Clive Langer & The Boxes

 Clive Langer & The Boxes - Splash! (1980)

13-track LP

Clive Langer & The Boxes - I Want the Whole World (1979)

5-Track 12" EP

Plus I included a b-side called "Even Though"

and a song called "Inside Houses" that was the otherwise unreleased song on their 1988 compilation. 

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This was originally posted in August 2009. I'm not going to repeat everything I wrote so here's a link to the original post. 

 

Tux Dentist

 This was a band from California who released one single of experimental new wave before getting a female vocalist and changing their sound to ska. The first record has no ska but I included it because I have it and you might want to at least hear it. This post is all about that second record.

Tux Dentist - Tux Dentist EP (1981)

 My, My Baby

2 Gone Too Far

3 Space Invaders

4 Dippy Plays the Drums

Tux Dentist - TV Movie 7" (1983)

A - TV Movie

B - Inside My Closet

 

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K and the Sauce Pan - Do the Ska Na Na 7'' (1980)

This was originally posted on Tone and Wave in 2011.  This is being re-posted by request. 

Quirky female-fronted ska/new wave from France.

A - Do the Ska Nana

B - Boy Watcher

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The Original Talkatives - Complete Recordings 1981 - 1986

 Carmen Gomes is an accomplished jazz/blues singer whose 1997 album "Heaven is a State of Mind" was awarded Album of the Year by Jazznu Magazine. 

 She has a Bandcamp page where you can hear her "souljazz with a bluesy touch". Her latest album, a tribute to Ray Charles, was just released last month so her music career is alive and well which is amazing considering she started out forty years ago in a ska band called Subsection. 

Subsection released an eleven song demo tape in 1981 that was 2 Tone style ska from beginning to end. It should be ranked up there with the most popular ska releases of that era but, sadly, very few people have ever heard it, or even know about it.

  Members of the band did have some decent success in the mid 80s as the band Original Talkatives with their new wave-with-an-island-feel and they maintained their ska roots throughout their career but toward the end they developed more of a pop sound appealing more to fans of Debbie Gibson than to fans of Mark Foggo. 

This is a Tone and Wave exclusive. A compilation of all of the songs recorded by both bands - Subsection and Original Talkatives. This download includes the Subsection demo as well as the pure-ska 4-track Original Talkatives demo and all five vinyl singles plus a live song that is not available on their other releases.

 The songs "Dog Shit" and "Rocksteady fur Elise" from the Subsection demo were re-recorded for the 4-track Original Talkatives demo and the first song from the Original Talkatives demo "For Me" was re-recorded for the B-side to the Original Talkatives' first single. But, aside from these songs, everything else on the demos are unique to those tapes. 

 

1 Watch Out

2 Alcoholic Man

3 Monday Morning

4 Boy

5 A Bom

6 Dog Shit

7 Don't Go

8 Death

9 Killing Dance

10 Watching TV

11 Rocksteady fur Elise

12 For Me

13 Bored Stiff

14 Dog Shit

15 Fur Elise

16 Computers

17 For Me

18 Pickin' Up

19 The Ladder

20 Waiting by the Telephone

21 Summer

22 High Pressure

23 Reggative Time

24 Squeeze Louise

25 City Life

26 Don't Wanna Hurt You (live)

 

Tracks 1 - 11: Subsection demo tape from 1981

Tracks 12 - 15: Original Talkatives demo  tape from 1982

Tracks 16 & 17: Computers 7" from 1983

Tracks 18 & 19: Pickin' Up 7" from 1985

Tracks 20 & 21: Waiting by the Telephone 7" from 1985

Tracks 22 & 23: High Pressure 7" from 1986

Tracks 24 & 25: Squeeze Louise 7" that was recorded in the 80s but wasn't released until 2013

Track 26: from De Grote Prijs van Nederland

I must note that De Grote Prijs van Nederland also has a live version of "Pickin' Up" which I didn't include because I didn't include any live versions aside from "Don't Wanna Hurt You" only because it's not available on any other recording. .

I owe a tremendous amount of thanks to Sander for providing the last two songs I didn't have as well as the YouTube channel Diggin Demos from where I respectably stole the two demos. 

