Founder of 2 Tone Records. Jerry Dammers, founder of The Specials and 2 Tone Records A special 40th anniversary Two Tone Records seven-inch box set that features 12 iconic singles released on the label and an art card signed by Jerry Dammers. The next morning, Brixton looked as though it had been turned inside out, as everything that was usually inside someones house appeared to be outside, all the household detritus that looks so pathetic and parochial when removed from its natural habitat. That weird little band from 1983 whose only hit you once devoured as though it were the essence of life itself? Special events are being held at the weekend to mark Freedom Day, the 20th anniversary of South Africa's first democratic elections, in which Mandela was elected president. Everything was based on cash, as there was no other currency. Thank you very much for buying this selection of represses from some of the original seven inch singles released on the 2 Tone label between 1979 and 1984. The news comes three months after the death of the bands trombonist, Rico Rodriguez. I was aware that things were deteriorating. With all the original members, too, strangely apart from the drummer, who had no doubt died in a bizarre gardening accident in what the rest of the band at the time thought was a misguided, if not completely unfunny, homage to Spinal Tap. He. and The Spatial AKA Orchestra. Jerry Dammers is a singer and pioneer songwriter of the Coventry, England based ska revival band The Specials or The Spatial AKA Orchestra. It certainly didnt feel empowering, as the sensation of being alone was intensified by being in the city. As they travelled around the country the band witnessed sights that summed up the depressed mood of a country gripped by recession. Ghost Town initiated a strand of spooked British pop that has lived on in Tricky and Portisheads trip-hop and the dubstep of Burial and James Blake.. / Friday Night, Saturday Morning. Dammers said: "I was watching the news one day and they showed a football match in South Africa where the song was being played on the loudspeakers. "He'd say, run the checkerboard pattern right across, move this figure . Glasgow were particularly bad. In Liverpool he saw shops closing down, more beggars on the streets, little old ladies selling their cups and saucers on tables outside their homes and he started to see the frustration and anger in the young faces of those who came out to see his band. His initial music influences were 60's . The Mandalorian season three first look review: Baby Yodas back, Mae Stephens colourful funk-pop sound is transcending TikTok, Shania Twain: Im probably most proud of not giving up on my voice, Final Fantasy 16 is a lavish RPG twist on Bayonetta and its all the better for it. Yes, I know Lennon wrote it, but its a brilliant live version and one of the real treats the bonus tracks add to this CD. She writes these brusque, caustic notes accusing them of woolly thinking and they are absolutely terrified of her. The cabinet were terrified too, as her treatment of her colleagues was appalling. . My condolences to his family and friends. Odd jobs were essential to supplement what you got from the government: film extra work, a spot of photography, retail conference stewarding, modelling for friends who couldnt find anyone else. Thank you Jerry Dammers for bringing this to the world. Meta. You couldn't quite believe that things would ever return to normal, what with the broken glass, the boarded-up windows, the dozens of overturned cars, the smoke billowing from the shops in the market like some trashy post-apocalyptic movie. [12] The studio, which consisted of a recording space in the cellar and a control room in the living room, was too small to accommodate all the members of the band, so rather than their normal recording method of playing all together, Collins recorded each band member playing one at a time and built up the songs track by track. Youth unemployment was rife as the country felt the bite of Thatchers cuts and riots were erupting all over the country, riots that appeared, with eerie synchronicity, at the same time as Ghost Town. In March 1981, Jerry Dammers heard the reggae song "At the Club" by actor and singer Victor Romero Evans played on Roundtable, the singles review show on BBC Radio 1. The invective, the flash of the eyes and yes, I have been on the wrong end of that once or twice. Photograph: David Corio/Redferns The lead singer, Stan Campbell, was very young. I would come back from the studio in the middle of the night and worryingly there would be the odd lunatics walking the streets. [3], The song's sparse lyric alludes to urban decay, unemployment and violence in inner cities. This Sunday at the Union Buildings, the official seat of the South African government in Pretoria, he will receive one of the country's highest awards, the Order of the Companions of OR Tambo, for outstanding work benefiting the country. She was, though, when she claimed that money couldnt buy either trust or racial harmony. 