The first record from the Boston natives “Devil’s Night Out” was a sort of party album that melted ska and punk with a deeper vocal than most had heard at the time. This one had the most emphasis on the ska genre than their latter records, but they band shifted through many points on this record, so it’s hard to pigeon hole them into just one category.
Most notably, “Devil’s Night Out” would brand the term “ska-core” as a synonymous word with The Bosstones.
For the Japanese fans, they got two extra tracks that were previously released on the “Where’d You Go EP”. The tracks were “Enter Sandman” (Metallica cover) and “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love”.
The record was quite good, and had the original, full line up of players from the Boston ska band. The record came out on in 1990, at the tail end of the two-tone era of ska, and before the mid-late 90’s ska explosion on radio when grunge died. Originally released through TAANG! Records, this album didn’t really shake things up for the band, but it managed to introduce punk/ska underground to a new style of ska that wasn’t necessarily being pushed by other bands at the time.
After hitting the ground with “Out of Nowhere”, two years later, Hepcat released “Scientific” with BYO records and it became a psuedo-hit for the ska music revivalists. The band could’ve been huge with this record, since it was the sophomore record, and they were based in Los Angeles, not too far away from touring acts and a large southern California ska music scene, but instead this took the needle off of most dub records. They did something that most bands don’t do with their second record; they didn’t conform to the pattern that would’ve made them mega-stars for a moment in time. They instead turned around and bucked the trends, offering one of the best 60’s inspired ska-jazz records of the modern era of ska music. While they had an upbeat sound, this horn heavy disc was not at all like other bands at the time. While it still has that classic, southern California ska formula, it is nothing like the cookie cutter records that were getting played on rock radio alongside other modern rock bands of the mid 90’s, while people were searching for the next big thing.
Hepcat’s Scientific, features some great jazz bass lines, long horn solos, and vocals that were not running a mile a minute, but rather offering a soul searching passion and prowess. You’d swear that this was a Studio One record not a mid 90’s third wave ska offering. It’s not always ska, but it sure stays close by, and the band sprinkles in rocksteady, reggae, dub, and a slowed down swagger that is only found in Jamaican classic ska. The disc even offers one of the most intriguing instrumentals found on a ska record, and would fit comfortably with any Skatalites record of yesteryear.
On this cinco de mayo, I decided to post a reggae song instead of a classic mariachi thing…sometimes I do miss Los Angeles…this video features The Aggrolites doing one of their best songs from their most recent album, enjoy.
I got this song stuck in my head today, and had to share it with all you…well I highly doubt anyone reads this diatribe of mine, but it’s a cool song. Here’s New Order playing Age of Consent live from 1984.
When I was a kid, I had to try and descramble adult content on my old cable box, but never managed to spot this interesting black box concept. Apparently, I’m not the only one that was trying to steal cable at the time. This is a really cool throwback video:
Story of the Year’s new record on Epitaph came out yesterday and they have released this really cool music video. MTV might not be playing videos anymore, but man, this is solid. Story of the Year impressed me on their last record and they keep making good alternative music. Epitaph has a winner on their hands.
On this Monday, I got this song stuck in my head, it’s from Rancid and the lyrics really hit me in the heart, especially the second chorus which rings in my head on a daily basis:
Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.
Powered by MckLinky
Click here to enter your link and view the entire list of entered links…
PS: Because of spamming purposes, the linky will be closed on Thursday of each week at midnight, Malaysian Time. Thank you!
Recently I’ve been looking into music, because television has bored me to death. I can’t stand the programming that television has, and the only reason I have cable television right now is because of my wee website. If I didn’t review wwe crap all the time, I highly doubt I would have cable television at all.
Recently I read into the fact that Ozzy Osbourne’s original recordings were re-recorded with all new rhythm sections. The songs are usually terrible, if you’re a musician and long time fan you’ll notice right away that there is something wrong. Most notably, you can hear the re-recordings on “Blizzard of Ozz” and all the “best of” albums from the Ozz Man. They sound completely terrible.
You’ve heard “Crazy Train”, and I looked out on youtube and found that the original is available, so I wanted to post it:
On the original the bass guitar and guitar parts are at appropriate levels, but when you listen to the re-recordings the bass treble is through the roof and the guitar sounds like someone else is playing it!
So what, right? You don’t care, why should you. I don’t know, I’m just making lame blog conversations with myself which no one reads.
Now, Ozzy has done a lot of terrible things in regards to music, and dare I say reality television. But I can’t fault him too much, because he did something so cool for a 9 year old guitar player and fan. There’s this kid who at 7 years old met Ozzy and impressed him with how good he was on guitar. So the kid showed up on the “Ellen” talk show and met his hero, after playing a very interesting version of “Crazy Train”. So the kid gets in good with Ozzy and Ozzy lets him play live at BlizzCON! No joke, here you go, Crazy Train featuring the coolest 9 year old that you’ll see today.
So all is forgiven, right? Randy Rhoads is still not with us, Ozzy is still alive, and I’m still daydreaming of times when my websites mattered. All is right with the world, eh?
I was sitting in my living room the other day, trying to get some rest, and it turns out that I found out a musical question that has puzzled me for days.
You see, The Skatalites (pioneers of ska music) recorded and perform a song called “Occupation” and it sounds exactly like a country song from none other than Johnny Cash (country pioneer). That’s right, this is an interesting thing to note, especially since they sound the same.
Here’s the Skatalites performing “Occupation” listen to the opening of the song, as it goes another direction afterwards:
And now, here is Johnny Cash performing “ring of fire”:
Now, according to All Music both songs were created in 1964, and a musical performance cites the song at 1963, but which is which? Did the Skatalites steal Cash? Did Cash steal Skatalites?
