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His Story of U.S. Ska By David Hillyard Part 1
Posted By: Lawless Monday, January 31, 2011 Articles 8 comments
A little intro. David Hillyard is well known to general readers of this blog. He’s a very long standing OG member of The Slackers, founded his own Rocksteady 7, played on the now classic Hepcat album Out of Nowhere and even before that he was playing in San Diego as a founding member of the Donkey Show. It’s an understatement to say he’s had a long music career let alone one devoted to the likes of Ska. He of course has a distinct and passionate perspective on music in general and pointed thoughts on the state of Ska in the U.S. having toured here for over 20 years.
So it was a couple of years ago he decided to write down those thoughts and publish them to his Myspace blog for the world to read. As that social network has fallen out of favor and the feeling that his discussion should be read by more people than might see it now I reached out to him with a question. Would he be interested in havcing those comments being republished on our blog? Did he want to change or update anything? Nope – still holds true.
You know it’s kinda funny really – one of my first interviews was with Dave around 96 I think for a San Diego zine called Hand Carved in which I remember distinctly asking about his Donkey Show stuff. I don’t remember much else but here we are now publishing his story of ska. Funny how things come around.
It’s long and we’ll publish it over many posts for a new crop of fans to get a chance to read it. After that – maybe, just maybe Mr. Hillyard will feel compelled to more writings and thoughts on the stare of the Ska union as he sees it. So here you go for your reading pleasure.
EDITORS NOTE: Nothing was changed except a little clean up on punctuation and such.
NOW READ!
His Story of U.S. Ska By David Hillyard Part 1
Originally Published on February 8, 2008 by David Hillyard (of The Slackers & Rocksteady 7) on his Myspace Blog – Republished here with permission.
Introduction
A lot of other people have written histories of American Ska. So why bother? Well, to start with they get it wrong. So I’m going to call it from my perspective. I’m not gonna bother with any sort of neutrality and just call it as I see it.
Ska is funny music, against all odds it has managed to survive and persevere. How the hell has this once obscure music from Jamaica managed to capture so many people’s imaginations and win over so many hearts?
In case you are reading this and have no idea what the hell “Ska” is or just associate it with a special mix of marching band horns, heavy metal, plaid suits, and shorts, let me set you straight.
Ska began in Jamaica sometime around 1959 and lasted in its classic form up until around 1967. It was the sound of Jamaican independence. It mixed together mento (calypso), jazz, Jamaican hand drumming, latin, gospel, and jump blues into a heady mix. The first thing most people notice about Ska is that the guitar plays rhythm, on the offbeat. I mostly pay attention though to the bass and drums. The weird thing about Ska is how it swings and doesn’t swing. It has a beautiful elasticity of time. If you don’t know what I’m talking about listen to Lloyd Knibb from the Skatalites play. If you don’t hear it then, well, I’m sorry.
Ska died out in 1966-67 and got replaced by rocksteady/reggae and a hundred other Jamaican styles. For a small island, it’s got a lot of music. Its constantly taking influences from all over the place, but somehow its own identity pulls through.
Yeah, stop me if you’ve heard this before. Or just skip to the American stuff. It starts in a couple of paragraphs.
So where was I? Oh yeah, Ska. It came back in the UK in the late 70s with 2 Tone. Bands like the Specials, Madness, Selecter, Bad Manners, the Beat etc. etc. Well actually you those are the important bands, the etc. is pretty much etc.
In some ways, the only thing that came back in the UK was the name, “Ska”. The bands were playing stuff that was influenced by the Sex Pistols and Ian Dury, punk and pub rock, plus all of the Jamaican music that had happened between 1967 and 1978. Ska was the name but it was only part of the musical picture. Uk drummers tended to play fewer rimshots and more open snare hits. Bass players would sneak in octaves from funk and disco, plod like punkers, or add bits of reggae. The Skank became more trembly and nasal. Whatever it was, although I like it a lot for the most part, it didn’t really swing in the same way as the 60s stuff. But hey, they sold a lot more records. At least for the 2-3 years they were popular before the trendy British moved on!
In the states, Ska had never gotten out of Jamaican immigrant communities. Reggae got picked up by every hippie and surfer who liked to smoke a joint but Ska, even when it was played was mostly unrecognized. “My Boy Lollipop” and “Ob-la-di-Ob-la-da” were just music. The Ska overtones went over most American listener’s heads.
So where does American Ska start? Does it come out of 2 Tone? Well yes and no. One of the first American bands to play Ska that I know of is the Blue Riddim Band from Kansas of all ****ing places. Can you believe that? NOT from NYC or LA! They used to do a cover of the Ska version of Simmer Down. They were around in the late 70s and are remembered for being one of the first American bands not composed of Jamaicans to convincingly play reggae.
Blue Riddim Band in Jamaica (From BRB Website)
But they weren’t part of a movement. Maybe they were a pioneer of what was to become the “world beat” movement but they didn’t have that much impact on what was going to become the American “Ska” scene as far as I know. Their 1981 record was floating around bargain bins in California by the late 80s. Most of my friend’s response to the record was “who the **** are these guys?” They were actually pretty good and should be better known than they are.
From what I can tell, a handful of Americans heard about “Ska” for the first time when the 2 Tone bands did their first tours in the wake of the success of 2 Tone in the UK. Apparently most of these tours were big disasters. Outside of a few pockets on the coasts and the odd college campus, the US didn’t get it.
Well…at least a few people did. Here and there the 2 Tone uniform began popping up. Someone was digging it. 2 Tone flavored anglophile bands began forming. But more on them later. Cause the English bands kept on coming over and growing in popularity.
That’s right, the Beat, Madness, and Bad Manners had not given up on the US of A. They kept plugging away and as 2 Tone faded to memory in the Uk, it began to gain some popularity in the states. Between 1982-1983, you had hits by Madness with “our house”, The Beat with “Save it for Later” and “I confess”, and Bad Manners with “that will do nicely son.” Of course, the irony was that by this time the 2 Tone bands were going for a slick watered down pop-rock sound that had only the vaguest of Jamaican references. Our House is trying to be the Beatles. I confess wouldn’t sound out of place on an ABC album. Save it for Later has the confident guitar strum of 80s rock. I guess Bad Manners had the most reggae/Ska influence at this time but they also had crossover dreams (check out their mid-80s lp Mental Notes for some pure dreck.). They toured the US several times and probably were the closest to keeping the energy of 2 Tone going far into the 80s.