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The Adams Family - Four for One (1984)

 Not ska, but new wave/reggae/dub from this British band. I actually think the last song is the best song on the record. 

1 War Town

2 Version Town

3 Warm Feeling

4 Fun City

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Ms. B. Haven - Get It 7" (1981)

 This was a female-fronted new wave band from California. This might be the only thing they ever released. The keyboard player Sue Palmer put out some other music but I don't think anything else was recorded with this band. I'll be happy to be proven wrong.

The A-side is a new wave song. The B-side is a reggae song that sounds very similar to Judith Ann-Marie. 

I should add that my copy doesn't have the sleeve so I respectfully stole all of the images from Discogs. My copy is very very crackly and I spent a lot of time trying to edit out the pops and crackles. You wouldn't know it by listening to it. I probably could have done better if I spent more time on it but oh well. There's only so much time in a day.

A - Get It

B - Sexuality/Normality

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Savannah - Keep on Lovin' Me 7" (1980)

 Even though the poppy A-side is a catchy tune, I'm posting this one for the new wave/reggae B-side. This record was released a few times in Spain and by Sound of Scandinavia in Sweden. I don't actually know where the band was from. 

 

A - Keep On Lovin' Me

B - We Are Allright

 

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Flash Harry - Going Straight (1981)

This is a new wave/ska band from South Africa. They released a couple of singles and two full length albums. This is their first album.

I have their second album as well and one of the singles - both A and B sides are on that second album so, basically, I have all of their stuff except for that elusive first single that I have never ever seen for sale in my lifetime. The ska on this album isn't really ska in the traditional sense but it's more along the lines of "punk-reggae". The second album has less ska than this one, but it does have some. I'll post that album too...eventually.

1 Late Night Show
2 Success
3 Handlebars
4 Saving Up My Money
5 Hideaway
6 Hot Blooded
7 No Football
8 Feel the Pace
9 Beverly
10 Please...Don't Raise the Alarm!!

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United Balls - Hobo (1989)

1 Sing a Song
2 Help Me Baby
3 Rock Cafe
4 Red Light District Waltz
5 Diamonds are Tough
6 May I Please You?
7 Hobo Song
8 Pissin' in the River
9 Freedom, Music, Whiskey, and Wife
10 One for the Money, One for the Soul
11 Two Drunken Horses
12 Fisherman

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Thanks to Rude Rich for contributing this one!

Ballistics - Gun Rush 7'' (1983)

This is a square double-sided flexi and it's indescribably rare. I could emphasize how rare it is by repeating the words "super super" or using the terms "ultra" or "mega".
The band was from New Orleans and they released two records that I'm aware of but I heard from somebody who knows this kid who heard from a guy that they recorded more than that. I'm not sure and I don't actually care.
I heard the song "Gun Rush" many years ago and had to track this record down. It is rare 2Tone style ska. The other songs on the record aren't ska except for "The Line" which is definitely ska-influenced. The other songs are surf / skronk / no-wave and I've heard that their other record is along these lines with no ska at all so I'm not really willing to pay the price their other record commands unless I hear it first.

Listen to this song "Gun Rush" and tell me you wouldn't try to hunt this thing down yourself.
Download it. Save it. It will likely be the only time in your life you will hear of this record. No matter how many copies they made, flexies don't survive very long. I got real lucky finding it in the condition I did.

1 Gun Rush
2 Surfin' Communist Guerillas
3 Naugahyde
4 The Line

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Lebanon - Just Another Spliff 7'' (1987)

This is the only release from this German band whose members later formed the band Datashock for some reason. I am only presuming that this was released in 1987 but nobody really knows.

It's not ska in the purest sense but it is ska enough that it belongs in this blog.

You can hear "Just Another Spliff" HERE.

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The Effect - Masquerader 7" (1983)

A - Masquerader
B - There is a Place

Listen to "Masquerader" It starts out mellow then it hits you with an intense ska chorus.

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Musical Flags - Showbag! (1981)

Post punk/new wave from Australia with two ska-influenced tunes.

The images were respectfully stolen from Discogs because I was just too lazy to scan everything myself.

Listen to "I CAN'T STOP"

1 In the Green Room
2 Sky Command
3 Short Change
4 Xmas
5 I Can't Stop

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Pinhead - You Don't Like Me, Do Ya? (1982)

This band was from Burlington, Vermont. The band was an outlet for artist Dug Nap.

