinburg in Russia, Lollipop Lorry have worked their way to the top of the international ska scene over a twelve year period, getting kudos through a tour of Mexico this year, where the scene is at its apex.

It’s refreshingly fun and carefree sunshine music, as ska should be, and this tune is out today. If anyone could translate I might know the subject, but the amusing speed dating video suggests a frustrating man-hunt! You just have to pick one, Svetlana, we really are all that rubbish, (excluding myself obviously!)

They first caught my attention and affection three years ago when covering the Gaylettes’ rock steady classic, Silent River (Runs Deep) in which one third of Bob Marley’s backing singer trio, The I-Threes, Judy Mowatt takes the lead vocal. Judy’s range is such that this was no easy feat, which front lady Svetlana made a cracking job of, in a sultry and distinctly Russian tinge; I’m smitten, don’t tell the trouble and strife… long distance relationships never work out!

Give their Facebook page a Like!

No Bad Press for Captain Accident & The Disasters

Top marks and a gold star for this album, released tomorrow, Friday 20th August; Bad Press, of which youโ€™ll hear no such thing as bad press from me, and Iโ€™d be interested in how anyone could find an angle to do such. Yet if the title is subtle irony, more so is the band name, Captain Accident & The Disasters.

From the band name alone itโ€™s understandable for one to perceive their output as comical or zany, but far from it. Here is some sublime, concentrated reggae and rock steady, bouncy and carefree, yes, but astutely written, covering some acute themes as well as the general tenet of rock steady; forlorn or unabridged romance. Neither am I willing to accept the talent here is any way an accident, and the band is anything but a disaster!

Twenty seconds into Bad Press is all you need to realise why David Rodigan speaks so highly of Cardiffโ€™s Captain Accident & The Disasters, and they were invited back to tour with legends Toots & the Maytals after their 2016 UK tour, as the official full-tour support in 2017 and again in 2018. Which they did, and Captain Accident was asked to join the band onstage to perform Monkey Man on guitar. If it wasnโ€™t for lockdown and the tragic passing of Toots Hibbert last year, they would have been on the European tour that year also.

Other than the wonderful sunshine reggae vibe, thereโ€™s not a great deal else going on in Bad Press, yet thereโ€™s no need to be. The band stick to the tried and tested formula, the mellow plod of traditional one-drop reggae, occasionally more steppers upbeat with only subtle ska or dub elements coming through. Note importantly, they do this with bells on. It doesnโ€™t attempt to swerve off with experimentation. All tracks flow with precision and a highly polished sound produced with traditional instruments. At no time will Bad Press replicate a previous tune through dubplate principles, neither will a dancehall DJ toast over it, or a drum n bass riff be thrust unexpectedly at you; good, honest and exceptionally beautiful roots, rock reggae is what you get.

If themes reflect lovers rock or rock steady on occasion, itโ€™s nicely done, and in others, where more sombre subject matter arises thereโ€™s no militancy, rather the longstanding carefree reggae ethos of not worrying, dancing reservations away, as every little thing will be alright. Neither does Rasta etiquettes or such biblical or cultural references come into play, making this reggae for the masses as well as aficionados. Itโ€™s just, ah, tingly, and apt for all!

Despite the bandโ€™s output, three previous albums being self-produced, their beguiling festival friendly sound has rocketed their success with a national fan-base growing by the day. I fully believe Bad Press will seal the deal.

Ten songs strong, I couldnโ€™t pick a favourite. As I believe I said, it flows, blessing your ears with inspirational sound. In Redemption Song familiarities the content of the opening tune casts an eye on Armageddon, but pessimism doesnโ€™t deject or depress you, and the title, โ€œNot the End of the World,โ€ says it all. The aforementioned carefree attitude carries over with the catchy โ€œBest Shoes,โ€ the upbeat melody cutting to plod as Captain Accident aptly quotes Marley, โ€œwhen the music hits you, you feel no pain.โ€

And such is unswaying general premise throughout, returning to one-drop for the beautiful โ€œPlaying Field,โ€ which truly showcases the writing skill on righteousness and equality. Swapping back to the common hopeless romantic theme, โ€œWings,โ€ will melt you, like the referenced wings of Icarus. Followed by the most ska-ish, the buoyant โ€œMiami Incorporating.โ€

There is nothing here to rightfully label this with bad press, perhaps the blithest tune being the โ€œDark n Stormy,โ€ with a rum subject, thereโ€™s a real Caribbean feel, yet the most interestingly intertwined is the rock-inspired guitar previous song, โ€œPuttinโ€™ Up a Fight,โ€ because it clarifies this โ€œreggae for all,โ€ notion Iโ€™ve attempted to convey. I hope this comes across, especially in these local parts where the genre is often misunderstood and misrepresented. If your knowledge of reggae doesnโ€™t extend much past Bob Marley & The Wailers in their international prime, you will love this. Yet, for bods like me, a humongous enthusiast, it fills me with a glorious passion that the traditional aspects of reggae will never be lost in a sea of dancehall, reggaeton and dubstep.

Ah, they’re all worthy, to me, but aside, reggae got soul, and you NEED this album in your life!

Trending…..

Devizes Dilemma: FullTone or Scooter Rally?!

Contemplated headlining this โ€œClash of the Titans,โ€ but that evokes the idea of a dramatic power struggle with fierce consequences rather than proof Devizes canโ€ฆ

Goodbye to The Beanery but Hollychocs Lives On

Popular award-winning artisan chocolate business Hollychocs has announced that its Beanery Cafรฉ will close on Saturday 23rd August, marking exactly two years since its openingโ€ฆ

Park Farm; Mantonfest Came to Devizes!

The first Park Farm Festival happened Saturday, it was fabulouso, and in some way Mantonfest came to Devizes; conveniently for me as I had toโ€ฆ

Idiot Music, is the Monkeyโ€™s Bizzle

This is isnโ€™t the favoured way to start a review, but this is idiot music for stupid people, if you think this is stupid then youโ€™re a fucking idiot, and thatโ€™s a quote, from the opening title tack, which ends on, โ€œoh, there it is, up my bum; can I eat it now?โ€

If Goldie Looking Chain is all too millennial, but hip hop, for you, should be served with massive chunks of deadpan sauce, west country tongue-in-cheek sarcasm and general silliness, Monkey Bizzleโ€™s debut album, Idiot Music might just be the thing to pick off the menu.ย ย ย 

Through the Pythonesque nature of Idiot Music though, wailing guitars, proficient drumming (from Cerys of the Boot Hill All Stars), and substantial dope beats means this is far from amateurish, and will rock the festival circuit. In fact, the Somerset five-piece sold out the album launch party at The Barge on Honeystreet a fortnight ago; I see why. This drips with Scrumpy & Western charm, like Gloucestershireโ€™s Corky, Wurzels meets the Streets, the elements of โ€œagriculturalโ€ hip hop make this apt for our local crusty scene. Yet with wider appeal, it is, simply, parental advisory fun.

Primates tend to be a running theme, a particularly danceable funky signature tune named Monkey Funk, a King Kong themed rap, another including David Attenborough samples. There are also drug references aplenty, the reggae-inspired Heavy, or Doves (Methylenedioxymethamphetamine) needs no explaining, but in it, it mocks the chav culture in such a way you mayโ€™ve thought only Goldie Looking Chain could. Something itโ€™ll inevitably be compared to, but more so than the humour drafting this side of the Seven, what makes this so appealing is its nod of respect to hip hop rather than mocking it, is greater than that of Goldie Looking Chain, in a similar way thereโ€™s was with Beastie Boy satirists Morris Minor and the Majors, if you get as old skool as I!

One thingโ€™s for sure, Monkey Bizzle isnโ€™t to be taken seriously, but for the most part itโ€™s listenable to as a hip hop album rather than pure novelty too, unique rappers Skoob and James make this so, especially as the album trickles on, both CU Next Tuesday and Ha Ha Ha being particularly entertaining, Oi Mate ripples with The Streets’, Give Me My Lighter Back but under a ska riff.

Nothing here is going to become next summerโ€™s banging anthem on Radio Oneโ€™s Big Weekender, an honour theyโ€™re clearly not bothered by or striding towards. To face facts, what you get is a full album of highly entertaining flip-flop and amusing lyrics of daring themes, wrapped by gifted musicians only playing the fools. And for which, Idiot Music has got my name all over it!

Girls Go Ska; Frente al Mar!

Rude girls grito! Far from home perhaps, but so, so worth mentioning for tropical vibes of rock steady and ska in a fashion proportionately youโ€™ll find hard to come by around these parts, itโ€™s my beloved all-girl-bar-one Mexican ska band, Girls Go Ska with a bran-new album Frente al Mar. Girls and ska, whatโ€™s not to like?!

From the off, the title track simply melts, mellowly, and builds in tempo, but is never overdramatic; โ€œcoolโ€ is the operative word; fresco! If Iโ€™ve put them on a pedestal before, theyโ€™ve now put another couple of pedestals atop it. Often steady paced for the genre, it proves ska, while upbeat doesnโ€™t have to be full of macho-bravura skinheads, or a frenzied rancour attack against dogmatic tyranny itโ€™s often misperceived here through the eightiesโ€™ second-generation Two-Tone scene, and within the dominate contemporary ska-punk internationally. Iโ€™ve made this point in the past when penning a more general piece about ska and reggae in South America, in which Girls Go Ska were featured.

Girls go Ska

Frente al Mar is breezy, bright and fun, light-hearted and beguiling. It roots the genre to its original Jamaican ethos, as a carefree dance music. Though, thereโ€™s a large chunk of assumption with those observations, as my Spanish isnโ€™t up to scratch, so my presumption rests on the design, the album name, which translates to the seaside, basically, and mood of the vocals; if theyโ€™re singing about anything other than romantic themes and enjoying oneself dancing on a tropical beach, like making political statement, it certainly doesnโ€™t sound that way! You just have to enjoy the professionality and untroubled vibe this album breezes in your direction, itโ€™s gorgeous, and it absolutely skanks!

Packaged femininely in loud pink and decorated with cute shลjo manga, rather than our typecast black and white chequered trade identity with Walt Jabsco splashed all over, Frente al Mar provides an alternative to norm, but is no way attributes the โ€œfairer sex,โ€ rather riot grrrl kick-ass in tenet, gender-neutral in sound. Not that punk comes into play; throughout itโ€™s steadfast traditional ska sound, one should credit Studio One rather than Two-Tone, or even Reel Big Fish for, thereโ€™s also sprinklings of Latino sound traditional to Mexico, of ranchera, norteรฑo and their contemporary offshoots, but are subtle and likely naturally occurring.

Imagine, if your English mind will adapt, Gloria Estefan performing ska, and youโ€™re nearer to the mark than The Specials. But no, eight sublimely flowing tunes is what you get, a sun-kissed blessing on the ear, in the style of brass-based rock steady and good olโ€™ ska. While pukka boys, Death of Guitar Pop are currently returning the welcomed Nutty-Boys-esque frivolous and fairground ska home for lads, further afield, here comes the girls.

Meanwhile here in my hometown of Devizes, the newly opened rum bar, The Muck & Dundar has been a roaring success, proving a taste of the tropical is welcomed, ergo, taken out of its context and origins, Frente al Mar would make the perfect soundtrack to it. Me? I’m smitten, with a little crush!

Trending….

Ann Liu Cannon’s Clever Rabbits

Ann Liu Cannon is the Marlborough success story I hadn’t heard of until yesterday; thanks to local promoter and frontman of the Vooz, Lee Mathewsโ€ฆ

Live in Pewsey, at the First Oak-Fest

Amidst another packed summer weekend’s schedule laid that lovable large village Pewseyโ€™s turn to shine; always a law unto itself, things went off; if itโ€™sโ€ฆ

OUT NOW! Various Artists 4 Julia’s House

As a nipper Iโ€™d spend days, entire school holidays, making mixtapes as if I worked for Now, Thatโ€™s What I Call Music! In the era before hi-fi, Iโ€™d sit holding a microphone to the radioโ€™s speaker, adventurously attempting to anticipate when Tony Blackburn was going to talk over the tune, and just when In the Air Tonight peaked with Philโ€™s crashing drums, my dad would shout up the stairs that my tea was ready; eternally caught on tape, at least until my Walkman screwed up the cassette.

Crude to look back, even when I advanced to tape-to-tape, I discovered if I pressed the pause button very slowly on the recording cassette deck, it would slide into the next song, and with a second of grinding squeal Howard Jones glided into Yazoo!! Always the DJ, just never with the tech! Rest assured; this doesnโ€™t happen on this, our Various Artists compilation album, 4 Juliaโ€™s House. And oh, have I got some news about that?!

Huh? Yes, I have, and here it isโ€ฆ. ย 

We did it! Thanks once again to all our fabulous contributing artists, our third instalment of detailed sleeve notes will follow shortly, but for now, I couldnโ€™t wait another day, therefore, Iโ€™ve released it half a day early, this afternoon!

Buy it here!

Now all that needs to happen is to get promoting it, and you can help by sharing news of this on your social media pages, thank you. Bloggers and media please get in touch, and help me raise some funds for Juliaโ€™s House.

Iโ€™ve embedded a player, in which you should be able to get a full try before you buy, I believe you get three listens before itโ€™ll default and tell you to buy it. I hope you enjoy, it has been a mission and half, but one Iโ€™d gladly do again.

Please note: there are many artists giving it, โ€œoh no, I was going to send you a track!โ€ Fear not, there is still time, as Iโ€™ll causally start collecting tunes for a volume 2, and when the time is ready and we have enough songs, we will do it. It might be for another charity, Iโ€™d personally like to do another raising funds for The Devizes & District Opportunity Centre, but thatโ€™s unconfirmed as of yet.

You know, sometimes I think I could raise more money with less effort by trekking down through the Market Place in a bath of cold baked beans, but I wanted to bring you a treasured item comprising of so many great artists weโ€™ve featured, or will be featuring in the near future on Devizine. Never before has all these artists been on one huge album like this, and look, even if you donโ€™t care for a particular tune, thereโ€™s 46 of them, check my maths as I pride myself on being exceptionally rubbish at it, but I make that 22p a track, and all for such a worthy cause!

Track listing details part 1
Track listing details part2
Click for info on Julia’s House

โ€œWe are so grateful to Devizine and all of the local artists who are taking part in the charity album to raise funds for Juliaโ€™s House. We donโ€™t receive any government funding for the care we give to families in Wiltshire, so the support we receive from our local community is so important.โ€

Claudia Hickin, Community Fundraiser at Juliaโ€™s House

Ska-Punk-Folk-Whatever, From The Before Times, with Boom Boom Racoon

Blagging biros and stationery from banks and post offices, we’ve all been there, but few driven to pen a song about it. It’s one valid reason to love the righteous but riotous simplicity of Bristol-based anarchistic vegan folky-ska-punk misfits, Boom Boom Racoon.

Those aware, who thought 2018’s album by the trio, Now That’s What I Call Boom Boom Racoon vol1 was off the head, newly released Songs From The Before Times & Some More takes it to a whole other level. Lockdown raw, rougher and more in your arrogant, fat consumerist face than ever before; put that sausage roll down and prepare to be barked at with a charming slice of satire and counterculture commentary.

Now reading that paragraph back makes it all seem so terrible, but under a blanket punk term, which only goes some way to pigeonhole the unpigeonholeable, irony is abound and Boom Boom Racoon are quite the opposite. This is nine three-minute plus enthrallingly exciting rides, and is undoubtedly entertaining to say the least.

Mixing rum and coffee, ie. turbo mocha time, Covid19-related Public Service Announcement 2020, are the lighter, comical subjects.

Whereas tightening border control in States and Nations, laboratory animal testing in Cages, human unecological practices compared to dinosaur extinction, and another anti-capitalist rant on how difficult it is to be sustainable in the modern era, are the more sombre and acute subjects, setting the world to rights.

And the way they work it, the words they’ve planned go against the homemade rawness of the sound. This isn’t off-the-cuff, there’s ingenious wordplay and poignant messages hidden beneath the fun attitude. The abolition, against the psychological effect of imprisonment and a need to sustain numbers by reforming laws to create criminals, for example, Boom Boom Racoon touch on radical notions or campaigns, and are fearless to state their core values.

Anthropocene it, Say it, Sorted probably carries the most poignant message, and is also the only track which has an amusing sample, unlike the previous aforementioned more polished album which has more, from The Simpsons to Harry Potter. And it comes in the shape of a rather stumblingly polite call from Kent Police regarding an animal rights protest, which is highly amusing.

The album ends hilariously on the most brilliant retort from taunts by your average knuckle-dragging homophobic bigot, I’m certain you know the sort, completing the overall contemporary leftism and reformist ethos which, if you tag the piffle term “snowflake” onto, beware, the unity here is compounded into a masterfully literate snowball, and it’s a brown one, and it’s aiming at your face!

Myself, I’d love for these raccoon pests to come trash the bins of our narrowminded community and welcome the opportunity of our more daring venues to book them for a live performance on the theory, well, on the theory, they’d steal the show.

Trending….

IDLES’ at Block Party

With their only UK shows of the year quickly approaching, the 1st and 2nd August will see IDLESโ€™ and music festival Block Party take overโ€ฆ

Sentences Iโ€™d Like to Hear the End of, with the Bakesys

No matter the subject, a lesson is only as interesting as the teacher teaching it. Johnny Ball did the impossible, he made maths fun! Likewise, but more modern, Terry Dearyโ€™s books and subsequent CBBC show, Horrible Histories made whatโ€™s often perceived as a dull subject by pupils, somehow entertaining, amusing even. If Deary was my history teacher, rather than a thick-rimmed speccy, bearded beatnik with leather elbow patches on his tweed jacket, well, I might just have taken heed of their wisdoms.

Equally, if you want to teach history to a bunch of scooterist skinheads, consider employing The Bakesys, for they are a skanking Horrible Histories, at least for this new album, released last Thursday called Sentences Iโ€™d Like to Hear the End of.

Stu, Kevin & Bakesy onstage at Newbury College in December 1990!

Something of an elusive band despite twenty years presence on the UK ska scene, the early stages of The Bakesys reflected heavily on punk inspirations, such as the Buzzcocks, crossed with later developments of a definite Two-Tone influence. Sentences Iโ€™d Like to Hear the End of takes it to whole other level. Akin to what On-U Sound did for dub in the nineties, sprinkling in a counter culture punk ethos, The Bakesys do for ska. Itโ€™s more upbeat than the usual plod of dub, but strewn with samples, heavy basslines, and drum machine loops, it has its elements.

From another angle though, as Dreadzone meld such influences into the electronic dance scene, thereโ€™s a contemporary sound, a mesh of offbeat influences with the Bakesys, more in line with the current ska scene. The flood of brass and chugging rhythms confirms its allegiance to authentic 1960โ€™s Jamaican ska. What comes out the end is unique beguiling buoyancy, and itโ€™s absolutely addictive.

Yet weโ€™re only scraping the surface of why, the theme of the album is the kingpin here. Reflecting the era of its influences, subjects are historic affairs based in the sixties. The opening title track raps of Christine Keeler and the Profumo Affair. Get Your Moonboots on is on Apollo 11โ€™s moon landing, and the third, most haunting tune, You are Leaving the American Sector takes newsreels of the Berlin Wall. One Iโ€™ve been playing endlessly the single of on my Friday night Boot Boy radio show.

Atomic Invasion explores the Cold War, yet, as with Keeler, this sublime set of songs often concentrates more on the personalities than facts of the events. The Space Race is up next, with a nod to Yuri Gagarinโ€™s luminary. Then itโ€™s the Cuban Missile Crisis with the numerous failed attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, Cassius Clayโ€™s rise to heavyweight champion of the world, and Robert F. Kennedyโ€™s assignation.

Despite these often-dark subjects, itโ€™s surprisingly upbeat, as if, like I said, The Bakeseys are the funky relief history teacher, and your class is about get moon stomping! The last three tracks offers dub versions of the most poignant tunes on offer here, yet the album as a complete concept is nothing short of brilliant.

The third CD album released on Bandcamp, and quite the best place to start if youโ€™re unaware of them. Keyboardist Kevin Flowerdew, has self-published the ska sceneโ€™s definitive zine, Do The Dog Skazine for many decades, which has released this under its label namesake, Do the Dog Music, so he certainly knows what makes a great sound; which this does with bells on.

Mark, Stu & Bakesy backstage at the Epplehaus, Tubingen during The Bakesysโ€™ June 1992 German tour.

Tribute Acts Going the Extra Mile; Blondie & Ska

One surprise track contributed for our forthcoming compilation album for Juliaโ€™s House, (yes, itโ€™s going sluggish but well, thanks for asking!) comes from Chippenhamโ€™s part-Blondie-tribute-part-ska-covers duo, Blondie & Ska. Itโ€™s a solid, rock steady original, with the added bonus it sounds as if it couldโ€™ve been an album track from Parallel Lines, Plastic Letters or another Blondie album at the peak of their game.  

Itโ€™s given me the opportunity to have a chat with Dave Lewis, one half of the duo, on how they started doing what they do, pondering if you just wake up one morning and think, I know, Iโ€™m going to be tribute act. If Blondie & Ska actually see themselves wholly as a Blondie tribute act at all, given they not only record original songs, but in a unique slant, perform classic Two-Tone songs from the same period. But most importantly, answering some conundrums Iโ€™ve had since hearing a tune with a similar concept by UB40 tribute Johnny2Bad, about tribute acts going the extra mile and recording tracks in the fashion of their inspiration. I mean, is it deliberate that it sounds akin, or simply natural method given the music is based around imitating the act?

Certainly, Blondie & Ska wasnโ€™t formed on a whim. For a decade prior to forming the duo, Lorraine and Dave were both co-members of various bands on the same circuit. The idea, Dave explained, โ€œoccurred over a number of phases,โ€ and expressed, as a mod, his love for The Beat. Anxious not to live up to expectations of his idols, Dave continued, โ€œplaying ska, was one of those things, because you love it so much, you donโ€™t want to go that direction, but when we kind of got dragged into it, there was no stopping us, because the more we did it, the more we loved doing it, and there was no reason to be nervous!โ€

In the band as well, was Steve Edge, who co-wrote our song. โ€œSteve and I used to write back in the nineties,โ€ Dave explained, chuffed to be reunited to write this track specifically for us. โ€œAnd we performed as an originals band,โ€ he enthusiastically continued.

After the originals band, Dave joined his drummer and played in a local blues band called No Ties, which Lorraine also started in, while Dave concentrated on a secondary band aptly named Band Two, which Lorraine would later join. It was there where Dave suggested the concept of Blondie & Ska to Lorraine, in 2013. โ€œShe replied, hum, I fancy having a go at that,โ€ Dave revealed. โ€œIt took about six months to get rehearsed. We did our first gig, and thought, why didnโ€™t we do this before?โ€ Theyโ€™ve been performing weekly as a duo act from Landโ€™s End to Barnsley since, clocking up hundreds or appearances together.

I moved onto the question, given recording originals and this mixture of lateral ska tunes added to the Blondie tribute, if they even classed themselves at โ€˜tribute actโ€™ in the same light as the run-of-the-mill ones. โ€œItโ€™s weird one,โ€ he admitted, โ€œI kind of call it that Blondie and ska sound. Whatever we tend to do, people say I didnโ€™t expect it to be like that, but thatโ€™s way things are. If Iโ€™m going to do something, we want to do it in a different way.โ€ Itโ€™s also practical, using pre-recorded sections such as drums and horns, Blondie & Ska can accommodate the smallest of venues, unlike a large ska band with a horn section. โ€œThe other thing which is difficult, with signature bands, is itโ€™s hard work keeping the bands together,โ€ Dave observed, a notorious hindrance with ska bands in particular.  

