The Offbeats [Melbourne, Australia] - 1983 demo tape

 

In 2011 I made this post that was contributed entirely by Merrick who noted that the song "Ripple Sole Shoes" by the Offbeats was, as he said, "rare as rocking horse poo" - a phrase I had never heard before. I later Googled it and it turns out this is a phrase popular in Ireland? I don't care where it's from. I haven't heard anybody say it before then, nor since then, but I like it.

Anyway...this is that ultra rare demo tape from the band from Melbourne, Australia called Offbeats. There is a well known band from New Zealand called Offbeats but this is not them. This is a totally different band. 

1 Ripple Sole Shoes

2 Wooly Bully

3 Going West

4 Bartender

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Radics - United We Stand (1989)

 This was an Australian rock/reggae band. The crayon drawing in the center of the cover of this record is unique on every cover. They're all similar but they are hand-cut copies of prints done by the band. There were probably multiple copies of each drawing but they were cut differently and glued to the front cover making every single cover unique. 

I actually have two copies of this record and both have different covers. 

Quick story... Years ago I had a mailman that used to hit on the women in the neighborhood. He made it clear that he was married but his wife had breast cancer and had to have her breasts removed. So he became obsessed with other women's breasts. He literally asked my wife to send naked pictures to him. 

We complained to the post office and nothing was done about it. He was still our mailman. 

I received this record in the mail and he literally snapped it and folded it in half to fit it into the mailbox. This record.  Because we filed a complaint. 

This pic here is from the first copy I got. I didn't scan the second copy but it looks much different from this one. You can see how different they can be from this image on Discogs. 

1 Dee Dup

2 Rocktime

3 Belly Beat

4 Back in South Africa

5 If I

6 Try that Love

7 Things so Different

8 Take Your Time

9 Love that Flows

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The Space Heaters - The Space Heaters (1996)

 This is an instrumental ska band who only ever recorded this one album. They were from Illinois and all band members were still in high school (or just out of high school) when it was recorded. It's way more mature than a lot of ska that came out at this time.

1 The Pink Panther

2 Felix Culpa

3 Salt Lane Shuffle

4 Mafia Hit Song

5 The Girl Next Door

6 Mr. Fly-By-Night

7 0-6-3-5

8 Guns of Navaronne

9 Sheriff Durgo

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K and the Sauce Pan - Do the Ska Na Na 7'' (1980)

This was originally posted on Tone and Wave in 2011.  This is being re-posted by request. 

Quirky female-fronted ska/new wave from France.

A - Do the Ska Nana

B - Boy Watcher

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The Original Talkatives - In Studio recordings (1984)

 I have spent many years tracking down all of the Original Talkatives' songs and in my last post I said very confidently that I have all of their recordings.

A few days after I made that post I Googled their name and this YouTube channel came up. I don't know if they saw my post and were calling me out or if it was just a coincidence. Either way I'm actually okay with being wrong. 

Here are two more Original Talkative songs. These are from 1984 and both are really good.  

*Mental Slavery

*Unsatisfied

 

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The Original Talkatives - Complete Recordings 1981 - 1986

 Carmen Gomes is an accomplished jazz/blues singer whose 1997 album "Heaven is a State of Mind" was awarded Album of the Year by Jazznu Magazine. 

 She has a Bandcamp page where you can hear her "souljazz with a bluesy touch". Her latest album, a tribute to Ray Charles, was just released last month so her music career is alive and well which is amazing considering she started out forty years ago in a ska band called Subsection. 

Subsection released an eleven song demo tape in 1981 that was 2 Tone style ska from beginning to end. It should be ranked up there with the most popular ska releases of that era but, sadly, very few people have ever heard it, or even know about it.

  Members of the band did have some decent success in the mid 80s as the band Original Talkatives with their new wave-with-an-island-feel and they maintained their ska roots throughout their career but toward the end they developed more of a pop sound appealing more to fans of Debbie Gibson than to fans of Mark Foggo. 

This is a Tone and Wave exclusive. A compilation of all of the songs recorded by both bands - Subsection and Original Talkatives. This download includes the Subsection demo as well as the pure-ska 4-track Original Talkatives demo and all five vinyl singles plus a live song that is not available on their other releases.

 The songs "Dog Shit" and "Rocksteady fur Elise" from the Subsection demo were re-recorded for the 4-track Original Talkatives demo and the first song from the Original Talkatives demo "For Me" was re-recorded for the B-side to the Original Talkatives' first single. But, aside from these songs, everything else on the demos are unique to those tapes. 

 

1 Watch Out

2 Alcoholic Man

3 Monday Morning

4 Boy

5 A Bom

6 Dog Shit

7 Don't Go

8 Death

9 Killing Dance

10 Watching TV

11 Rocksteady fur Elise

12 For Me

13 Bored Stiff

14 Dog Shit

15 Fur Elise

16 Computers

17 For Me

18 Pickin' Up

19 The Ladder

20 Waiting by the Telephone

21 Summer

22 High Pressure

23 Reggative Time

24 Squeeze Louise

25 City Life

26 Don't Wanna Hurt You (live)

 

Tracks 1 - 11: Subsection demo tape from 1981

Tracks 12 - 15: Original Talkatives demo  tape from 1982

Tracks 16 & 17: Computers 7" from 1983

Tracks 18 & 19: Pickin' Up 7" from 1985

Tracks 20 & 21: Waiting by the Telephone 7" from 1985

Tracks 22 & 23: High Pressure 7" from 1986

Tracks 24 & 25: Squeeze Louise 7" that was recorded in the 80s but wasn't released until 2013

Track 26: from De Grote Prijs van Nederland

I must note that De Grote Prijs van Nederland also has a live version of "Pickin' Up" which I didn't include because I didn't include any live versions aside from "Don't Wanna Hurt You" only because it's not available on any other recording. .

I owe a tremendous amount of thanks to Sander for providing the last two songs I didn't have as well as the YouTube channel Diggin Demos from where I respectably stole the two demos. 

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va Aces, Twos, and Fews (1996)

 

This is a ska/swing compilation. 

1 Dave's Big Deluxe - What I Used to Be

2 One Legged Bob - Jack Frost

3 Ska King Crab - Pennsylvania 6-5000

4 Save Ferris - Superspy

5 Big Time Operator - Jump Jive and Wail

6 Seven Foot Politic - Next Best Thing

7 The Socialites - Louise

8 The Gobbletones - TheMidnight Waltz of the Moldy Figs

9 Suspect Bill - Slow Down

10 Mobius Fruit Loop - So Glad She's Gone

11 Unsteady - Gotta Dance

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The Flicks - Kings of Rock 7" (1984)

 I can't imagine why they called this single "Kings of Rock". I'm assuming it's a joke. 

Anyway, this is two brothers from New York who put out this lone release. It's supposed to be political but it's pickle barrel politics at it's simplest. I can't find any info online about this band or this release and, to be honest, I didn't look very hard. 

The B-side is a decent new wave-rock song. It's creative. I like it despite the naive lyrics. 

The A-side starts out bad but keep listening. It becomes a reasonably okay ska song. 

A - Spy vs. Spy

B - The Dictator

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The Adams Family - Four for One (1984)

 Not ska, but new wave/reggae/dub from this British band. I actually think the last song is the best song on the record. 

1 War Town

2 Version Town

3 Warm Feeling

4 Fun City

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