So from the beginning American conceptions of “Ska” are far from the source. I’m not gonna say they are wrong cause all things change. But the fact is that most Americans thought of Ska as English first and Jamaican second. That it was some sort of mix of rock and reggae. And that it was a brief fad in the 80s and went out of style sometime right after the US festival.
So how the hell did it survive?
– end of chapter 1. Chapter 2 is soon come.
- See more at: http://www.musicaloccupation.com/art....xUHShO3R.dpuf
His Story of U.S. Ska By David Hillyard Part 2
Originally Published on February 12, 2008 by David Hillyard (of The Slackers & Rocksteady 7) on his Myspace Blog – Republished here with permission.
So thus continues my ramblings about the secret history of American ska.
So it was Two Tone that was the initial inspiration of the first American ska bands. Now I don’t claim to know which of these bands came first so I’m not going to pretend. I’m just going to write about what I know.
In southern California, where I was growing up, the early-to-mid 80′s were the time of the “mod-ska” craze. Ska was part of a mini-universe of vintage scooters, parkas, suits, and penny loafers. It was listened alongside the Jam, the Who, and the Style Council.
In a bizarre fashion twist, fans would create placards of band buttons completely covering trench coats.
Shows were often connected to scooter rallies and would have rows of Vespas and Lambrettas parked out front.
The flagship band for this scene was the Untouchables from Los Angeles. Their first 45′s and “Free Yourself” EP gave fuel to this scene which thrived from about 1982 to 1985 or so. In retrospect, their writing leaves a lot to be desired but I remember seeing them in 1985 and being blown away by their Specials-like stage show.
Being from LA and being ambitious with the music industry, they soon lost their way with their horrible LP, Wild Child. Victims of the funk virus. More on that later.
Also from Los Angeles, was probably the most influential “Ska” band from the early 80s, Fishbone. Because they mixed together heavy metal, funk, punk and other “junk” they were not at the center of the scene at the time but in terms of sounds that would later pop up in Reel Big Fish, No Doubt, Skankin’ Pickle, MU330, Mustard Plug et al, They are the originators. They were creating the template for was going to become “third wave ska” although no one was calling it that at the time.
In addition to their first EP that was massively influential they had these series of demos that got all over LA. Songs like “Alcoholic” and “Skanking to the Beat” are prototypes for the third wave ska cliches that were gonna get all over the country.
I think Fishbone was ambivalent about the ska fans they attracted. They didn’t want to be pigeonholed as being one of “those” bands. They also got signed to a major label early so they probably had a lot of “crossover” discussions. As the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Living Color blew up, they probably figured they should go that way too! Unfortunately, that meant that by the time ska came around in popularity in the 90s they were out of the loop. So they missed out on 2 counts.
There were also a lot of bands that would play some ska on the local level. In San Diego, I remember NE1 (anyone – clever right?). They would play some light ska influenced stuff in addition to more straight ahead 80s pop. In the early/mid 80s it wasn’t that rare to run into cover bands that would play some ska bands. I remember a college dance at UCSD that I got into even though I didn’t go to school there being that I was 15. This band, Limbo Slam, that was absolutely horrible stumbled their way through a horrible cover of the Specials’ “Concrete Jungle.”
If you’ve ever seen an 80′s teen movie you have a pretty good idea of how these bands looked and sounded. San Diego’s a weird town. Back in the 80′s it was dominated by 80′s cover bands. Now 25 years later, its dominated by 80′s cover bands. And people wonder why it doesn’t have a music scene commensurate with its population?
Also, big in California was the movie Dance Craze. It would travel around different independent theaters and be shown, often as part of a double bill with a punk movie like Decline of Western Civilization. People would gather at the theater and dress up for dance craze like it was a show. Go up front and dance. It was really quite something.
Dance craze was so popular that most of the ska covers you heard from local bands were off the soundtrack.
The mid-80s were a tough time for Ska in California. It was often seen as something from the early 80′s and “passe.” The mods who stayed in the scene rejected Ska as “kiddie” music and went for more of the 60′s R ‘n’ B and rock. I spent the year of 1986 not seeing a single Ska band play. Pretty pathetic.
It was during the mid-80′s that I found out that there were other Ska scenes happening in the USA (and Canada). Through Bleeker Bob’s record store which had branches in both LA and NYC, the first records by the Toasters, Bim Skala Bim, and the Boilers (on cassette) started to make it out to LA.
The toasters were going for a 2-Tone thing mixed with the Beastie Boys (remember Sean and Lionel?). They wore suits so were obviously playing “ska” right?
Bim Skala Bim and the other Boston bands like Plate of Shrimp could easily be classified as “world beat” as well as Ska. Bim didn’t dress up at all but I think they weren’t aiming for a “college” audience. I was really into their sound at the time. The power of Vinny Nobile’s trombone was really exciting.
The Boilers from NYC were also exciting. Oliver Rhee’s voice had this nice gentle quality and the music didn’t have funk or metal influences, it had a “roots” reggae vibe if anything. Me and my friends wore out their cassette from listening to it so much.
Besides these guys I was aware of during the early-mid 80s that there were bands such as the Uptones from San Francisco, the Villians from Vancouver, the Hopping Penguins from Toronto (I think?) plus Urban Blight, the NYC citizens, and Second Step from New York City.
My first band that I was involved in was called “The Saints” (no, not the band from Australia). We lasted a little under a year in 1985 and were a “mod-ska” band. We played some Ska like the Selecter’s “Danger.” We also played “That’s Entertainment” by the Jam I think. Fortunatly, we were torn apart by serious artistic differences and never amounted to much.
I was really hungry to form a Ska band and spent most of 1986 trying to make this happen. Every time I got a lineup together it would fall apart. I even had a gig booked that I had to back out of because we couldn’t keep the same group of people from rehearsal to rehearsal.
Finally, by 1987, the Donkey Show, was ready to start playing. We played our first gigs and immediately had some success in San Diego and soon afterwards played our first LA shows.
We were directly influenced by 2 Tone, occasionally would reach back to 60′s ska like the Skatalites or Prince Buster, and for lack of a better term, world beat. Yeah, I know. Hang my head with shame.
At about the same time as the Donkey Show, a bunch of other bands like the Skeletones, No Doubt, and Let’s Go Bowling hit the scene. Things were booming. Shows at the Country Club in LA, the Variety Arts Theater, and Fender’s Ballroom were packed. Its hard for me to say how many people there were at these shows because I wasn’t as business savvy then…I would guess that the LA shows were doing 300-700 people.