Dubious it would work at first, during lockdowns alternate Saturdays have seen regular blossoming live streams from Blondie & Ska. โ€œWe had over 10 thousand viewers on one,โ€ Dave delighted, โ€œwhich is bonkers! I think it was just a sign of the time, everyone was just at their computer!โ€ For your attention, next one is tonight at 8pm (Saturday 22nd May) on Facebook, HERE. โ€œIf people donโ€™t know us,โ€ Dave suggested, โ€œitโ€™s always a nice test. Weโ€™ve been surprised by the positive feedback.โ€

Thereโ€™s the thing with Blondie & Ska, and I put it to Dave without trying to cause offence, that though itโ€™s unique, nothing theyโ€™re doing is particularly ground-breaking. Theyโ€™ve no stars in their eyes, but the niche is theyโ€™re two musicians having a whole lot of fun, doing what they love doing. And this is what comes across, and why it sounds so good. โ€œAbsolutely,โ€ he agreed, suggesting the original blues band was tiresome. โ€œI wasnโ€™t really up for anything after that, and later wanted to get back into the action. Weโ€™re doing it now because we enjoy doing it. The Blondie & Ska stuff, you know, the more we play, the more people ask, and more bookings we get in ska clubs, and our repertoire is pushed in that direction.โ€ I laughed, so prolific was the Jamaican record industry during the ska era, thereโ€™s always going to be one trainspotter, like me (!) who comes up and asks for some obscure Coxsone rarity!

But in turn, thatโ€™s precisely the ethos of both ska, and seemingly Blondieโ€™s music. Aside the political unrest occasionally portrayed in the Two-Tone ska revival of the eighties, the memorable songs come from a carefree perceptive of jollity, and like Madness and Bad Manners, ska is eternally dance music, from the very roots. Likewise, Blondie rarely, if at all, socially commented about anything more than romance.

Dave was so enthusiastic to chat about the reasoning and history behind Blondie & Ska, about the technicalities of recreating the perfect tribute sound, and appeasing the aficionados, we couldโ€™ve chatted forever, but I feel you need to witness them in the arena they love, rather than waffle some!

An interesting story surrounding the chosen name for the duo we finished on, as while setting up for an early gig, the organiser summed up the sound on the blackboard by chalking up โ€œBlondie & Ska,โ€ under the premise a lot of blond girls and a lot of male ska fans had turned up. โ€œI was standing there, looking at the name on the poster,โ€ Dave explained. โ€œLorraine was saying, can you just get on and set up, cos weโ€™ve got to be playing in an hour?! I said, but look at the name on the poster, and she was going, no, get on with what youโ€™re supposed to be doing!โ€ But Dave approached the guy, knowing him through many past gigs, to ask him if he could use it. โ€œThe girls danced to the Blondie songs, and the guys danced to the ska,โ€ he noted. Story checks out, the mix works. Tune into their live streams to find out for yourself, or hereโ€™s hoping to catch them at a real gig soon.

Trending…..

Reggae Perfection; Winds of Matterhorn

Again, we find ourselves in the most unsuspecting part of the world to find the perfect reggae sound, Switzerland. Fruits Records release Winds of Matterhorn at the end of this month, 30th April.

Rather than the unanimous Rastafarian camp, Jamaciaโ€™s hills of Wareika, Swiss-Italian trombonist Mattbrass and producer Jackayouth have taken inspiration from the eminent mountain in the Alps for this four-track instrumental EP. Unlike the progressive nature of the Jamaican music industry, Fruits Records, as ever, find their penchant in a more classic sound. The tried-and-tested formula of roots reggae may be deemed old hat on the island of reggaeโ€™s origin, but no one can refute the global influence of Bob Marley and the Wailers, and the consequential epoch which followed.

The mechanics of the profound effect reggaeโ€™s golden era has had on music as a whole is inconsequential here, because there is no fusion or experimental divergence. You will not hear rock or soulโ€™s pastiches of the formula, thereโ€™s no preaching vocals, you will only hear a crisp and refined approach to the true sound. This is reggae at its finest, a driving riddim, occasional wail of an electric guitar, heavy bassline and saturated in sublime horns.

To emphasise these classic elements of reggae are evidently profound, each tune is singularly named after the four classic elements; earth, air, fire and water.  

Earth is marching one-drop reggae, the kind youโ€™ll identify with the later works Bob Marley & The Wailers, such as the 1979 album Survival. But Air is no lighter, thereโ€™s a real deep, roots feel to it, a plodding bassline fills said air, but throughout thereโ€™s this continuation of a tight horn section, managed to perfection. Fire has more upbeat jollity about it, so much so it near-verges on the classic ska of the unrivalled Skatalites. Water brings it back around, with that proud one-drop march.

This is the traditions of reggae, elsewhere at its very best, the only thing it lacks is the vocal affirmation to Rastafari, or anything else uniquely indigenous to JA, rather a structured salute to the sound, as if it was performed by Mozart or Beethoven. Thereโ€™s the nutshell, if Beethoven went to sister Mary Ignatius Daviesโ€™ class at Kingstonโ€™s Alpha Cottage School, with Don Drummond, Rico Rodriguez, Roland Alphonso et all, his symphonies might end up sounding something like this; it is that accomplished.

Top marks, as if they not done it before on Devizine, and I’ve still not gotten fully over how awesome Wonderland of Green was!

Trending…

Clock Radio Turf Out The Maniacs

The first full album by Wiltshireโ€™s finest purveyors of psychedelic indie shenanigans, Clock Radio, was knocked out to an unsuspecting world last week. Itโ€™s calledโ€ฆ

Erin Bardwell Gets Organised

A new album released yesterday from Swindonโ€™s premier reggae keyboardist and producer Erin Bardwell made me contemplate a section of Henri Charriรจreโ€™s book Papillon. The autobiographical account of a fellow no prison or penal colony can seem to keep incarcerated. Thereโ€™s a point where Papillon deliberately causes a disturbance in order to be put in solitary confinement. He claims he prefers it to the regular cells, because away from the other inmates, alone in pitch darkness he can reimagine, practically hallucinate and relive his better days.

For the concept of the album and accompanying film Get Organised is largely reminiscing and reflecting on his past. Possibly, I suspect, due to age becoming, the fact this marks a thirtieth anniversary of the formation of his heyday two-tone band, The Skanxters, but largely due to lockdown.

Myself, lockdown has been parttime. Iโ€™ve worked throughout, galivanting through the villages, meeting early morning risers, and itโ€™s all been much the same as it ever was, just cannot nip tโ€™ pub, or see family living out of the area. Which is frustrating at times, but I accept itโ€™s not as bad as those shielding and self-isolating; that wouldโ€™ve driven me insane my now. Itโ€™s common in isolation to consider oneโ€™s life and recollect, but Erin does it over a reggae beat; and I approve!

Weโ€™ve been here before; this is not Erinโ€™s first reflection of lockdown. Pre-pandemic he directed a collective who were pushing new boundaries in rock steady. But April last year saw the solo release of Interval, a deeply personal reflection and mind-blowingly cavernous concept album, diving into the psyche and exploring past events; scarce formula for reggae.

Erin Bardwell

Yet Erinโ€™s style is such; relished in unconformity, individualism and freethinking, factors which make it so utterly unique itโ€™s hard to compare. Itโ€™s this standout signature which Erin stamps on all projects, be them solo, as the Collective, or side projects such as the experimental dub of Subject A with Dean Sartain, or The Man on the Bridge project with ex-Hotknives Dave Clifton, which defines the very sound of reggae in Swindon and puts it on the skanking map. If there was a skanking map, which I wish there was!

Whereas Intervalโ€™s morose mood merged styles through experimentation, some often out of the confines of reggae, be they jazz, ambient and space rock, Get Organised will wash better with the matured skinheads, scooterists and Two-Tone aficionados, for it sits with more golden era reggae, particularly of the sixties Trojan โ€œbossโ€ reggae epoch. They tend to know what they like, and favour tradition over risky and radical progressions.

In this notion too itโ€™s sprightlier and more optimistic than Interval, a result of vaccinations and this โ€œroadmapโ€ out of lockdown, perhaps; The Erin Bardwell Trio booked for a gig at Swindonโ€™s Victoria on 1st July. Though at times thereโ€™s still the thoughtful prose Erin is fashioned for, reflecting the effect of lockdown. The lyrics of Eight Oโ€™clock, for example, which notes despite the usually lively nightlife at this time, the town is quiet.

The Erin Bardwell Collective

Theyโ€™re all sublimely crafted pieces, the title trackโ€™s mellow riff nods to Lee Scratch Perryโ€™s middling Upsetters period with something akin to a tune like Dollar in the Teeth. And in that, we have to consider the great producers of rockers reggae for comparisons, rather than the artists. Aforementioned Perry, but of Niney the Observer, of Harry J too, and Get Organised subtly delves into dub, so I guess King Tubby also. Yet the opening tune reminded me of the earlier, legendary producer Duke Reid.

Erin has the proficiency to cherry-pick elements from reggaeโ€™s rich history, effectively merge them and retain this said signature style. The Savoy Ballroom has the expertise keys of Jackie Mittoo, with the vaudeville toytown sound of Madness. That said has opened another Pandoraโ€™s box, as Two-Tone also has a significant influence on Get Organised, naturally. The grand finale We Put on that Show is reflective of the era, along the lines of the steady plod of Do Nothing rather than the frenzied ska of Little Bitch, if weโ€™re going to make a Specials contrast, which I think is apt.

Equally, youโ€™re going to love this if, like me, you cite the debut album Signing Off, as UB40โ€™s magnum opus rather than their following pop covers, or just if youโ€™re looking for something different from the norm.

These recollections are visualised in a half-hour video, making it more poignant. Itโ€™s a scrapbook film, with homemade clips of The Skanxters setting up or driving to a gig, footage Iโ€™d expect to have been largely unseen until now. Thereโ€™s also a montage of memoirs chronicling Erinโ€™s career, as the camera pans across gig posters, bus tickets, vinyl and press cuttings. Though far from documentary, the sound plays out the album, the material an aid to the songs, and a fascinating art project to accompany it.

 โ€œA second solo album wasn’t really part of the plan,โ€ Erin explains, โ€œbut with the current climate as it is, I still found myself coming up with music and songs. These tunes started following a theme, that led to a film idea, and the sounds and visuals grew together influencing each other.โ€

The point in the early nineties, when the Skanxters were the pride of Swindonโ€™s two-tone scene is captured well, and while those on the circuit, or even living locally then, will love recognising the many memoirs, anyone into the scene at the time will thoroughly enjoy this outing. Overall, though, Erin continues to break boundaries, and this album is a blessing and pleasure to listen to, alone from its narrative and meaning, as all good reggae should.

Trending……

Thieves Debut EP

Adam Woodhouse, Rory Coleman-Smith, Jo Deacon and Matt Hughes, aka Thieves, the wonderful local folk vocal harmony quartet of uplifting bluegrass into country-blues has aโ€ฆ

Song of the Day 27: Emily Capell

We are the mods, we are the mods, we are, we are, okay, you get the gist. Imagine Kate Nash is Doctor Who’s assistant, and they tracked back to Carnaby Street in 1963. If she dressed and performed without raising suspicion that they’re time travellers, you’ve got a general picture of the fantastic Emily Capell.

On one hand, this is fab retrospective meddling, on the other it’s lively and fresh fun, with a beehive hairdo.

There’s nothing here not to like, unless you’re a ret-con rocker and if so, I’ll see you on Brighton beach, pal. All I ask is you aim for the face, so you don’t crease my suit.

And, that’s my song for the day. Very good. Carry on….. oh yeah, nearly forgot to mention, Emily has a live stream coming up Friday 12th March, here; groovy.

Song of the Day 26: The Maitree Express

Reggae and ska’s association with trains tracks back to its very roots, that beguiling chugging offbeat replicates engine noise, ergo subject matter and band names suit.

Here’s hoping if Devizes does ever get a station, more reggae bands will stop here and bring their sunshine music. Prime example; I’d sure make a beeline for this Bath-Bristol seven-piece locomotive, with their lively blend of dub, ska and soul.
Failing that, I’m trekking, have roots, will travel.

Offering an exciting live show, the Maitree Express has been in the recording studio and the effect projects onto wax; proof here, in the pudding.

Wait, did someone say pudding? My work here is done, that’s my song for the day. Very good. Carry on…..

Song of the Day 16: Blondie & Ska

If you came here looking for an original song by upcoming hopefuls, look away. Chippenham’s Blondie & Ska may not be groundbreaking or looking for a mainstream recording contract, a Blondie tribute act who fuse ska and Two-Tone classics into their repertoire, but what they do they do with a barrel load of lively fun. And, in a nutshell, lively carefree fun is the backbone of ska.

Heores of the live stream currently, booking Blondie & Ska for a party or pub gig in the future, and you can gurantee, if fussy music devotees tut, the majority will be up dancing. For this reason enough, I blinking love this duo, but that alone is plentiful. Like their Facebook page for details of future free streams, it’s an entertaining, unpretentious show.

And that’s my song for the day. Very good. Carry on….

Song of the Day 14: King Hammond Meets Death of Guitar Pop

Great things about ska are many fold, but a topper most one has to be collaboration. Rather than set groups, as with most mainstream music, musicians uniting for projects is common and has always been the ethos of ska and reggae since day dot. Perhaps being the very reason it’s so lively and communal.

Another great thing about our song of the day, where Islington’s ska legend Nick Welsh, aka King Hammond, teams up with that crazy Essex duo Death of Guitar Pop, is the ska style displayed, near enough mimics the jump blues “shuffle” on which ska is originally based.

But history aside, let’s just enjoy this new track for all it’s worth. DoGP are fast rising in rank on the UK ska scene, with a carefree “Nutty Boys” fashion, it’s easy to see why.

And that’s my song for the day. Very good. Carry on….

Join me every Friday night at 10pm on www.bootboyradio.net

Song of the Day 11: Dakka Skanks

No video to this one. Do we need visuals? Not when it’s this good; my favourite track of Brighton-based contemporary ska heads, Dakka Skanks.

They’re lively, diverse, lots of fun, and I think we’ll be hearing a lot more from them in the near future.

If the Duallers have reached a pivotal point akin to the Specials, and Death of Guitar Pop are providing the tongue-in-cheek Madness equivalent, I believe these guys could be The Beat of this era, as there was a band unafraid to experiment.

Dakka Skanks are majorly ska, but throw a lovable but carefree punk attitude, and a wide range of other influences, such as soul, into the melting pot, and concoct something uniquely entertaining.

Very good. Carry on….

Song of the Day 7: Mr Tea & the Minions

Sunday off, broke my promise to post a song of the day, everyday. Allow me to make up for it. Bristol’s Mr Tea & the Minions with a lockdown themed song. See how sublimely they fire a frenzy of folk and Balkan styled ska-punk into festival proportions. I think they’re the hottest bands around these parts, and fondly reviewed the album, Mutiny a while ago. Just a reminder today then, these kids have it.

I made enquiries, wanting to bring them to Devizes. It’s no cheap option and obviously currently off the cards.

The reservation is that just because I’m loving this style, it might too radical for a Devizes audience. So, I’d appreciate some feedback; would you have paid a purple one to see them play in our town?

Fingers crossed, we live for a better day. But I believe lobbying a large Devizes venue to bring contemporary music direct to us, just occasionally, is crucial to the culture diversity we should be delving into.

Have a lovely rest of your day. Very good. Carry on….

Song of the Day 6: The Simmertones

It’s getting late now and I’ve only just got around to posting our song of the day. Had a piece to write and the obligatory family Scrabble game. Nearly missed the deadline, meaning my promise to post a song each day didn’t quite last a week, but alas, I’m here last minute to seal the deal.

What better then, than the pride of Devon, The Simmertones. They’ve fast made it to a lead name in the UK ska scene, and with their lively shows and crazy ska cover of the Dr Who theme, a personal favourite, it’s easy to see why. A tad more tender, here they are…..

Have a lovely rest of your day. Very good. Carry on….

Song of the Day 4: Girls Go Ska

Hi, yeah s’me, keeping up the Song of the Day feature like dedication was as word I know the definition of!

No excuses not to, I mean I am of the generation when Roy Castle clasped his trumpet weekly, ready for the signing off of “Record Breakers.” No, it’s not a euthanasim, Google it whippersnappers.

Might also explain my fondness for brass. Brass is class, and a vital element of ska. Yep, four tunes in and I couldn’t resist sharing some ska with you.

It’s a commonly misguided notion that ska is a retrospective cult here in England. It tends to convey a bygone era of Two-Tone records, boots and braces.

Yet today, while said stereotype has a grounding, ska is an international phenomenon, particularly in South America. I did write a piece about this region’s love for ska, and how it’s roots out of Jamaica bare a different tale from our own.

To show you how fresh it can be elsewhere in the world, and it’s not a reminiscence for a
load of overweight balding pensioners as perceived in the UK, here’s all-female bar one Mexican band, Girls Go Ska, who I’m secretly in love with, (so secret they don’t even know themselves….until they use Google translate!) doing an instrumental jam.

Girls and ska; what’s not to like? Have a lovely rest of your day. Very good. Carry on….

  • Lady Nade; Sober!

    Dry January, anyone? Well, Lady Nade just plunged into an outdoor 4ยฐC eucalyptus sauna for a social media reel. But whilst I’d require a stiff drink to do such, our beloved Somerset soul singer says she’s swapping ice-cold cocktails for ice-cold baths. There must be warmer ways to promote a January single?!

    Sober is that apt single, out now, seriously catchy. With the deep vocal range of Nina Simone, this one takes a retro soul style. Not quite a Chiffons level of doo-wop, but more Mary Wells or Betty Everett, in that sultry playful tone of the early Motown sound, with the ability to convey a twist between vulnerability and strength; she’s sober, so taking her chances to proposition a potential lover, presumably without the slurred words of intoxicated passion!

    You might have to do your own handclaps, but there’s that rhythmic tambourine, breathing authenticity into this little charmer.ย 

    Here’s a linktree to have a listen; do yourself a favour a take the plunge.

    She asked her fans if they’ve ever โ€œbraved an ice-cold shower, swim or plunge?โ€ And describes it as a โ€œtotal game changer for boosting well-being. I may have screamed fuck as I got in and out ones I had today, but only a few times!โ€ย 

    Can I not just listen to this wonderful tune cuddling a hot water bottle, please, Lady?!

  • 2025 on Devizine; Review of the Year; Part 1, Jan-June

    If past years seem to be racing by me on roller-skates, now theyโ€™re in Formula 1 cars! 2025, in a word, was โ€œaverage,โ€ though the Devizine annual stats fell for a second year, at 6% lower than 2024; you lot still here?!

    Iโ€™m not concerned about that, you filthy traitors; youโ€™ve been digesting the clickbait of that Gazelle & Herod again, havenโ€™t you?!! Ah, truth is I have been staying home, hibernating a lot like a lightweight couch potato; probably an age thing, most likely a financial thing too; weโ€™ve got hyperinflation to make Robert Mugabe envious. But we keep a stiff upper lip as the world plummets into chaos, our little corner of it remains a pretty nice place to live (if a bit Tory,) where you can block pavements with hoarding or nick a cardboard sheep from a church and get away with it. None of which we are here to highlight, we focus on the best bits, and slag off the worst with a sprinkling of satire; if you donโ€™t like it, you know where to go!

    Hits took a hit because I bit my tongue on many local political or social issues this year, to concentrate more on arts and entertainment, but folk love a good shit stir rather than being told about some talented locals doing good. Plus, Iโ€™m sick to the back teeth with any dependence on Facebook shares, itโ€™s become a toxic playground for so-called adults and AI bots pretending to be human to boost propaganda. I think Iโ€™m going to be one of those smiling insanely old men, content to feed the ducks in the park, rather than ranting at anyone younger than me within range, but Iโ€™ve the right to change my mind on this!ย 

    They also took a hit because Iโ€™ve been actively engaged in two fantastic major events, RowdeFest and The Wiltshire Music Awards. The latter in particular used up much of my time, but hey, I think they were worth it. The Awards really brought together a wealth of people involved in the Wiltshire music scene, caused me to wear a suit, and we hope to build on this with future years.

    The other contributing factor to the downfall of hits to the website might have been me writing a new book, something I rarely get the time for, but was certain I wanted it published by Christmas. I made that deadline and Murder at the Scribbling Horse is officially out; you read it yet? No, didn’t think so!

    But lots more happened in 2025, and those we featured are briefed below; we couldโ€™ve done more but I think we put out a lot of content; you have to give me some time to play pointless block puzzle games on my phone. Thank you to all our contributors, Ian, Andy, Lois and the few guest writers who have submitted this year. We always need more writers to make this as comprehensive as possible; it is about as flexible as it can possibly be, you can be a fruitcake, we donโ€™t mind, so do get in touch if you can help.

    Please continue to support us, we thank you all for your dedication to Devizine; hereโ€™s to 2026; try best to avoid the fascist division, millionaires triggered by being disallowed to rip wild animals to death, the US or Russian bombs heading our way, the complete disregard for funding environmental projects while they spend billions fighting for the last scraps of oil, any world leader kidnapping, painting roundabouts, and the usage of anti-terror laws to arrest pensioners peacefully campaigning against genocide.

    Just follow us instead, enjoying a pint in a pub and listening to live music, played by real people, focus on youth projects rather than fables of hooliganism, focus on talented individuals doing good rather than bitter clickbait and national headlines, and be here, in the warm and truth, with Devizine; we tell it like it is, and donโ€™t purvey bullshit!ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย 

    January

    Just as this year starts with a review of the last, so did 2025, but not before I took a visit to the Swindon Story Shed. Forestry England invited dog walkers to Nightingale Wood, apparently to celebrate Walk Your Dog Month; surely every month is walk your dog month?! The second feature film for director Keith Wilhelm Kopp and writer Laurence Guy, First Christmas entered development. We covered how My Dadโ€™s Bigger Than Your Dad Festival raised ยฃ11,500 for Prospect Hospice, and thereโ€™s moreโ€ฆ.ย 

    Jamsters began at Devizes Southgate, an initiative to provide a Friday night platform for loose groupings and associations created at their regular jam sessions each Wednesday. We announced The Beat were to headline Devizes Scooter Rally, that Nick Hodgson formerly of the Kaiser Chiefsโ€™ new band, Everyone Says Hi had an instore at Marlboroughโ€™s Sound Knowledge, and we unfortunately said goodbye to the now disbanded People Like Us; sorely missed.

    The original line up of People Like Us

    We had new singles from Nothing Rhymes With Orange, a new album from Illingworth, and fuller sessions from Kaya Street. Andy reviewed the first Devizes International Blues Festival, Ian covered Jerusalem at the Mission Theatre, and Veronicaโ€™s Room at The Wharf Theatre.

    We previewed OakFest at the Royal Oak in Pewsey, La Belle Hรฉlรจne, White Horse Operaโ€™s Debut at The Wharf Theatre, Devizes Musical Theatreโ€™s Beauty & The Beast, Henge at The Cheese & Grain, and Bradford-on-Avon Green Man Festival which unfortunately this year is in jeopardy, and we welcomed Caffe Vialottie to Devizes, our most popular article of the year.

    Februaryย 

    It may be topical now, but weโ€™ve always been supporting the hunting ban, and in February reported how Beaufort Hunters attacked Wiltshire Hunt Sabsโ€™ drone. We sadly confirmed Devizes Street Festival was cancelled for the second year in a row, and The Emporium in Devizes was to close, but Devizes would get a new youth centre.

    Previews included, Marlborough School of Languagesโ€™ Summer Fiesta, Jazz Sabbath at the Corn Exchange. We announced The Brand New Heavies were to headline Minety, tickets for DOCAโ€™s Winter Ales were running out, and that I was to organise the music for Rowdefest in May, probably my favourite memory of 2025.

    We featured Melkshamโ€™s teen band Between the Lines, reviewed JP Oldfieldโ€™s debut EP Bouffon, Jamie Hawkinsโ€™ short film Teeth, and new singles from I See Orange and Sam Bishop. Swinterfest broke me out of my hibernation, and I also got out to see the fantastic Static Moves at the Three Crowns, plus Cephidโ€™s Sparks in the Darkness at The Rondo, which was mindblowing!

    March

    We announced that Devizes auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son were relocating to the Old Emporium, Soupchick was to take over The Hillworth Park Cafe, that after the fire in Northgate Street Devizes Kebab Van successfully relocated to Follyย  Road, that Devizes was to have a new festival, Park Farm Festival, and of course the very first Wiltshire Music Awards.