The band's sound should appeal to fans of Talking Heads and they have just a tiny splash of Boingo.

There are two or three ska-influenced tracks on this record. One of which "Where are You?" was re-recorded for an EP of the same name that was released a year later. That record also included a re-recording of the song "Citizen" but was titled "Be a good Citizen" on the second release.

Pinhead - You Don't Like Me, Do Ya? (1982)
1 Almost Human
2 Back to the Womb
3 Where are You?
4 Little Rocker
5 Citizen
6 You Don't Like Me, Do Ya?
7 Stealing Your Wife.


Listen to "Stealing Your Wife"

Pinhead - Where You? (1983)
1 Where are You?
2 Don't Dance
3 Nature
4 Here Come the Mutants
5 Subway
6 Be a Good Citizen



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Loose Ties - Loose Ties 12" (1985)

This was a band from Massachusetts that played in Boston quite a bit.

I'll be totally honest here. I don't like this record very much. I really try to avoid saying anything negative about a band on this blog but look...

The first two or three songs are great. "Last Time" is a cover of the Rolling Stones song and it wasn't done in a ska style, but was done exactly as the Beat (English Beat) would have done it. The second song is a ska song and I love it. The third song is pretty decent.

If these three songs were released as a 45 or as a 12" I would say this is an impressive release.
These are the 3 songs on the A-side.

But, then, we have the B-side.

I don't care for any of the songs on the B-side. In fact some of the songs skip and I don't care enough to re-rip them.

A-side - great record.

B-side - pointless crap.



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Static Activity - The Epically Blazing Adventures of Static Activity in the Land of Zing! 7" (1984)

A1 - Uprot
A2 - Dumb
B1 - Nick of Time
B2 - Sugar & Spice
B3 - Gould

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Pipanannakim - Willie Can 7" (1983)

Female-fronted 2Tone-ish A-side with a ballad on the B-side. If the eighties had a smell this record would have an overwhelming stench.

I'm not completely sure how to pronounce the band's name but I'm guessing it's "Pip an' Anna Kim"

A - Willie Can
B - Heart Talk

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The Bank - Shape Up 7" (1981)

I know absolutely nothing about this band. I don't know where they were from or if they released anything else.

In the last couple of decades I have only ever seen this for sale twice.
It's not quite ska. It's female-fronted new wave with a ska aftertaste but I think most of us like this sort of thing, right?

A - Shape Up
B - Turn Around

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Trio - Tutti Frutti 7'' (1983)

My fellow Americans who watched MTV in the mid-90s might remember that Volkswagen commercial where the two guys are driving around in a Volkswagen and they pick up a chair that somebody left by the curb but then they realize the chair doesn't smell so good so they drop it back off on the street. In the background the German band Trio's song "Da Da Da" from 1982 was playing and, even though Da Da Da was a pretty big hit in Europe and was pretty much well known everywhere throughout the eighties, this commercial introduced this song to a whole new audience.

Oh shit, the commercial is actually on YouTube:


And here is the original video for the song from 1982:


Trio put out a few albums and lots of singles but their cover of Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" was their only ska song.

A - Tutti Frutti
B - Ich Lieb den Rock 'n' Roll



I included the Da Da Da 7" and 12" in this download because that's what you really want.

Incidentally there was an actual ska/reggae band called Trio + 1 that has nothing to do with this band.

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X-Legz - New (1983)

Very 80s sounding and very mellow. All ten tracks have a ska/reggae sound but each song is slower than the last. I'm a drinker, not a smoker, so I like things a little more hyper but I think you who appreciates the "powerful narcotic marijuana" will enjoy it.

This band was from Switzerland and they do have at least one other release - a 7" which has 2 songs that are not on the album. I do not have the 7" yet but it's in my wantlist. I'm in no hurry to buy it just yet. No hurry at all. Keepin' it mellow.

1 Fast Dogs
2 You'll be With Me
3 Because the Rain is Falling
4 A Bunch of Roses
5 Gagaf (Black Ivy)
6 Frankenstein's Bride
7 Sun, Wind and Music
8 Little Thieves Live Dangerous
9 Security
10 Sometimes

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