'Ghost Town' wasn't a free-for-all jam session. Hall has now reacted to Dammers claims, saying he was involved in initial plans for the reunion and said he has no idea why he didnt want to be part of the band. The looters (even though they were ostensibly rioting, all they were really doing was stealing) did actually run up to the first floor, although they immediately headed back down again as the sound of sirens approached. It was our version of gallows' humour, as we were no longer surprised by break-ins, muggings or harassment from the locals. Ils se sont mme parls ! Jungle Music (Groove Tunnel Mix) by Urang Matang (2019) - Jerry Dammers/The Specials (1984) It was a simple song that packed a mighty punch, a masterstroke of music and politics, wrapped up in four glorious minutes of ska-infused beats from the pen of Jerry Dammers, of the UK group The Specials. There was frustration about two-tone falling apart. "It was inspired by what we saw touring," recalls The Specials' founder and song writer Jerry Dammers . I spent the years between 1981 and 1987 knocking about in South London, living in various housing association flats in Brixton, Peckham, Herne Hill and The Oval. However, there was a tense moment towards the end of recording when Dammers decided at the last minute that he wanted to add a flute to the song, and with no free tracks available Collins was forced to record the flute directly onto the track containing the previously recorded brass section, with the possibility that any error would have rendered the entire track unusable: The guy who played the flute was a member of the band King and we recorded him in the hallway with a microphone at the top of the stairs to get the natural reverb from the stairwell. It was easier for her to stand back, aghast. During a police search of her home on 5 October, an Afro-Caribbean woman called Cynthia Jarrett died of heart failure, triggering a sequence of events that resulted in a full-scale riot on the Broadwater Farm council estate, involving youths throwing bricks, stones and Molotov cocktails, as well as using firearms. Lonely Library feat. Coldharbour Lane always looked like a fairly unforgiving place at the best of times, but for weeks after the riots it felt as though it has been transported directly from some post-apoc wasteland, a tunnel of terror. and The Spatial AKA Orchestra. 197952 . I could see them then trying to form the words that would make me understand what they had just asked me. Madness also paid tribute to Prince Buster by using the title of his single "Madness" for their name and on their first . Completely. I knew the enemy was out there, just as it had been nearly 40 years ago. And I was thinking why doesn't anyone produce something equally as strong for Assange today? Jeremy David Hounsell "Jerry" Dammers, (born 22 May 1955) is a British musician who is a founder, keyboard player and primary songwriter of the Coventry, England based ska revival band The Specials, The Special A.K.A. Around the same time, if you had been reading the small ads in the arts pages of your favourite national newspaper, you would have seen that revival tours were all the rage. Dubbed Bloody Saturday by Time, the main riot took place on 11 April, and resulted in a mass confrontation between the mob and the Metropolitan Police. I even sat through some of the tortuous recording of the 1985 album In The Studio by The Special AKA (as The Specials morphed into), containing Jerrys defining moment, the monumentally influential Free Nelson Mandela. Rest in power Terry Hall.". Like all great records about social collapse, it seems to both fear and relish calamity. With its melancholic wailing, its hypnotic lope, its ominous organs and The people getting angry chant, there is no better mirror to the societal privations of 1981, a year that often felt on the brink of collapse. I was blown to pieces, He was open about everything: inside a new documentary Willie Nelson & Family. For a short while, I felt as though I could have been the last person in the capital. She gives the civil servants hell, said one observer soon after she became prime minister. The founding member of the 1970s ska group, who will not be part of their 30th anniversary shows, released a statement claiming the band are trying to "rewrite history". It was last seen in