    We featured the Belladonna Treatment, had a wonderful local reflection on the Trump & Zelenskiy meeting from a Ukrainian living in Wiltshire, and it was one of my all-time favourite interviews with eighties legend Owen Paul ahead of a Devizes gig.

    We reviewed The Killer & The Catalyst, Devizes author Dave McKennaโ€™s novelette, Geckoโ€™s new album, and singles by Chloe Hepburn and George Wilding.ย 

    Previewed Devizes Arts Festival, Exchange Comedy in Devizes, Swindon Palestine Solidarityโ€™s Charity Iftar, CUDSโ€™ Devizes Town Litter Pick for GB Spring Clean, and Hells Bells AC/DC tribute coming to Devizes! We listed the results of Salisbury Music Awards.

    I managed to make it out to see The Devilโ€™s Doorbell and JP Oldfield at the Cellar Bar, Ruby Darbyshire at the Southgate, and Cracked Machine with Tom Harris in support, too. Ian gave us Blood Brothers at The Mission Theatre and Flatpack at The Rondo, and Pip Aldridge reviewed our Fulltone Orchestra at Tewkesbury Abbey.

    I ranted on the state of the roads, and for fun ran a Take Our Wiltshire Pothole or Moon Crater Quiz Challenge!!

    April

    Ah, All Fools Day, a golden opportunity for us, in which last year we told the fib that funk godfather George Clinton was exiled to the Wiltshire village of Urchfont, created funk music there and it was covered up by their parish council! You might assume it was hardly viable, but some fell for it, and messaged in their outraged reports of โ€œfake news!โ€ย 

    We looked into DOCAโ€™s new youth initiative Yea Devizes, and while we published our usual extensive list of Easter holiday activities, we also previewed DOCAโ€™s Junk Street drumming workshop.

    I visited The Hillworth Park Cafe, where Soupchick took over, hailed Devizes DJ Greg Spencer, the creator of Palooza house nights, who made the prestigious bill of Fatboy Slimโ€™s All Back to Minehead festival, and reviewed the now sadly defunct No Alarms No Devizes playing at the Three Crowns. Discovered Fran Daisy at Swindonโ€™s Plough, and Henge at the Cheese & Grain was a high contender for my gig of the year; out of this world!

    We had a guest review from Melissa Loveday on Devizes Music Academyโ€™s Something About Jamie, which though Iโ€™m sorry to have missed, I did catch them playing it out at FullTone Festival in the summer. I did attend Devizes Musical Theatreโ€™s Beauty & the Beast at Dauntseyโ€™s School and the opening of Un/Common People, Folk Culture in Wessex, a fascinating exhibition at Wiltshire Museum.

    Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

    Reviewed Hannah Rose Plattโ€™s album Fragile Creatures, probably the best album we covered last year. The website for Wiltshire Music Awards went live and people held on to cast their votes in May.ย 

    We exposed Reform candidate Calne Violette Simpson for her Facebook profile picture showing her hunting antelope in South Africa, and Devizes South Conservative candidate Sarah Batchelor, who committed election fraud, up and left with her tail between her legs and almost running Bishops Canningโ€™s Crown into the ground. Thankfully it seems the new owners are turning it around and recreating the village hub it once was.ย 

    May

    I was honoured and delighted to organise the music for our village fete, which has in the last few years been run by a lovely independent committee, safe from a questionable parish council. It was a wonderful sunny day and the highlight of my year. I called in some favours and presented an amazing lineup for a free fete, featuring, in order of appearance, The Jubilee Morris Dancers, Andrew Hurst who brought bassist Lucianne Worthy with him, Talk in Code, The Sarah C Ryan Band, Thieves, and Burn The Midnight Oil. Being it was the last day of the month, I didnโ€™t write about it until June.

    I paid a Sunday afternoon visit to Devizes amazing record shop Vinyl Realm, when Deadlight Dance were attacked by wasps and still managed an amazing unplugged acoustic set. Ben Niamor reviewed Jake Martin at Swindonโ€™s Castle with SOP, and Ian gave us his views on Sweeney Todd at St. Augustineโ€™s Catholic College in Trowbridge, and the Diary of Anne Frank at The Wharf Theatre in Devizes, which was so good I had to go myself. Lois covered newcomers Kingston Mediaโ€™s Bands at the Bridge in Horton.

    I previewed the Bradford-on-Avon Live Music Festival, despite it clashing with our Rowdefest! Also, Ruby Darbyshire who performed at Silverwood Schoolโ€™s open evening. Andy provided a preview of Chippenham Folk Festival, and Lois provided us with previews of Australian Folk singer Ernest Aines at Swindonโ€™s Deanery Theatre and David Olusoga at the Cheese & Grain.

    Announced the opening of voting for Wiltshire Music Awards, that Devizes-based The Big Sound Choir was to perform with Aled Jones at St Georgeโ€™s in Bristol, and that Bird is The Word were taking over music organisation at Bradford-on-Avonโ€™s Boathouse.

    We featured how Lucas Hardy was collaborating with Rosie Jay, and Fromeโ€™s James Hollingsworth, who was bringing his solo recreation of Pink Floydโ€™s Wish You Were Here album to the Devizes Southgate and elsewhere, and reviewed his album with Griffiths, Lost in the Winds of Time.ย ย ย 

    I reviewed Clock Radioโ€™s album Turfing out the Maniacs, Ruzz Guitarโ€™s Between Two Worlds album, Playing Solitaire; Phil Cooperโ€™s first solo album for five years, Thievesโ€™ debut EP, a new single from George Wilding, and one from Auralcandy featuring vocals from Sienna Wileman. A feature of a Melksham marketing expert launching AI training courses was met with controversy, yeah, I get that!

    June

    If we were all busy with the Devizes Arts Festival, we were previwing summer events like a new festival for Devizes, Park Farm, clashing with an amazing day at the Three Crowns for an air ambulance fundraiser, and I finalyy got over my hangover and ego, and gave coverage of Rowdefest; highlight of my year!ย 

    Andy reviewed White Horse Operaโ€™s Cosi Fan Tutte and The Lost Trades at the Piggybank, Ian did The Mikado at the Mission, The Taming of the Shrew at the Rondo, and of course we all did our bit for the Devizes Arts Festival. Andy also covered an extensive weekend when The Lions were on the Green in Devizes, we had Crammer Watch Day too, and Devizes Arts Festival did a fringe gig at the British Lion; summer lovinโ€™. The highlight of this had to be Whereโ€™s the Cat, the Wharf Theatreโ€™s writing groupโ€™s hilarious reenactment of the Moonrakers fable at the Crammer, which I felt obliged to cover too.ย 

    Eddie and I were guests on Peggy-Sueโ€™s Donโ€™t Stop the Music show on Swindon 105.5, chatting about the awards. We met Henry the chocolate duck raising funds for cystic fibrosis at HollyChocs, previewed Supergrass headlining Frome Festival, a genderqueered Shakespearean performance at Bathโ€™s Rondo, and Swindon Palestine Solidarity events. Lois did Idles at Bristolโ€™s Block Party.ย 

    I reviewed The Hotcakes of Wildfireโ€™s album Shoes & Acid, ranted on vocal minorities triggered by events of cultural diversity, and did a No Surprises column promising to return the feature, but promises are made to be broken! Thereโ€™s simply too much to whinge about, and for my health, I need to see the glass half-full.

    Bands at The Bridge

    Thatโ€™s all for now, folks. Do not fear, itโ€™s still summer in our minds, and weโ€™ll kick off in July for the second part. I know, our goldfish attention spans cannot take in a whole year in one article, what with so much brilliant stuff which happened over the year, so come back when Iโ€™ve officially emptied the Quality Street tin and completed the last half of this review of 2025; but I must say, I think the first half was better!!

  • Awesome! Talk in Code Immortalised as Lego Minifigures!


    Ah, let’s talk about Talk in Code one more time this year, because we’re secret Talkers here, and everything has been awesome this year for them, but now they’re being immortalised as Lego minifigures!

    Surely, the piece of resistance of local merch, it doesn’t get better than this! Lego minifigures have become something of a collectors item over the years, and the finest local indie popsters have a Lego inspired fan reward scheme they’re calling TICBRIX; genuine awesomeness!

    Now open, all you’ve got to do is attend their gigs, which is a pleasure in itself, collect stamps on a loyalty card, and collect the band figures. Pick up the cards at the merch desk at any show, get it stamped, and after every two Talk in Code shows, you can claim your FREE minifigure and badge from the merch desk.

    With four members in the band, it’s going to take you eight shows to complete your collection, but thatโ€™s not all. At the halfway point, youโ€™ll be eligible for a bespoke, Lego stage set for them to all play on, complete with a bass guitar, extra guitar, drumsticks and even a Sneddsโ€™ luxury beard upgrade!

    Personally, I feel inclined to hotfoot it up the loft to find my bricks and build a spaceship for them to gig on because they’re out of this world! Spaceship!!!!

    Some early 2026 performances from the guys include 17th Jan at The Kings Arms in Amesbury and also at Devizes Winter of Festive Ales at The Corn Exchange on 28th February. On the 28th of March, there’s a Talkers Show by personal invite only at The Hop in Swindon. Join the Talkers WhatsApp group to get in on that and be in the know of other gigs by texting โ€˜add meโ€™ with your first name to 07725 138077. All welcome unless you’re from the planet Duplo!

  • Daphne Oram; Devizesโ€™ Unsung Pioneer of Electronic Sound Part 3
    read part 1
    read part 2

    Oramics and its Place in the Progression of Electronic Music

    In 1997 I was a 24 year-old factory worker, keen to learn all tasks on the production line to work my way up, but suddenly the run of the ladder was pulled too high for me to reach. Shift managers who had were axed, were replaced by โ€œteam leaders,โ€ that of precisely the same duties and responsibilities, though you needed a diploma to apply.

    The government tried to thwart my only other life objective three years past, to party; they had failed. I worked in the factory now for one reason, to fund this escapism. Once free, the Criminal Justice Bill ensured someone profited from our jollity, as rave culture was pushed into nightclubs and legal paid events.

    If The Prodigy were right, this was music for the jilted generation, perhaps so too ย was Luigi Russolo in his 1913 futurist manifesto L’arte dei Rumori (The Art of Noises,) ย when he argued that the ear would become accustomed to a new sonic palette of industrial soundscapes, and musicians would require a new approach to instrumentation and composition. Though Iโ€™d not have contemplated the noises of the factory manipulating my music perceptions at the time, I was aware of how Kraftwerk were influenced by the sounds of traffic for Autobahn.

    Neither would I have given much thought to the development of electronic music; my time with analogue pop of punk and Two-Tone was short-lived. Through new wave post-punk and electronica to American hip hop and electro, and the rebellion from the hit factories exploiting it; rave culture, I had grown up withย  electronics as a staple to music and knew no different.

    Pre-internet research on the subject wouldโ€™ve been a needle in a haystack, even if Iโ€™d the motivation to study it.ย  In my naivety I assumed one thing, that Kraftwerk created ย electronic music, because Iโ€™d seen a clip of them on the BBC program Tomorrow’s World. Though the show made no claim to this, I was only two on the 25th September 1975, when it originally aired.

    Ralf Hรผtter and Florian Schneiderโ€™s Kraftwerk were certainly pioneers who popularised the krautrock genre worldwide. The industrial links between ย Dusseldorf and Detroit and creative ones between Berlin and New Yorkย  were influences reflected, which turned the cogs of hip hop and house. And now, here I was, in a meadow near Luton, at Universeโ€™s Tribal Gathering, where I figured weโ€™d come full circle.

    Kraftwerk played their one and only festival, it was monumental. The once monocultured rave phenomenon had divided into copious subgenres, Universe were the first to fully embrace this with a tent dedicated to each division. Yet from each tent masses united at the main stage, some DJs refusing to play their set because theyโ€™d miss this performance. Reflecting back on it now, I cannot deny it was something to behold, but Iโ€™ve since discovered they wasnโ€™t the complete roots to electronic music I assumed they were. Its complex international evolution includes too many names to mention, but this fascinating insight has been encouraged by my study into one important innovator largely uncredited, born here in Devizes, Daphne Oram.

    We outlined her work briefly in the introduction to this series of articles, and with help from Daphneโ€™s niece, Carolyn Scales, we delved into her upbringing in Devizes, and how influences in engineering meshed with her love of music. Now we need to fit her role into this vast evolution of electronic music, by looking at Oramics, discovering how that influenced the progression, and why it is not as well documented and I believe it should be. ย 

    Once Daphne left the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1959, she coined the term Oramics, a name for her studio in Tower Folly, a converted oast house at Fairseat in Kent, her technique for creating graphical sound, and the Oramics Machine which spawned from it. ย 

    Carolyn described The Oramics Machine as, โ€œan early synthesiser,โ€ but as with Russian engineer Evgeny Murzin who created photoelectronic instrument the ANS synthesizer, historical records rarely reference them. ย The first commercial synthesizer is credited to American engineer Robert Moog a few years later in 1964. Precursors to Moog ย mentions Harald Bode who laid the groundwork for separate sound-modifying modules used in the Moog design, the Hammond Organ Companyโ€™s Novachord in the late 1930s, Canadian engineer Hugh Le Caineโ€™s Electronic Sackbut, Herbert Belar and Harry Olsonโ€™s RCA Mark I and II Sound Synthesizers, and some cite Thaddeus Cahillโ€™s Telharmonium, an electromechanical sound generator from 1897, which weighed in over two-hundred tons.

    The original Oramics Machine was the size of an office photocopier, so was also too cumbersome for the average musician. By its definition, itโ€™s a synthesiser but worked differently; the composer/musician drew onto a set of 35mm film strips which ran past a series of photo-electric cells, generating electrical signals to control amplitude, timbre, frequency and duration.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3-12sTAqEY&list=RDY3-12sTAqEY&start_radio=1

    The reason for the omission, Carolyn suggested, was because The Oramics Machine was lost after her passing. โ€œDr Mick Griersonโ€™s team tracked it down to France in 2008. Working with the Science Museum. Griersonโ€™s study provided the first full contextualisation of the machine, an assessment of its historical importance, and a detailed description of its workings. The machine became a central part of the Science Museum exhibition Oramics to Electronica, originally planned to run for six months in 2011. The showโ€™s press and public uptake saw it extended a further four years.โ€

    Perhaps inspired by Moogโ€™s development of the Minimoog, Daphne worked on a Mini-Oramics, but never completed a prototype. Goldsmiths’ PhD student Tom Richards, who pored over the unfinished project and built it over forty years later, suggested โ€œthere were a lot of reasons why she didnโ€™t launch Mini-Oramics. She was working on her own, and wasnโ€™t affiliated to a large organisation or university.ย  She had ups and downs in her life, and at the time she was working on Mini-Oramics, she also worried that her approach to musical research was out of fashion when compared to chance-based and computerised techniques. She was unable to secure the further funding she needed and she eventually moved on to other research.โ€

    If funding and the ferocity of music technologyโ€™s progression at this time surpassed Daphne, both her music and written works were visionary. If you thought Pete Tongโ€™s Heritage Orchestra was pushing new boundaries in 2004, Carolyn noted, โ€œin 1948, Daphne created a piece for double orchestra, turntable and live electronics called Still Point, long thought of as the earliest composition to include real-time electronic transformation of instrumental sounds.โ€ Again, Still Point was never performed and was considered lost. โ€œDr James Bulley found fragments in the Oram archive,โ€ she continued, โ€œand working collaboratively with Dr Shiva Feshareki, began a reconstruction, later finding the full score in the belongings of composer Hugh Davies.โ€

    โ€œA performance was commissioned by BBC Proms and performed by turntablist Shiva Feshareki, Bulley, and the London Contemporary Orchestra in 2018 at the Royal Albert Hall, reaching a substantial audience live and via BBC Radio 3,โ€ Carolyn explained. โ€œThe reaction was one of awe, with the piece described as โ€œthrillingโ€. Critical responses suggested that this realisation of Oramโ€™s previously untested ideas represented a challenge to electronic musicโ€™s received history.โ€

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dsK2HFG0b8&list=RD7dsK2HFG0b8&start_radio=1

    The more I research the more I find examples suggesting Daphneโ€™s work was so avant-garde, abstract or insistent on anthropological creativity against trending dehumanised mathematical methods, she was set apart from the contemporary canon of self-generating computer music, positioning her work in a kind of unique scientific-spiritual space, combining technical rigor with a romantic model of artistic expression. This would frustrate her, when projects were either underfunded or too radical for others to follow, and they were consequently lost in time.

    In 1971 she authored a book titled An Individual Note of Music, Sound and Electronics, wherein lies a quote often cited in discussions about music technology: โ€œWe will be entering a strange world where composers will be mingling with capacitors, computers will be controlling crotchets and, maybe, memory, music and magnetism will lead us towards metaphysics.โ€

    Daphne visiting her parents in Devizes

    It was also her dedication toย  authorial control, while cybernetic-influenced composers embraced self-generating systems with indeterminacy, which caused Oram’s approach to differ from the era’s prevailing trends, despite this cybernetic orientation. Exemplifying the generosity of her father, James, Mayor of Devizes, Daphne actively supported composersโ€™ rights to royalties while she was a Trustee of The Performing Rights Society in the 1970s.

    Daphne Oram suffered two strokes during the nineties, and passed away in Maidstone on the 5th January 2003. Yet on Daphneโ€™s centenary, where much of the world remains dubious about the ethics of artificial intelligence, we must debate her legacy, for my final part of the series.

    Oh, and if you were wondering, all I saw of Kraftwerk at Tribal Gathering was the fluorescent outlines of their boilersuits!

  • Everything Going on For New Year’s Eve 2025!

    Ah, I hope you’ve all had a great Christmas, now it’s time for New Year’s Eve, and here’s what we’ve found to do. Wishing everyone a happy New Year and all the best for 2026. Don’t forget our event calendar lists much more and everything going on this weekend, into January and beyond!

    Blue Moon Band @ Devizes Conservative Club

    The Unpredictables @ The Hour Glass, Devizes

    NYE Glow Party @ The Pelican, Devizes

    New Years Eve Party with Quiz @ The Pour House, Devizes

    New Year’s Eve Party with Purple Fish @ Seend Community Centre

    New Year’s Eve Fundraising Party @ Bromham Community Hub

    NYE with Cally @ The Bear, Marlborough

    NYE Party @ The Royal Oak, Pewsey

    Spencer Fray NYE @ Evie’s Kitchen, Melksham

    NYE Party with Light up the Funk @ The New Inn, Melksham

    Mark Lewis @ The Rising Sun, Lacock

    Rio Band @ The Consti Club, Chippenham

    Click @ The Peterborough Arms, Chippenham

    UK Calling @ The Lamb, Trowbridge

    NYE Party @ Trowbridge Rugby Club

    NYE Party @ The Dog House Tap Room, Calne

    Be Like Will @ The Hollies, Westbury Leigh

    Bustard @ The White Hart, Atworth

    Rubix Groove @ The Boathouse, Bradford-on-Avon

    NYE Party (ticketed) @ the Bell, Bath

    NYE with The Sitting Ducks @ Prestbury Sports Club, Warminster

    2-TRONIX – 80’s New Year’s Eve Party!! – 31 to 1st@The Vic, Swindon

    New Year’s Eve DJ Night @ The Pulpit, Swindon

    https://komediabath.co.uk/events/128620940-krater-comedy-club-new-year-s-eve-special-2025-12-31-20-00-00/

    New Years Eve Party @ The Griffin, Frome

    https://www.cheeseandgrain.com/events/the-hammervilles-nye/

    New Year’s Eve: Lucy Loves Liquorย @ Coach and Horses, Salisbury

    ย The Few @ ย Salisbury SnowGlobe

    The Treblemakers @ Qudos, Salisbury

    Lucas Hardy @ The Bell & Crown, Salisbury

    Winni Dub Club New Year’s Eve @ ย Winchester Gate, Salisbury

    ย New Year’s Eve: The P45s @ ย Royal Oak, Salisbury

    ย Dark Resolution – The Return @ย Dark Revolution Brewery and Tap Roomย , Salisbury

    ย The Moonlights @ Alderbury Sports & Social Club, Salisbury

    ย New Year’s Eve with Break Coverย @ ย Bull Hotel, Salisbury

  • Ha! Let’s Laugh at Hunt Supporters!

    Christmas has come early for foxes and normal humans with any slither of compassion remaining, as the government announced the righteous move to ban trail hunts. As an impartial media outlet, we sayโ€ฆ.let’s laugh at those saddened hunters wallowing in their own self-pity, right through Christmas and beyond!

    Keir Starmer’s cabinet, a far cry from the ideal government, but the best we’ve had after fourteen long years of that Conservative clown school of thieves, occasionally wakes up and realises they’re supposed to be leftwing, and this was one such bizarre occasion where they delivered a popular promise off their manifesto; miracles do happen at Christmas, pass the overpriced Quality Street and celebrate!

    Prepare for a minority of elitists though, the barbaric scum remaining in support of the incongruous pageant, and those too stupid to go against what the leaders of the fascist uprising tell them to think, to really blow off some steam. โ€œWhaaah! We can’t kill innocent animals anymore!!โ€ Cue the tiniest violin.

    Laugh at their flabby flushed faces, angered social media posts, and inane rants, in a pathetic attempt to convince you the government are communists, or even more degrading piffle and pointless propaganda. Starmer did good today. Give him a star sticker. I’m as equally as shocked as them!

    Best advice I could give? Laugh at them! Laugh at them hysterically until they blow a fuse. Though it’s a dubious time to announce the ban, and I dread to think what Boxing Day might bring as they gather with even more anger than usual, that this might be the last showdown. What level of slaughter can we expect to see in this last stance?

    We rely on and thank all the fantastic hunt sabs to see this fight to its triumphant end.

    Bottom line is, if you were the headteacher of a primary school where the children were firing catapults in the playground, so you put all the catapults on a high shelf but the children used fishing nets to get them down, pretending they were using the nets for fishing, you would have to ban the nets too, wouldn’t you? And you’d consider that it was the children’s fault for using the nets to continue firing catapults when they were told not to.

    Therefore, because the Hunting Act allowed hunters to trail hunt, but it’s proven that many used it as a smokescreen to continue hunting foxes, then they’ve no one to blame but themselves. If any of them genuinely followed the trail hunt rules and didn’t use it as a disguise to continue illegally hunting foxes, or took measures to call off the hounds if a fox was to be caught up in the puerile activity, then they should be pointing the finger of blame at those who clearly did abuse the rules.

    But it’s doubtful they will, either in a show of solidarity, or because they’re a type which doesn’t really exist at all. No, they’ll be united in throwing their teddies out of their prams, yelling blame at the government, but really, hunters did this to themselves and deserve everything they get.

    โ€œThe hounds will be homeless,โ€ we’ve heard. Is this a threat to release hounds into the wild?! If you cannot provide the basics and house your dog then you shouldn’t have a dog, and the law should intervene and arrest you for animal cruelty, finally.ย 

    โ€œAll the horses and hounds will have to be shot!โ€ Only aย  bloodthirsty sadist would think this. They were looked after before, why not now? They bred them knowing this was happening, ergo it is their responsibility to ensure their welfare is continued and they are looked after.

    But this is the most bizarre one, literally convicting themselves: โ€œthe fox population will increase!โ€ Hold on a cotton-picking minute. They claimed they were trial hunting, using only a rag with the scent of a fox, so how could it possibly increase the fox population? Unless, oh, proof they lied and were actually illegally killing foxes; who knew?!! Otherwise, there might be a few rags going spare, but that’s about it.

    โ€œJobs will be lost,โ€ is another. Awl, shame. Get a new job, one not connected to barbarism. Nigel Faragรผhrer is already on that case, politicising it for the apparent good of the common man, saying it’s against English tradition, yet last week supported a foreign president’s attempts to bring down the BBC at the expense of the British taxpayers; how patriotic, how concerned for job loses he must be!

