SKIN DEEP
It was like a bomb had gone off. Summer 1979. Gangsters, the debut single from Coventry ska band The Specials, hits No.6 in the charts. John Peel had played it for the first time that May. He loved the thing. It was bloody hard not to.
On August 30, the band performed the song on Top Of The Pops. All of a sudden, playgrounds were teeming with little rude boys and girls. Cropped noggins, Dr Martens, trousers hiked to show off white socks, tie reversed to put the thin bit at the front. It was like The Specials’ logo, Walt Jabsco, had gone forth and multiplied.
The timing couldn’t have been better. Punk was on the bones of its arse by ’79. The following year would see its last gasp and autopsy; or The Great Rock ’N’ Roll Swindle movie, as it’s better known. Disco was hanging around like a bad smell. Your mum was probably still sending you to school in flares. Almost as bad as all that, we were all staring down the business end of a decade of Thatcher rule. As a school janitor remarked to me after the ’79 election results landed: “We’re all in for it now.”
was the first release on the 2 Tone label. The brainchild of Specials organist and songwriter Jerry Dammers, 2 Tone was envisioned as a kind of British Stax, black and white musicians working together. By the end of the year, ska music was everywhere. On August 10 Madness released their debut single . It got to No.16. The Selecter put out that October and scored a Top 10 hit (No.8 for detail freaks). By the end of the decade The Beat made it to No.6 with a cover of Smokey Robinson’s . The following year, The Bodysnatchers joined the party with the infectious. It was the dawn of a new era. Kind of.
