The Ska Above, the Beat Below

By JAY COCKS

Two new British bands tap into some island roots

Not boom, boom, boom, boom. It is more like chi-boom, chi-boom, chi-boom. Come down easy on the offbeat, like a rhythmic shrug of the shoulders. Kind of bluesy. Kind of calypso. Kind of fun.

Ska--a back-pocket onomatopoeia for the distinctive sound of the beat--means no harm, carries no heavy freight, sets out to make you happy and keep you dancing. Ska is the no-account stepfather of reggae, the blues-inflected Jamaican soul popularized Stateside by Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley and seen to splendid advantage in The Harder They Come, one of the best and most popular cult films of the '70s. Reggae shouldered a lot of political burden and social outrage, sometimes sounded almost introverted in its island concerns and religious visions. By contrast, ska is flat-out party music played faster than reggae and meant to be, if not frivolous, then feckless.

Reggae has already been absorbed into the English punk scene. The Clash perform their own blistering versions of reggae tunes. But a group called the Specials, as well as their allied band, Madness, have dusted off ska and made it shine like new. Both bands have had hit singles and albums on their home turf. Now the records have been receiving an encouraging amount of FM air play here, while Specials and Madness concerts around America have been enthusiastically attended by disenfranchised new wavers and punks without portfolio. Ska may or may not be the latest crest of the new wave, but it is at least clear that the Specials and Madness could safely join in a proud chorus of Stranger Cole's 1963 ska tune, We Are Rolling.

Stranger's original version, along with 15 other vintage ska songs, is available on a recently released compilation called Intensified! (Mango Records), which offers some interesting source material to set against the carnival modifications of the young English revivalists. Most of the Intensified! tunes have a loping energy, even when the recording quality is dense and almost smothering, as if the musicians were trying to play their way out of a bowl of tapioca. Both the Madness and Specials albums (the latter produced by the sullen genie of punk, Elvis Costello) are careful to preserve a spontaneous sound that just skirts being primitive. The groups rock a little harder than their forebears too. "We were the first band which wanted to combine punk and reggae," says Jerry ("General Dankey") Dammers of the Specials, "because we liked them both." Bass Player Horace ("Sir Horace Gentleman") Panter adds, "Both were rebel music." Notes Jerry: "Humble beginnings, what?"

Humble enough for musical comfort.

The seven members of Madness are middle-class kids from north London, who range in age from 18 to 23. The seven Specials all hail from Coventry, in central England, and will remain grounded right there because, according to Panter, "it's a small town and we know all the kids." "People there know we're nothing special," adds Dammers, who is the son of an Anglican minister. "It's important to keep on the same level as the people who buy your records."

Out of a grand total of 14 members, only two--Vocalist Neville Staples and Guitarist Lynval Golding, both of the

Specials--are black, yet these bands have forged some common musical bond with the island music, doing it honor but making it their own in much the same way that the early Rolling Stones, the Animals and the Beatles excelled in revisions of American rhythm and blues at a similar point in their careers. The Specials flirt with social commentary and take on racial injustice in Doesn 't Make It Alright, whose straightforward lyric and fine-tuned beat steer way wide of solemnity. Specials and Madness members even dress in good-humored approximation of the Kingston "rude boys" of the '60s, from the careless cuffs of their pegged pants up to the porkpie hats that sit on their heads like a street hustler's version of cap and bells. In performance, both bands leap about in transports of benign dementia. The highlight of a Madness show is a ska version of Swan Lake that features a couple of roadies conking their noggins together like a couple of billy goats in a brawl.

The effect of all this is much less that of a musical masquerade than of a soulful affiliation of outsiders who share a taste for a strong dance beat and a sense of fun as strong as all that ganja Bob Marley goes on about. Besides roots, both Madness and Specials hold similar suspicions about mainstream rock. "Me Mum had a lot of Beatles records," admits Madness Organ Player Mike Barson. "I reckon they're pretty good, but a bit wimpy." Observes the Specials' Panter: "I think the Rolling Stones have been playing Honky Tonk Women for the past ten years. It must be quite tedious for them." To stave off occupational hazards, the Specials have formed their own label, 2 Tone, which has no offices, no secretaries and no official phone number, but which nevertheless has managed to sign up a diversity of new bands like the Beat and the Body Snatchers. 2 Tone, in fact, released Madness's first record, and will continue to circulate all new efforts by the Specials, who have just gone back into the studio to cut then-second album.

Says Madness Drummer Dan ("Woody Woods") Woodgate: "Our music is spontaneous. If we knew what we were going to do next week, it wouldn't be worth it." For the new Specials effort, Dammers promises a little more experimentation and a wider range of styles, even speculates in a bemused fashion on a possible wedding of ska, reggae and "lift music -- the stuff you hear in America in McDonald's and department stores. It's so absurd." Step back, watch the closing doors. Going up.

--Jay Cocks

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