    The only benefit of his recent outrages is that the common rightwing thinkers will see it as proof he’s not really in for them, as many I know personally also do not support hunting either; I wish them a Merry Christmas. It’s surely then just a case of relevance; if it doesn’t affect them personally, it seems it rarely makes a priority in their decision-making. It’s not really relevant to me either, personally, but I have this thing called โ€œempathy.โ€ Quick, Reformers, write to Santa while there’s still time, ask him for some compassion and empathy, and join us in protecting our wildlife for future generations to appreciate too.ย 

  • Rooks; New Single From M3G

    Chippenham folk singer-songwriter, M3G (because she likes a backward โ€œEโ€) has a new single out tomorrow, Friday 19th December. Put your jingly bell cheesy tunes on hold for a moment, because this is a beautiful, epic journeyโ€ฆ.

    M3Gโ€™s seventh release, Rooks, poignantly pulls on the heartstrings when presented by the rise and fall of a romance, rooks often being a slang for cheating someone. It runs into six minutes, and reflecting the heartbreak of the subject, the song rises and falls accordingly. It creates a spellbinding ambience of both hope and worry equally, and is of magical vocal and acoustic guitar composition, with a gentle cajon drum subtly placed.

    Inspired by the likes of Florence Welch and AURORA, Meg was open about her autism in our interview from 2023, and claimed it as the backbone to her creativity. In this, what she creates is completely original, unique, and unequivocally personal. Meg doesnโ€™t just sing, she projects her innermost thoughts and expresses them, angelically. In Rooks, you can literally feel the characterโ€™s heart breaking, causing yours to inevitably go with it.

    The hyphen in the term singer-songwriter has never been so apt with another. Sure, I hear lots of brilliant expressive singers and lots of songwriters who can pen a marvel, but no one merges them so seamlessly and forgoes any fear theyโ€™re exposing too much of their innermost thoughts, dreams or desires. You only need to venture ten seconds into Rooks to observe what I mean, and if Meg constantly strives for improvement, causing me to say this is her best song yet each time, here we go again; this is awe-inspiring, her magnum opus to date.

    Recorded and mixed by Phil Cooper, his genius registers on it, yet still, itโ€™s Just M3G; layering her backing chants over her main vocals like choral had a singular tense, and who even designed the cover. She says working with Phil is โ€œa massive step above my other releases. I am so proud of it.โ€ It is on a next level, Iโ€™m uncertain what she could do to top it, but assured she will, and Iโ€™m certain Rooks will appease her fans and make her find new ones.

    Rooks streams tomorrow, 19th December 2025.

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    https://open.spotify.com/artist/0TH1YZ9mC1D3wEfh17e6rv?si=tD-YcxR6TmuI_n4tlhUoEw
  • Wiltshire Music Centre Unveils Star-Studded New Season

    Wiltshire Music Centre Unveils Star-Studded New Season with BBC Big Band, Ute Lemper, Sir Willard White and comedians Chris Addison and Alistair McGowan revealing their classical music talents…..

    Wiltshire Music Centre announces new Spring season with some extraordinary listening experiences on offer in the new year. Wiltshire Music Centre is a unique and contemporary 300-seated concert hall in Bradford on Avon.ย  In the heart of rural Wiltshire, the venue’s built an enviable reputation over the years as a professional concert hall of exceptional quality, rooted in community participation and involvement.ย The Centre also provides a permanent home for local orchestras, choirs and music groups, and works extensively with young people locally through a vibrant and varied Creative Learning Programme in Wiltshire and beyond.

    Since first opening in 1997, Wiltshire Music Centre has been a musical hub, bringing the best in live performances to the area as well as providing a home for local orchestras, choirs and music groups. Recently appointed Executive Director, Sarah Robertson and Artistic Director, Daniel Clark have a renewed commitment to creating a space for people to gather and connect through a shared love of music โ€“ a space to celebrate the past, present and future of music-making and to nurture a spirit of musical curiosity.

    Audiences can look forward to an exceptional lineup of artists, including first-ever WMC appearances by leading pianistย Angela Hewittย (30 Jan 2026), opera virtuosoย Sir Willard Whiteย performing with WMC favouritesย The Brodsky Quartetย (20 Mar 2026),ย BBC Big Bandย (17 Apr 2026) showcasing the musical genius of George Gershwin, international cabaret starย Uteย Lemperย (8 Mar 2026), blues legendย Eric Bibbย (27 Mar 2026) touring his new album, and a WMC debut by theย Neil Cowley Trioย (11 Apr 2026) who bring their inventive show inspired by Baroque genius, J.S Bach, to the Centre. ย Meanwhile,ย Jamie Woonย (8 Apr 2026), British R & B and electronica singer/producer returns to the stage after a 10-year break.

    Classical and jazz season highlights includeย โ€œtrumpeter extraordinaireโ€ย (BBC Music Magazine)ย Matilda Lloydย performing with theย Goldmund Quartetย (7 Feb 2026);ย Nikki Iles and Claire Martinโ€™sย new projectย IG4ย (7 Mar 2026); evocative choral works fromย The Gesualdo Sixย (28 Mar 2026); stunning vocals from the Grammy-nominated British vocal ensembleย VOCES8ย (26 Apr 2026); and exciting new jazz sounds from Jazz FM Instrumentalist of the Yearย Mark Kavumaย (28 Mar 2026) and London-based saxophonistย Camilla Georgeย (22 May 2026), whose music blends Afrofuturism, hip-hop, and jazz.

    For blues, folk, and roots fans, thereโ€™s a packed programme of must-see gigs featuring both established and emerging favourites, including the powerful fatherโ€“daughter duoย Martin and Eliza Carthyย (3 Apr 2026), much-loved folk singerย Cara Dillonย (8 May 2026),ย Jon Bodenโ€™sย projectย The Remnant Kingsย (15 May 2026), andย Josienne Clarkeโ€™sย homage to Sandy Denny of Fairport Convention (6 Mar 2026).

    Families can look forward to a musical retelling ofย Benji Daviesโ€™sย childrenโ€™s bookย The Storm Whaleย withย Music in the Roundย (14 Feb 2026), and the film classicย Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousersย on the big screen with live music performed by WMCโ€™s flagshipย West of England Youth Orchestraย (10 Apr 2026).

    The eclectic programming extends beyond the music alone. Former Royal Harpistย Catrin Finchย (15 Mar 2026) comes to the Centre withย Notes to Self, an evening of music and conservation, while master impressionistย Alistair McGowanย (12 Apr 2026) and sharp-witted comedianย Chris Addisonย (14 Feb 2026) bring comedy and music with their respective shows. There will also be a series of monthly screenings with the newly launched Adventurers Film Club, featuringย Becoming Led Zeppelinย (28 Jan 2026),ย Set the Piano Stool on Fireย (25 Feb 2026) โ€” the acclaimed documentary about legendary pianist Alfred Brendel and his protรฉgรฉ Kit Armstrongโ€”and more.

    Introducing the new season, Daniel Clark says โ€œHere youโ€™ll find a wide-ranging series of concerts from some of the most exciting voices of the past, present and future of music. From great legends of music-making to rising stars, weโ€™re committed to bringing the best music we can to our special venue, and hope youโ€™ll find something that will transport, inspire and delight you.โ€

    Highlights:

    Angela Hewitt:ย one of the worldโ€™s greatest living interpreters of Bachโ€™s music and recipient of the City of Leipzig Bach Medal in 2020 will make her WMC debut. (30 Jan 2026)

    Angela Hewitt London 2016

    Chris Addisonโ€™s Incomplete Guide to Chamber Music:ย Chris Addison brings to life the rich, vibrant โ€“ and sometimes bizarre โ€“ history of classical chamber music. A musical journey from baroque courts and European revolutions to todayโ€™s contemporary composers with some of the UKโ€™s finest musicians and Chrisโ€™ brilliant and original facts and insight. (14 Feb 2026)

    Eric Bibb:ย Three-time Grammy nominee and blues legend with a career spanning over five decades tours brand new album,ย One Mississippiย blending blues, folk, soul, and Americana. (27 Mar 2026)

    Ute Lemper: International cabaret star bringsย her showย telling the storyย of Hollywood legend Marlene Dietrich through songs and stories: from the Berlin Cabaret years to her Burt Bacharach collaborations. (8 Mar 2026)

    Lau Noah: Beautiful, innovative and evocative vocal and guitar harmonies from self-taught Catalan composer and songwriter who has supported Chris Thile, Ben Folds and Jacob Collier on tour over the past two years. (3 May 2026)

    Tickets are now on sale:ย wiltshiremusic.org.uk/

  • Daphne Oram; Devizesโ€™ Unsung Pioneer of Electronic Sound: Part 2
    read the first part here

    Daphneโ€™s Family & Childhood Connection to Devizes

    Celebrations of Daphne Oram have been building in London since the beginning of December, for those in the sphere of electronic music and music technology. On the first Thursday of the month The Barbican held a concert commemorating Daphne’s centenary, where sound and music fair access partner, Nonclassical, in partnership with The Oram Trust and Oram Awards played commissioned reimagined works from various contemporary electronic artists, inspired from tapes in Daphne’s archive. This has been released as the album, Vari/ations: An Ode To Oram.

    London university Goldsmiths acquired Daphneโ€™s archive in 2006, bringing her work into the wider public domain, after decades of relative obscurity. ย In the male dominated realm of electronic music, this has presented a better understanding of Daphne as a visionary in the early development of the genre, and in turn inspired female musicians and producers.

    But our story begins rather differently, in the late nineteen-twenties, at Belle Vue House, Devizes, where a much younger Daphne is caught trying to climb inside the family piano! Daphne’s niece Carolyn Scales explained, โ€œshe was asked โ€˜why are you doing that?โ€™ and Daphne replied, she wanted the piano to make a sound between the notes on the keyboard.โ€

    Daphne with brother John

    Iโ€™m grateful to Carolyn for providing some fascinating background into Daphneโ€™s family and childhood in Devizes, something overlooked by the insurmountable information available regarding her work.

    โ€œAll the siblings enjoyed listening to classical music but only Daphne had the ability to create music,โ€ she told me. โ€œIdaโ€™s sisters often joined her to play trios and quartets at Belle Vue House while James did learn to play the cello but was happy to stand aside for more competent players. In his defence Jamesโ€™s fatherโ€™s diaries only mention one musical instrument at their home, a piano declared by a piano tuner as not worthy of tuning. Maybe we underestimate the strength of our Oram artistic genes.โ€

    Daphne at five months, with mother, Ida, brothers Arthur and John

    Daphne Blake Oram was born on the 31st December 1925, to James Oram (1890-1964) and Ida nee Talbot (1887-1972.) โ€œIda ,โ€ Carolyn explained, โ€œwho at heart seems to have been a natural party goer, was plagued by ill health. Daphne was born in Ivy House Nursing Home not because of a fear of losing Daphne but because of Idaโ€™s problems with her legs. In the first photograph of Daphne she is being held by Ida who is sitting in a wicker bath chair with Arthur and John in front of their new home of Belle Vue House.โ€

    โ€œIda was born in Braintree, Essex into a family of drapers,โ€ ย Carolyn said, โ€œwho soon moved to a shop on Maryport Street, Devizes, opposite the top of The Brittox, which they ran from 1888 until 1914. Unfortunately Idaโ€™s father Alfred died in 1896 leaving her mother Alice nee Blake to run the business.โ€ She continued to describe ย Aliceโ€™s six children helping at the shop, and its failure, though ย Ida was in charge of the millinery department, and how later there was a room in Belle Vue House devoted to her hats. Carolyn told of Idaโ€™s painting ย hobby, in watercolours, oils and other mediums.

    Talbot family with parents. Ida on swing with her twin

    Daphneโ€™s father, James, was known in Devizes as โ€œJimโ€ or โ€œJimmy.โ€ He was not Irish but proud of his upbringing off the coast of County Mayo, and โ€œnever lost his soft Irish brogue.โ€ His father Arthur Oram was a farmer and land agent in one of the most deprived parts of rural Ireland, hit hard by the famines of the early 1800s, and as such it was a natural breeding ground for agrarian discontent, later producing some prominent members of the IRA. This caused James to be keenly aware of local injustices.

    โ€œIn 1961, when James took us to see where he was born,โ€ Carolyn expressed, โ€œhe told us he was upset that he was not allowed to go to school with his friends. They were Catholic and he was a Protestant and to highlight the differences James and his siblings had to travel to school in Newport by pony and trap, rather than walk to the local school.โ€

    โ€œI feel sure that our father John was correct in saying that if James had stayed in Ireland he would have become a renowned barrister. Unfortunately, just as James left school there was a change in the familyโ€™s fortunes as The Congested Districts Board on behalf of the British Government were, quite rightly buying estates and redistributing the land among farmers living on tenanted, uneconomic smallholdings.โ€

    Therefore, instead of attending university at sixteen James travelled to Devizes, to help his uncle (by marriage,) Alfred Hinxman, the manager of the Devizes branch of a Salisbury coal merchant.ย  James lived in Devizes for the rest his life, managing the coal merchant until his retirement. Overseeing the distribution of coal in the southwest during the Second World War, James was so horrified by the profiteering he didnโ€™t take a penny for his efforts and received a MBE.

    James Oram, Devizes Mayor

    โ€œJames soon became a trusted member of the community,โ€ Carolyn said, โ€œactive in its civic life, as a magistrate and a school governor. This included being Mayor of Devizes during The Abdication and coronation of George VI.โ€

    โ€œJames also successfully became involved in many businesses including The Devizes Brick and Tile Co. Somehow James also found time for his interest in local history and was a member of various local societies. He could have become wealthy but instead gave away his excess income after ensuring that his family lived in a comfortable style. Every Sunday dinner during the depression of the 1930s they would discuss the families that the brickworks supported, carefully working out if they would have the money to feed their children. The discussion would end by choosing someone who was struggling to hire to cut the Belle Vue House lawn during the following week.โ€

    The Devizes Brick and Tile Co. Photograph by HR Edmonds

    Jamesโ€™ generous nature rubbed off on his children.ย  Daphne actively supported composersโ€™ rights to royalties while she was a Trustee of The Performing Rights Society in the 1970s. ย โ€œIn particular,โ€ Carolyn noted, โ€œDaphne helped to set up the PRS Membersโ€™ Fund that continues to support those registered with the PRS and their families when they are in need of financial help. During the 1980s Daphne arranged Christmas hampers for these families.โ€

    Before Daphne was born the family lived in rooms above the coal merchantโ€™s office at 7 High Street, Devizes. James wanted Belle Vue House, empty at the time but out of his price range, until theย  state of dilapidation dropped far enough, which was just as Daphne was being born. The house would have been at the end of Belle Vue Road, now replaced by Waiblingen Way housing estate.ย 

    Retired designer Paul Bryant, who still resides locally told me he grew up close to Belle Vue House, and recalled her returning to the family home and, โ€œthe excitement that was generated when she was awarded grants from the Gulbenkian Foundation.โ€ Paul expressed โ€œit is heartening to see the ancient horse chestnut tree, then at the end of the Oram’s garden, still surviving in Waiblingen Way.โ€ Meanwhile, local musician Peter Easton has written in request for a blue plaque to be erected in Daphneโ€™s honour.

    Daphne, with the grass roller at Belle Vue House, Devizes

    Carolyn explained how the siblingโ€™s engineering abilities can also be traced to the Oram side of the family. โ€œTheir great uncle John had designed machinery to make barrels for Rockefellerโ€™s oil, and their uncle Arthur oversaw many civil engineering projects in the Indus Valley, now in Pakistan.โ€

    โ€œArthur, aged 9 and John, aged 5 were to share a bedroom with an adjoining dressing room that James agreed they would turn into a workshop,โ€ Carolyn said. โ€œThey had already started their own tool kits and Arthur was delighted when James added a foot controlled fret saw.โ€

    In a letter to John dated April 2003, Arthur wrote it would be the 77th anniversary of their move from the High Street to Belle Vue House: โ€œEvery 20th April was the day of an annual fair on the Green, and Hitlerโ€™s birthday. That one in 1926 was a very special wet Tuesday for us. Our mother was taken the half-mile in a big closed Bath Chair drawn by a man holding the long handle in front, because of her illness with a bad knee. She was helped into their old oak bed in the drawing room, on the right of the door towards the fireplace. In that room there was placed, near the door, the old radio that our mother had bought some years before from proceeds of her Barbola work, with its two bright emitter valves and six volt battery, from which we had news through the general strike of 1926.โ€

    โ€œLater the workshop became home to Johnโ€™s lathe and of great interest to Daphne. John told me that he was sometimes very mean to Daphne when she came to the workshop. At first she had to stay outside the open door and be silent, if she passed that test she was allowed to stand just inside the door for a while before coming closer to John and even helping when possible. John taught Daphne to use a lathe and she had one of his old lathes at Tower Folly, albeit by then worn and no longer a precision tool. John also admitted to teasing Daphne over his Meccano set that she wanted to play with. Daphne had to watch John make, say a crane ,then he would tighten all the nuts and bolts before walking away leaving Daphne to dismantle his work.โ€

    Daphne visits her parents in Devizes

    Carolyn said, โ€œthere were three main early influences on Arthur, John and Daphne namely their father James, mother Ida and their home which gave them space to both work together and follow their own particular interests.โ€

    Iโ€™m eternally grateful to Carolyn Scales, Daphne’s niece, for a fascinating insight into Daphneโ€™s early years and family life, and for the photographs too. It seems her curious childhood nature was focused on what makes music, and her engineering skills were honed early, enhanced by her intrigue and not being allowed to assist by her elder brothers. This led her to create ย the Oramics Machine, her early synthesiser, built in the 1960s, but lost after her death. We should concentrate our efforts on Daphneโ€™s work ย in the third part, and how it shaped modern music……

    All images are taken with permission from the personal collection of Carolyn Scales with thanks. ยฉ2025 Carolyn Scales. Please ask permission before use.

  • Burning the Midday Oil at The Muck

    Highest season of goodwill praises must go to Chrissy Chapman today, who raised over ยฃ500 (at the last count) for His Grace Childrenโ€™s Centre in Uganda, with a little help from talented friendsโ€ฆ.

    Years back as soloist singer-songwriter One Trick Pony, Chrissy organised annual fundraising gigs at the Southgate around Christmas time, but now tuned up a notch with her incredible Americana band Burn the Midnight Oil behind her it was a high noon lock up and load for a Sunday afternoon hoedown at the Muck and Dunder rum bar in Devizes. The better half, Mrs Devizine, has been asking me to take her somewhere tropical, so given such an opportunity, we bused it to The Brittox.

    With Burn The Midnight Oil rightfully grasping the top slot with the same intensity as me holding my pineapple vase of piรฑa colada, all kicked off at half-two with Gary Hewitt-Long performing a rare acoustic set. New to the game, and while I obviously cannot condone a satirical song aimed at a certain rogue local councillor, Gary was unnecessarily bashful, as he acoustically played out some great originals to warm the crowd!

    Perhaps it was the crowd which, understandably nerved him; it sure was building, as Martin Rea sauntered through them, sporting a fashionable bum bag and dishing out raffle tickets.

    A Wiltshire duo new to me, One Plus One may offer sums even I can handle in name, but their performance was delightful. A proficient and lovable pop cover duo to please any event, One Plus One is guitarist Dave, and Emily on vocals, confident to take on an Amy Winehouse cover or two and come up trumps. Chapel Roan’s Pink Pony Club also got a superb makeover, and they polished it off with the seasonal Fairytale of New York; why not?

    Maybe only because our modest local folk legend Vince Bell, who followed, also planned to finalise his sublime set with the UK’s best loved Christmas song, with his wife Lisa as Kirsty MacColl. Though more musical theatre, no stranger to the limelight, Lisa nailed it, and the handsome, pretty, and the queens of New Devizes City crowd never minded the doubled up cover and sang the chorus.

    Vince also offered Chrissy the accompanying chair for a spellbinding middle duet they supposed they should record, and they should. But beginning his set with his divine self-penned melancholic earworms, garnished in percussive rhythm guitar mastery akin to flamenco, and raising the spirit with the more spritely Spiderman Pajamas, Vince is a local treasure and never fails to charm.


    Exactly a year after we first interviewed the original lineup, Burn The Midnight Oil came bursting on and delivered their awesome set with unified passion and precision, seemingly lapping up every minute. You’d be excused for assuming this band has been playing together for decades despite it being less than a year in the new format.

    They appeased the audience with a taste of what they’ve been working on, looked fantabulous, and, most importantly, put 210% into their show. Yet it was arguably the sum of all these parts and the community festive spirit, which made it the wonderful afternoon it was.

Very Terry Edwards

The word โ€œvery,โ€ rarely an adjective, as in โ€œit happened in this very house,โ€ or โ€œthis is very Terry Edwards,โ€ but commonly worthlessly used as an adverb, as in โ€œitโ€™s very cold today,โ€ or โ€œthis is the very best of Terry Edwards.โ€ While the album simplifies it to the ambiguous โ€œVery Terry Edwards,โ€ itโ€™s BandCamp page suggests, โ€œThe Very Best of Very Terry Edwards,โ€ which though itโ€™s exactly what it is, itโ€™s also one adverb enough for the most lenient of proof-readerโ€™s red line. Yet, if the usage of very is erm, very worthless, it is the only thing on this album which is.

The multi-instrumentalist, best known for trumpet, flugelhorn, saxophone, guitar and keys, marked his sixtieth birthday last September releasing this three-CD best-of box set, and while I shouldโ€™ve mentioned it last month, between putting batteries in toys and stuffing myself with pigs in blankets things got tardy. Right now, though, I can think of no better outstanding project to kick off our music reviews for 2021. Reason only partly because it ticks all my personal favourite genre boxes, more so because of the range of said genres is far greater than run-of-the-mill best of compilations.

We need to assess Terryโ€™s biography to understand the reason for this variety. Funky punk and second-gen ska most obvious, as from 1980 he was a founding member of Two-Tone signed band The Higsons, after graduating with a degree in music. But around that time Terry also produced and played on the Yeah Jazzโ€™s debut album, of whom, despite the name, were particularly folk-rock.

Terry in 1984

From here the vastness of Terryโ€™s repertoire blossoms, as session musician for a huge range of acts, from Madness to Nick Cave, PJ Harvey and The Jesus and Mary Chain to, particularly notable, The Blockheads. As well as his solo material, with his band The Scapegoats and a stint with dark punk-blues outfit Gallon Drunk, itโ€™s understandable collating this in one reminiscent anthology is a mammoth task and a melting pot. Which is just what youโ€™re getting for your money, a very, as the grammatical disorderly title suggests, worthy melting pot.

โ€œWhen the earliest recording here was made the 18-year-old me couldnโ€™t comprehend being 60,โ€ Terry explained, โ€œyet here I am presenting a triple album containing 60 titles recorded between 1979 and 2020, through thick and thin.โ€ Therefore, it must be more tongue-in-cheek than Iโ€™d suspect Roger Daltreyโ€™s notion now of My Generationโ€™s lyrics that for the opening track he opted for The Higsonsโ€™ โ€œWe Will Never Grow Old.โ€

โ€œYouโ€™d expect an overview of my career to have some odd bedfellows and more than its share of quirks and foibles,โ€ he continued, โ€œbut itโ€™s been compiled to flow musically rather than have a chronological narrative.โ€

That said, the first four tunes from his original band follow, with all their fervent rawness. Terry covered his tracks though, โ€œI immediately break my own rules by starting with The Higsonsโ€™ earliest release and debut single, but redeem myself by following up with the most recent recordings; two ballads recorded with Paul Cuddeford (Ian Hunter, Holy Holy) in February 2020. There is more method than madness; groups of songs which follow a theme or genre are found together regardless of when theyโ€™re from.โ€ Indeed, weโ€™re then treated to three tunes in a matured, mellowing jazz and blues, the latter of which with the vocally perfected Erika Stucky.

Then weโ€™re into rock with The Wolfhounds, and a guitar-twanging Christmas blues song with Robyn Hitchcock, plodding jazz with Knife & Fork, post-punk Big Joan, avant-garde jazz with Spleen and rockabilly styled New York New York. While mostly jazz-related, this first disc graduates through genres with finesse.

