Tag: the specials

INTERVIEW: Pauline Black On Why The Selecter Is Still Relevant Today

“I don’t really think that history repeats itself perfectly,” says The Selecter front woman Pauline Black on a call from Monterrey, Mexico, where the band was on tour. Instead, she notes, “history rhymes,” adding, “I think that we’re definitely very much in a kind of rhyming situation right now.”

In May of 1979, the same month that Margaret Thatcher become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, The Selecter first appeared with a self-titled track on a split 7″ with The Specials. This release marked the inception of what would become a pivotal part of a growing movement – 2 Tone Records, founded by Jerry Dammers of The Specials. A British take on Jamaican ska that derived its name from the label itself, two tone merged energetic, bouncy rhythms with lyrics that delved into the struggles of British, working class youth, and The Selecter was at the forefront of the scene as one of the genre’s most prominent acts. “Disaffected people are normally the ones who enjoy two-tone music,” says Black, “because it actually talks about them, their concerns and possibly what the future might be if the people that run things weren’t running them quite so badly.”

At the end of the ’70s and into the early 1980s, The Selecter were an antidote to the wave of conservatism that had spread throughout their home country. “The 2 Tone label came along at the right time, at the time when somebody like Margaret Thatcher had just come into power and was deciding to wage war on people who were working class, blue collar people, who worked for a living,” says Black. “She had absolutely no time for them and wasn’t in any mood to make things better for young people at that time. Those were the issues that we decided to sing about.”

It resonated. By October, The Selecter were on Top of the Pops performing second single “On My Radio.” You can hear the beginnings of frustration and dissent in the multiple meanings of its refrain: “It’s just the same old show, on my radio.” But The Selecter wasn’t the same old, same old. For one, Black notes, their original line-up featured seven members, six of whom were black. “That immediately made us very different from all of the other bands,” she says. Moreover, Black was a rare female voice within the two-tone scene.

She points to the cover art of their debut full-length, Too Much Pressure, released in early 1980, as an aesthetic reflection of what was, and remains, the band’s message. It’s designed in black-and-white, with a checkerboard print border. “Black people, white people, women, men – that’s embodied, I feel, in that kind of iconography, using that black and white checker,” says Black. She points to the man on the cover of the album, leaning against the checkered border as if it’s a wall, his hat lying on the ground. “He’s really at rock bottom,” she says, “he’s almost in this prison of the black and white check that bounds the actual square of the record, if you’re looking at the vinyl.”

“I thought that was very emblematic of the time,” Black continues. She points out too that the checkered pattern was also used by police in the U.K., adding another layer of meaning. “You’re imprisoned in this shell of authority and those extremes, I suppose, that held you in in society,” she explains.

Their songs – like “Three Minute Hero,” “Time Hard” and “Danger” – reflected struggle, but Black notes that there are threads of hope in their work too. “There is a way forward,” she says. “But, the main thing about the way forward is actually unity and not letting all those outside forces who like to keep us in the status quo, as it were, using things like racism or sexism for their own ends to divide.” She adds, “I think all the 2 Tone bands were very much of that kind of ilk.”

Following the release of their stellar sophomore album, Celebrate the Bullet, The Selecter split. After regrouping in the 1990s, the band continued to delve into socio-political issues in albums like Cruel Britannia (1998), its title a play on the catchphrase “Cool Britannia,” and their 2017 release, Daylight.

Forty years later, and in the midst of another conservative political movement, both in the U.K. and the U.S., The Selecter, led by Black and fellow founding member Arthur “Gaps” Hendrickson, are back on the road to celebrate their anniversary. The night before our interview, the band played Mexico City, their first non-festival gig in the city. Fans brought vintage pressings of The Selecter’s releases and copies of Black’s memoir, Black by Design, with them. “It was just wonderful,” she says. On September 11, they began a jaunt through the U.S., with gigs in Europe and the U.K. continuing through fall.