The scene was very underground. Not on the radio. Shows were rarely mentioned in the papers. It went counter to what people were supposed to be listening to at the time. But the shows were big. At least as big as the “Ska” shows in LA are now.
This local success was being duplicated around the country in Boston and New York. So what happened? How come most of these bands broke up, went into obscurity? How come so few of the 80′s bands continued to be active in the 90′s?
One big culprit is the “funk” virus. Once the Red Hot Chili Peppers had their success. At least 50% of the musicians in the United States wanted to follow their lead. Ska band after Ska band turned into funk bands.
Another trend that watered down the ska was world beat. Before you knew it, to be “creative” you had to be combining calypso with rock with hi-life with zouk with…well, you get the idea. Unfortunately, a lot of this dreck sounded similar to the funk stuff! Apparently you mix 12 kinds of ‘ethnic’ music together, you end up with funk. And you must wear tank tops and mullets/rat tails start sprouting.
Ska was so far out of the mainstream through the 80′s that bands were always subjected to pressure. Whispers of “if you want to be popular you should…” “you never are going to be popular if you keep playing ska….” “you got too many guys in your band…” These were the common words of advice you would get from the guy who worked in the mailroom at Warner Brothers and was pretending to be a big shot at your gig.
For some bands, it worked out. No Doubt were always wanting to be rock stars and they ended up doing it. Fishbone ended up being important musically but never achieved the popularity that they probably “should” have. They made the sound and No Doubt ended up selling it.
For other bands like the Untouchables, the funk virus was a disaster. Anyone remember their song,”Freak in the Streets?” Wow. It also broke up my band, the Donkey show. Half the band wanted to play a mix of Bad Brains and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The other half wanted to do a ska/reggae thing. The result is that the band broke up 1990.
Regardless, by the end of the 80s, it was unclear what was going to happen with the Ska scene. New bands were multiplying but it was as underground as ever.
Part 3 Coming Up!
- See more at: http://www.lawless-street.com/dave-hillyard-his-story-of-us-ska-part-2/#sthash.rDCukax5.dpuf
Dave Hillyard: His Story of U.S. Ska Part 3
by LAWLESS on MARCH 23, 2011 · LEAVE A COMMENT
A little intro. David Hillyard is well known to general readers of this blog. He’s a very long standing OG member of The Slackers, founded his own Rocksteady 7, played on the now classic Hepcat album Out of Nowhere and even before that he was playing in San Diego as a founding member of the Donkey Show. It’s an understatement to say he’s had a long music career let alone one devoted to the likes of Ska. He of course has a distinct and passionate perspective on music in general and pointed thoughts on the state of Ska in the U.S. having toured here for over 20 years.
So it was a couple of years ago he decided to write down those thoughts and publish them to his Myspace blog for the world to read. As that social network has fallen out of favor and the feeling that his discussion should be read by more people than might see it now I reached out to him with a question. Would he be interested in havcing those comments being republished on our blog? Did he want to change or update anything? Nope – still holds true.
EDITORS NOTE: Nothing was changed except a little clean up on punctuation and such.
PART I HERE
PART 2 HERE
His Story of U.S. Ska By David Hillyard Part 3
Originally Published on February 20, 2008 by David Hillyard (of The Slackers & Rocksteady 7) on his Myspace Blog – Republished here with permission.
I want to talk some more about the late 80s. As I re-read my ramblings my thoughts became a little clearer. Or maybe my ramblings are so convoluted they need clarification….regardless…
The late 80′s were a time of “rebirth” after the last of the 2 Tone ska wave fell apart by around 1984/1985. In the mid 80′s, Madness put out Mad Not Mad which to my ears was just horrible. Bad Manners put out Mental Notes which featured such dreck as “Mountain of Love.”
By the late 80s, in the UK, there were a bunch of younger bands like the Hot Knives and the Loafers that came up around the Link, Gaz, and Unicorn labels. They were continuing 2 Tone traditions. Then there was the Potato 5 which reached back to the Skatalites and the Trojans which did “Gaelic Ska.” Yeah, you still hear some of that stuff around. Especially as played by German DJs.
In addition to the UK, they were a bunch of continental bands like Mr. Review, the Busters, and Skaos.
In 1989, Donkey Show put out a track on the Skanking Around the World compilation and put out its Bali Island EP in 1989 on the Unicorn Label (worst album art ever!). Unicorn fell apart when its owner fled the UK on the heels of charges of child molestation. Yup. A classy operation. Heard he fled to Turkey.
In the late 80′s, you had strong scenes in the US on the west coast and the east coast and then scattered pockets in the midwest and Canada. On the east you had the Boilers, the Toasters, Bim Skala Bim, Urban Blight, Second Step, Public Service, New York Citizens, and new bands were just getting started like the Scofflaws, Bosstones, and Skinnerbox.
On the West Coast you had Donkey Show, No Doubt, Skeletones, Lets Go Bowling, the Liquidators, some bands hanging around from the early 80s likes Fishbone, the Uptones, and the Untouchables, plus a bunch of new bands just getting started like Skanking Pickle and and I guess Operation Ivy (whom I actually never heard about until I moved to NYC in 1992.) Then you had bands scattered all over the US and Canada, often in improbable places like Swim Herschel Swim in Utah.
I remember the talk about how Ska was coming back and it was gonna get big. I might have believed that Donkey Show was gonna be the one to lead the way. I’m sure that other bands had similar delusions.
The scenes which had started out being completely isolated were being tied closer together. The Toasters came out the west coast in 1988 for the first time. Bim Skala Bim came our way too around the same time. Donkey Show did 2 tours out to the East Coast in 1988 and 1989. Music was starting to get round from the UK, East Coast, West Coast.
For most of the USA the music was completely fresh. It really opened my eyes when Donkey Show played in such places as Omaha, Youngstown, St. Louis, and Houston. We weren’t playing for Ska audiences. We were playing for people, 90% of whom, had no idea what were doing. BUT THEY LIKED IT!
I saw the potential of this music. That it could work anywhere.
But Ska didn’t take off in the late 80′s. Its not that the shows didn’t do well. As I mentioned in my last writing, the shows in the late 80′s in LA were bigger than most ska shows until the mid 90′s.
Like I mentioned there was the Funk Virus. Band members were restless working in the Ska idiom and wanted to “evolve” or “move on.”
There also probably wasn’t the critical mass of Ska fans yet. Outside of a handful of major cities, you wouldn’t know the music existed. More Americans still needed to get used to the music. They needed to get their eyes and ears around it.