Terry is like Georgie Fame with a Mohican, but whatever avenue is explored, you can guarantee quality. The second CD starts with a bang, upbeat mod-jazz with The Scapegoats. Thereโ€™re more known covers here, sublimely executed Herbie Hancockโ€™s Watermelon Man, a superb solo rendition of The Cureโ€™s Friday Iโ€™m in Love, as if Robert Smith wore a Fred Perry, and a hard-rock electronica version of Johnny Kiddโ€™s Shakin all Over with the haunting vocals of Lisa Ronson. Even find an orchestral film score, and a piano solo of the knees-up capitalโ€™s favourite, May Itโ€™s Because Iโ€™m a Londoner.

Yet if both the quantity and quality on offer here is so vast to make me waffle, it doesnโ€™t waiver for the final disc, rather itโ€™s my favourite. A BBC session outtake of a jazzy Voodoo Chile, with altered title to โ€œChild.โ€ Dunno, canโ€™t be a typo, the dedication to attributing to Hendrixโ€™s masterpiece is no easy feat, lest it be known Terry manages it with awesomeness dexterity, with a saxophone!

If the last CD continues with on a jazz tip for two tunes, weโ€™re transported to ska via John Holtโ€™s Ali Baba by Lee Thompsonโ€™s Ska Orchestra and other sundry members of Madness, and Totally Wired by Terryโ€™s โ€œSka All Stars,โ€ and more ska-jazz with Rhoda Dakar. Post-punk follows, featuring The Nightingales with Vic Goddard, Snuff, Glen Matlock and Gallon Drunk. Perhaps my favourite parts being the shouty cover of The Human Leaguesโ€™ โ€œDonโ€™t you Want Me Baby,โ€ by Serious Drinking, and the general dilapidation of seriousness with new wave tunes mirroring the unsubtlety of Ian Dury & The Blockheads.

Hereโ€™s a jam-packed box-set brimming with variety which flows suitably and makes a definitive portfolio of a particularly prolific and proficient musician. For many itโ€™ll hold fond memories, for younger, who think Kate Nash created the cockney chat-rap, or jazz wasnโ€™t the same until Jamie Cullum came along, itโ€™s a history lesson theyโ€™ll never forget!

This 60th birthday, 60 track-strong celebration spans over four decades. A triple CD clamshell boxset with 24-page booklet, but more importantly they say, โ€œVery Terry Edwards is a birthday present to himself as much as anything else,โ€ giving it the impression youโ€™re on a personal journey, like a child sitting on their grandpaโ€™s lap while he recites memoirs, blinking exciting ones!

Buy from Rough Trade: ยฃ15.99 or BandCamp: ยฃ15 or ยฃ8 digital.

Melksham Marketing Expert Launches AI Training Course

So what if it paints six fingers on a human hand?! AI is here to stay, love it or lump it; Iโ€™ve known manually run businesses where the right hand doesnโ€™t know what the left is doing! Naturally Social, a social media marketing agency based in Melksham, unveiled its new “AI Made Easy” online courseโ€ฆ

Just a Mirrorball; Auralcandy New Single With Sienna Wileman

If weโ€™ve had a keen eye on Swindonโ€™s Sienna Wilemanโ€™s natural progression as an upcoming singer-songwriter since being introduced to her self-penned songs via her father Richard Wileman some years ago, her songs have always reflected her dadโ€™s penchant for combining curious and experimental soundscapes with acoustic vibes. Working with the more rhythm-driven Auralcandy thisโ€ฆ

You; Lucas Hardy Teams With Rosie Jay

One of Salisburyโ€™s most celebrated acoustic folk-rock singer-songwriters Lucas Hardy teams up with the Wiltshire cityโ€™s upcoming talent who’s name is on everyoneโ€™s lips, Rosie Jay, for a charming Sunday morning ballad called Youโ€ฆ.. Ah, newfound love, I remember it well! That ray of peerless positivity, like a sunbeam which cannot be clouded; nothing canโ€ฆ

Progress Made for the Wiltshire Music Awards

A week into the voting process for the Wiltshire Music Awards and things have been moving forward fast. Weโ€™ve had the best part of 500 voting forms already submitted and weโ€™re busy spreading the news about these new awardsโ€ฆ The voting process for the Wiltshire Music Awards went live on the 1st May, and ifโ€ฆ

Bands At The Bridge

Organised by Kingston Media – to raise money for Dorothy House and Wiltshire Air Ambulance – the 3rd of May saw Bands At The Bridge come to the Bridge Inn, Horton … With the sun peeking out and the rain clouds temporarily parting I had the opportunity to head on down to Bands on Theโ€ฆ

Phil Cooper is Playing Solitaire

Trowbridge singer-songwriter and one third of The Lost Trades, Phil Cooper has actually been doing more than playing solitaire, heโ€™s released a new solo album called Playing Solitaireโ€ฆ.. Released yesterday (2nd May) Playing Solitaire is Philโ€™s first solo album in five years. The last being These Revelation Games in 2020, which was a varied bunchโ€ฆ

Voting Now Open for the Wiltshire Music Awards

The voting process for the Wiltshire Music Awards goes live today; there might be some other voting thing going on too, but this is far more important! In conjunction with Wiltshire Music Events UK, Iโ€™m delighted Devizine will be actively assisting to organise this new county-wide music awards. Weโ€™ve mentioned it a few times now,โ€ฆ

Theatre Review: Everybodyโ€™s Talking About Jamie by Devizes Music Academy

An effervescent musical, full of promising young talent Written by: Melissa Loveday Images by: Gail Foster After the success of SIX last year, Devizes Music Academy is beginning to make a name for itself with its second musical production, Everybodyโ€™s Talking About Jamie, which featured two electrifying performances on 19th April at Devizes Schoolโ€ฆ. Andโ€ฆ

Is This Calne Reform Candidate Violette Simpson?

A photo is circulating on X of Calne’s Reform UK candidate Violette Simpson, which for some reason doesn’t appear on her election campaign….I wonder why? Just to clear up any confusion, she’s the one with the gun. According to Calne News Violette Simpson, the Reform UK candidate for Calne Central, has been criticised for describingโ€ฆ

Rocking Steady For Some Cosmic Shuffling?

Righty, a pop quiz question prior to todayโ€™s review, if youโ€™re game? Look at the three people pictured below, which one of them influenced reggae music the most, A, B or C?

Answer: A. Did you guess right? Probably, because you know me well enough to know it was a trick question! C is Jamaican National team footballer, Allan โ€œSkillโ€ Cole, though as a close friend of Bob Marley he became the Wailers tour manager and was credited in co-writing some songs. And B is just Brad Pitt with a Bob Marley makeover for a biopic which has yet to see the light of day!

On the other hand, A is Sister of Mercy, Sister Mary Ignatius Davies, a teacher of Kingstonโ€™s vocational residential school, Alpha Cottage School, a school for โ€œwayward boys.โ€ A devotee of blues and jazz, she operated a sound system at the school and tutored many of Jamaicaโ€™s most influential musicians. As a musical mentor for graduates she dubbed โ€œthe old boys,โ€ would later make up the backbone of The Skatalites, producer Coxsone Doddโ€™s inhouse band which shaped the very foundation of ska at Studio One.

The Skatalites in 1964

Here is the unrivalled benchmark of Jamaican music, as well as a plethora of instrumental ska classics, just like Booker T & the MGs were the inhouse band of Stax, The Skatalites backed more memorable singles from too many singers to sensibly name here, yes, including Bob Marley.

To suggest a ska band isnโ€™t as good as Studio Oneโ€™s Skatalites is not an insult, rather a compliment to even be mentioned in the same sentence. Itโ€™d be the rock equivalent of saying that guitarist isnโ€™t as good as Jimi Hendrix. For all intents and purposes, Cosmic Shuffling are not a new Skatalites, but to find anyone to come close nowadays, you need not look further than Switzerland; yeah, you read that right.

Ska in Switzerland usually abbreviates Square Kilometre Array, the forefront organisation of fundamental science, with a mahoosive universe-scoping telescope. Yet Iโ€™ve discovered some stars of my own, creating some sublime ska music. While Skaladdin are strictly ska-punk, and the amazing Sir Jay & The Skatanauts are majorly jazz-inspired, there is a scene blossoming. Geneva based combo Cosmic Shuffling are ones to watch. With a penchant and dedication to the authentic golden age of Jamaican sounds, Cosmic Shuffling deserve a comparison to Skatalites more than anyone else I could roll off, even to note, theyโ€™re Fruits Recordโ€™s inhouse band.

After a few scorching singles on Fruits Records, Cosmic Shuffling release an album, Magic Rocket Ship, tomorrow, 13th November. Nine tracks strong, this is mega-ska bliss. Without the usual ethos of speed being the essence, this lends perhaps closer to rock steady, but prevalent horns give it that initial changeover between styles, when ska was slowing, due to curfew in Jamaica and a particularly sweltering summer. Rock Steady mayโ€™ve been short-lived but was reggaeโ€™s blueprint, skaโ€™s successor and arguably the most creative period of Jamaican recorded music history.

If youโ€™ve even a slight fondness for traditional ska and reggae, I cannot recommend this enough. At one point I felt the English lyrics slightly quirky, with wonky connotations perhaps lost in translation, albeit with a tune stimulated from a Dr Seuss character, namely The Cat in the Hat, I guess seriousness is not on the agenda. Neither are vocals wholly on show here, but the โ€œtightnessโ€ of the band, making the composition of every tune simply divine. I canโ€™t fault it, only jump and twist to it like it was going out of fashion! Which, by the way, in my world, it never will.

Magic Rocket Ship is both a tribute to Jamaican music and a breakthrough into the innovative world of the sextet. Recorded in the aesthetics of sixties sound; ribbon microphones, magnetic tapes and analogue saturation, by extraordinary Spanish producer Roberto Sรกnchez, itโ€™s a delight to listen to. From itโ€™s opening vocal title track, which doubles up as an explanation to the band name, to the fantastic instrumental up-tempo finale Eastern Ska, every tune is a banger.

Perhaps with Anne Bonny as the most subject worthy, Short Break the most romantically inducing, and Night In Palermo being the most sublimely jazzy, itโ€™s clear with Magic Rocket Ship vocalist Leo Mohr, with Loรฏc Moret on drums, backing vocals and percussion, Mathias Liengme on piano, organ, backing vocals, percussion, Basile Rickli on alto saxophone, backing vocals, Anthony Dietrich Buclin on trombone, backing vocals and bassist Primo Viviani. With guest guitarists Roberto Sรกnchez, Josu Santamaria and Tom Brunt, Gregor Vidic on tenor saxophone, William Jacquemet on trombone and trumpeters Thomas Florin, and Ludovic Lagana, Cosmic Shuffling have set a new benchmark, mimicking those legendary Skatalites, without the help of a nun. At least, I donโ€™t believe there was a nun involved!

Tune into my show on http://www.bootboyradio.co.uk every Friday night, 10pm GMT till midnight

Bionic Rats, Alive in Dublin

A superb new live album from Dublin’s finest ska-reggae outfit, The Bionic Rats….

Thereโ€™s some wonky logic in the character Jimmy Rabbitteโ€™s bemusing outburst in The Commitments film, โ€œThe Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. So, say it once and say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud!โ€ Persecuted before the slave trade, there are some intelligible contrasts between the oppressed races.

Still, the thought of Dublin conjures rock legends to outsiders of every decade, be it from Thin Lizzy to Skid Row and U2 to The Script. Diverse as any city though, if you thought the idea of music of black origin was the stuff of films, think again.

Far from a retrospective regression going through the motions of a bygone Two-Tone era, The Bionic Rats are an exciting, energetic reggae and ska six-piece from Dublin with a building collection of original and stimulating material. Even their band name, I suspect, is taken from a Black Ark tune, Lee Scratch Perryโ€™s renowned studio. Yesterday they released a dynamic album doing their thing where they do it best, on stage, in their home city.

In a conclusively roots reggae inspired track, Red Gold and Green, frontman, Del Bionic lays down a chorus not so far fled from the Commitments quote, โ€œreggae is talking about the things I bear witness to, on and off the Liffey quays. Iโ€™m not Jamaican, Dublin born and bred, I don’t wanna be a natty dread,” Though a bulk of the material here is upbeat ska, if it relates to a modern ska era, it borrows extensively from Two-Tone, particularly for itโ€™s no bullshit attitude and social commentary. A component definingly reggae, or correlated to any plight of poverty and societal righteousness in general. It rings out the enduring message, reggae is universal.

Reggae often takes on board regional folk roots, be it influenced by, or using traditional instruments of that area, the recent surge in Balkan ska for example. Yet, the only local element the Bionic Rats take is said Irish bitter repartee and attitude within their subject matter.

Their sound is beguiling and directed towards the very origins of Jamaican pop music, and skanks to any highest region! The very reason why theyโ€™re a force to be reckoned with, internationally, having shared the stage with their mentors, Madness, Bad Manners, Horace Andy, Israel Vibration, Johnny Clarke and their aforementioned namesake, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, also opening for Damien Dempsey and Imelda May. A hit with the crowds at the One Love Festival in Sussex, London International Ska Festival, theyโ€™ve made the frontpage of eminent Do The Dog Skazine, Doc Marten’s used their song Dear John for an online campaign and they continue to skank the crowd at Dublinโ€™s longest running reggae night โ€˜The Sunday Skankโ€™ in the Temple Bar.

Ironically the 2009 debut album was titled Return of The Bionic Rats, and since three more albums have followed. The good news is, wonderful as their studio albums are, we can all now pretend weโ€™re in the crowd of a Sunday Skank with this beauty of a recorded live show, and boy, do they give it some.

The premise is simple, as it is with ska. Lyrics often minor compared to offbeats and horns. Subject matter slight; between girls, lust, dancing, record buying and being rude, the Rats offer sentiments on prejudges, tyranny and oppression, but seldom will romance be on the cards. You may not be enchanted by The Bionic Rats, who describe this release as โ€œperfectly capturing The Bionic Rats in all their sloppy greatness,โ€ but your waistline will get a darn good workout.

While weโ€™re tempted by the simplicity of the upbeat ska sound in danceable tracks like Annie Oakes, the sweary Bad Garda and the particularly well grafted tale of obsessive record buying, Hooked on 45s, thereโ€™s roots, like aforementioned Red, Gold & Green, and rock steady numbers such as prejudice themed Dear John. Thereโ€™s no end of expected banter and comical themes, such as the English Beat sounding Girl with Big Hands. Then thereโ€™s that contemporary third-gen fashioned ska-reggae but wrapped in a no-bars-held cussing, of which titles speak for themselves; Twisted Little Bitter Little Fuckers, for example.

Such is the expected acrimonious nature of an Irish ska band; lap it up, itโ€™s refined rudeness. Done too, with experience, The Bionic Rats rose from the ashes of Dublin-based reggae band, King Sativa, who were active on the scene from 1998 until their breakup in 2005. Their guitarist Graham Birney, and drummer Anthony Kenny moved over to the Bionic Rats. Like them, or not, Iโ€™m convinced they probably donโ€™t give a toss, but going on this superb live album, you certainly canโ€™t ignore them.

Alive in Dublin, out now, here.

Singer, Del Bionic also does a live streaming set every Sunday from Facebook at 9pm (GMT) well worth tuning in to: https://www.facebook.com/thebionicratspage/live/

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Island Bop with Shuffle & Bang

San Diego, California, 2018, King Pops Horn and son, Korey Kingston began on a musical partnership, merging Koreyโ€™s deep vested love for dub and reggae with his fatherโ€™s tenure as a decorated traditional jazz singer.

Gathering a gang of musicians with resumes including savvy veterans from The Aggrolites, Rhythm Doctors, Suedehead, Brian Setzer Orchestra, The Original Wailers, Stevie Wonder and a pianist who plays organ for the San Diego Padres baseball team, they formed Shuffle & Bang.

Over multiple recording sessions taking two years, this unique musical journey culminated in an accomplished album, Island Bop. Pirates Press Records, partnered with the bandโ€™s own Jetsetter Records are ready to deliver this gem to the world on 6th November; everything about it suggests itโ€™s right up my street and banging loudly on my door.

And it is, and it is loud. Dressed as a classic Blue Note jazz album, with indistinct band-in-action photo and simple capitalised font running down the left side, it comes exceptionally close to capturing the elegance of an era of definitive jazz and soul. Yet it drifts wildly between genres, a surprise to know whatโ€™s coming next in many ways, but often, perhaps, constituting a Jack-of-all-trades.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, to hit the benchmarks of such legendary epochs, to come close to all the variety of influences represented here in one shebang, from Blue Note to Stax and Studio One, is quite near impossible. You got to hand it to them for trying. For all it is worth, it is accomplished, highly polished and grand. Itโ€™s exceedingly entertaining and highly danceable, to boot! Just donโ€™t let the cover art allow to run off with the idea youโ€™ve stumbled upon a new Marvin Gayeโ€™s Whatโ€™s Going on.

At all times, no matter what subgenre itโ€™s mimicking, itโ€™s brash but not slapdash, flamboyant and proud. Thereโ€™s minimal subtly of soul, delicately tight riffs of ska, and to cast it overall is to say it is akin to big band, as itโ€™s in your face and wonโ€™t let you escape, even if you wanted to, which, you probably wouldnโ€™t. Big Band does jump blues, ska, soul, and even by the end, dub reggae.

Yep, you heard it right; it ticks all the boxes. The opening song is a deep acapella with a booming Teddy Pendergrass fashioned soul voice, whereas the second sets the running theme as this big band panache. Taking the jazz end of a classic ska sound, the third tune dragged me onto the dancefloor, or my kitchen lino to be more precise; yep, Iโ€™m reviewing while washing the dishes again!

Switching back to Cab Calloway big band groove for a fifth song, it is perhaps the next which is most interesting to date, Naima maintains a big band style but serves it with a rock steady riff. Quickly as it does it, it shifts again, onto a shuffle rhythm with some killer horns, more Louis Jordan than T-Bone Walker.

Within the thirteen strong songs, the whole album is showy and that makes it rather magnificently inimitable, and because of this running big band ethos incorporating all the various styles, at no time does it jerk into an alternative genre, shudder the goalposts, rather surprisingly, they flow all rather splendidly.

It gets unpremeditated and rides the Ratpack train, with beguiling vocal gorgeousness, When I Take My Sugar to Tea, particularly, or a take of traditional ska like the Skatalites, but the next tune might again return to up-tempo swing. Given our Louis Jordan reference, the only recognisable cover is his Tympany Fiveโ€™s Let the Good Times Roll, at least you think it is, until the end song.

If you figured this cover might act as a grand finale, prepare, because after a drum and cymbal interlude, the groove suddenly and without warning dubs. Yep, true dat; with a deep rolling bass and reverbs akin to King Tubby, and perhaps melodica to impersonate Augustus Pablo, we are treated to a divine dub of the Gorillazโ€™s Clint Eastwood. Although theyโ€™re calling it Drum Song.

The culmination forces you to hardly recognise the style at the beginning of the album, and to return to it might make you think, no, I want to go listen to some Sly & Robbie now instead. However, Island Bop will rest accustomed in a jazz, blues, soul or reggae record collection, and you will return to its gorgeous portrayals. For all its swapping and merging, yes, Island Bop is hard to pin down, but for eclectic jazz and soul fans, its refreshingly experimental and a damn good groove!

Man on the Bridge: Erin Bardwell teams up with ex-Hotknives Dave Clifton

Local reggae a rarity around these backwaters, but when it does rise you can trust Pop-A-Top Records is a watermark of quality. Since prolific Swindon Skanxter keyboardist, Erin Bardwellโ€™s amazing solo album, Interval, heโ€™s rubbed his unique style into a collaboration with Hotknives co-founder, Dave Clifton on this sublime project called The Man on the Bridge.

A double-A EP was out in April, followed this week by a six-track album A Million Miles. There are chilled echoes of rocksteady and traditional boss reggae blended with slight roots and dressed with a garnish of Bardwellโ€™s inimitable take on the genre. Naturally, thereโ€™s a splinter of Two-Tone reggae too, which works on so many levels.

Dave Clifton

The Hotknives are best known for their live albums, but did release one studio album The Way Things Are. Formed in Horsham, back in 1982, they principally play ska. Guitarist Dave Clifton was among the original line-up. He left in 1993, but with a slimmer roster the band still perform today.

Opening tune to A Million Miles, Donโ€™t Blame Me, is immediately likeable rocksteady, and wouldnโ€™t look out of place on a classic Trojan Tighten Up compilation. Looking over the Land plods securely, resonances Erinโ€™s band the Erin Bardwell Collective and is just simply beguiling.

Erin Bardwell

Just Dreaming though dubs, is as at sounds, dreamy, using flute, by another ex-Hotknives, Paul Mumford of Too Many Crooks, it connotes that eastern dub vibe of Augustus Pablo. Yet with Believe we return to chugging boss, with sublime horns, also by Mumford, and Daveโ€™s picking guitar riff. The guest vocal is a refreshing change, provided by Pat Powell of the Melbourne Ska Orchestra. Proof, as Iโ€™ve said, ska is an international thing, and the Melbourne Ska Orchestra are pushing boundaries on the other side of the world.

Title track, A Million Miles again deviates, fusing a slight English folk influence, it reflects memories and cites Dave and Ansell Collins and the Oโ€™Jays in a theme of a lost romance. Never Say Never raps up the journey you donโ€™t want to end, with a plonking fairground twist; as if Madness worked with UB40. With Erinโ€™s dream team, Drummer Pete O’Driscoll, Pete Fitzsimmons on bass, except Looking Over The Land where long term friend from The Skanxters, Vinny Hill features, weโ€™re in capable hands, and this is a memorable collaboration producing a superb and varied mellow reggae vibe. You need this right now!

The Bighead!

“The Truth is Hard to Find celebrates their unique but retrospective style with a passion for pop-reggae, an uplifting beat, chugging ska riff and beguiling two-tone vocal harmonies….”

Far from what the name suggests, and common generalisation of the genre, I found Northamptonโ€™s six-piece reggae/ska band, The Bighead, not in the slightest egotistical and very approachable! Thus, Iโ€™ll be spinning their tunes on Ska-ing West Country on Friday, and for the foreseeable future.

That said in this era where a plethora of bands like the Dualers and Death of Guitar Pop have breathed renewed energy and a fresh approach to the UK two-tone scene, which otherwise risked falling into a diehard cult of seniors on Lambrettas who spent their pension on a pair of cherry Doc Martins!

Though nothing with Bighead is as the frenzied ska blended with delinquent-filled punk of yore. They tend to flow maturely, with rocksteady and roots reggae, while attire the fashion akin to the two-tone era. Iโ€™ve no issue there, through the furious ska thrashings of The Specials, the downtempo Ghost Town is likely cited foremostly, and on the island of origination, the short rocksteady age between ska and reggae was undoubtedly the most creative musical period in Jamaican history.

Seems while previous decades hugged youth cultures which devoted to a sole variety of Jamaican music, newly formed bands, like Bighead in 2008 by Da Costa, follow a similar ethos as what we discussed when Trevor Evansโ€™ Barbdwire came to Devizes Arts Festival. They select the benefits and choosiest elements of ska, rocksteady and all subgenres of reggae, and fuse them with sublime results.

Thereโ€™s a plentiful gap to fill, and itโ€™s all trilbies and shades for Bighead. Their May single, The Truth is Hard to Find celebrates their unique but retrospective style with a passion for pop-reggae, an uplifting beat, chugging ska riff and beguiling two-tone vocal harmonies, signifying an optimistic new era for the old genre. In contrast, the other two brilliant tunes Da Costa kindly emailed me, Step Up and Try Me Again, rely on roots reggae and doo-wop rocksteady respectively.

The Bighead are no strangers to the festival and club circuit, have headlined and supported original 2-Tone acts such as the Beat, The Selector, Bad Manners and a 2013 show with Madness. Theyโ€™ve played over Europe and are regulars on the Berlin Reggae scene.

So, polish your boots, snap on your braces and follow Bighead; not that I should really be flattering a band who are already self-confessed big heads!