The Selecter has remained active in recent years and had been touring as co-headliners with fellow two-tone outfit The Beat (known as The English Beat in the U.S.). The Beat frontman Ranking Roger fell ill and, ultimately, died in March of this year. The loss of their tour mate made this anniversary trek all the more imperative. “We just felt that we really had to celebrate this milestone, if not for us than for the memory of Roger,” says Black.

With the anniversary gigs, Black says, the goal is to take listeners through the band’s history, showing them the “narrative line” in The Selecter’s view of the world. She says, “What we were talking about then is very similar to what we’re talking about now.”

Catch The Selecter live and follow the band on Facebook for ongoing updates.

ONLY NOISE: More Specials

Tonight I’m going to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I am going listen to a record, in full, and with all of the lights off, while doing nothing else, so help me god. This is how I used to listen to music. Before I had a smart phone, or a laptop, or a job. Before I had deadlines, a.k.a. homework I actually cared about. Before I had to cook my own meals. Back in those “before” days, the best place for listening to records was my friend Daniel’s bedroom, where we’d flip off all of the lights and dive under the blankets covering his bed to listen to Pixies’ Doolittle or the new Modest Mouse record. We would listen to these albums in full, and never speak a word.

The next best spot was my bedroom. I didn’t have my own full-sized turntable back then, but I did have a funny little portable vinyl player that my dad leant me. It was a highly precarious object, as the LP itself was largely exposed. A strip of plastic held it in place down the center, but the remaining surface area of the record (I’d say a good 80%) jutted out the sides. This made for an interesting time when you listened to records through headphones, which I always did late at night to avoid waking my parents. I would clamp in the record, plug in my headphones, and gingerly lay next to the contraption, trying not to flinch or make any sudden movements on my way down. There was a constant fear of ripping my earbuds out mid-song, or worse, knocking the mini turntable over completely. I remember lying on my back, closing my eyes, and letting the jagged guitars and hissing hi-hats of AFI’s Very Proud Of Ya take me outside of my wood-paneled bedroom walls. I knew that this was the ultimate way to listen to music: alone or with a quiet companion, eyes shut and fully immersed.

It is difficult to make time for this kind of listening now. Listening requires not only attention but intention. But despite how challenging it can be to sit still and take in a record in full, I’m determined to do it more often. This week, and hopefully many more weeks to follow, I’ll pick an LP from my collection; I’ll drop the needle, sit down, shut up, and listen. Tonight, after a dreary first week of February, I’m looking for a pick-me-up, and I can’t think of a better record to do the job that the Specials’ 1980 sophomore LP More Specials.

After discovering a promotional copy of the British band’s self titled debut in my mom’s record collection, I knew the Specials were going to be an important band in my life, even if I was discovering them 25 years too late. Regardless of how much I loved that first album, it was all I knew of the 2 Tone group, and I was always a bit surprised I didn’t see more of their work in record stores. It took me two years to find More Specials, and I didn’t even know I was looking for it.

It must have been 2005 when my mom and I drove to Laguna Beach from my grandmother’s house in Huntington. At that point in time I would have assumed that Laguna would not be to my liking – surely it would resemble the television show sharing its namesake. The Orange County city surprised me, however; as I walked through the doors of Underdog Records, I knew I’d found a place just for me.

I located a vinyl copy of More Specials within minutes, and shelled out the high price of $13.99 for it (the Day-Glo orange price tag is still plastered on the upper right hand corner of the sleeve). Little did I know, the man who sold the vinyl to me was Mike Lohrman, lead singer of the Stitches, a band I would later see live and meet in Seattle, when my best friend would open for them. Underdog was his shop, but not for much longer – sadly, it closed just a year after I visited.

Record shopping in Southern California always presented a frustrating dilemma – the region had some of the best secondhand punk record stores I’d ever seen (most of them, like Underdog and Costa Mesa’s NoiseNoiseNoise, are now sadly out of business). I would make out with absolute treasures: Circle Jerks’ Wild in the Streets, Minor Threat LPs, and all the Social Distortion bootlegs a girl could ask for. Sadly, I had no place to listen to them, until I went home to Washington after visiting Grandma. The anticipation made my private listening sessions all the more exciting, however. Playing More Specials tonight brings about a sense of wonder similar to what I must have felt 13 years ago.

