The “30th Anniversary Tour“ by The Specials has been going on for quite a while now. “But what about my own 30-year-jubilee with Ska?” I asked myself today and did some research. Here is what I found out: The good thing is: I can now pin my first encounter with Ska down to a certain date. The bad thing is: I missed it.
Musikladen
I knew it happened some time in early 1980, when there was a most memorable edition of a show on German television called Musikladen. That was a music program basically playing the hits of the day with a few more adventurous guests. Since music videos had not emerged to a greater scale, the show consisted of “live” presentations of the acts. Have a look at the playlist that someone posted on the Internet. There you also find the date: 17. January 1980. Now it’s in my yearly calendar.
Don’t watch that
Musikladen usually started after 9 p.m., so I (13) was probably on my way to bed when my 16-year-old brother Stephan called me to watch what was happening in the telly. Having missed the part when Chas Smash hollered “Don’t watch that, watch this …”, I was directly confronted with Madness playing “One Step Beyond” and dancing to it like there had never been dance before. A simply shocking experience (in a good way). I mean, what did we know then? My record collection (of about 10 albums) had mostly consisted of hits compilations (K-Tel, Polystar) and the big Bs: Beatles (red, blue, White albums, ok they belonged to the whole family), Beach Boys (“Ihre 20 größten Erfolge”) and Bee Gees (“20 Greatest Hits”) plus ACDC (“Highway To Hell”). Stephan was more into Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, George Thorogood, Rory Gallagher. No one had prepared us for Suggs and Chas Smash doing nutty moves.
Jerry And Terry
And before we were able to recover yet another strange appearance rocked the world (mine more than Stephan’s). The Specials went on stage with “A Message To You, Rudy”. As sure as I didn’t have a clue of what was going on there, I don’t think I can name any moment that had more influence on my life. These three minutes were enough to condition me until now. It was simply breathtaking the way this bunch of guys were bringing attitude and fun music together. If it’s true that there is a special time in a child’s life when they are accessible to seminal experiences then I am just thankful today that the people from Musikladen invited The Specials and not Barclay James Harvest. My brother and I had established a routine of splitting our favourites (he supported Borussia Moenchengladbach, I did Schalke 04). We did it again here. He went for Madness and I fell for The Specials.
More Madness and Specials
A few days after the Musikladen show Stephan got the Madness album “One Step Beyond”, and I went to town to buy “A Message To You, Rudy”. Without bothering to listen to the single at the shop I went home and felt … disappointment. Something wasn’t right. I hadn’t realised it, because there was no band photo on the sleeve. But the 7” on my Elac turntable wasn’t The Specials’ but the original version of the song by Dandy Livingstone. Don’t get upset, I recovered and learned to love this version rather soon. Thinking back it seems unreal that I was not only able to buy something by The Specials in a regular strictly non-indie record store (named Phonotek), but also the song’s original version from 60’s Jamaica (in a new pressing). Mind: I did not live in London, nor in Cologne or Duesseldorf, but in Krefeld, a non university, non tourist attracting working class city with less than 250.000 inhabitants. In May 1980 my brother gave me the first album by The Specials as a birthday present. He himself had already moved on to other stuff, but failed to stir my excitement for the Dire Straits.
The Summer Of 1980
In the summer holidays I went to London for three weeks to stay at a family whose son turned out to be a Mod. He was nice enough to fill me in on the different dress codes of Mods, Rude Boys (which I wanted to be) and Skinheads. He also told me how to behave when confronted with Skinheads (“Run”), although in his neighbourhoods these different tribes all used to hang around together. On Carnaby Street I bought my first Two-Tone jacket, A thin scarve, loads of badges, tight trousers, a fake greyish Lonsdale T-Shirt with a “London” imprint and lots of other Ska/Two Tone stuff.
Back In Black & White
How The Specials ruled my life and how I tried to integrate Rude Boy lifestyles into my German reality in the following months (and years) will be accounted for later. There is definitely room for more anniversaries this year. But what about you? What was your way into Ska? Was there a special moment when you were hooked? Or did it happen through slow infiltration?
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