I think it’s also natural that most bands break up. You don’t make a huge amount of money doing a band so without hope of “being the next big thing” or a serious financial infrastructure, people do other things with their lives. Your mom is always hoping for that graduate school degree y’know?
So what were the important legacies of 80′s ska in the USA? For me, it laid the foundation musically for what was to come later, mostly through Fishbone.
It also set up the infrastructure. Mini-festivals and events with “Ska” in the title like “modskarade” and “Skalloween.” Oh joy.
Plus a lot of indie (later called D.I.Y) record labels. A lot of the early bands put out their own records and there were small labels that put out stuff from the 80s Ska bands, but Bucket aka the Toasters not only put out his own stuff, he put out other bands on his label. Thus it began to build into an important indie label and way for people around the country to connect to “Ska.”
Finally, a few of the 80′s bands like Fishbone and No Doubt managed to get major record deals and despite their ambivalence about being called “Ska” bands they were never able to shake the moniker either. The major label connections would pay off in the 90′s.
From my own personal point of view, things changed cleanly for me as the 80′s changed into the 90′s. In 1990, I quit Donkey Show and I guess about 6 months later I was in Hepcat. So I was about to get into a new scene myself.
Part 4 Coming Soon…..
- See more at: http://www.lawless-street.com/dave-hillyard-his-story-of-us-ska-part-3/#sthash.9NfOUIsP.dpuf
Dave Hillyard His Story of U.S. Ska Part 5
by LAWLESS on FEBRUARY 7, 2012 · LEAVE A COMMENT
A little intro. David Hillyard is well known to general readers of this blog. He’s a very long standing OG member of The Slackers, founded his own Rocksteady 7, played on the now classic Hepcat album Out of Nowhere and even before that he was playing in San Diego as a founding member of the Donkey Show. It’s an understatement to say he’s had a long music career let alone one devoted to the likes of Ska. He of course has a distinct and passionate perspective on music in general and pointed thoughts on the state of Ska in the U.S. having toured here for over 20 years.
So it was a couple of years ago he decided to write down those thoughts and publish them to his Myspace blog for the world to read. As that social network has fallen out of favor and the feeling that his discussion should be read by more people than might see it now I reached out to him with a question. Would he be interested in havcing those comments being republished on our blog? Did he want to change or update anything? Nope – still holds true.
EDITORS NOTE: Nothing was changed except a little clean up on punctuation and such.
PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4
His Story of U.S. Ska By David Hillyard Part 5
Originally Published on March 23, 2008 by David Hillyard (of The Slackers & Rocksteady 7) on his Myspace Blog – Republished here with permission.
Hi again.
My spelling seems to be getting worse and worse, the more of these things I write. So I’ll try writing something during the day and we’ll see what happens.
So right now Im getting up to around 1991.
From my point of view, ska had gone down a bit since the early 90s. With Hepcat we were getting opening slots for a lot of different bands that were coming around. We opened for No Doubt at the Whisky and it wasn’t sold out. We opened for the Toasters at the Roxy and it was a pretty big crowd too but it wasn’t a sell out. One of my last Hepcat gigs was opening for Desmond Dekker in early 1992 or late 1991. That was one of my better Hepcat shows. But that wasn’t sold out either.
The country club in Reseda was getting towards the end of its run as a venue for ska music and those shows weren’t sold out anymore either.
A lot of the bands who had lasted from the late 80′s were stumbling. The whole mod/ska trenchcoats & suits look of the mid-80s had been replaced by weird striped fat ties over a t-shirt. People trying to look like cartoon characters from 80s alternative comics. The beginning of what they would call the “3rd wave ska” look although I don’t remember anyone calling it that at the time.
It seemed to me that it was in a bit of an eclipse. But at the same time, I was not into that kind of music anymore. I wanted to have as little to do with it as possible. In retrospect, it was probably just a time when the style was re-gathering and re-energizing and all the bands that were gonna make it big in 4-5 years were going through a woodshedding period.
Of course, from a Hepcat point of view, we couldn’t headline ****. Hehe. We would play little bars in the valley to 20 people. But I didn’t really give a ****, cause I was down on the music industry. Hepcat to me was a hobby. A fun important hobby but I had been burned with Donkey Show, so I always kept a little distance. Thinking I was too ’mature’ to be a musician. Wow, that was a conceited mistake.
I remember Bucket telling me how we sounded “just like the Skatalites.” This is right after we had just played Skavez, Same O Same O, Prisoner of Love, and our cover of Green Dolphin St. People said that Hepcat sounded just like the old ska but to me this just meant they weren’t listening really carefully.
Basically, what they really meant is that you dont have distorted guitars, no one is rapping, no bass slapping, no metal solos, no hardcore beats to inspire stage diving. This is true.
But at the same time, we didn’t sound exactly like the old ska. Ska was doing its magic again. It was hybridizing. Mixing. This time we were adding latin touches. Swing. Jump blues. Jazz. The early 90s was a big time for lounges and lounge music in LA so we probably picked up on that too.
We wanted the ska to swing. Not in a goofy ballroom dance kind of way. But in the raw hard way that Lloyd Knibbs swings. In the hard way that Art Blakey swings.
This woman I was talking to at a show in San Francisco put it best. She said that the other Ska band that played that night was like “boom boom boom” smacking her fist into her palm for emphasis. She said that Hepcat was like “uhh uhh uhh”, she raised her arms and shook her ass when she said this. Right on.
With Hepcat, we definitely felt out on our own. There was Jump with Joey. They were a bit older than us. Probably thought we were a bunch of dumb kids at the time. The bands we got along with best were bands like the Loved Ones, a garage band from San Francisco.
In retrospect, I wish I had tried harder with Hepcat. That I had paid attention to my saxophone teacher more. Practiced more. Kept my horn in better shape. Written better horn arrangements.
Recording Out of Nowhere is a blur for me. I cant remember much about it. I knew I was moving to New York but I wanted to finish this cd before I left. So many stupid mistakes. I wish I had a producer. Deston did his best but I was a hard head and wouldn’t listen.
It’s funny cause Out of Nowhere is the best selling cd that I was a band member on. When I listen to it now, the rhythm section is pretty together. The vocals are mostly together except for 1 or 2 songs. The horns are easily the weakest thing on it. I’m always embarassed hearing it except for the solo on Dance With Me. That solo came out cool but I owe it all to Deston. He rode me and rode me at a previous recording session until I had a coherent solo. That one wasn’t improvised and as a result it was good. My improvised solos were ****! hehehe.