More Specials was never the critical darling that was 1979’s Specials, but it’s still an exceptional record. Songs like “Rat Race” and “Hey Little Rich Girl” are built for the skank floor, but rife with British snark. “Pearl’s Café” is one of the most terrifying depictions of old age, irrelevance, and loneliness, and contains one of my favorite ways to say fuck it: “It’s all a load of bollocks/And bollocks to it all.” Again, despite the song’s depressing nature, the Specials provided an exuberant, sing-along pop number. Then again, with the Go-Gos as your backing vocalists, how could you not achieve catchy perfection? The pinnacle of this sad story/sweet song dichotomy is reached during “I Can’t Stand It.” Had it been left entirely to singer Terry Hall, this song would have been glum enough – but paired with the quavering vocals of the Bodysnatchers’ Rhoda Dakar, it is nothing short of heart wrenching. It is a breakup song for the ages, and it rarely fails to make me cry a little.

It continually amazes me how many memories fit inside the sleeve of an album, even ones that haven’t been played in years. While there is constant pressure to remain current, to look to the future of music, I find it cathartic to look back occasionally – to flip through my records like a dust-coated photo album. It is a collection of memories I hope to revisit more often.

ONLY NOISE: Welcome to the Workless Week

Rihanna is doing everything I am not.

“Work, work, work, work, work, work/You see me I be work, work, work, work, work, work,” she barks through the café sound system – as if she knows.

Another sunny day in the neighborhood. It is loping along at a drowsy pace. Parks are barren – full of empty benches. There is no line at the post office, and my favorite corner in the local coffee shop is dutifully awaiting me. I’m not dreaming. I’m not lucky. I am unemployed. And it’s just a weekday.

As luck would have it, I’ve been laid off three times in the past three years. Downsizing, outsourcing, budget cuts, project fulfillment – I’ve seen it all, and yet each time it hits me like an uppercut…like getting dumped when you thought everything was going awesome. And everything was going awesome…until it wasn’t anymore.

Another song comes on: Elvis Costello’s embittered “Welcome To The Working Week” off 1977’s My Aim Is True. I envision Costello back in the early ‘70s, working as a data entry clerk for Elizabeth Arden and hating every minute of it. “Welcome to the working week,” he sneers. “Oh, I know it don’t thrill you, I hope it don’t kill you/Welcome to the working week/You gotta do it till you’re through it, so you better get to it.” The irony of course being that it is the workless week(s) I have to get through now.

But this time ‘round I am not alone. It wasn’t long ago when I told my friend M that everything was “going to be ok!” M had recently been laid off from her job of five years, and I assured her that she needn’t self-flagellate for collecting unemployment.

“The idea that going through a period of unemployment is being lazy or counterproductive to society is bullshit,” I argued. “That’s just a false, capitalistic construct that a lot of developed countries don’t abide by. Look at Sweden! They get artist grants on the regular! Paternity leave! No one calls the Swedish lazy!” I consoled M with fervor, hoping to empower my hardworking pal who’d fallen on hard times. “You’re going to LOVE unemployment! Hell, I wish I had been on it longer!”

Somewhere in the distance, Riri sang and wagged a finger, “When you a gon’ learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn”? Before I could answer, I was plunged into joblessness. Again. I turned to find that ardent part of myself, the one that I’d dispatched to boost M’s confidence. She was nowhere to be found.

On Monday, in broad daylight, M and I sat on her couch; updating resumes, drafting emails, and calling the New York State Department of Unemployment Services, which has constructed a densely layered multiverse of automated menu options, dead-end key commands, and spontaneous call terminations. Dante himself could not have imagined this many circles of hell. The Specials’ bristling cover of “Maggie’s Farm” bleated from M’s tablet. I repeatedly punched zero in the hopes of being delivered to a real-time human, but was escorted back to the beginning of the menu options instead.

