Banana Buster - Banana Buster demo tape (1994)

Banana Buster was a third wave ska band from Morton Grove, IL that played ska, not ska punk. This is probably the only thing they ever released but it's hard to say because there's no information about them online and I had never heard of them until Matt from Talk The Ska shared it.

If you don't already listen to Talk The Ska you might want to check it out to hear some obscure rarities and to keep up on what's new in the current ska scene. 

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Banana Buster demo (1994)

1 Red Light Love Affair

2 There's Nothing to Fighting

3 Skana Jam

4 Comatose

 

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Too Fat to Skate - Too Fat to Skate demo tape (1995)

 Too Fat To Skate was a third wave ska band from Lexington, Kentucky who I never heard of and I know nothing about. This extremely rare demo was shared with us by your friend and mine, Matt from Talk The Ska.

I couldn't find anything online about the band other than they were on a compilation called Ace Magazine Holiday Party Volume 1 (1998) where they did a cover of The Christmas Song. 

1 Meanie Pants Song

2 Consignment

3 Stupid Little Hippies

4 Old Man

5 Drew

6 Laurels

7 Anvil

8 Slap Song

9 Rice and Means

10 Dolt

11 God

 

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Den Toffendans - De Toffee 7" (1981)

 This is a Belgian carnavalsliedje or 'carnival song' so you ska purists may not appreciate it, but the end of the song might sound familiar. 

A - De Toffee

B - De Toffee (Instrumental)

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Colouring Lesson

Colouring Lesson is a ska-reggae/alternative band from the Baltimore area. They released 2 albums in the 90s and I spent years (and lots of money) trying to track these CDs down. I finally found them and was getting ready to share them with you when I discovered right before making this post that the band is now making their recordings available. 

I will not be sharing downloads of the album but I will share a download link of three of my favorite songs by them.

Their first album was called Menagerie and it was released in 1996. 

Colouring Lesson - Menagerie (1996)

1 One Way

2 Black Coffee

3 Irie

4 Murder

5 Nothing New

6 Down with the Ship

7 Mea Culpa

8 Nothing New (Reprise)

9 Come Follow Me

10 (Untitled)

 More popular than this CD was the 7" record and CD single that it spawned with Mea Culpa Blues (It's My Fault) on the A-Side and Murder on the B-side of the record; Murder and Irie on the CD single.

Mea Culpa is probably their most famous song.

 In 1999 they released their second album Targets that has my favorite song of theirs Ragamuffin Sound.

 

 

Colouring Lesson - Targets (1999)

 1 Innocent Blood

2 Devil in a Paper Cup

3 Capitalism + Free Trade

4 Ragamuffin Sound

5 Some People

6 Monkey Wrench

7 My Spot

8 Don Gordon Dub

9 Amen

10 Ram Dancehall

11 Head

12 Cold Turkey

13 Some People (Reprise)

 

Their only other official release was from a single from 2001 in which they collaborated with a fellow Baltimore artist called Mary Prankster on a single titled Love Has a Rumble that is available on Bandcamp.

 

The only other CD I have by them is an unofficial live album called Live in Wilmer's Park, Brandywine, MD from 1996.

1 Shy Man

2 One Way

3 Black Coffee

4 Irie

5 Murder

6 Level

7 Zoomin'

8 Capitolism and Free Trade

9 Cornered Me in the Kitchen

10 Come Follow Me

11 Weatherman

12 Run Away

13 Light'n Up

14 Tenement Yard

16 Tenement Yard

17 Devil in a Paper Cup

18 Head

19 Nigerian Nights

20 She Blinded Me with Science

21 Shy Man

 (I don't know why there's no track 15.)

 

I selected three songs for you to sample 

1 Mea Culpa Blues - from the first album

2 Ragamuffin Sound - from the second album

3 She Blinded Me with Science - from the live CD

 

I was going to share everything but, as I mentioned, the band is making their releases available. You can buy them HERE. 

 

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Judith Ann-Marie

Judith Ann-Marie is an American reggae artist who released two singles in 1982. 

The A-Side to her first single is called Jah Will be There and it is a cover of the Four Tops' amazing classic Reach Out, I'll be There.

Her second release had a B-side called One of the Poorest People which was a cover of the British band Caldonia's song from 1977. 
 

There was a time not so long ago when you couldn't find these records anywhere. I was lucky enough to get an unplayed copy of the second record from the producer Jeffrey Bauman himself. I still have this record. It has only ever been played once between 1982 and now and that's when I ripped it for your listening pleasure. 

 Judith Ann-Marie  and Loose Caboose - Jah Will be There 7" (1982)

A - Jah Will be There 

B -We Need to Free Our Love

Judith Ann-Marie and Loose Caboose - Out on a Limb 7" (1982)

A - Out on a Limb

B - One of the Poorest People

(The image for the 'Out on a Limb' record was taken from Discogs because my copy is in immaculate condition and I didn't want to put it in my scanner and risk scratching it. Someday I will sell it and the new owner will appreciate this decision.)

