Three of a Kind #50

I found a great video in a charity shop the other day: Dance Craze: The Best of British Ska... Live! And what a find, featuring as it does a plethora of typically energetic performances from the six main bands of that scene - The Specials, Madness, The Beat, The Selecter, Bad Manners and The Bodysnatchers - cleverly interspersed with old Pathe newsreel footage of more staid "dance crazes" from years gone by. So there's a clever compare-and-contrast/juxtaposition type thingy going on.

How great it must've been to have been a teenager in the mid-to-late seventies, anyway, with punk and 2-Tone coming along in the space of what, three years? My older brother would have been about 12 when punk broke so he copped the lot, the jammy git. (I got some benefit, though, by having access to his great record collection from an early age - when he'd let me!)

But watching this video I have to say the whole ska scene looked like a lot more fun than its punk predecessor. Far less gobbing 'n' snarling and much more dancing 'n' larking. Dance Craze even got a cinematic release, in 1981, but sadly by the time it was completed 2-Tone was on the wane and thus the film lasted barely a week before closing in most cinemas.

Anyway, for a far more interesting and well-informed article on Dance Craze, check out this excellent piece at the 2-Tone website. There's a full track listing too.

Talking of which, what's your favourite British ska track? Here're a few of mine.

The Selecter - Three Minute Hero mp3

Madness - Swan Lake (Live) mp3

The Specials - Rat Race mp3

(mp3s available for a week)

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