Bad Manners- ST

DSCN2479This album by far will be one of the hippest ones I have found while doing this blog. It was originally $5.99. I tried to get Half Price Books to come down a dollar. When that failed, I asked if I could add a dollar to one of the dollar records I was purchasing to bring this down to $5. The register dude thought I was crazy but went along with it. The compromises I make to do this site.MI0001392721

Bad Manners are a ska band hailing from North London. Formed in 1976 and led by frontman, Buster Bloodvessel, the band was closely associated with the 2 Tone scene despite never signing to the label itself. This culminated with their inclusion in the 1981 documentary, Dance Craze with the Specials, the Selector, The Bodysnatchers, The Beat, and Madness.  The clip below is from that documentary. Buster’s madcap antics got the band banned from Top of the Pops as well as Italian TV. After disbanding in 1987, they would reform in 1990 and released 1992’s Fat Sound, which is an excellent album. Other albums and tours followed. Today, Buster is the only original member left and still tours under the Bad Manners moniker.badmannersretroSMALL

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From what I can tell, this album was put together by Mercury records for a US release in 1983. It accumulates key tracks from the band’s first two albums with UK’s Magnet Records. The songs are right in step with what other UK ska bands were doing at the time. As a result, there are a lot of good tracks on this album including “Inner London Violence”, “King Ska Fa”, “Tequila”, “El Pussycat” and the songs given below as samples.DSCN2480

For sample, I went with the somewhat dated “Loraine” and “Lip Up Fatty”. I could have easily went with others but for some reason while typing this, these came out. So there.Bad-Manners-5

Top Rated. Enjoy it while you can because there are not that many hip records $5.00 or under.

 

Specials- More Specials

DSCN2237Having just learned of the passing of trombonist Rico Rodriguez just 30 mins ago, I went to the archives to pull this out.  I bought this is Canada sometime in the 90’s.  I did the math and with the exchange rate at the time, it came out to under $5.  Overall, I have been doing a lousy job of keeping up with my musical obits.rico-rodriguez

Rico Rodriquez passed away Sept 4th at the age of 80.  He was born in Cuba in 1935 but raised in Jamaica. He was influenced by The Man on The Street himself, Don Drummond. In 1961, he would leave for the UK as did many Jamaica expats.  What strikes me is that he had quite an illustrate career outside his work with the Specials, working with such luminaries as Clement Dodd, Prince Buster, Duke Reid, Chris Blackwell, Theophilus Beckford, Toots and the Maytals, Sly and Robbie etc. In between, he would make a handful of solo albums, most notably, Man from Wareika. Furthermore,  he would play with Jools Holland’s orchestra from 1996 to 2012.  Despite this and probably because most people of my age link him with his 2 Tone work, this stuff gets overshadowed.DSCN2238

Rico’s Obit

The Special’s remake of “A Message to You Rudy” is the song most of the media is linking him with mainly because he played on both this and the original version.  For a sample, I used two tracks of this 1980 album, “Man from C&A” and “Holiday Fortnight” which have him sharing horn duties with Brittish born Dick Cuthell.

RIP Rico