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The Smarts - Smarts Attack (1997)

 

Nineties ska from Italy. Pure 2Tone style ska with no punk or distorted guitars. This is the only thing this band ever released. 

1 Oh Yeah!

2 Agent 99

3 Once

4 When the Saints go Marching in

5 Spanish Train

6 Kingston 1959

7 La Piramide di Platino

8 Skaw Boy

9 Sahara

10 The Mosquito

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The Hinks

 

The Hinks was a German ska band that released one CD in 1994 that was mostly in English called "From the Rain in the Eaves" and then put out an EP in 1995 that was all in German. The EP was a tribute to soccer/football/futbol announcer Günther Koch, but it was also a tribute to the beautiful game itself. 

The Hinks - Vom Regen in de Trafue (From the Rain in the Eaves) (1994)

1 Killjoy

2 I Don't Like You

3 Girl from Outer Space

4 Weg Ins Gluck

5 Gangster

6 Schicksal

 

 

The Hinks - G. Koch (1995)

1  G. Koch

2 Aans Gehd Imme'Nu Nei

3 Gute Freunde

4 Glotzen

5 Des is'a Greiz

 

 And they recorded a cover of Small Faces "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" that I included in this download.

This is my favorite song of theirs "Glotzen"

toneandwave · Glotzen

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Skank-A-Tiers - Skank-A-Tiers (1998)

This was a ska band from California that only ever released this one CD and, I'm not sure, but I think the singer for this band is Jessica Hernandez from the Detroit, Michigan band Jessica Hernandez & the Deltas. I don't know for sure that it's the same person. I'm 50/50. I can go either way.

I posted the demo tape on Tone and Wave many years ago because my friend Justin from work had a copy of it. It was a long time ago so I won't assume anybody remembers it and I have included the demo in this download. There are 4 songs on the demo. Three were re-recorded for this album.

 

1 No More

2 Sonny the Gangster

3 Unglued

4 Why

5 Tear Drops from My Eyes

6 License to Skank

7 I Just Wanted You to Know

8 The Car Song

9 Nothing's Perfect

10 Bury Me Deep

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Skank-A-Tiers demo (1997) 

1 Sunny the Gangster

2 The Car Song

3 Unglued

4 Mousetrap

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Sir Lord Erotic - No No Lola EP - A Tribute to The Melodians (1995)

Over the years several people have asked me about this but I was never able to find a copy. It seemed like everybody had heard about it and was looking for it but nobody had ever heard it. There is very very little information about this CD or about the band anywhere online so all I could do is put it in my wantlist on Discogs and wait. 

At one point it came up for sale and I bought it, but it got lost in the mail. I accepted that this is just one of those things that I'm never going to hear.

But then it happened. Another copy came up and I snatched it immediately. The seller was curious why somebody was interested in a small local band from so long ago. He didn't realize how relevant this EP is to the international ska community. It has quite the reputation for something that nobody had ever heard. There was one music video that nobody has seen. None of these songs appeared on a compilation. So why the buzz?

As it turns out the person selling the CD was JC Dyborn - Sir Lord Erotic himself - and he was kind enough to answer some questions to tell the true story of a band that everybody knows but nobody knows:

SirLord Erotic :
Pelle Ossler : Guitar, Backing vocals
Thomas Holst : Bass
Ole-Herman Finholt : Guitar, Trumpet
Mats Bengtsson : Organ, Saxophone
Stefan Nilsson aka Kiddie Manzini : Drums
J-C Dyborn : Vocals
Joachim Leksell : Backing vocals

Guest on the CD and later replacing Joachim Leksell  : Magnus Börjesson aka Miss Mango : Backing vocals
Live guest stars :
Peps Persson : Guitar , Vocals, Percussion
Bosse Skoglund : Drums and percussion

"I started a band in 1987 called Amazonas 

 ...when I found the Norweigan brilliant guitar player Ole-Herman Finholt. The rest of that band lived in Helsingborg in the south of Sweden. My idea was to make a crossover between The Ventures/The Shadows/Link Wray and Ramones. Pelle Ossler was by then a local rock star in the band Wilmer X who by then where one of the biggest bands in Sweden. Still he liked the idea and joined Amazonas. Amazonas made 2 albums on major labels before splitting up. First LP produced in London UK by Peter Gunn from British band The Inmates but he was a fan of The Shadows more than Ramones so that album sounds like…well, not Ramones. 

 

The second album was all over the place and I am not ashamed of it but not very proud either. 