So anyways, I finished the CD. We did a last gig in Sacramento and I moved to New York. I would visit and sit in with Hepcat when I went “home” to visit but that was it. I didn’t hear the cd until it was mailed to me in New York.
END OF PART 5
- See more at: http://www.lawless-street.com/dave-hillyard-his-story-of-us-ska-part-5/#sthash.nK45yyFH.dpuf
Posted By: Lawless Monday, January 31, 2011 Articles 8 comments
A little intro. David Hillyard is well known to general readers of this blog. He’s a very long standing OG member of The Slackers, founded his own Rocksteady 7, played on the now classic Hepcat album Out of Nowhere and even before that he was playing in San Diego as a founding member of the Donkey Show. It’s an understatement to say he’s had a long music career let alone one devoted to the likes of Ska. He of course has a distinct and passionate perspective on music in general and pointed thoughts on the state of Ska in the U.S. having toured here for over 20 years.
So it was a couple of years ago he decided to write down those thoughts and publish them to his Myspace blog for the world to read. As that social network has fallen out of favor and the feeling that his discussion should be read by more people than might see it now I reached out to him with a question. Would he be interested in havcing those comments being republished on our blog? Did he want to change or update anything? Nope – still holds true.
You know it’s kinda funny really – one of my first interviews was with Dave around 96 I think for a San Diego zine called Hand Carved in which I remember distinctly asking about his Donkey Show stuff. I don’t remember much else but here we are now publishing his story of ska. Funny how things come around.
It’s long and we’ll publish it over many posts for a new crop of fans to get a chance to read it. After that – maybe, just maybe Mr. Hillyard will feel compelled to more writings and thoughts on the stare of the Ska union as he sees it. So here you go for your reading pleasure.
EDITORS NOTE: Nothing was changed except a little clean up on punctuation and such.
NOW READ!
His Story of U.S. Ska By David Hillyard Part 1
Originally Published on February 8, 2008 by David Hillyard (of The Slackers & Rocksteady 7) on his Myspace Blog – Republished here with permission.
Introduction
A lot of other people have written histories of American Ska. So why bother? Well, to start with they get it wrong. So I’m going to call it from my perspective. I’m not gonna bother with any sort of neutrality and just call it as I see it.
Ska is funny music, against all odds it has managed to survive and persevere. How the hell has this once obscure music from Jamaica managed to capture so many people’s imaginations and win over so many hearts?
In case you are reading this and have no idea what the hell “Ska” is or just associate it with a special mix of marching band horns, heavy metal, plaid suits, and shorts, let me set you straight.
Ska began in Jamaica sometime around 1959 and lasted in its classic form up until around 1967. It was the sound of Jamaican independence. It mixed together mento (calypso), jazz, Jamaican hand drumming, latin, gospel, and jump blues into a heady mix. The first thing most people notice about Ska is that the guitar plays rhythm, on the offbeat. I mostly pay attention though to the bass and drums. The weird thing about Ska is how it swings and doesn’t swing. It has a beautiful elasticity of time. If you don’t know what I’m talking about listen to Lloyd Knibb from the Skatalites play. If you don’t hear it then, well, I’m sorry.
Ska died out in 1966-67 and got replaced by rocksteady/reggae and a hundred other Jamaican styles. For a small island, it’s got a lot of music. Its constantly taking influences from all over the place, but somehow its own identity pulls through.
Yeah, stop me if you’ve heard this before. Or just skip to the American stuff. It starts in a couple of paragraphs.
So where was I? Oh yeah, Ska. It came back in the UK in the late 70s with 2 Tone. Bands like the Specials, Madness, Selecter, Bad Manners, the Beat etc. etc. Well actually you those are the important bands, the etc. is pretty much etc.
In some ways, the only thing that came back in the UK was the name, “Ska”. The bands were playing stuff that was influenced by the Sex Pistols and Ian Dury, punk and pub rock, plus all of the Jamaican music that had happened between 1967 and 1978. Ska was the name but it was only part of the musical picture. Uk drummers tended to play fewer rimshots and more open snare hits. Bass players would sneak in octaves from funk and disco, plod like punkers, or add bits of reggae. The Skank became more trembly and nasal. Whatever it was, although I like it a lot for the most part, it didn’t really swing in the same way as the 60s stuff. But hey, they sold a lot more records. At least for the 2-3 years they were popular before the trendy British moved on!
In the states, Ska had never gotten out of Jamaican immigrant communities. Reggae got picked up by every hippie and surfer who liked to smoke a joint but Ska, even when it was played was mostly unrecognized. “My Boy Lollipop” and “Ob-la-di-Ob-la-da” were just music. The Ska overtones went over most American listener’s heads.
So where does American Ska start? Does it come out of 2 Tone? Well yes and no. One of the first American bands to play Ska that I know of is the Blue Riddim Band from Kansas of all ****ing places. Can you believe that? NOT from NYC or LA! They used to do a cover of the Ska version of Simmer Down. They were around in the late 70s and are remembered for being one of the first American bands not composed of Jamaicans to convincingly play reggae.
Blue Riddim Band in Jamaica (From BRB Website)But they weren’t part of a movement. Maybe they were a pioneer of what was to become the “world beat” movement but they didn’t have that much impact on what was going to become the American “Ska” scene as far as I know. Their 1981 record was floating around bargain bins in California by the late 80s. Most of my friend’s response to the record was “who the **** are these guys?” They were actually pretty good and should be better known than they are.
From what I can tell, a handful of Americans heard about “Ska” for the first time when the 2 Tone bands did their first tours in the wake of the success of 2 Tone in the UK. Apparently most of these tours were big disasters. Outside of a few pockets on the coasts and the odd college campus, the US didn’t get it.
Well…at least a few people did. Here and there the 2 Tone uniform began popping up. Someone was digging it. 2 Tone flavored anglophile bands began forming. But more on them later. Cause the English bands kept on coming over and growing in popularity.
That’s right, the Beat, Madness, and Bad Manners had not given up on the US of A. They kept plugging away and as 2 Tone faded to memory in the Uk, it began to gain some popularity in the states. Between 1982-1983, you had hits by Madness with “our house”, The Beat with “Save it for Later” and “I confess”, and Bad Manners with “that will do nicely son.” Of course, the irony was that by this time the 2 Tone bands were going for a slick watered down pop-rock sound that had only the vaguest of Jamaican references. Our House is trying to be the Beatles. I confess wouldn’t sound out of place on an ABC album. Save it for Later has the confident guitar strum of 80s rock. I guess Bad Manners had the most reggae/Ska influence at this time but they also had crossover dreams (check out their mid-80s lp Mental Notes for some pure dreck.). They toured the US several times and probably were the closest to keeping the energy of 2 Tone going far into the 80s.
