A Message to You Rudy

For some reason, I just want to post this awesome video from The Specials, one of the best ska bands ever!



There are actually two memories that I always connect to The Specials and ska.

The first is from when I was a junior in high school, and our English teacher asked everyone in the class to name different types of music, just to see how many we could put up on the blackboard. All the usual suspects came flying out, from rock, rap, reggae, country, western ("We got both kinds, Country and Western!"), folk, etc. etc., which also included all the various flavors of rock 'n' roll: rockabilly, classic rock, big hair rock, heavy metal, speed metal, death metal, etc.

As the class generally wound down from everyone trying to out-do each other with the different types of rock, I offered up one word: Ska! You would have thought I was speaking in a different tongue by the reaction from the rest of the class. People laughed at me, saying ska wasn't even a word, much less a type of music. To which, at the time, I could only lamely say that it was the combination of rock, jazz and reggae. When they laughed even more, all I could offer up was that The Police sang ska. That shut them up a little, since most kids at the time idolized Sting and The Police.

"Stop your messin' around..."

My second memory is of seeing The Specials play live in Las Vegas back in 1998, the last time I visited there. I was actually in Vegas for Red Flag; every so often, they let the Herk guys come in and fly a few missions, just to give the fighter pukes the opportunity to "shoot" slow-moving targets. (Very slow-moving!) The week before The Specials came to town, I scalped my way into the sold-out concert by the Brian Setzer Orchestra at the Hard Rock casino. This was at the height of the swing revival, and those tickets were hard to come by! People were all dressed up in Zoot Suits and poodle skirts, and it was a rocking good time to see people try to swing dance when the floor was that crowded! The only bad thing about the BSO show was that some of the people crowding the floor were really there just to be seen at the "popular" event. They weren't fans of the music as much as they were trend-spotting and trying to be hip.

Well, as much fun as I had seeing the Brian Setzer Orchestra play live, it was nothing compared to seeing The Specials play live! I'm sure they no longer had their entire complement of original band members by then. The tickets were much easier to buy, and in fact the crowd was probably half that of the BSO show. But everyone who was there to see The Specials play was truly a die-hard ska fan, and I remember taking a break from dancing just to see several hundred heads all bobbing in time to the music in unison! That was an awesome sight! We had so much more fun at The Specials' show.

"Better think of your future... else you'll wind up in jail..."