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A Modern Reggae Classic: Wonderland of Green

On first hearing Wonderland of Green, I was like, yeah, thatโ€™s as sweet as a sugarcane field. But itโ€™s moreish; every listen it approves all elements, everything I love about reggae, and why I love it.

Fruits Records may be based in Switzerland, but their dedication to authentic Jamaican roots reggae is paramount. This latest release featuring the Silvertones is a prime example, a sublimely balanced one-drop riddim with all the hallmarks of reggaeโ€™s golden era; the roots sound of the seventies, Black Ark, the legendary studio of Lee “Scratch” Perry, and the Roots Radics rub-a-dub riddims of the early eighties. These traditional styles echo through this 7โ€ EP; the heavy bass, the offbeat guitar riff, and the traditional female backing vocals as passed into mainstream by the Wailersโ€™ I-Threes.

Yet it also pounds contemporary at you too, fresh sounding, with a version, Living In A Wonderland, toasted by Burro Banton, an incredibly gritty-voiced DJ popular in the late eighties and nineties dancehalls of Jamaica. Even the subject matter of Wonderland of Green is timeless, as it suggests, itโ€™s earthy and ecological, a tenet inherent in Rastafarians long before it became trendy.

The band behind the riddim is the 18th Parallel. Produced, composed and arranged by Antonin Chatelain, Lรฉo Marin and Mathias Liengme, and recorded at Genevaโ€™s Bridge Studio by Liengme. Thereโ€™s an instrumental on the flipside, and an extra killer dub mix by French wizard Westfinga, who retains the retrospective ethos using the traditional dub values set by King Tubby.

Burro Banton

But what makes it so thoroughly beguiling is the vocals by The Silvertones. A legendary vocal harmony trio from the early ska era, originally, Keith Coley, and Gilmore Grant, with Delroy Denton joining early in their career. Delroyโ€™s individual baritone and guitar skills saw him quickly become the frontman. Though he migrated to the States and was replaced by Joel โ€œKushโ€ Brown.

Though the only remaining member is Keith, who takes lead, thatโ€™s just technicalities, as the modern line up rests with Norris Knight and Nathan Skyers on harmonies, both of whom have solo careers in their own right.

Westfinga & The 18th Parallel’s Wonderland of Dub

Recording at Coxsone Doddโ€™s Studio One, they interestingly triumphed in Jamaica with their debut single, a ska re-creation of Brook Bentonโ€™s โ€œTrue Confession,โ€ a track producer Duke Reid would also have the early Wailers record, but the Silvertones is indisputably more poignant. They also recorded under guises The Gold Tones, The Admirals, but most popularly as The Valentines, prevalent with the skinheadโ€™s ska revival era was a tune called โ€œBlam Blam Fever,โ€ denouncing the rude boyโ€™s gun culture.

The Silvertones

Through the late sixties they enjoyed success recording for Reidโ€™s Treasure Isle label and Clancy Eccles, as vocal harmonies became more significant during the rock steady era. Yet their dominant period was the early seventies when they stepped into the converted carport which was Black Ark.

The eccentric amplifier genius, Lee โ€œScratchโ€ Perry is renowned for getting the best out of any artist, he shaped the way we view Bob Marley & The Wailers. With penchant for outlandish, heavyweight psychedelic sound testing, he was the experimentalist who would pave the way for dub pioneers like King Tubby.

Historically then, Wonderland of Green slips right in as if itโ€™s been there all along, but prominent now with its environmental subject matter, itโ€™s gorgeous. I look forward to blasting it on my Boot Boy Radio show this Friday, maybe blending versions together, even if theyโ€™re live from the Skinhead Reunion, and whoโ€™s punters would favour boss reggae!

Wonderland of Green is newly released this week, as download, or on regular black wax 7โ€ vinyl and on a beautiful limited and numbered picture sleeve edition with opaque dark green vinyl; how apt!

Streaming: http://hyperurl.co/wonderlandofgreen

Vinyl records: https://fruitsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/wonderland-of-green

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The Big Yellow Bus Rocks The Gazebo

Two things former humble truck driver Gerry Watkins is a natural at, plucking an ingenious idea and putting it into action, and putting on a gig to fund it. In 2017 Gerry raised four-grand to buy a double-decker bus, which he converted into a homeless shelter in Cirencester. Since heโ€™s launched a similar plan in Swindon, and continues to raise funds for this amazing homeless project. The Big Yellow Bus project is innovative but simple, and Gerry works tirelessly to keep it running.

bigyellow2

With live music teetering on return, it still maybe a while before some venues are ready to reopen, despite yesterdayโ€™s sudden given date of August 1st. The following weekend, 7&8th, sees a grand restart for The Big Yellow Bus, to get funds rolling once again. The Tavern Inn in Kembleplays host to this glorious two-day mini festival, which is free, with collection buckets for the Big Yellow Bus doing the rounds.

Music plans to kick off at 7pm on Friday 7th August with our good friends, Absolute Beginners. I know, like most, Cath, Gouldy and the gang will be itching to get back to live music. While thereโ€™s still a few gaps in the line-up to confirm, The Roughcut Rebels will be a welcomed act, introducing their new frontman, the one and only Finley Trusler; an awesome unification we look forward to hearing. Mick O Toole is also on Fridayโ€™s header.

bigyellow

Saturday 8th though is an all-dayer. Paul Cooper (Martin Mucklowe) from the twice BAFTA award-winning BBC tv series, This Country, will be opening up the event at midday. Shaun Peter Smith will be the Compรจre for the day, as Miss Lucy Luscious Lips, heโ€™s certain to add a little bit of glamour and sparkle. Thereโ€™s a number of faces I know to this busy line-up, and plenty new to me.

An interesting Opening at midday, Ascenda are a four-piece, playing smooth music with a rock edge and thoughtful, theatrical vocals. Their current collection of songs ‘Celeste,’ forms a love story that explores conflicts; solitude versus companionship, and spirituality versus practicality.

acenda eric hobson
Acenda (image by Eric Hobson Photography)

Cath, Gouldy and the gang return as The Day Breakers at 1pm, with their irresistible blend of Celtic and mod-rock covers, itโ€™s guaranteed to go off! Swindonโ€™s all-girl rock and pop covers band, Bimbo follow at 2pm. Dirty and filthy punk is promised to followed with The Useless Eaters, a band who accurately recreate the iconic sound of late 70โ€™s British and American punk.

sixlivesleft
Six Lives Left

Cirencesterโ€™s masters of high-energy classic eighties rock covers, Loaded Dice are on at 4pm, followed by a mesh of Britpop, new wave and ska with SkAโ€™D Hearts at 6pm. Era-spanning soul follows with Joli and The Souls, and rock restarts in style with Six Lives Left. Sticking with six as the magic number, the finale will be from Calneโ€™s fantastic misfits of Britpop and new wave, Six O Clock Circus, who are always up for a party!

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Joili & The Souls

Yeah, itโ€™s all slightly out of our usual jurisdiction, but with a line up like this, all for such a great cause, and with limited events these lockdown days, this is highly recommended and worth the effort. Kemble Railway Station is right opposite The Tavern Inn so itโ€™s easy to find.

Note, putting such an event on so early after lockdown will not be without expected guidelines, everyone must abide by. Gerry urges social distancing and that you respect those around you. โ€œThis is all done so you can enjoy yourself and have a great time watching and dancing to great live bands and performers, thank you for all your support and together we can have a great time.โ€ I’m sure they will, Gerry. If anyone is heading off from Devizes, gimmie a lift, pal, because this sounds unmissable!

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From The Specials; Neville Staple Band in Lockdown

Photos by John Coles
Artwork by Sugary Staple

If last yearโ€™s fortieth anniversary of Two-Tone Records saw an upsurge of interest in this homegrown second-generation ska, it shows no sign of flawing anytime soon. Perhaps you could attribute parallels to the social and political climate of our era, or debate intransigent devotees are reliving their youth, but Iโ€™d argue itโ€™s simply an irresistible sound.

One thing our eighties counterparts didnโ€™t have to contend with was the Covid19 pandemic, and musicians of every genre are reflecting on it. Ska is of no exception, weโ€™ve seen many contemporary performers releasing new material on the subject, but here we have a legend doing his thing, topically.

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The Neville Staple Band releases this timely single, Lockdown. A dynamic modern-sounding reggae track, yet encompassing all the goodness of the Two-Tone era of yore. Understandable, original rude boy Neville Staple is conversant with this, a founder member and co-frontman of The Specials, Fun Boy Three and Special Beat. Those influences shine through here. Thereโ€™s something very Fun Boy Three about this tune, with a slice of poetically-driven Linton Kwesi Johnson to its feel.

As true as the song suggests, in lockdown Dr Neville Staple has teamed up with wife Sugary Staple, to pump out this relevant single, commonly reflecting on the feeling of many concerning the virus and staying safe. โ€œSugary came up with the idea to write a song about the lockdown,โ€ Neville explains, โ€œwhich, at first, was a very fast-stomping ska track. We then realised that it was too fun and happy a tune for the theme. Most of us have been quite down about the whole virus thing, so we decided to take it on a more sweet but moody 2Tone reggae route, in a similar vein to ‘Ghost Town’, with some music we had worked on previously with Sledge [Steve Armstrong.]โ€

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While I detect echoes of Ghost Town, this tune also breathes originality and present-day freshness, confirming progression of the genre rather than a frequently supposed nostalgia. Being a local site, some may recall his visit to Melkshamโ€™s ParkFest last year, where an unfortunately damp evening didnโ€™t stop the revelling, and Neville stole the show with an assortment of Two-Tone classics. I was backstage with the wonderful support band Train to Skaville. A chance meeting with Neville, when he popped out of his tent for pizza, humourlessly failed to engage long enough to explain who I was, and ended with him pointing at his pizza-box and saying โ€œyeah, Iโ€™m going off to eat this.โ€ I shouldโ€™ve known better than to harass a legend when their pizza is chilling in drizzle! I nodded my approval, knowing Iโ€™d have done the same thing.

Neville was awarded an honorary doctorate from Arden University last year. With a tour, and so many international shows and festivals postponed, the couple decided to do a lot of extra charity work as well as new song writing. DJ recordings for people sick in hospitals or in isolation, personally dedicated to them, was just the start. Sugary and Neville wanted to highlight the work of Zoeโ€™s Place, a charity run for terminally ill babies and toddlers. As ambassadors for this charity, Sugary expressed, โ€œcharities like these really do suffer at a time like this, as the focus is on other things. But the work they do at Zoeโ€™s Place is like one of a kind and so very special. They step in when families really do need the support, providing 24-hour high quality, one-to-one palliative, respite and end-of-life care for children aged 0-5 years. A heart-breaking time for anyone involved. We must not lose a charity like this – it is too important and so we will be supporting this, along with other charities we are patrons or ambassadors to, with this single.โ€ And the duo dedicates this song to all those who have been affected by Covid-19.

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Shared to our Boot Boy Radio DJs, you can expect we will be spinning in for the foreseeable future, but you can get it here:

7″ vinyl order https://bit.ly/2NeeoUA

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/1s2wuLNQ3q4wsvq7tOUfVh

iTunes https://music.apple.com/gb/album/lockdown-single/1515072018

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Lockdown/dp/B0894K4G1Q

SPECIAL NOTICE – FROM THE SPECIALS, NEVILLE STAPLE & SUGARY:

A MESSAGE TO YOU..! The Legendary Neville Staple (Dr), Sugary Staple & the Band, need your help please.

Can you wonderful people please donate just ยฃ3 towards this project (which will also get you 2 signed exclusives pics), or any random amount, or check out the mega exclusive vinyl 45ย & CD gift set offersย (these are going really well, and are extremely rare limited edition items, so grab them while you can). You just click this link and choose your reward, to then register your donation.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fromthespecials/lockdown-ska-2020-from-the-specials-neville-staple-and-sugary/ย  ย 

If you like a bit of ska and reggae, catch me on www.bootboyradio.co.uk Fridays from 10pm GMT till midnight!

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International Ska! Hugo Lobo teams up with Lynval Golding and Val Douglas

If I penned an all-purpose article a week or so ago, about ska in South America being as prospering now as it once was in England, I follow it up with this grand example….

Argentinaโ€™s Dancing Mood trumpeter and producer Hugo Lobo made history this week, releasing โ€œFire Fire,โ€ a skanking upbeat cover of a Wailers rarity, by calling in international troops. Throughout this prolific career, Hugo endeavours to encourage legendarily collaborations, exalting the international genre and keeping the flame of Ska and Rocksteady alive.

Dancing Mood staggeringly sold over 200,000 albums. Hugo Lobo presented his debut solo album ‘Ska is the Way’ in 2017. This renowned trumpeter not only performed and produced for many of the south American ska and reggae bands I mentioned in my previous piece, but transcends to international acclaim, working with Rico Rodriguez, Janet Kay, The Skatalites, Doreen Shaffer, and Dennis Bovell. With Jerry Dammers, Hugo paid tribute to Rico Rodriguez in 2015 at the London International Ska Festival.

In a transcendental meeting, three generations of ska artists from the corners of the planet combined to recreate this 1968 musical nugget from the Wailersโ€™ homemade label โ€œWailโ€™n Soulโ€™m,โ€ where Peter Tosh leads. Jamaican-born British rhythm guitarist and vocalist Lynval Golding, of the Specials and who later founded the Fun Boy Three with Terry Hall and Neville Staple, is central to the single, yet he always is central to something ska! Lynval appeared on Glastoโ€™s Pyramid Stage with Terry Hall backing Lily Allen, and the Park Stage where Blur frontman Damon Albarn and beatboxer Shlomo knocked out Dandy Livingstoneโ€™s โ€œMessage to You Rudy,โ€ a popular cover for the Specials.

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Lynval Golding

With a generation-spanning rรฉsumรฉ, Lynval Golding continues with current group, Pama International, undoubtedly the UKโ€™s most celebrated contemporary ska outfit who we were the first new band in thirty years to sign to Trojan Records. Yet through this huge portfolio, Hugo Lobo proudly announces his presentation is Lynval Golding’s first solo material.

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Lynval with Jerry Dammers and Jools Holland

If thatโ€™s not enough to whet your appetite, Hugo also called upon the current bassist of The Skatalites, Val Douglas to add to the enthralling sound. Check the bass on Bob Marleyโ€™s โ€œWake Up and Liveโ€ if you want a shining example of Valโ€™s talent. Though Val is a multi-instrumentalist, arranger, composer and producer, working with just about any reggae legend you could name; Toots & The Maytals, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Ernest Ranglin, The Abyssinians, Delroy Wilson, Dennis Brown, Ken Boothe, Lloyd Charmers, as well as contemporary ska artists the New York Ska Jazz Ensemble.

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Val Douglas

All this considered, it could go one of two ways, overloaded with ego and fighting for centre stage as would many legends of other genres, or simply a sublime sound. Bear in mind this is SKA, collaborations are more frequent and common than rock and pop, and unlike the often-pugnacious insolence of ska bands, thereโ€™s never anything narcissistic about legendary collaborations. Glad to announce itโ€™s the latter of the two ways, this sound leads the way. It holds all the catchiness we expect from ska, it heralds tradition but sounds fresh and innovative; the hallmark of the scene I love.

ยฉ 2017-2020 Devizine (Darren Worrow)
Please seek permission from the Devizine site and any individual author, artist or photographer before using any content on this website. Unauthorised usage of any images or text is forbidden.
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South American Ska

Discovering a thriving ska scene in South America is like England in 1979โ€ฆโ€ฆ

Studio 1โ€™s architect, composer and guitarist, Ernest Ranglin proclaimed while the US R&Bโ€™s shuffle offbeat being replicated by Jamaicans in their early recording studios went โ€œchink-ka,โ€ their own crafted pop, ska, went โ€œka-chink.โ€ Theorised this simple flip of shuffle took place during Duke Reidโ€™s Prince Buster recording session mid-1959, added with Busterโ€™s desire to include traditional Jamaican drumming, created the defining ska sound.

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Prince Buster’s block party on Orange Street

Coinciding with the islandโ€™s celebration of independence in 1962, the explosion of ska was eminent and two years later the sound found its way out of Jamaica, when Byron Lee & the Dragonaires, Prince Buster, Eric “Monty” Morris, and Jimmy Cliff played the New York World’s Fair. But if Jamaicaโ€™s government revelled in the glory of the creation of a homegrown pop, behind the scenes, Kingstonโ€™s downtown was using it as signature to a culture of hooliganism, known as The Rude Boys, and thwarted it. Through curfew and a particularly sweltering summer of 67, horns were lessened, tempo was mellowed and reggaeโ€™s blueprint, rock steady, had formed.

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World’s Fair, New York 1964

Forward wind fifty-five years and Jamaican ska pioneer, Stranger Cole launched album โ€œMore Life,โ€ yet itโ€™s released by Liquidator Music, a label dedicated to the classic Jamaican rhythms, but based in Madrid. Perhaps in similar light to Busterโ€™s innovation, Jamaica doesnโ€™t revel in retrospection and strives to progress; the last place in the world youโ€™re likely to hear ska these days, is in Jamaica itself. Modern dancehall trends can be attributed closer to the folk music of mento.

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But the design was set, and to satisfy the musical taste of Windrush immigrants in England, Bluebeat, and later, Trojan Records set to cheaply import the sounds of home. It was a combination of their offspring taking their records to parties, and the affordable price tag which appealed to the white kids in Britain. Thus, the second wave of ska spawned in the UK. By the late seventies the formation of Two-Tone records in Coventry saw English youths mimicking the sound.

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Similarly, though, this has become today somewhat of a cult. Given the task of producing a radio show last year, for ska-based internet station, Boot Boy Radio, while aware of American dominated โ€œthird gen ska,โ€ that there were few contemporary bands here, such as the Dualers, and Madness and The Specials still appeased the diehard fans, I never fathomed the spread of ska worldwide. The fact Liquidator Music is Spanish, it is clear, ska has a profound effect internationally, and in no place more than Latin America. Yet while Englandโ€™s second wave is largely attributed to the worldwide distribution of ska, and waves the Union Jack patriotically at it, the sound of ska music spread to Jamaicaโ€™s neighbours significantly prior.

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Caribbean islands created their own pop music. Barbados had spouge, cited as โ€œBajan ska,โ€ despite a completely different rhythm section more attributed to calypso. Columbia likewise saw a surge in cumbia during the early sixties, a genre derived from cumbรฉ; โ€œa dance of African origin.โ€

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In South America though, ska was fused with their own sounds of samba, and particularly upcoming rock โ€˜nโ€™ roll inspired genres such as โ€œiรช-iรช-iรช,โ€ via Brazilian musical television show, Jovem Guarda. Os Aaalucinantesโ€™ 1964 album Festa Do Bolinha predates Englandโ€™s embrace of ska, the same year, in fact, as Byron Lee & the Dragonaires, et all playing the New York World’s Fair. At this point in time, through Bluebeat, English youth were only just discovering a love for Jamaican music, and Lee Gopthal wouldnโ€™t found Trojan Records for another four years. This mesh of fusions gave birth to a creative period in Brazil, vocal harmony groups like Renato E Seus Blue Caps, and The Fevers followed suit, blending US bubble-gum pop with jazzy offbeat rhythms. It did not borrow from Englandโ€™s mods; it followed a similar pattern.

Las Cuatro Monedas a Go Go
Las Cuatro Monedas

Similarly, in Venezuela, Las Cuatro Monedas introduced ska and reggae as early as 1963, with their debut album, โ€œLas Cuatro Monedas a Go Go.โ€ Through maestro arranger and composer, Hugo Blanco they won the 1969 Song Festival in Barcelona, and continued until 1981, when over here The Specials were only just releasing โ€œGhost Town.โ€ Desorden Pรบblico is Venezuelaโ€™s most renowned ska band, formed in the eighties. When frontman Horacio Blanco was still at school, he wrote โ€œParalytic Politicians,โ€ an angry, anti-Hugo Chavez anthem which his fans still yell for. Although Chavez died in 2013, his protรฉgรฉ Nicolas Maduro has descended the country into political and economic crisis; one example where South American ska is equally, if not more, dogmatically defending justice as Two-Tone here in the UK.

Desorden Publico
Desorden Pรบblico

Chile trended towards cumbia through tropical orchestra Sonora Palacios in the sixties, therefore ska didnโ€™t fully surface until the third-gen bands of the nineties. Even today though, Latin enthused bands such as Cholomandinga and reggae is favoured through bands like Gondwana. The modern melting pot is universal and extensive though, Iโ€™ve got a lovely cover of Ghost Town by Argentine cumbia band Fantasma, who cite themselves as being the first to develop a cumbia rap. And when upcoming, all-female Mexican ska band, Girls Go Ska sent me some tunes to play, a cover of the Jamโ€™s David Watts was one of them.

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Girls Go Ska

Allโ€™s fair in love and war; undoubtedly the Two-Tone era of England has had a profound effect on the worldwide contemporary ska scene, so did their revolutionary principles. Peru commonly cites its scene commenced in the mid-eighties, when punk and second-gen underground rock bands emerged in Lima. Edwin Zcuelaโ€™s band, Zcuela Crrada differed by having a saxophonist, and adopted a sound which bordered ska. Azincope and Refugio were quick to follow, not to the taste of the rock-based crowd who classed it commercialised pop. Psicosis came about in 88, the band to initiate the term โ€œska bandโ€ in Peru, taking steps to eradicate the preconception. They won a recording contract through a radio contest, the jury expressed concern; the band were radicals within a pseudo-movement with libertarian ideas, and so the band refused to record.

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Zcuela Crrada

With influences from the Basque ska-punk band, Kortatu, Breakfast continued the rebellious nature with ska in Peru, but discarded their discography. It will take us into the nineties to start to find orchestral flairs, when Carnaval Patetico and Barrio Pamara emerged, bringing with them the countryโ€™s belated by comparison, second wave. Odd to see how punk gave ska a leg-up in this legacy, but the melting pot is bottomless.

Where some bands, such as Swiss Sir Jay & The Skatanauts, favour pouring jazz into their style, akin to how the Skatalites formed the backbone of Studio 1 through attending Kingstonโ€™s Alpha Cottage School, others, such as the States bands like The Dance Hall Crashers prefer to fuse punk influences, Big Reel Fish takes Americana to ska, and one has to agree the tension of teenage anguish felt by eighties skinheads equalled that of latter punk-rock.

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The Dance Hall Crashers

The rulebook is borderless and limitless, to the point there is no longer a rulebook, through an online generation one can teeter on the edge of this rabbit hole, or go diving deeper. If I said previously, Two-Tone is a cult in England, in South America ska is thriving. Some subgenres bear little relevance to the sounds and ethos of original Jamaican ska. Other than the usage of horns to sperate them from punk or rockabilly, off-shoots of skacore and skabilly tangent along their own path. Oi bands prime example, where a largely neo-Nazi tenet cannot possibly relate to an afro-Caribbean origin.

Again, the folk of a nation mergers with the sound, and there can create an interesting blend, such as the Balkan states, where the Antwerp Gipsy Ska Orchestra and Dubioza Kolekiv carve their own influences into ska. Which, in turn, has spurred a folk-ska scene in Bristol and the Southwest, bands like The Carny Villains, Mr Tea & The Minions and Mad Apple Circus, who add swing to the combination, and folk-rock bands such as The Boot Hill Allstars, confident to meld ska into the dynamic festival circuit. South America typifies this too.

Mr Tea & The Minions

Modern murga, a widespread musical theatre performed in Montevideo, Uruguay and Argentina hugs ska through carnival. Argentinaโ€™s scene is as widespread and varied as the UK or USA, in fact it was former Boot Boy presenter, Mariano Goldenstein, frontman of The Sombrero Club who led me to the rabbit hole. If the name of this Argentinean band signifies Mexican, one should note, The Sombrero Club was a Jamaican nightclub on the famous โ€˜Four Roadsโ€™ intersection of Molynes and Waltham Park Roads in St. Andrew.