So from the beginning American conceptions of “Ska” are far from the source. I’m not gonna say they are wrong cause all things change. But the fact is that most Americans thought of Ska as English first and Jamaican second. That it was some sort of mix of rock and reggae. And that it was a brief fad in the 80s and went out of style sometime right after the US festival.
So how the hell did it survive?
– end of chapter 1. Chapter 2 is soon come.
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His Story of U.S. Ska By David Hillyard Part 2
Originally Published on February 12, 2008 by David Hillyard (of The Slackers & Rocksteady 7) on his Myspace Blog – Republished here with permission.
So thus continues my ramblings about the secret history of American ska.
So it was Two Tone that was the initial inspiration of the first American ska bands. Now I don’t claim to know which of these bands came first so I’m not going to pretend. I’m just going to write about what I know.
In southern California, where I was growing up, the early-to-mid 80′s were the time of the “mod-ska” craze. Ska was part of a mini-universe of vintage scooters, parkas, suits, and penny loafers. It was listened alongside the Jam, the Who, and the Style Council.
In a bizarre fashion twist, fans would create placards of band buttons completely covering trench coats.
Shows were often connected to scooter rallies and would have rows of Vespas and Lambrettas parked out front.
Photo Courtesy of South Bay Scooter Club
The flagship band for this scene was the Untouchables from Los Angeles. Their first 45′s and “Free Yourself” EP gave fuel to this scene which thrived from about 1982 to 1985 or so. In retrospect, their writing leaves a lot to be desired but I remember seeing them in 1985 and being blown away by their Specials-like stage show.
Being from LA and being ambitious with the music industry, they soon lost their way with their horrible LP, Wild Child. Victims of the funk virus. More on that later.
Also from Los Angeles, was probably the most influential “Ska” band from the early 80s, Fishbone. Because they mixed together heavy metal, funk, punk and other “junk” they were not at the center of the scene at the time but in terms of sounds that would later pop up in Reel Big Fish, No Doubt, Skankin’ Pickle, MU330, Mustard Plug et al, They are the originators. They were creating the template for was going to become “third wave ska” although no one was calling it that at the time.
In addition to their first EP that was massively influential they had these series of demos that got all over LA. Songs like “Alcoholic” and “Skanking to the Beat” are prototypes for the third wave ska cliches that were gonna get all over the country.
I think Fishbone was ambivalent about the ska fans they attracted. They didn’t want to be pigeonholed as being one of “those” bands. They also got signed to a major label early so they probably had a lot of “crossover” discussions. As the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Living Color blew up, they probably figured they should go that way too! Unfortunately, that meant that by the time ska came around in popularity in the 90s they were out of the loop. So they missed out on 2 counts.
There were also a lot of bands that would play some ska on the local level. In San Diego, I remember NE1 (anyone – clever right?). They would play some light ska influenced stuff in addition to more straight ahead 80s pop. In the early/mid 80s it wasn’t that rare to run into cover bands that would play some ska bands. I remember a college dance at UCSD that I got into even though I didn’t go to school there being that I was 15. This band, Limbo Slam, that was absolutely horrible stumbled their way through a horrible cover of the Specials’ “Concrete Jungle.”
If you’ve ever seen an 80′s teen movie you have a pretty good idea of how these bands looked and sounded. San Diego’s a weird town. Back in the 80′s it was dominated by 80′s cover bands. Now 25 years later, its dominated by 80′s cover bands. And people wonder why it doesn’t have a music scene commensurate with its population?
Also, big in California was the movie Dance Craze. It would travel around different independent theaters and be shown, often as part of a double bill with a punk movie like Decline of Western Civilization. People would gather at the theater and dress up for dance craze like it was a show. Go up front and dance. It was really quite something.Dance craze was so popular that most of the ska covers you heard from local bands were off the soundtrack.
The mid-80s were a tough time for Ska in California. It was often seen as something from the early 80′s and “passe.” The mods who stayed in the scene rejected Ska as “kiddie” music and went for more of the 60′s R ‘n’ B and rock. I spent the year of 1986 not seeing a single Ska band play. Pretty pathetic.
It was during the mid-80′s that I found out that there were other Ska scenes happening in the USA (and Canada). Through Bleeker Bob’s record store which had branches in both LA and NYC, the first records by the Toasters, Bim Skala Bim, and the Boilers (on cassette) started to make it out to LA.
The toasters were going for a 2-Tone thing mixed with the Beastie Boys (remember Sean and Lionel?). They wore suits so were obviously playing “ska” right?
Bim Skala Bim and the other Boston bands like Plate of Shrimp could easily be classified as “world beat” as well as Ska. Bim didn’t dress up at all but I think they weren’t aiming for a “college” audience. I was really into their sound at the time. The power of Vinny Nobile’s trombone was really exciting.
The Boilers from NYC were also exciting. Oliver Rhee’s voice had this nice gentle quality and the music didn’t have funk or metal influences, it had a “roots” reggae vibe if anything. Me and my friends wore out their cassette from listening to it so much.
Besides these guys I was aware of during the early-mid 80s that there were bands such as the Uptones from San Francisco, the Villians from Vancouver, the Hopping Penguins from Toronto (I think?) plus Urban Blight, the NYC citizens, and Second Step from New York City.
My first band that I was involved in was called “The Saints” (no, not the band from Australia). We lasted a little under a year in 1985 and were a “mod-ska” band. We played some Ska like the Selecter’s “Danger.” We also played “That’s Entertainment” by the Jam I think. Fortunatly, we were torn apart by serious artistic differences and never amounted to much.
I was really hungry to form a Ska band and spent most of 1986 trying to make this happen. Every time I got a lineup together it would fall apart. I even had a gig booked that I had to back out of because we couldn’t keep the same group of people from rehearsal to rehearsal.
Finally, by 1987, the Donkey Show, was ready to start playing. We played our first gigs and immediately had some success in San Diego and soon afterwards played our first LA shows.
We were directly influenced by 2 Tone, occasionally would reach back to 60′s ska like the Skatalites or Prince Buster, and for lack of a better term, world beat. Yeah, I know. Hang my head with shame.