In Helsingborg there was a tradition to go out and drink the Christmas away every Christmas Day (in Sweden Christmas eve is the big family day) and Amazonas had really cashed in on those Christmas Day shows for many years  so when the band was no more, a club owner in Helsingborg asked Pelle if he could put something fun together for the coming Christmas Day. By then Ole-Herman spent so much time in my house, very close to Pelles, just listening to old reggae cds, at full blast. Especially the two double Trojan story cds. And a brilliant The Melodians compilation among others. Pelle had this idea that we should start a ska/reggae band by just making me the singer instead of the drummer as I was in Amazonas. Then he brought in Thomas and Mats from Wilmer X (Mats had been in Amazonas as well for some time) and drummer Kiddie from loads of bands in southern Sweden. Best known over here; The Sinners.
We took the name from Sir Lord Comic on one of those Trojan story CDs. Ole-Herman thought, thanks buddy, that I was the least erotic person in the world and I bought that so Sir Lord Erotic it was.

We debuted in Dec 1992 and made bigger or smaller tours around Christmas time that people thought we were just a Christmas band. Truth is we played a lot of shows all year round when the band members were not occupied with other bands. We did that up until 1999.

In the spring of 1999 Sir Lord Erotic toured with a show package with Swedish reggae super star Peps Persson who also produced the No No Lola EP. It may sound strange to someone outside Sweden but Peps turned from acclaimed blues singer to reggae dito in 1974 or so. Singing in Swedish!! Very bold if you ask me. He looked, and still looks, like a real hippie with long hair and beard but I don´t think there is one artist in Sweden that people respect more. Integrity is not a strong enough word. He is definitely the reason our cd sounds so good.
Back to spring 1999. We were booked on a nationwide tour of Sweden , playing relatively big clubs. All thanks to Peps. The set up was to switch between our covers and Peps´well known own songs and it all went very well. Still, after that tour I got a feeling that we had reached the end of the line. Like, where can we go from here??

So, 1999 was the last year we played together.

The No no Lola EP is the only thing we ever recorded. I have a VHS tape of one of those Christmas Day show. 1997 I think, filmed with a very static simple camera but today I am glad I have at least some live evidence.

We also made a music video for the song No no Lola. Professionally filmed in a TV studio we borrowed in Malmö Sweden. Unfortunately I can´t find it. The tape, not Malmö.  I know it is down in the basement somewhere.
I think. Still the tape , NOT Malmö. Ha ha!"

I asked him about their style, not musical style, but how they dressed. If you see the pictures on the CD they have a really cool style

Well, the suit idea didn´t come from two-tone believe it or not. By then, none of us were fans of Specials and Madness. I saw Selecter live 1980 but that was more of a coincident on a festival in Finland. Today I regard Specials 1st album as a milestone and Madness being a fantastic pop band. The suits came from Amazonas where we all wore black suits, more in an Italian mob/godfather style. I can´t remember the train of thoughts when it came to my African caftan but in the early days our shows had a comedy touch that we toned down as we went along. I was actually beating up Joachim on stage, acting like a colonial master with my hired gun musicians. Inspiration from Prince Buster´s Judge Dread character and Scotty in Skank in bed where he tells the musicians to leave the studio for not being good enough musicians. I am very tall (and wide) , 7 ft or so, so the effect of me being an asshole to especially Joachim who was working his ass off on stage dancing and singing and being much smaller, was pure comedy show we thought. Like I said, we toned that part down and focused more on the music, as you should since all the guys in the band were really good musicians. In fact I listened to the CD yesterday for the first time in 100 years , and you are right, it is pretty good. The thing that annoys me is my singing. I mean I was a drummer originally and couldn´t sing but when the CD came out we played a lot of live shows and I got better from doing it night after night but the singing legacy will remain on CD. I was not a good singer by the time we recorded it. Sad really.

All this suit/caftan thing would have made sense if it wasn´t for the fact that I found this old poster right now. I wear a suit as well. Strange. Can´t explain.  We used this poster for all our live shows all the years. Pelle made it and it brings joy and laughter to mind. Just tiny small drawings and the guy´s personalities comes out so good.

 

 

toneandwave · No No Lola

toneandwave · Lonely Days

toneandwave · Passion Love

toneandwave · Hey Girl

 

 A

If you're like me you will disagree with Sir Lord Erotic's opinion of his own vocal talent. I think the vocals are quite decent, especially when you compare them to a lot of the other European ska bands from the late 80s/early 90s. 

 

Whenever I get a chance to talk to an artist about their music I like to ask what music inspired them with the question "What ten songs to you think everybody should listen to?"

Sir Lord Erotic chose these ten songs:

1 Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK

2 The BeeGees - Spicks and Specks

3 The Clash - (White Man) in Hammersmith Palais

4 Bob Marley & the Wailers - War

5 The Beautiful South - Hooligans Don't Fall in Love

6 The Ramones - Swallow My Pride

7 The Specials - Too Much Too Young

8 Peps Persson - Maskin Nr2

9 Sparks - This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us

10 Scotty & Lorna Bennett - Skank in Bed

 and the whole "The Harder They Come" soundtrack.

This download includes the "No No Lola EP" as well as "Sir Lord Erotic Selects" and "The Harder They Come" soundtrack.

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