Daily Listen by Brian Brock

Ska Is Dead IV Tour - Tempe, AZ, 5 Feb 09

I always assumed that The Toasters were a great band which I just never listened to much, for some reason.  I think they did that song “Party At Ground Zero”, which was pretty good, although I guess they’ve retired it now, especially being from New York City and all.  Oh, did I mention they are from New York City?  The singer let this factoid slip about 15 times during the show.  He also couldn’t decide if he was in Phoenix or Tempe, so he had to sing “Arizona” every time the name of a place was required for his madlib songwriting approach.

The Toasters just don’t have any songs.  It’s so strange to see a band play an entire show without playing a single good song.  “Don’t Let the Bastards Bring You Down” is not too bad, but that was the only decent song in a set that, granted, was probably just barely an hour long.  It is strange, and it is frustrating.

Their chief virtue is that they play at a steady tempo.

I saw The English Beat play last year, and may I be so bold as to claim that The English Beat beat the shit out of The Toasters.  Dave Wakeling is frankly about as good as John Lennon at writing songs, and at singing them for that matter.  His band, which it must be noted is a group of guns for hire (as is The Toasters), was incredibly well rehearsed.  They stopped, they started.  They full stopped, they full started.  Hearing “I Confess” with a bunch of wildly gyrating fanatics, I felt part of a just and true celebration.

The strange thing about The English Beat is that the “band” still tours both America and Britain, but in completely different formations.  What’s up with that?

I saw The Voodoo Glow Skulls and some ratty band from San Diego open.  The VGS are pretty good, but don’t these guys ever grow up?  Seeing some 40 year old dude in sunglasses screaming like he’s about to jump off the balcony in his Sophomore-year dorm is kind of creepy.

The English Beat - Live at the Sunshine Theater in Albuquerque, NM

(copied from the original Daily Listen)

Rock shows are almost always as much about the audience in my immediate vicinity as about the band. People have poor space management skills, generally speaking.

At this show, these kids were there and they just FREAKED OUT when the band played “Mirror in the Bathroom”, which is my favorite song too, by the way. How does a group of 15 year olds get that excited about a band that broke up before they were born and wasn’t that popular to begin with? I mean, a Led Zeppelin or something is one thing, but when did the English Beat become so important to them? Or do they simply enjoy a good show… Very smart of their parents, too. Get the kids to jump around for two hours at a wholesome event like that.

The English Beat is one of those bands that is now just the one guy, the singer Dave Wakeling, and a bunch of younger fellows. A surprising amount of the sound of a band comes from the singer, it turns out. I wonder what happens when the other founders of the band want back in. Clearly if the guitar and bass players (who formed Fine Young Cannibals after they left, certainly a calling card of some sort) and Ranking Roger (the band’s toaster and a big part of its personality) were to rejoin the band, it would be a big selling point, and have staying power like the Skatalites. But then what, do the current English Beaters just move along? I rather liked a few of them, you know…

This was one of those shows where the opening band plays and you’re like, “ahh yes, music, I’ve heard that”, and then the headliner comes out and you find out that it goes so much deeper. The way the different people interact, musically and socially, and the arrangements are completely in a different league. The guitar, for example, has to do a big-moment triplet feel thing in order for ska to really gel, and the drummer has to do the rim shots before the verse reenters after the bridge or breakdown - and then everyone else is interlocking with those elements, multiplying the effect.