At about the same time as the Donkey Show, a bunch of other bands like the Skeletones, No Doubt, and Let’s Go Bowling hit the scene. Things were booming. Shows at the Country Club in LA, the Variety Arts Theater, and Fender’s Ballroom were packed. Its hard for me to say how many people there were at these shows because I wasn’t as business savvy then…I would guess that the LA shows were doing 300-700 people.
The scene was very underground. Not on the radio. Shows were rarely mentioned in the papers. It went counter to what people were supposed to be listening to at the time. But the shows were big. At least as big as the “Ska” shows in LA are now.
This local success was being duplicated around the country in Boston and New York. So what happened? How come most of these bands broke up, went into obscurity? How come so few of the 80′s bands continued to be active in the 90′s?
One big culprit is the “funk” virus. Once the Red Hot Chili Peppers had their success. At least 50% of the musicians in the United States wanted to follow their lead. Ska band after Ska band turned into funk bands.
Another trend that watered down the ska was world beat. Before you knew it, to be “creative” you had to be combining calypso with rock with hi-life with zouk with…well, you get the idea. Unfortunately, a lot of this dreck sounded similar to the funk stuff! Apparently you mix 12 kinds of ‘ethnic’ music together, you end up with funk. And you must wear tank tops and mullets/rat tails start sprouting.
Ska was so far out of the mainstream through the 80′s that bands were always subjected to pressure. Whispers of “if you want to be popular you should…” “you never are going to be popular if you keep playing ska….” “you got too many guys in your band…” These were the common words of advice you would get from the guy who worked in the mailroom at Warner Brothers and was pretending to be a big shot at your gig.
For some bands, it worked out. No Doubt were always wanting to be rock stars and they ended up doing it. Fishbone ended up being important musically but never achieved the popularity that they probably “should” have. They made the sound and No Doubt ended up selling it.
For other bands like the Untouchables, the funk virus was a disaster. Anyone remember their song,”Freak in the Streets?” Wow. It also broke up my band, the Donkey show. Half the band wanted to play a mix of Bad Brains and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The other half wanted to do a ska/reggae thing. The result is that the band broke up 1990.
Regardless, by the end of the 80s, it was unclear what was going to happen with the Ska scene. New bands were multiplying but it was as underground as ever.
Part 3 Coming Up!
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Dave Hillyard: His Story of U.S. Ska Part 3
by LAWLESS on MARCH 23, 2011 · LEAVE A COMMENT
A little intro. David Hillyard is well known to general readers of this blog. He’s a very long standing OG member of The Slackers, founded his own Rocksteady 7, played on the now classic Hepcat album Out of Nowhere and even before that he was playing in San Diego as a founding member of the Donkey Show. It’s an understatement to say he’s had a long music career let alone one devoted to the likes of Ska. He of course has a distinct and passionate perspective on music in general and pointed thoughts on the state of Ska in the U.S. having toured here for over 20 years.
So it was a couple of years ago he decided to write down those thoughts and publish them to his Myspace blog for the world to read. As that social network has fallen out of favor and the feeling that his discussion should be read by more people than might see it now I reached out to him with a question. Would he be interested in havcing those comments being republished on our blog? Did he want to change or update anything? Nope – still holds true.
EDITORS NOTE: Nothing was changed except a little clean up on punctuation and such.
PART I HERE
PART 2 HERE
His Story of U.S. Ska By David Hillyard Part 3
Originally Published on February 20, 2008 by David Hillyard (of The Slackers & Rocksteady 7) on his Myspace Blog – Republished here with permission.
I want to talk some more about the late 80s. As I re-read my ramblings my thoughts became a little clearer. Or maybe my ramblings are so convoluted they need clarification….regardless…The late 80′s were a time of “rebirth” after the last of the 2 Tone ska wave fell apart by around 1984/1985. In the mid 80′s, Madness put out Mad Not Mad which to my ears was just horrible. Bad Manners put out Mental Notes which featured such dreck as “Mountain of Love.”
By the late 80s, in the UK, there were a bunch of younger bands like the Hot Knives and the Loafers that came up around the Link, Gaz, and Unicorn labels. They were continuing 2 Tone traditions. Then there was the Potato 5 which reached back to the Skatalites and the Trojans which did “Gaelic Ska.” Yeah, you still hear some of that stuff around. Especially as played by German DJs.In addition to the UK, they were a bunch of continental bands like Mr. Review, the Busters, and Skaos.
Potato 5
In 1989, Donkey Show put out a track on the Skanking Around the World compilation and put out its Bali Island EP in 1989 on the Unicorn Label (worst album art ever!). Unicorn fell apart when its owner fled the UK on the heels of charges of child molestation. Yup. A classy operation. Heard he fled to Turkey.
In the late 80′s, you had strong scenes in the US on the west coast and the east coast and then scattered pockets in the midwest and Canada. On the east you had the Boilers, the Toasters, Bim Skala Bim, Urban Blight, Second Step, Public Service, New York Citizens, and new bands were just getting started like the Scofflaws, Bosstones, and Skinnerbox.
The Donkey Show
On the West Coast you had Donkey Show, No Doubt, Skeletones, Lets Go Bowling, the Liquidators, some bands hanging around from the early 80s likes Fishbone, the Uptones, and the Untouchables, plus a bunch of new bands just getting started like Skanking Pickle and and I guess Operation Ivy (whom I actually never heard about until I moved to NYC in 1992.) Then you had bands scattered all over the US and Canada, often in improbable places like Swim Herschel Swim in Utah.
I remember the talk about how Ska was coming back and it was gonna get big. I might have believed that Donkey Show was gonna be the one to lead the way. I’m sure that other bands had similar delusions.
The scenes which had started out being completely isolated were being tied closer together. The Toasters came out the west coast in 1988 for the first time. Bim Skala Bim came our way too around the same time. Donkey Show did 2 tours out to the East Coast in 1988 and 1989. Music was starting to get round from the UK, East Coast, West Coast.
For most of the USA the music was completely fresh. It really opened my eyes when Donkey Show played in such places as Omaha, Youngstown, St. Louis, and Houston. We weren’t playing for Ska audiences. We were playing for people, 90% of whom, had no idea what were doing. BUT THEY LIKED IT!
I saw the potential of this music. That it could work anywhere.
But Ska didn’t take off in the late 80′s. Its not that the shows didn’t do well. As I mentioned in my last writing, the shows in the late 80′s in LA were bigger than most ska shows until the mid 90′s.