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Byron Lee @ The Sombrero Club

Journalist Mel Cooke recalls in a 2005 article for the Jamaica Gleaner, โ€œalthough it carried a Mexican name, the senors and senoritas who stepped inside the Sombrero nightclub did it in true Jamaican style. It was an audience that demanded a certain quality of entertainment and, in the height of the band era the cream of the cream played there. โ€œIt was one of the premier dance halls for bands, live music,โ€ says Jasper Adams, a regular at The Sombrero. โ€œIf you capture the image of the dance hall in London at the time, you get an idea of what it was like.โ€

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Note the Wailers, bottom of the billing!

After the demise of the Bournmouthe in East Kingston, in a bygone era, The Sombrero was the place to catch ska legends, Toots and the Maytals, Tommy McCook and the Supersonics and Byron Lee and the Dragonaires. There could be no name more apt for Argentinaโ€™s Sombrero Club, for within a thriving scene which mimics England in the grip of Two-Tone, their proficient and authentic sound is akin to our Specials or Madness.

The Sombrero Club

It is, however, through Marcos Mossi of the Buena Onda Reggae Club from Sao Paulo, perhaps a lesser known band outside Brazil, who have really spurred my interest in South American ska, through their sublime blend of mellowed jazz-ska and reggae, and through it I realise Iโ€™m still teetering on the edge of the rabbit hole. Aside the aforementioned bands, Iโ€™m only just discovering Brazilโ€™s Firebug, Argentinaโ€™s Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Los Calzones Rotos, Los Autรฉnticos Decadentes, Karamelo Santo, Cienfuegos, Satellite Kingston, Dancing Mood, Staya Staya, Los Intocables, and Ska Beat City, Cultura Profรฉtica from Puerto Rico and Peruโ€™s Vieja Skina. Pondering if the list will ever end.

Bunena Onda Reggae Club

One thing this highlights, while ska is international now, with vibrant scenes from Montreal to Melbourne, Latin America holds the key to a spirit akin to how it was when I opened my Christmas present in 1980 to find Madness long player, Absolutely.

 

Tune into my show on http://www.bootboyradio.co.uk – Friday nights from 10pm till Midnight GMT, where we play an international selection of ska, reggae, rock steady, soul and funk, RnB, shuffle and jazz, anything related which takes my fancy, actually!

ยฉ 2017-2020 Devizine (Darren Worrow)
Please seek permission from the Devizine site and any individual author, artist or photographer before using any content on this website. Unauthorised usage of any images or text is forbidden.

A Skandal in Marlborough

Broke my hibernation last night to trek across the downs and catch Swindonโ€™s Skandals play the Lamb in Marlborough; well worth the effortโ€ฆโ€ฆ

โ€œSome proper drum and bass,โ€ yelled frontman of The Skandals, Mark Colton during the break of a Bad Mannersโ€™ Special Brew cover, โ€œnot like the shit the kids listen to today!โ€ In essence thereโ€™s the summary of The Skandalsโ€™ ethos, yet with the catchiness of the simple offbeat of ska, youโ€™ll commonly find every generation up dancing together. So, while the attitude is to appease the elder, skinhead, mods and scooterists, I think youโ€™ll find generations too young to personally recall the days of yore a band like The Skandals arrest, still love it.

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This was certainly true in Marlboroughโ€™s Lamb last night, as this Swindon ska cover band came to skank, with bells on. It was a squeeze in the crowd, with the aforementioned varied demographic, but none can resist the surge of retrospective ska. Limited to saxophonist Nina as the brass section, and without keyboards, this six-piece still manage to capture the spirit of the era and throw it back in your face loud and proud. Iโ€™d wager this comes from experience; the band boasting not just Nina, but both guitarists Jase and Mark, who previously played with Swindonโ€™s legendary Skanxters, and in turn this event brings fond memories to my old watering hole, as those Skanxters skanked here during their nineties reign.

Though frontman Mark also heads a new wave punk cover band, The Rotten Aces, among other projects such as Thin Lizzy tribute, The Lizzy Legacy. This punker angle showed through the playlist, as adroit but only subtly โ€˜skaโ€™dโ€™ covers of โ€œEcho Beachโ€ and the Toy Dollโ€™s bonkers arrangement of โ€œNellie the Elephant,โ€ echoed between the more archetypal tunes of Madness, The Specials, Bad Manners, et all. I wanted to quiz Mark on what he favours, but when they stated they were taking a ten-minute break, it was far more punctual than most bands!

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Pigeonholing I havenโ€™t time for, and in a hedonistic moment it matters not. Example; they covered Rancidโ€™s Time Bomb, pioneers of the ska-punk crossover that the international third-gen ska-heads thrive on. Yet the Skandals didnโ€™t venture over this border, delivering predominantly eighties Two-Tone they were obviously inspired by, and giving the audience diminutive verbal notations as to why, amidst the usual banter. They were lively, fun and entertaining; everything a ska band should be, and would guarantee to liven up your venue or pub. Specials covers Rat Race, Rich Girl, Little Bitch and their version of Tootโ€™s Monkey Man being the nimblest.

It may be a timeworn formula for a ska band to cover classics like Baggy Trousers, Lip Up Fatty and Mirror in the Bathroom, but like fish n chips, itโ€™s clichรฉ because it never fails to thrill an audience, and The Skandals do it superbly. Interestingly, they added northern soul anthem โ€œTainted Love,โ€ reggaeโ€™s โ€œPressure Dropโ€ and โ€œChase the Devil,โ€ into the melting pot, and choosing โ€œFood for Thought,โ€ as their UB40 cover is a wise move; anything post-Red Red Wine and itโ€™s a cover band covering a cover band!

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While Devizes has a thriving music scene, other than sporadic gigs from the scooter club, the pub circuit lacks ska and reggae, and you all know how I feel about that. If the mountain wonโ€™t come to Muhammad. It was a delight to pay a visit to Marlboroughโ€™s Lamb again, despite remining in Wadworthshire, itโ€™s working formula stands the test of time. โ€œWeโ€™re quite lucky in Marlborough,โ€ a regular informed me, rattling off the Bearโ€™s backroom, The Wellington and Royal Oak as fond live music venues, as well as the Lamb. Yes, I nodded my acknowledgment, but when ska comes to town thatโ€™s where youโ€™ll find me! โ€œLet me tell about Sally Brownโ€ฆโ€ฆโ€

ยฉ 2017-2019 Devizine (Darren Worrow)
Please seek permission from the Devizine site and any individual author, artist or photographer before using any content on this website. Unauthorised usage of any images or text is forbidden.

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Minions, and Mr Teaโ€™s Mutiny

Put the kettle on; Balkan gypsy ska here in Bristol, Mutiny, the new album from Mr Tea & The Minions is a favourite for my best album of the year, with a top hat on.

Impressionable, I creaked the door on a near-expired student party, where a cocktail of Cinzano and shrooms polished off the amateur bassist, and he hung unconscious half off the edge of a sofa in his own puke. I witnessed scholar deprivation; comatose youth, crusty dreadlocks matted into a teetering Christmas tree, and a random arm draped over a guitar amp, howling feedback. I gulped, no partygoer standing, but an erratic noise of a โ€œRed Roses For Meโ€ cassette whirling. Sounds blessing such a character-building eye-opener makes you reconsider your loathing for a particular genre of music.

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Until then, my presumption of folk music was pruned from an overwhelming desire to hold primary school sweetheart, Trudiโ€™s hand, and the only foreseeable method to achieve it; to opt for country dancing. Ever frustrated to find myself partnered with dowdy Emma instead, I guess it rubbed a revulsion for frumpy folk music, with its delicate romances of falling autumn leaves and daisies dancing in a spring zephyr. It can be nauseating, symbolic of my failure to caress Trudiโ€™s nail-bitten digits.

The epiphany dusted, I bought the Pouges long-player, shaking my preconception solo until crusties like The Levellers came onto the scene, boiling the realisation folk doesnโ€™t have to be frumpy, in fact, itโ€™s an epoch, a peopleโ€™s music, and the roots of all that followed owe it. But if that era of recklessly launching yourself around, knocking down parentโ€™s ornaments and calling it dancing has come of age, and if the Pouges are now acceptable, seasonally, (they stole the best Christmas song slot from a band in tartan trozzers and platform shoes after all,) I say unto thee, Mr Tea & the Minions; itโ€™s my new favourite thing.

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Itโ€™s not an awkward mesh of Despicable Me and the A-Team, rather a contemporary Bristol based, female-fronted six-piece ska-post-punk-folk Balkan-inspired riot, and their new album, Mutiny is beyond blooming gorgeous. Constructed out of lead vocalist and controller of โ€œshaky things,โ€ Elle Ashwell, drummer Fabian Huss, guitarists James Pemberton, James Tomlinson and James (Fold) Talbot on bass, with manager Lucy Razz on violin, they formed six years ago through Jamesโ€™ love of Balkan music. With the edges polished by collaborating with DJ Howla, and Jamesโ€™ professed love of tea, Mr Tea & The Minions was born, a name which they say was โ€œa joke that was never meant to go so far.โ€

As Balkan, itโ€™s fresh, electrifying and wonderfully danceable. Elleโ€™s gritty shrill is apt and uplifting, the theme is often invitingly saucy, awakeningly tangible, sometimes metaphorically current affairs, but it hardly wanes in energy, and if it does you know itโ€™s building to something. Mutiny is ten songs of splendour, drizzly evening enriching with a gypsy spin. Itโ€™s a warm musky pub of yore, where a furtive crusty band jams and you spill your cider on a scraggy dog. It also riffs like ska, boils like The Levellers and rinses fresher than Shane MacGowan on his best hair day.

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The Eye of the Storm, like the title track, and Pandemonium are the Fruit Pastels, breezier tempo tunes like the beautifully crafted The Spider and The Fly stun you in anticipation of the melody, but no single tune stands alone, thereโ€™s a flow of prog-rock, and if it starts and ends with a little โ€œmeow,โ€ itโ€™s never completely nonsensical. Lyrics are sublimely executed, mostly evocative, but dashed with fun. Thereโ€™s really nought bad I could say about this unique album, Iโ€™ll be dancing to it for the foreseeable future, maybe even look up Trudi on Facebook, she canโ€™t still bite her nails.

Somebody local book these, pl-weaseeee; the Southgate or Barge would suit to a, pardon the pun, tea. Yet times are looking good for this madcap band, on the verge of another spectacular festival season and numerous gigs on tour, our closest to date is the Prince Albert Stroud Nov 22nd, Bocabar in Glastonbury on the 9th, or recommended homecoming at the Old Market Assembly, Bristol on 30th Nov. Failing this, try the Mutiny for size.

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ยฉ 2017-2019 Devizine (Darren Worrow)
Please seek permission from the Devizine site and any individual author, artist or photographer before using any content on this website. Unauthorised usage of any images or text is forbidden.

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Train to Skaville, Called at The Foresters Arms

If Devizesโ€™ thriving live music scene lacks one thing, in my humble opinion, itโ€™s ska. I got to get over my grumpy, staying-in head-state for fear Celebrity X-Factor is the best mainstream telly can thrust upon me, drive to the Sham, if only for a pint. Ska will force my hand if nothing else will.

The Foresters Arms is a new one for me, but itโ€™s immediately attractive, in a humble way. Functional, even for the eight-piece ska-cover maestros known as Train to Skaville. They fit comfortably; Devizes needs something like this, a reasonably sized pub-venue for a brass section to bounce, and a landlord wearing a Fred Perry and cherry Doc Martins. Proof was in the pudding; we are missing out.

Itโ€™s a welcoming and friendly community spirited pub, with ample space to skank rainy blues away. Amidst bustling crowd of young and old, male and female, black and white, there was a point when the landlord was up having a jig himself, for jolly example. And a band, if whose appeal seems to fizzle east of Bromham, are welcomed with open arms here. I canโ€™t drum this point any further, Train to Skaville are brilliant.

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If doing this ska show on Boot Boy Radio has taught me one thing, itโ€™s that this division is far from an aging retrospective minority who canโ€™t shake their Two-Tone youth culture, rather an international burgeoning scene where bands under a โ€œSka-Familyโ€ banner aspire to create new and original tangents. The foundation of which, though, is that classic period where the Windrush generation gifted us this offbeat sound for us to exploit to the max, and Train to Skaville embrace this. They are not out to be the next best thing, rather to supply an audience with the benchmarks they know and love, and to get them off their seats. They do this, with bells on.

Propping the foyer of the Foresters during the break, I laughed that although it was raining, it was nicer to be huddled inside, rather than the last time I caught this act, on a drizzly St Georgeโ€™s Playing Field supporting Neville Staple. Jules of the band remarked happily that they could play Specials covers too, which were crossed out of a setlist prior to Neville wanting to understandably do them. Train to Skaville did just that this time; Ghost Town, Rat Race, Gangsters, you name them, they covered them with unique panache, a cut above the average ska covers band. Alongside typical Madness and Bad Manners floor-fillers.

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But it doesnโ€™t stop there, their repertories know no bounds, as they break it down to reggae anthems, owning Bob Marelyโ€™s โ€œIs This Love,โ€ Marica Griffithโ€™s โ€œFeel Like Jumping,โ€ and Timโ€™s heart-warming rendition of Ken Bootheโ€™s โ€œEverything I Own,โ€ a tribute to his mum who he recently lost. There were tears, but veneration as the band played through. Our respect and condolences go out to Tim and his family.

I find though, even greater than knocking out known ska classics, or bouncing to boss reggae, when a ska band can produce ska versions of pop songs. Sometimes amusing, sometimes out of admiration of another genre, but for a ska-fan, often better than the original. Train to Skaville also have a line which branches out here, as a skanking Echo Beach rang out towards the end of the first half of the show.

A great night, great surroundings, and sure sign for me that Devizes needs to skank it up a bit!

ยฉ 2017-2019 Devizine (Darren Worrow)
Please seek permission from the Devizine site and any individual author, artist or photographer before using any content on this website. Unauthorised usage of any images or text is forbidden.

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Choo-Choo, Train to Skaville Supported Neville Staple at Parkfest!

Some years back I was told a ska band played the previous night in the village across the dual carriageway. Being an aficionado of the genre, I was disappointed to hear Iโ€™d missed it; good enough reason we now have Devizine so you need not be like me and can hear of events before they happen!

Informed the band was called Train to Skaville worsened matters; such a great name, taken from the 1967 single of Jamaicaโ€™s harmony group, The Ethiopians. The launchpad for a UK tour when it hit our charts, the songโ€™s riff has been applied to many later songs, including Toots & The Maytalโ€™s 54-46 and heralded the concept of the chugging train sound used in a plethora of later ska and reggae songs.

Despite ensuring Iโ€™d added all their local gigs to the event guide here since day dot, and befriended singer Jules Morton as part of the all-female fundraising supergroup, The Female of the Species, the must-see box on my perpetually cumulative to-do-list remained unticked, until last night. Unfortunate weather clouded sanguinity early on when I ventured over to Melksham for the opening of Party in the Park. An evening dubbed โ€œParkfest,โ€ separated from the main event happening today, as what once may have been a welcoming gig, has spawned its own identity; the main event builds on universal pop appeal, Parkfest has a more matured feel.

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It was in chatting with Bruce Burry, event coordinator at the Assembly Rooms, which revealed this forthcoming grand line-up of ska. I was taken aback, Party in the Park is Bruceโ€™s baby, and boy, does he take care of it. Impressive and vast is the setup at King George V park, professional is the stage, sound and effects. Iโ€™d heard of it before, but when Bruce uttered the name Neville Staple, my heart whacked into hyperdrive. Some months on, I was kindly invited backstage, as the support, none other than my burning-box-to-be-ticked band, Train to Skaville, prepared and tuned. Attempting optimism, my mutterings that once they took the stage the drizzle would cease met with sullenness, but guys, I was right, wasnโ€™t I?! Call me Michael Fish.

 

Naturally, headline act, the original rude-boy, formerly of The Specials and who later formed Fun Boy Three with Terry Hall and Lynval Golding, Neville Staple excelled with sleekness and anticipated competence. His combo group, The Neville Staple band has become the stuff of legend amidst the ska scene since 2004. Again, akin to our review of Trevor Evanโ€™s Bardbwire at Devizes Arts Festival last month, Nevilleโ€™s outfit merges two-tone and punky reggae back into its precursor ska, for this explosive melting pot, prevalently fermented the anniversary of Two-Tone Records, the Coventry record label which spurred a scene and both aforementioned artists played a pivotal role in.

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However, this was not before Neville and friends ran through some Specials classics, and if classics are the given thing in this retrospective amalgamation, Train to Skaville knocked it out of King George Park, prior to this fabled performance. For the headline act was grand, this should be taken as red, and despite my pedestal I popped Train to Skaville onto, they surely flew above all expectations.

For blending 007 (Shanty Town) into The Tide is High, as a teaser, the burgeoning crowd began to yearn for their start time, as gratis was handed to DJ setup, Fun Boy Two, Train to Skaville stepped up to an audience clearly familiar with the panache of this local band.

Train to Skaville have been on the circuit for eight years, albeit it a number of roster variations through their time, partly the reason, Jules told me, for not putting down any original material. This if-it-ainโ€™t-broke attitude fitting, for the majority of ska followers just want to hear the anthems. While this is done timelessly by many-a-cover-band, Train to Skaville sit atop this standard, their unique style, singerโ€™s Tim Crossโ€™s witty repartee and entire bandโ€™s expertise reeks of good-time ska and explodes with party atmosphere.

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For what seems to be a rare thing, a ska band from the Trowbridge/Melksham area, they set the bar high, and through Israelites, Too Much Pressure, and Rancidโ€™s Timebomb to name but a few, they launched back on stage, slowing for reggae and rock steady classics, Hurt so Good and Is This Love, and detonating the finale by slipping back into ska with Prince Busterโ€™s Madness, followed by Madness, Selector and Bad Manners hits and a sublime versions of Tears of a Clown.

Yet this train doesnโ€™t seem to call at Devizes, and if word of the group of friends from Devizes I was delighted to meet there, Vince Bell, Tamsin Quin and significant other halves, isnโ€™t enough to convince you I donโ€™t know what is! The last train pulled out of our town in 1966 and I canโ€™t wait for the Devizes Parkway project to become a reality, the angle of this piece is simply that someone needs to book this lively band in our town, we canโ€™t let the Sham take all the spotlight! Theyโ€™ve rammed pubs, gigged The Cheese & Grain, supported Neville a couple of times previous, and become hot favourites westward, we just need to stop them buffering at Seend!

 

As for Party in the Park, the main event kicks off this afternoon, a more pop-feel, theyโ€™ve some awesome local legends, including Indecision, Kirsty Clinch, Burbank, Forklift Truck, along with a fire-show, unicorns, fairground and food and drink stalls, topped off with a Take That Tribute. You can get a ticket on the gate, this an affordable event and the pride of the Sham.

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ยฉ 2017-2019 Devizine (Darren Worrow)
Please seek permission from the Devizine site and any individual author, artist or photographer before using any content on this website. Unauthorised usage of any images or text is forbidden.

 

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Reggae, Reggae, Reggae, inโ€ฆ. Devizes Arts Festival?! Barbdwire Bring a Taste of Coventry to Town

All Photos used with kind permission of Gail Foster

 

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From a talk by CBE award-winning English foreign correspondent and BBC News world affairs editor, John Simpson, to the Sub-Organist at Durham Cathedral, Francesca Massey, the Devizes Arts Festival has kicked off this week, better than Tottenham. Their showcase, more varied than ever before, truly caters for all; you just need to either research, or hear me bashing on to find something suitable for you.

Personally, my time came Saturday, when the Corn Exchange was blessed with sweet, sweet reggae music! You know I love thee, local music scene, but my ongoing quest to encourage more reggae in these backwaters came to an apex last night.

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Perhaps a hard sell in Devizes, yet a genre Iโ€™ll push until the wheels fall off. Yep, said wheels wonโ€™t last to shove Devizes into the streets of downtown Kingston Jamaica, but our great hall was lively and the modest audience appreciative of what Coventry based Barbdwire delivered.

Without doubt Barbdwire could produce a โ€œbeginners guide to reggae,โ€ without watering down or succumbing to commercialisation. For all sub-genres were presented to us last night, with tremendous panache and sublime competence.

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I often wonder how irritated Ziggy Marley gets when interviews adopt the clichรฉ angle of his father, recollecting him once stating, โ€œreggae is not a one-man-music, itโ€™s a people music.โ€ An apt quote for Barbdwire, the band a varied bunch. While originator and drummer, Trevor Evans, the former Specials roadie-once drummer, characteristically oozes a reggae archetypal, bassist Chellyโ€™s persona rings out dub and the proficient trombonist has Two-Tone band written all over him, trumpeter John Pudge, clearly the youngest, doesnโ€™t appear represent any reggae stereotype.

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I snatched a quick tรชte-ร -tรชte with John, attired in a T-shirt embossed with โ€œRoots, Rock, Reggae,โ€ I was keen on querying his t-shirt gainsays against his instrument choice, brass sections being generally considered ska-related. We discussed how Barbdwire play to the audience; their ability to pull any of reggaeโ€™s subgenres out of their hat makes the band flexible, supporting The Specials, as their next gig, or Holli Cook, as they did last week.

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But centre of attention last night in Devizes, this band were an epiphany for some residents and a universal accreditation for those reggae lovers. In our preview I said, โ€œ(Two-Tone) may have challenged punk with chicness akin to mod, but today, these subcultures are inconsequential, we can bundle it all into one retrospective burlesque, select whatever element of any we care to, and fuse them without pretence or offense; one reason why a group like Barbโ€™d Wire is fresh and electrifying.โ€

 

Well, while reproducing their album Time Has Comeโ€™s originals did just that, their choice of covers was equally extensive. From ska favourites like Baba Brookโ€™s version of Herbie Hancockโ€™s Watermelon Man and the Wailerโ€™s debut hit Simmer Down, they also exposed the audience to roots, with Max Romeoโ€™s Chase the Devil, Horace Andyโ€™s Skylarking, renowned for his later work with Massive Attack, and even dub, akin to its master King Tubby.

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There were versions of reggae classics, like Uptown Top Ranking, and all harmonised by the beautifully melodic and confident vocals of Cherelle Harding, a singer who could roll on a lovers tune with the finesse of Phillis Dillon to convert without haste to toast a stepperโ€™s riddim, at one point verging on dancehall with a wonderfully luminous interpretation of Sister Nancyโ€™s Bam-Bam.

Make no mistake, this diversity was not delivered reggae-lite, rather an expertise and rounded acknowledgement to the many faces of Jamaicaโ€™s music export, and delivered to us adhering to all the positivity and joyfulness the genre celebrates. As an apt example, they gathered outside to meet and greet, where they were applauded with respect vowed to add our town to their tour map; something Iโ€™ll hold against them, as this was an outstanding performance!

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Long live the Devizes Arts Festival then, hopeful theyโ€™ll consider the evening a success and plan in, as they are already planning 2020, something else reggae-related. Following on, this week sees Strange Face at The Bear today (Sunday) where the Adventures with a Lost Nick Drake Recording takes place.

Monday and Christian Garrick & John Etheridge presents Strings on Fire at The Exchange. Tuesday is The Shakespeare Smackdown, and Wednesday String Sisters are at St Andrews Church.

An Audience with Bob Flowerdew at the Town Hall, also Wednesday, and Thursday, Atila Sings the Nat King Cole Story at the Town Hall. Oh, and next Saturday has a whole host of FREE fringe events across town. Check the website for booking details, but hurry, Fridayโ€™s Moscow Drug Club event is sold out. If cancelations occur find posts on the Arts Festival Facebook page, and Iโ€™ll promise to share them as soon as I spot them; have a great festival!

