Beat Girl

This 1960 film by Edmond T Greville is one of the earlier attempts at portraying the emerging concept of teenage rebellion as well as the London beatnik culture.

Gillian Hills stars as the she-devil protagonist Beat Girl, who spends most of her time hanging out in cave-like underground clubs and coffee shops. Her father marries a French woman, who he later finds out to be an ex-stripper. Meanwhile, Beat Girl allows herself to be seduced by a sleazy strip-joint owner played by Christopher Lee.

Full of kitsch and 60’s cool, it is especially worth noting for its enchanting soundtrack of dark jazzy 60’s rock composed by John Barry (it is actually his first movie score). Despite being a rather monotonous affair, the title track has a fascinatingly haunting feel to it and has been covered by many bands like The Damned, ska band The Kingpins, Brian Setzer Orchestra and surf band Satan’s Pilgrims

Check out the title track and opening scene (look out for the John Barry Seven on stage) of this social commentary here

The Meteors at Corsica Studios, 31/10 - 2007

It’s halloween again and what better way to celebrate than watching The Meteors, the kings of psychobilly?

Formed in 1980, The Meteors are generally credited with inventing the whole psychobilly genre, mixing a horror and science fiction sensibility with a punk and rockabilly sound, thus creating a niche scene largely undiscovered by the public and mainstream media. Featuring what might be the world’s burliest fanbase, the band helped develop what is knows as “wrecking” – a mix between fighting and dancing (it really has to be seen with your own eyes!).

In the early days the singer P. Paul Fenech would be known for spitting chicken blood at the audience. The audience of tonight were not treated to such delights, but the band definitely pleased the crowd with a string of their hits like “Slow Down you Graverobbing Bastard”, “Rawhide”, “Wrecking Crew” etc. Formulaic and repetitive? Perhaps, but definitely not short of surprises.

The concert, held in an old warehouse underneath the railway arches of London’s Elephant & Castle station, featured some of the wildest, craziest crowd one could ever witness. With ghouls lurking everywhere in the dark corners, and tattooed giants in the the pit tossing each other around like ragdolls, the scene was brutal and exciting.

At one point singer P. Paul Fenech suddenly collapsed on the floor in the middle of a song. Carried out in a seemingly lifeless state, we were shocked to what could have happened. A heart attack? Is he dead? But halloween is the night when the dead come back to life and within a few minutes the Meteors were back on stage again. A rather sick joke perhaps, but The Meteors were never known for their good taste or being nice and polite!

After an hour of mayhem, The Meteors proved once again that psychobilly is the sickest, most evil music there is out there, and just as hilarious and fun as a B-grade horror film.

Trivia: A short film made in 1980 titled Meteor Madness was released as a double bill with the 2-tone film “Dance Craze”, and featured comedian Keith Allen (Lily Allen’s dad).

YO GABBA GABBA

Yo Gabba Gabba is a brilliant children’s programme currently being aired on the Nickelodeon channel. Hosted by several members of ska-punk band The Aquabats, it is heavy on ska music and imagery. Just watch the hilarious version of the reggae classic “Banana”, performed by none other than The Aggrolites! Other brilliant features include a short animation with the message for children to be responsible and pick up their mess on the floor. Sung by Alex Desert from Hepcat, the song is a ska number titled “Pick it Up” (!). The animation features a little skinhead kid being lectured by a Rude Boy, complete with suit, pork pie hat and loafers. Wouldn’t the world have been much better if we all had grown up with programmes like this?

See it all for yourself at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hwiuuPK2u4 (Aggrolites performing Banana)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ir3mVEtxF4 (Pick it Up song featuring Alex Desert)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9PqjMSNfkU (Party in my Tummy song – great children’s song set to a catchy electrobeat)

The 2 tone Trail

Who needs a holiday in the sun when there is Coventry? Anyone with an interest in ska may be interested in reading Pete Chambers’ ska-guide to Coventry, called The 2-tone Trail. To the dedicated ska-fan, this is one gem of a tourist guide to the city that gave birth to seminal bands The Specials and The Selecter as well as the 2-tone label.