The Donkey Show Live
Like I mentioned there was the Funk Virus. Band members were restless working in the Ska idiom and wanted to “evolve” or “move on.”
There also probably wasn’t the critical mass of Ska fans yet. Outside of a handful of major cities, you wouldn’t know the music existed. More Americans still needed to get used to the music. They needed to get their eyes and ears around it.
I think it’s also natural that most bands break up. You don’t make a huge amount of money doing a band so without hope of “being the next big thing” or a serious financial infrastructure, people do other things with their lives. Your mom is always hoping for that graduate school degree y’know?
So what were the important legacies of 80′s ska in the USA? For me, it laid the foundation musically for what was to come later, mostly through Fishbone.
It also set up the infrastructure. Mini-festivals and events with “Ska” in the title like “modskarade” and “Skalloween.” Oh joy.Plus a lot of indie (later called D.I.Y) record labels. A lot of the early bands put out their own records and there were small labels that put out stuff from the 80s Ska bands, but Bucket aka the Toasters not only put out his own stuff, he put out other bands on his label. Thus it began to build into an important indie label and way for people around the country to connect to “Ska.”
Finally, a few of the 80′s bands like Fishbone and No Doubt managed to get major record deals and despite their ambivalence about being called “Ska” bands they were never able to shake the moniker either. The major label connections would pay off in the 90′s.
From my own personal point of view, things changed cleanly for me as the 80′s changed into the 90′s. In 1990, I quit Donkey Show and I guess about 6 months later I was in Hepcat. So I was about to get into a new scene myself.
Part 4 Coming Soon…..
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Dave Hillyard His Story of U.S. Ska Part 5
by LAWLESS on FEBRUARY 7, 2012 · LEAVE A COMMENT
So it was a couple of years ago he decided to write down those thoughts and publish them to his Myspace blog for the world to read. As that social network has fallen out of favor and the feeling that his discussion should be read by more people than might see it now I reached out to him with a question. Would he be interested in havcing those comments being republished on our blog? Did he want to change or update anything? Nope – still holds true.
EDITORS NOTE: Nothing was changed except a little clean up on punctuation and such.
PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4
His Story of U.S. Ska By David Hillyard Part 5
Originally Published on March 23, 2008 by David Hillyard (of The Slackers & Rocksteady 7) on his Myspace Blog – Republished here with permission.
Hi again.
My spelling seems to be getting worse and worse, the more of these things I write. So I’ll try writing something during the day and we’ll see what happens.
So right now Im getting up to around 1991.
From my point of view, ska had gone down a bit since the early 90s. With Hepcat we were getting opening slots for a lot of different bands that were coming around. We opened for No Doubt at the Whisky and it wasn’t sold out. We opened for the Toasters at the Roxy and it was a pretty big crowd too but it wasn’t a sell out. One of my last Hepcat gigs was opening for Desmond Dekker in early 1992 or late 1991. That was one of my better Hepcat shows. But that wasn’t sold out either.
The country club in Reseda was getting towards the end of its run as a venue for ska music and those shows weren’t sold out anymore either.
A lot of the bands who had lasted from the late 80′s were stumbling. The whole mod/ska trenchcoats & suits look of the mid-80s had been replaced by weird striped fat ties over a t-shirt. People trying to look like cartoon characters from 80s alternative comics. The beginning of what they would call the “3rd wave ska” look although I don’t remember anyone calling it that at the time.
It seemed to me that it was in a bit of an eclipse. But at the same time, I was not into that kind of music anymore. I wanted to have as little to do with it as possible. In retrospect, it was probably just a time when the style was re-gathering and re-energizing and all the bands that were gonna make it big in 4-5 years were going through a woodshedding period.
Of course, from a Hepcat point of view, we couldn’t headline ****. Hehe. We would play little bars in the valley to 20 people. But I didn’t really give a ****, cause I was down on the music industry. Hepcat to me was a hobby. A fun important hobby but I had been burned with Donkey Show, so I always kept a little distance. Thinking I was too ’mature’ to be a musician. Wow, that was a conceited mistake.
I remember Bucket telling me how we sounded “just like the Skatalites.” This is right after we had just played Skavez, Same O Same O, Prisoner of Love, and our cover of Green Dolphin St. People said that Hepcat sounded just like the old ska but to me this just meant they weren’t listening really carefully.
Basically, what they really meant is that you dont have distorted guitars, no one is rapping, no bass slapping, no metal solos, no hardcore beats to inspire stage diving. This is true.
But at the same time, we didn’t sound exactly like the old ska. Ska was doing its magic again. It was hybridizing. Mixing. This time we were adding latin touches. Swing. Jump blues. Jazz. The early 90s was a big time for lounges and lounge music in LA so we probably picked up on that too.
We wanted the ska to swing. Not in a goofy ballroom dance kind of way. But in the raw hard way that Lloyd Knibbs swings. In the hard way that Art Blakey swings.
This woman I was talking to at a show in San Francisco put it best. She said that the other Ska band that played that night was like “boom boom boom” smacking her fist into her palm for emphasis. She said that Hepcat was like “uhh uhh uhh”, she raised her arms and shook her ass when she said this. Right on.
With Hepcat, we definitely felt out on our own. There was Jump with Joey. They were a bit older than us. Probably thought we were a bunch of dumb kids at the time. The bands we got along with best were bands like the Loved Ones, a garage band from San Francisco.
In retrospect, I wish I had tried harder with Hepcat. That I had paid attention to my saxophone teacher more. Practiced more. Kept my horn in better shape. Written better horn arrangements.
Recording Out of Nowhere is a blur for me. I cant remember much about it. I knew I was moving to New York but I wanted to finish this cd before I left. So many stupid mistakes. I wish I had a producer. Deston did his best but I was a hard head and wouldn’t listen.
It’s funny cause Out of Nowhere is the best selling cd that I was a band member on. When I listen to it now, the rhythm section is pretty together. The vocals are mostly together except for 1 or 2 songs. The horns are easily the weakest thing on it. I’m always embarassed hearing it except for the solo on Dance With Me. That solo came out cool but I owe it all to Deston. He rode me and rode me at a previous recording session until I had a coherent solo. That one wasn’t improvised and as a result it was good. My improvised solos were ****! hehehe.
So anyways, I finished the CD. We did a last gig in Sacramento and I moved to New York. I would visit and sit in with Hepcat when I went “home” to visit but that was it. I didn’t hear the cd until it was mailed to me in New York.
END OF PART 5
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