Barbโ€™d Wire and Corn Exchanging; Reggae Finds a Home at Devizes Arts Festival

Never content with what contemporary music thrust down our throats, even as a youngster, the easiest and sneakiest place to hunt for origins was Dadโ€™s record collection. It would be years before he discovered the shortfall of vinyl and confronted me. Sixties Merseybeat and blues-pop standard, I recall the intriguing moment I unearthed a shabby cover of a girlโ€™s naked torso, โ€œTighten Up Vol 2โ€ was inscribed on her abdomen in lipstick. So, when he did, I inquired why he bought this, Trojan Record. More concerned where his Pink Floyd gatefold had vanished to, he half-heartedly explained, โ€œit was something different,โ€ as if he didnโ€™t wish to divulge too much, โ€œand cheap.โ€

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The estate of Bob Marley is still argued over, he never understood how to handle the royalties of rock star. Other than a BMW he had no extravagance, the house on Hope Road a gift from Blackwell, in which he lobbed a single mattress in the corner of a bedroom. What you see of the Jamaican music industry in the movie, โ€œThe Harder they Come,โ€ is staunchly realistic; peanuts a too expensive commodity to compare to payments made to singers and musicians.

Poor wages triggered a prolific industry, hundreds of hopefuls jammed Orange Street awaiting to be ripped off. Trojan Records was founded the year after Bluebeat dissolved, 1968. The reasoning both English labels sourced Jamaican music was originally to supply the Windrush generation with the sounds of home, it is doubtful either realised the legacy they would leave. The underpaid nobodies singing on these records meant Bluebeat and Trojan could lower the price tag when compared to what upstarts like Bowie or Clapton would require, and price was everything for white British kids attempting to amass vinyl for house parties; as my father summed up.

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Though the attraction mayโ€™ve been the price, the enticement of these records came when the needle hit the groove; these rhythms were insatiably beguiling and exotic. I felt that ambiance too, and fell head over heels. But my palette had been preconditioned without comprehending it. Slightly too young to have immersed in the youth cultures of the late seventies, the sound bequest our pop charts.

Whether it was Blondie or the Police, or Madness, The Beat, or Piranhas, the charts of pre electronica eighties was inspired by the two youth cultures of punk and skinhead, and until the day I discovered a Bluebeat 7โ€ of Prince Busterโ€™s Madness, exposing Suggs and his Nutty Boyโ€™s embodiment, I had no idea. Jerry Dammersโ€™ Two Tone Records only had six years, an insecure contract with a get-out clause after one single, saw the acts achieve acclaim and jump ship.

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But if we celebrated Trojanโ€™s fiftieth last year, we must do the same for Two-Toneโ€™s fortieth, as it engraved its hometown, Coventry, as firmly on the ska map as Kingston. Within its short run Two Tone defined an era and reintroduced the roots of the dub reggae scene that punk spurred to white British youth; ska. The nonchalant rudimentary street-styled design of Two-Toneโ€™s corporate identity is today considered standard ska practise; Dave Storeyโ€™s chequered monochrome background with Walt Jabsco, a character based upon a Peter Tosh image.

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It may have challenged punk with chicness akin to mod, but today, these subcultures are inconsequential, we can bundle it all into one retrospective burlesque, select whatever element of any of them and fuse them without pretence or offense; one reason why a group like Barbโ€™d Wire is fresh and electrifying.

Though hailing from Two Toneโ€™s home, Coventry, drummer and vocalist, Trevor Evans, a.k.a. ET Rockers, having begun his sparkling career as roadie turned DJ for The Specials, and with a brass section arrangement by Jon Pudge, ska is only an element of Barbโ€™d Wireโ€™s sound. Guitarist Ryan Every, Fingers Aitken on bass, and Mark Bigz Smith commanding the keys, blend influences as far and wide as punk to orchestral and blues into a melting pot of reggae. Fronted by the spiralling, gospel-inspired vocals of Cherelle Harding, their unique sound drives a heavy dub bassline, while not divulging on its preconditioned instrumental ethos. What weโ€™re left with is a genuinely contemporary reggae lattice landing the group as firm favourites on the dynamic Coventry scene and festival circuit such as Skamouth.

 

While tracks like Duppy Town and Et Rockers Up Town, on their 2017 debut album, Time Has Come, rely on dub, a stepperโ€™s riddim thrives throughout, but incorporates aforementioned influences. The only recognisable cover, for example, is the classic Latino-inspired Rockfort Rock of which the Skatalites perfected a ska-rhumba amalgamation. Produced by Roger Lomas, who also handles Bad Manners and The Selecter, again, Barbโ€™d Wire pride themselves with Two-Tone influences, yet unlike the standard ska cover band youโ€™re likely to get on our local scene, who all have their place in maintaining a clandestine but welcomed scene here, Barbโ€™d Wire will be a fresh and welcomed gig, when they arrive at Devizes Corn Exchange on Saturday 1st June as a feature of Devizes Arts Festival.

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For me, and any reggae/ska/soul aficionado, this is simply unmissable, but for the Arts Festival it may be a risky move, breaking their typical booking in search for newer audiences. While organ recitals, poetry slams and theatre noir have their place, we owe it to ourselves to support this event in hope it will spur future events at the festival of an alternative and contemporary genre. That is why youโ€™ll see our Devizine logo proudly on the posters for this particular appearance, as though we plan to bring you more in-depth previews and reviews of this yearโ€™s stunning line-up, Iโ€™m most excited about this one!

 

Saturday 1st June: Tickets available now, ยฃ18

 

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Decatonics to take Devizes to Skaville!

Designing the posters for the Devizes Scooter Club came to the peak of absurdity with this one for the latest event on the 30th March, and I feel I may need tone down the experimentation a tad. Still, I think it stands out from the run-the-mill event poster; in the words of Mike the Cool Person, โ€œI never stand on convention, it never stood on me.โ€

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But I cannot deny, with a bombardment of highly anticipated local gigs this coming month, Iโ€™m looking forward to this one perhaps, the most. Weโ€™ve seen a few Northern Soul and Motown nights of recent from the Scooter Club, and while my eclectic taste appreciates these along with the plethora of other gigs lined up on my calendar, you still canโ€™t, in my opinion, beat a bit of ska.

This will reflect well against the forthcoming Scooter Rally, as while a weekend-long event will provide scope for the club to parade all relevant genres, thereโ€™s a truckload of ska to be heard. Orange Street headlining will be one to watch, while Swindonโ€™s The Tribe mesh ska with hip hop beats, and other local outfit The Erin Bardwell Collective will simmer in some rock steady. Essexโ€™s finest, The Start are not averse to playing ska, and Iโ€™m sure, given the nature of the event that the Day Breakers will blast a two-tone classic or three. Of course, Bad Manners tribute Special Brew take as red.

Confident in the statement international third-gen ska is regenerating the old Two-Tone scene here in England, is evident in the success of groups like the Dualers. Call it clichรฉ, say yeah, diehard skins donโ€™t know when to give it up, but thereโ€™s something in that joyous offbeat which makes you want to jump and skank.

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So put your braces together, your boots on your feet, and allow me to introduce this prodigious booking, Dorsetโ€™s eight-piece ska band, The Decatonics. It promises to be a blinding night at the Devizes Conservative Club. The band, formed in 2012 have indeed supported the aforementioned Dualers, along with The Skatelites, The Neville Staple Band and Bad Manners.

An established 8-piece female-fronted ska band, The Decatonics are constructed of bassist Rowan, two Steves, one on keys and the other on drums, an energetic backline and powerful horn section of Mike on tenor sax, Harry on trumpet and alto sax, and Ian on trombone. Theyโ€™re fronted by two adept vocalists who compliment one another; Shaun, also on lead guitar and Sally, who Iโ€™ve been chatting with. I started by asking her how long theyโ€™d been together and if the members were the same original line-up.

โ€œThe bass and I, and the lead brass, are original, with our drummer being with us for five years,โ€ she explained, โ€œbut as with any large band, changes are inevitable along the way.โ€

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โ€œIs it all covers, or have you any original songs recorded?โ€ I asked Sally.

โ€œWe do just cover songs,โ€ she sustained, โ€œbut try and give our own little flair, and being female-fronted we get to play a more diverse set than your standard ska covers band.โ€ No issue there, in retrospective glory, cover songs make the night at the Scooter Club. Not forgoing, Sally mentioned that since 2017, The Decatonics have been part of a Specialised Project, recording tracks for a CD. I saw my opening, boasted of my newfound show on Boot Boy Radio and blagged two tunes to play on the show next week!

The first song a Trojan hit in the UK, Bob & Maricaโ€™s up-tempo Pied Piper, proves their ability to sprinkle a joyous contemporary ska riff to a boss reggae classic, but the second hoists up that skill, with a concentrated ska adaption of the Jamโ€™s Standards.

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The Decatonics draw influences from both original Jamaican ska, bluebeat, and its new-wave Two-Tone, but also from successors rock steady and reggae. They even accommodate soul in the melting pot, bringing a vibrant live show which has built up a great reputation with the entire mod/scooter scene rather than just ska aficionados. Do not expect third generation punk experimentation, but a suitable English ska sound popularised by Madness and The Beat.

With a strong following through regular pub and club gigs, and festivals such as the Big One Weekender Festival, Dorset Volksfest, The Dorset Steam Fair and Teddy Rocks under their belt, Iโ€™m certain theyโ€™ll transport their astounding party atmosphere to our already lively Devizes Scooter Club nights.

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Tickets are a tenner, by messaging the Devizes Scooter Club Facebook page, from Vinyl Realm, Jefferson’s Cafรฉ, or from the Devizes Cons Club direct. As usual there will be a raffle, and I believe itโ€™s me warming up the crowd on the wheels of steel, like a musical fluffer; but donโ€™t let that put you off! The club ascertain everyone is welcome, not just members. Think of this as an opportunity to taste what you might bear witness to at the forthcoming Rally in July, oh and to have a good knees-up too!

 

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Devizes Scooter Clubโ€™s Grand BBQ

All images used with kind permission of Ruth Wordly

@ MoongypZy Creative Photography

 

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If last weekend in Devizes belonged to rockers, as the Sports Club shook by the awesome Saddleback Festival, it was small mercies for the Mods this Saturday as Devizes Scooter Club hosted a more moderately proportioned charity BBQ day, which wasn’t without equal summer fun and frolics.

The corner of Hillworth Road and Long Street became a haven for scooter enthusiasts, whoโ€™d travelled from far and wide, and local lovers of soul, reggae and ska who gathered outside the Conservative Club to raise some funds for the Devizes and District Opportunity Centre.

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How much was raised at this tender morning moment (at the time of writing this on Sunday) is unconfirmed, majority of organisers I’d wager are taking a fully-earned rest, if not nursing a sore head!

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I’ll let you know the grand total as soon as I get some feedback, but cake stall helper Paula told me she’d sold twice as many as last year’s family fun day, as husband Andy, whose task it was to man the barbeque looked vacantly into space through sheer tiredness. โ€œI reckon he’ll be flipping burgers in his sleep,โ€ I imagined.

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The bar and garden packed out by lunchtime, extending to the car park, which converted into a showroom of lamberttas and vespas, with an added parts stall. As enthusiasts admired each other’s “hairdryers,” their families enjoyed the plethora of side stalls, the hall of bouncy things (castle and a Gladiators-styled battle arena) and the quality music.

Contrary to their name, Swindon’s Daybreakers turned up early afternoon. Thank heavens I figured, lesson learned that day; a cider breakfast does no good when attempting to operate a mixer. Thanks to Tony who danced around me doing all the technical wizardry and gave our musical show a voice.

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By 2pm The Daybreakers were off, with no one willing to stop them they revved through a glut of benchmark early 80s pop, the likes of the Specials and Dexy, to sublime renditions of crusty rock, such as the Levellers. Wherever Cath, Gouldy and gang land there’s guaranteed to be a blinding show and today was no exception.

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An awesome team effort blessed the event with an uncompromising community spirit. From face-painted kids guessing names of teddies, shooting footballs and munching cake, to adults estimating the weight of a ham, shooting down beers and munching burgers, a village fete atmosphere ensued with a retrospective, hedonistic angle, as opposed to being all vicars and teacakes on the lawn.

By late afternoon Chippenham duo, Blondie & Ska had pitched inside and began their dazzling show; a precise Blondie tribute meshed with other two-tone classics in a style as if Debbie Harry would’ve covered them. They made a fantastic sound for just a duo and relished every minute despite fatigue setting in with the punters, who tended to loiter outside to begin with.

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With most exhausted from the day’s affairs already, it took a while for the show to push the audience into gear, hangers-on remained in the shadows of the garden to begin with, or those with families retired home with worn-out youngsters. I thought it a shame the club could’ve shown how we welcome acts as good as Blondie & Ska, but the thought abruptly ceased as the evening took hold and sweltering members graced that dance floor.

I offered a rock steady break for the band, but dancers yearned for some Northern Soul, so that’s what I did. Then Blondie & Ska continued and took us to into to the close. If you need more of these guys, or if you missed this thoroughly enjoyable show, I strongly advise you check out future gigs on their website. Closest to us, is The Wroughton Club on August 11th, The Royal Oak Corsham the day after, and the Gladstone Road Club in Chippenham on October 27th.

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As for the Daybreakers, well theyโ€™re never to be missed. Catch them again for an afternoon in Devizes, when theyโ€™ll be at Vinyl Realm on August 4th, and check their Facebook page for an extensive gig guide.

Back to the BBQ Day though, it was in observing the quantity of people gathered, and their enjoyment of the day which gave me both enormous optimism for a very successful Scooter Rally next summer, and a pride in our small town’s Scooter Club, where everyone contributed a gallant effort to ensure a grand day out was had by all, most laboured until they dropped, notwithstanding, some money was raised for our preschool for children with disabilities and learning difficulties. So full steam ahead for the Scooter Club now, as tickets for a brilliant sounding, soultastic Motown-eske band, All That Soul, are now on sale at the Cons Club, Jeffersons and Vinyl Realm.

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The Return of the Female of the Speices

Wow, 11th September 2017 this article dates back to: โ€œFemale of the Species, boil ska, soul and blues influences to simmer Melksham for the Air Ambulance.โ€ In Devizine terms thatโ€™s ancient and a gentle reminder weโ€™ve nearly reached our first birthday.

 
Being one of our first pieces it has to be said, not only is it of far better quality than the type of rubbish Iโ€™m now putting out, but it had an inspiring theme! The reason I bring it up, because the local, all-girl supergroup The Female of the Species, which was its subject, are at it again, and tickets for their gig at the Melksham Assembly Rooms are now on sale.

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Tackily pasted from last yearโ€™s event, I wrote: โ€œNicky Davis from People Like Us and The Reason, Glastonburyโ€™s Julia Greenland from Soulville Express & Delta Swing, Fromeโ€™s Claire Perry from Big Mamma & The Misfitz, solo artist Charmaigne Andrews from Melksham, and Julie Moreton from Trowbridgeโ€™s Train to Skaville and Jules & The Odd Men, form the supergroup for Live on the Night, at the Melksham Assembly Rooms on Saturday 30th September.โ€ So, other then being pushed back a day, I asked Nicky if anything else has changed?

 
โ€œClaire (Big Mama) no longer performs with the Misfitz,โ€ noted Nicky, โ€œinstead sheโ€™s now with โ€˜Big Mamaโ€™s Banned.โ€ Jules added, โ€œThe girls are delighted to announce that joining us as part of our band line up this year, on sax, is my fellow ‘Train to Skaville’ band-mate, the awesome Miss Karen Potter.โ€ So other than this itโ€™s much the same and on target to rock the Melksham Assembly Rooms on Saturday the 29th September.

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Karen Potter

This yearโ€™s event is subtitled โ€œRaising Money Through Music,โ€ and is in aid of Young Melksham, a registered charity which โ€œwork as a community to provide all children and young people with opportunities to thrive, develop and participate.โ€ Young Melksham really makes a huge difference to the lives of youth in our area, by hosting more events than I can list here, including The Melksham Young Peopleโ€™s Awards.

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Click for more info on Young Melksham

They make trips to shows locally, hold a variety of regular weeknight โ€œyouth club styledโ€ workshops and events from their Canberra Club, from cookery to sports. They even run a shuttlebus to get kids there safely. The policy of Young Melksham is: โ€œadvancing in life and helping children and young people by developing their skills, capacities and capabilities to enable them to participate in society as independent, mature and responsible individuals; advancing education, providing recreational and leisure time activities in the interest of social welfare designed to improve their conditions of life.โ€ They even have fully-trained counsellor and listening support workers when youth need a friendly face and a listening ear.

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Supporting the supergroup this year will be young songstress with that oh so soulful voice, Laura Jayne Burt, Melkshamโ€™s guitar/soloist Sarah Deer and batting for the boys, Bathโ€™s acoustic duo Ben & Tim. This is one unmissable annual extravaganza which takes the best elements of all these local groups and combines them into a blend of reggae and ska, soul and Motown, blues and rock. It can only guarantee too ooze with local talent and blow the roof of the Assembly Rooms, for just a tenner a ticket, with ALL proceeds going to this fantastic charity-based community projectโ€ฆ..and itโ€™s full of gorgeous ladies; whatโ€™s not to like?!

 

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The Great Western Reggae Soundclash

Trains have an emblematic relationship with reggae and its predecessor ska.

 

The chugging offbeat imitating a steam engine has been a running theme throughout its history. From choo-choo vocals of the Ethiopianโ€™s classic โ€œTrain to Skaville,โ€ to Keith & Texโ€™s rock steady anthem, โ€œStop that Train,โ€ and The Wailerโ€™s song of the same title, reggae is awash with train themes; itโ€™s only apt thereโ€™s such thing as โ€œGreat Western Reggae,โ€ and a substantial scene in the historic railway town of Swindon.

 

Pop-a-Top Records is Swindonโ€™s label dedicated to its reggae homebrew. Itโ€™s headed by the ex-Skanxter, Erin Bardwell and his Collective whoโ€™ve just released โ€œGreat Western Reggae Soundclash,โ€a double-album which serves as a prodigious sampler for Pop-a-Topโ€™s Great Western Reggae style.

 

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In those ravey daze, the Skanxters were a local archaic blessing, harking to an era when life was less Altern 8 and more, well, Specials. I fondly recall heady nights following the Skanxters, at the Queenโ€™s Tap, The Vic, and the Lamb in Marlborough, and remember the disheartening revelation a gig at Level III in 98 would be their last. I reminisce how, during their comical, โ€œIโ€™ll never know (who nicked my bike),โ€ lead singer Andy Paton would ask the dodgiest looking audience member, โ€œOi, was it you?โ€ and how once I was selected for the honour!

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Imagine my delight at catching up with Erin, who played keyboards in the band and hasnโ€™t stopped since. โ€œNot all the artists (on Pop-a-Top) are from Swindon,โ€ Erin explained, โ€œbut most are, or have links to it.โ€ With countless projects under his belt, such as dub production duo Subject Aโ€™s โ€œSleepwalkersโ€ release with ex-Skanxter bass player Dean Sartain, and nostalgic two-tone reunion gigs for the Skanxters, Erin is exceptionally prolific.

 

Though meticulous effort has been refined into โ€œGreat Western Reggae Soundclash,โ€ and while not astoundingly lyrical, despite the opening track โ€œRock Steady Rub,โ€ with vocals parallel to Johnny Cash popping into Studio One, GWR concentrates more-so on keyboards akin to Jackie Mitto.

 

The Collective glide steadily through a plethora of traditional rock steady, which while wouldn’t sound out of place on a Trojan โ€œTighten Upโ€ compilation, also has a sprinkle of reflections on Swindon. Again, in the aforementioned running train theme, the tongue-in-cheek “Night Bus to Highworth,” and a nod to Edith New, the Swindonian suffragette first to campaign in an aggressive manner.

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Fans of Jamaican music in Britain tend to separate into two trends, echoing dub and skinhead ska; the transitional stage is often overlooked. When really, developed through hard times in 1960s Kingston, where curfews set by the government to curb “rude boy” culture, it consequently mellowed the mood for the following era, and was Jamaica’s most creative period musically.

 

To hark back to this rock steady/boss reggae period is tried and tested in this album, a rarity left to groups like New York’s Frightnrs, who in turn add a little New Yorker panache to their sound. The Eric Bardwell Collective do similar, plus, while fundamentally inspired by rock steady they’re not afraid to explore techniques usually saved for ska or reggae, from chugging choo-choo vocals to nyabinghi drums and one drops, the tune โ€œWhy Why,โ€ being a grand example of this, and along with both male and female vocals, the latter supplied by Dominican-born Sandra Bell, it makes the sound wholly unique and excitingly refreshing.

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With rich history including backing reggae star Dennis Bovell, and a trip to Jamaica in 2003, to record at Byron Leeโ€™s legendary Dynamic Sounds with Studio One engineer Sylvan Morris, Erin Bardwell has the contacts to add a plethora of talent to feature within the Collective. On this release youโ€™ll find Selecter Guitarist Neol Davies, drummer Matty Bane of the Neville Staple Band, Pat Powell of the Melbourne Ska Orchestra alongside Swindonโ€™s finest line-up, such as, among others, horns from the SN Dubstation.

 

Thereโ€™s much here to impress and delight the reggae enthusiasts, my personal favourite being โ€œChange,โ€ where the Byron Lee influences shine, reminding of the frequently sampled piano riff of โ€œMy Conversation,โ€ by the Uniques. Although thereโ€™s equally as much inspiration external to reggae, at times the soundscape took me to contemplate early Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett days, and a sprinkling of Sgt Pepper towards the albumโ€™s close. So, I figure thereโ€™s as much here to enjoy for the occasional reggae listener.

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Thereโ€™s an album launch at the Thomas Hughes Memorial Hall in Uffington on December 1st, the Erin Bardwell Collective are also live at The Castle in Swindon on Friday 8th and Zed Alley in Bristol 15th December. If thatโ€™s too close to the big C, Iโ€™d highly recommend you keep warm and treat yourself to an early yule pressie; grab yourself a CD or download of this outstanding local riddim redeemer here at Bandcamp.

 

For more info on Erin Bardwell Collective and the Top-a-Pop label, click here.

 

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Female of the Species, boil ska, soul and blues influences to simmer Melksham for the Air Ambulance

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Deadlier than the male, The Female of the Species is an amalgamation of female musicians from various local bands who team up to host charity gigs; whatโ€™s not to like?

 
Nicky Davis from Warminster based People Like Us and The Reason, Glastonburyโ€™s Julia Greenland from Soulville Express & Delta Swing, Fromeโ€™s Claire Perry from Big Mamma & The Misfitz, solo artist Charmaigne Andrews from Melksham, and Julie Moreton from Trowbridgeโ€™s Train to Skaville and Jules & The Odd Men, form the supergroup again for โ€œLive on the Night,โ€ at the Melksham Assembly Rooms on Saturday 30th September.

 
Seriously not to be missed; Beginning by showcasing two young performers; James Dempsey and Laura Jane Burt, giving them stage time and experience. The show then continues with People Like Us. The finale, Female of the Species sure to be the icing on the cake. Blending their influences in a mash-up of reggae and ska, soul and Motown, blues and rock, how on Earth do they govern what genre is coming next?

 
I thought Iโ€™d hassle Jules of Train to Skaville for an answer. โ€œEach of the girls chooses three or four songs from their bandโ€™s set list,โ€ explained the self-confessed rude-girl, โ€œand then we add in the stuff we sing together.โ€

 
The Female of the Species first formed for a one-off gig at the Civic Hall, Trowbridge in 2014 for the Hope Centre in Southwick, a charity for adults with learning difficulties,ย  โ€œbut it was so successful,โ€ Jules continued, โ€œwe had no choice but to do it all againโ€ฆ.and again.โ€

 

 

 

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This news nugget keeps getting better though, as this year theyโ€™re fund-raising for the Wiltshire Air Ambulance. The previous appearance at the Assembly Hall in Melksham, back in 2015 raised ยฃ2,920 in aid of WILTSHIRE M.I.N.D Mental Health Charity. The founding gig at The Hope Nature Centre in Southwick in 2014 I previously mentioned, raised an amazing ยฃ3,395.

 
While the next Train to Skaville is boarding from the White Swan, Trowbridge, Big Mama and the Misfitz only coming as close to us as The Fox and Hounds in Colerne on 4th November and the next People Like Us gig being a longer bus journey to Bath, at the Westgate on 22nd, hereโ€™s something in easy reach and all for the greatest cause. Tickets at just a tenner can be snatched from the Assembly Rooms or online here.