British general . [22], The song experienced a thematic resurgence on music streaming platforms in 2020, after lockdown orders were placed following the COVID-19 pandemic. This was the time of Only Fools And Horses, of Minder, of Boys From The Blackstuff, of the nefarious and the naughty, the secondhand and the underhand. However, it was to come sooner than anyone thought, as Tesco bought a site on Acre Lane the day after the 1985 riots. The late summer of 1981 was a wake-up call for so many people I knew, as we had all finished college and were experiencing the inevitability of life on the dole, looking for work while juggling the day-to-day existence of a life without structure or a support network. "Hearing of Brad's death has been a . Jerry Dammers has launched a blistering attack on the Specials reunion and planned gigs, called them "a takeover, rather than a proper reunion" on the part of Terry Hall and his manager, Lynval Golding. Collins wanted the song to sound more like a Sly and Robbie roots reggae track, so he brought a copy of a Sly and Robbie-produced single, "What a Feeling" by Gregory Isaacs, to the studio so that drummer John Bradbury could mimic the drum sound. As news of the attack spread, so hostilities began and the police lost control of the area for two days, during which time dozens of fires were started and shops looted, photojournalist David Hodge died a few days later, after a gang of looters he was trying to photograph attacked and beat him. He sought refuge in a (black) neighbours house, who promptly called out to the gang chasing him, who ran in and kicked the living daylights out of him. The streets werent just empty of people, they were empty of life. There had always been friction between Dammers and the groups singer Terry Hall, one of the most (self-proclaimed) miserable men in pop and that friction continued, obviously to the extent that they found it impossible to work together. (Photo by Getty Images) Album. They were gigs, after all. It's hard to explain how powerful it sounded. Apr 09 2010. It seems fitting that Dammers should receive an award named after Oliver Tambo, who was president of the African National Congress while in exile from South Africa. Id felt like this before, intermittently, in the early summer of 1981, when, after days of rising tension and years of social deprivation, relations between the Metropolitan Police and the local community resulted in the Brixton riots. [23], In December 2021, a commemorative plaque was affixed to the house where the former Woodbine Street recording studio was located. Its only the most extreme people who appear to still be out there. Sites: jerrydammers.com, Wikipedia In Groups: Jerry Dammers' Spatial A.K.A Orchestra, Starvation, The Coventry Automatics, The Special AKA, The Specials, Tone Productions, Visionistics Variations: Viewing All | Jerry Dammers He also founded 2 Tone Records. Ill get there in the end, he says. I had already barricaded our own front door with various pieces of random furniture, although this was largely to try to appease my girlfriend, as I knew that any concerted push from the other side would have caused them to come tumbling down the corridor as the door flew open. To me, Dammers was the Lennon and McCartney of ska, one of the most important voices of the postpunk movement, a man who always appeared to be carrying his generation's hopes and dreams on his. At its last concert in Berlin the orchestra, containing some of the cream of Britain's jazz players, had expanded the scope of its repertoire. The New Rock Revolution what happened next? They turned up with supermarket trolleys, safe in the knowledge they would never be caught. [25], "17 rock-reggae crossovers that work and three that don't", "Ghost Town: The song that defined an era turns 30", "The Official Top 50 best-selling songs of 1981", The Specials: How Ghost Town defined an era, "Ghost Town - The Specials | Listen, Appearances, Song Review", "The Specials 'Ghost Town' Classic Tracks", "Ghost Town/Why?/Friday Night Saturday Morning", "The Specials' 'Ghost Town' Finds New Life Amid U.K. Lockdown", "2 Tone Records - Ghost Town - CHS TT12 17", "2 Tone Records - Ghost Town (revisited) - CHS TT30", "Specials, The / Special Productions - Ghost Town Revisited (Vinyl) at Discogs", The Irish Charts Search Results Ghost Town", A page about the single on a 2 Tone Records fansite, An interview about the song with John Collins, the producer, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ghost_Town_(The_Specials_song)&oldid=1137864343, "Ghost Dub '91" (credited to 'Special Productions'), "Ghost Dub '91 (Version)" (credited to 'Special Productions'), This page was last edited on 6 February 2023, at 20:58. I looked through the vast, seven-foot-wide venetian blind that faced the street and I saw dozens of local residents almost exclusively young black men running by my window carrying record players, televisions, CD players, radios, amplifiers, microwaves, small fridges, speaker systems, anything they could carry. Jeremy David Hounsell Dammers (born 22 May 1955) is a British musician who is a founder, keyboard player and primary songwriter of the Coventry, England, based ska revival band The Specials, The Special A.K.A. London, Clapham Common. Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music. Dammers record was an apocalyptic portrait of inner-city oppression set to a loping beat offset by an unsettling and vaguely Middle Eastern motif: Government leaving the youth on the shelf No job to be found in this country The single sounded like the fairground ride from hell, a snake charmer of a song, complete with strident brass, madhouse wailing and dub-style breaks. But it's important to remember that I did what any decent person would do in my position. Seriously, what have you got? Recently, someone asked what Terry Hall was like. After a brief trip to the Pret at the top of our square (egg sandwich on white bread, a Diet Coke and a banana, eaten in that order), I finished up and started to walk home. Jerry Dammers experimented with lounge-noir on their second album, causing intra-band friction. The video was just as bleak, featuring a road trip through some of the least salubrious streets of Central London. The Specials ' founder Jerry Dammers has revealed to Uncut that he recorded new Specials material with original members Horace Painter and Lynval Golding in 2003. There were weird, diminished chords: certain members of the band resented the song and wanted the simple chords they were used to playing on the first album. Back in 2009 I wrote sleevenotes for the rerelease of his solo album Laugh. No, really. Its one of the most baleful records to ever make No1. Learn How rich is He in this year and how He spends money? The Broadwater Farm riot in Tottenham, in North London, a week later, was dominated by two deaths. #jerrydammers #georgeshaw. They didnt play Ghost Town, but then how could they? Jerry Dammers. The 1981 riots happened just a quarter of a mile from where I lived in The Oval, while the 1985 riot happened right outside my front door. To escape crime and to buy bigger houses and to get their children into better schools, they fled to suburbia, specifically to the areas on the outskirts of South East London. . Evoking themes of urban decay, deindustrialisation, unemployment and violence in inner cities, the song is remembered for being a hit at the same time as riots were occurring in British cities. Not funny peculiar, funny ha ha. His contribution to the world of music can not be understated and he will much missed by family, friends and fans alike.. We were 1970s bands in a time of two-man synth bands. We went clubbing together, spent a few memorable New Years Eves in Bristol (where his parents were from), spent birthdays together and once DJd together at a miners benefit at the Wag Club in 1983 (he played politically correct funk while I played right-of-centre disco). Actualmente, son una banda de culto para todo venezolano que guarde relacin con la movida musical alternativa en Venezuela, siendo uno de los proyectos de mayor alcance y duracin que se hayan visto en Latinoamrica dentro del ska y la msica mestiza. He also founded 2 Tone Records. A notable recording artist, Jerry Dammers is a pioneer and keyboardist who has been dynamic in the melodic world for over forty years. Dammers was always a genuine bohemian and in a way it was no surprise to me the way his career panned out (DJing, production, forming various esoteric dance orchestras). For those of us who were not part of Thatcherisms good life, for those of us who were excluded, then Ghost Town spoke to our bruised hearts, says Tony Parsons, who was still writing for the NME at the time. Its quite spooky walking about at night. However, the song was hailed by the contemporary UK music press as a major piece of popular social commentary,[3][4] and all three of the major UK music magazines of the time awarded "Ghost Town" the accolade of "Single of the Year" for 1981. Some thought this was progress, although what was rarely advertised in the Sunday Times Home section was the fact that most of these new developments were nothing less than gated communities. Jerry Dammers. He left India at the age of 2, first living in Coventry, then moving to Sheffield at the age of 10. 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