Veterans of creative industries get it. Writers, actors, magicians, poets, clowns, and yes, musicians; it’s a hard life making a living. Like Rihanna and Elvis Costello, Dolly Parton knew all about werk when she wrote “9 to 5,” singing the sour truth in that sweet, sweet voice: “Workin’ 9 to 5, whoa what a way to make a livin’/Barely gettin’ by, it’s all takin’ and no givin’/They just use your mind and they never give you credit/It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it.”

In this time of uncertainty, I tell myself that it’s important to have historical perspective. It’s crucial to remember that bitching about work (or lack thereof), is as human as bipedalism, and has likely occurred since the dawn of occupation. While Rihanna today sings, “You see me do me dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt,” a 12th century blacksmith has surely larked, “You see me do me smelt, smelt, smelt, smelt, smelt, smelt,” and so on and so forth. Throughout history, where there has been work, there has been animosity; where there has been unemployment, there has been languor.

Hating your job is a time-honored tradition. So too is fearing eternal joblessness, and, as Bill Callahan sang in the ‘90s, longing “to be of use.” But why are we reduced to this? Why is our identity plastered slapdash around a core of employment? They don’t live like this is in Italy, right?

Perhaps philosopher Henri Lefebvre explained it best in his 1968 page-turner, The Sociology of Marx: “– man loses himself in his works. He loses his way among the products of his own effort, which turn against him and weight him down, become a burden.” Or, as Morrissey sang, “Frankly, Mr. Shankly, this position I’ve held/It pays my way, and it corrodes my soul/I want to leave, you will not miss me/I want to go down in musical history.”

I think about how Morrissey once worked as a hospital porter, and, perhaps annoyed that everyone around him was more miserable than he, quit and went on the dole. The Smiths frontman then used the bulk of his unemployment benefits to buy concert tickets. Morrissey sings about jobs more than most pop stars, and has certainly had them, making his claim in 1984’s “You’ve Got Everything Now” that he’s “Never had a job/Because I’ve never wanted one,” only half true.

Jeff Buckley was a Hotel Receptionist. Alanis Morissette was an Envelope Stuffer. Looking through a list of “51 Jobs Musicians Had Before They Were Famous” makes me feel better for some reason. Ian Curtis worked as a Welfare Officer. Chuck Berry (RIP), a Beautician. Rod Stewart dug graves. Henry Rollins managed a Häagen-Dazs ice cream shop in DC.

I wonder if, while scooping equal portions of Rocky Road and Butter Pecan into a waffle cone, Henry Rollins was thinking of a passage from The Communist Manifesto: “…labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce…” “Much like this sugary, frozen treat,” mumbled the pre-Black Flag muscle man. While dipping the high-piled scoops into a vat of rainbow sprinkles, Häagen-Dazs Rollins must have pondered Marx and Engels further, noting that, “…the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine…”

But let’s face it, ice cream Henry – we’re all appendages of the machine with or without those pesky day jobs – no matter how you scoop, sprinkle, or dip it. If you look to The Jam’s lay-off-themed “Smithers-Jones,” you’ll hear the tale of an obedient, white-collar worker who gets the axe. The suit-wearing title character arrives at his long-term office job one Monday only to be told, “There’s no longer a position for you/Sorry Smithers-Jones.”

And then there’s good ‘ol Morrissey again, who famously sang, “I was looking for a job, and then I found a job/And heaven knows I’m miserable now.”

Oh, c’mon Moz, it ain’t alllll that bad. When talking to my sister about my recent loafer status, she assures me that things could be much worse. At least I don’t have to dig graves like Rod Stewart. At least I don’t have to work in a slaughterhouse like Ozzy Ozborne. I have friends and family who love me, an awesome part-time writing gig, and, unlike my sister’s new puppy, Darwin: at least I don’t have eczema on my butthole.

So I got that going for me, which is nice.