The walk starts off by Lanchester Polytechnic where several members of The Specials once studied. It also is the place where the video to the song Rat Race was filmed (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4HltjRMxJI). Moving on, the walk takes you through Gosford Street, a place at one time lined with second hand shops and where the band members sought out the second-hand mod suits and 60’s skinhead attire so closely associated with the 2-tone ska image. The tour soon arrives at the canal basin where the Specials shot the band photos for their album covers. Now yuppified and restored, it’s quite a different experience walking here than the rubbish-tip it once was. Other landmarks on the tour include the toothless Jerry Dammers house and the 2 tone HQ (a dull Victorian house) and various pubs/clubs where the Specials played some of their earliest gigs etc. Every once in a while you pass through pockets of mainstream touristical interest such as the medieval Spon Street with bent, assymetrical building facades, and the Coventry cathedral.

Walking around a city that inspired such gloomy dark-as-dead songs like Ghost Town, Concrete Jungle, Friday Night Saturday Morning and Nite Klub one can’t help but feel that the place seems.. well, really not that bad. Rather, it comes across as quite an unlikely birthplace of a scene with such social signicance. Then again, Coventry was probably quite different in the 70’s, and the unusually large abundance of pubs and clubs must have bread a good live music scene.

Although following the 2-tone trail will probably only be of interest to the diehard 2-tone fan, this is a great initative from the author. The sights are nothing extraordinary - even for the die-hard ska fan - but the tour definitely was a pretty interesting 2-hour experience for a passing visitor like me. It also gives a great insight into how life may have been here in the 70’s. As a bonus, the book also offers a guide to several out-of-town sites but you’d have to be a real ska nutter to want to venture out to the sites of Horizon Studios (where The Specials recorded) or Nerve Boutique (where Horace Panter ran a clothes shop together with his wife). The 2-tone Trail is available through Waterstones bookshops and costs £5.00.

The Ram Jam Club

Brixton, being one of the first places where Jamaican immigrants settled in London in the 50’s and 60’s, held the position as being one of the prime spots for early reggae and ska. The Ram Jam Club on Brixton Road was one of these places who have held a large social significance for the London youth of its time, yet its place in history is often overlooked.

This was one of the places where white kids would rub shoulders with local Jamaican youth to the sounds of people like Duke Vin, Count Suckle and Count Shelley on the turntables. The club regularly had over 1800 punters through the door, despite not having an alcohol license.

One of the people most associated were mod hero Geno Washington and the Ram Jam band. Whenever Geno played, rows of mod scooters would be lined up along the pavement outside the club, which is now home to Lambeth council. Other people associated with the club included keyboard reggae legend Jackie Mittoo (whose first solo single was named Ram Jam). A young Alex Hughes (also known as skinhead reggae icon Judge Dread, and the record holder of the largest number of singles banned on BBC) was a bouncer at the club. Linton Kwesi Johnson, reggae poet and one-time member of the Black Panther movement, is also said to have been a frequent patron of the club.

The club later turned into the Fridge club, which is still running today (although it has since moved to a different location).

Fatty Towers of Margate

Once being a prime holiday destination for holidaying working-class Londoners, Margate offers a genuinely British slice of seaside tackyness complete with donkey rides, fish and chips and chubby, red bodies frying away on the beach. The jewel in the crown used to be the town's amusement park called Dreamland, featuring a huge rollercoaster and enough slotmachines to ensure that you would leave the place without a penny. Life was good here back in those days.

Then came the introduction of charter flights and things started to change. Suddenly people could afford to go to Mallorca or Torremolinos for the cash they had earned down the factory. From the 60's and 70's Margate has experienced a steady decline, and the town's tourist industry is nowadays just a fraction of what it once was. Even Dreamland has had to close down, and its scenic railway is slowly rotting away behind the gated fence.

A glimmer of hope could however be seen on the horizon in the mid-90's, when Buster Bloodvessel of Bad Manners moved in. Buster had a vision of running a hotel for the larger than large, the fatter than fat and Fatty Towers was his creation. Run by Buster between 96-98, it featured extra large bathtubs, pleasure rooms, huge beds and mega-sized portions of greasy food in the hotel restaurant. Buster, being somewhat of a local celebrity, often held local publicity stunts such as the popular "Belly of the Year" contest.

Around the same time, an album to support the Margate Football Club was published. Dubbed the first non-league football team tribute, "Down to Margate" the album's first track features a duet between Buster Bloodvessel and Judge Dread (a resident of nearby Snodland), followed by other punk/ska/oi! acts like Arthur Kay, The Business and The Exploited, all singing their support for Margate FC.

Sadly, Buster had to give up his hotel business to other commitments and the hotel is now history. And so is Buster's belly after having had liposuction and reduced his bodyweight to just half of its original 30 stone. He now lives his life in a houseboat on the river Thames.

Who will bring back the glory to Margate?