Kings Of The Underground: 2-TONE & THE SPECIALS

September 1979, I’m 11yrs old and I’ve just started senior school. My Action Man has been consigned to the dustbin, I’ve suddenly found an interest in girls, after eyeing up the shapely curves of the ones in 5th yr, and now I’m hearing this new music in the shape of 2-Tone on the radio. Life will never be the same again.
To be honest the first 2-Tone single to grab me was Madness’s ‘Orange Street’ or a least that is what I thought it was called for the first few weeks as I always seemed to miss the bit where the DJ said what it was! What I had been drawn in by was in fact ‘The Prince’ and you can be sure “an earthquake was erupting” in my mind and ears. I had always liked music, and my dad always had it on in the house, Beatles, Rolling Stones and Elvis that type of thing, especially really loud on Sundays after a few beers lunch time. What I was hearing now though was something completely different from what I’d heard on the radio before, all that easy listening, user friendly ELO, Boney M, and Bee Gees, it said nothing to me.

2-Tone on the other hand was music that even at my tender age I could appreciate was saying something. The country was in a right old state, and even I knew that when I went to football, and dad drove through Southgate then Cockfosters past all the piles of bin bags lining the streets that something wasn’t right with the place. I know we’d had punk, but that just seemed to be all scattergun anger, with its smash the system, let anarchy rule, we don’t care attitude. Now though the Sex Pistols had long since split and Vicious was dead, what was going to fill this musical void? 2-Tone, and the Specials in particular, were singing about things that were real and I could relate to. Even songs like ‘New Era’ and ‘Concrete Jungle’ bore some resemblance of what was happening in my life. In early 1980 I started going to the local disco for under 14’s on Friday nights with a group of friends. Walking down the street in my Harrington, Fred Perry (Mum used to get them 2 for 1 out of Peter Craig catalogue. They were the days eh before they went all trendy and top prices!!) , cherry and green Tonic trousers, topped off with white socks (hard to get in my home town then) and loafers, we thought we were the mutts nuts. This however, back in the early eighties, was also the time of numerous youth tribes and you had to be a bit careful of were you went. There were Punks, Teds / Rockers, Mods, New Romantics, Skins and Casuals were just starting to rear their heads, so if we weren’t careful a group of 12yr old ‘Rudies’ were easy pickings, and we’d get chased, though luckily never caught, a few times. Once in the disco things were different, most of us there were Rudies anyway and the dance floor would become packed as soon as the DJ stated on anything 2-Tone related. It was then as well that I first heard some of the original recordings that the 2-Tone bands had covered, and other tunes as well. The DJ would sometimes play Prince Buster’s ‘Al Capone’ after ‘Gangsters’, perhaps he was trying to educate us. I admit that these did not always go down too well, but seeds had already been planted.
Back then my entire pocket went on records and other 2Tone related stuff. There was a shop in town that was run by some old Hippies, and in amongst the incense, tie-dye and scatter cushions you could buy badges, posters and 1”wide ties emblazoned with your heroes on, also every so often you could even grab a t-shirt with your fave band on. I remember I brought one with a picture of The Specials with a picture of the ‘Do Nothing’ cover, weeks of saved and hoping it didn’t sell. I also brought ‘The 2Tone Book for Rude Boys’, which was a great read and told a brief history on how all the bands had formed. It was almost like a bible to me. In fact if it had a checkerboard design on it I was after havin’ it. ‘Cause that was the other thing with 2Tone…..the strong image. Walt Jabsco, the checkerboard, it was simple yet strong. Even the Beats Go-Feet label and the Madness’s M with trilby hat were classic and cool, but the best thing of all was the stage presence the Specials had. I can remember when I first saw them on ‘Top Of The Pops’ and later on ‘Rock Goes To College’ being totally captivated by their performance. Lynval and Horace running round the front of the stage like lunatics, Jerry jumping up and down, with the keyboard swaying, like some demented devil, and then Terry, in total contrast, with an almost bored with it all look, amazing.

By 1981 2Tone was close to blowing itself out, Madness and The Beat had both released one single and then gone off to do their own thing and Dexy’s Midnight Runners had turned down the chance to release on the label as they didn’t want to be associated with ‘a movement’, but also I think because they thought Jerry would want too much control. I think as well that a lot of young bands maybe saw signing to 2-Tone would perhaps stifle their creativity as it was so associated with ska. The release of ‘More Specials’ tried maybe to break that mould as it broke away from the ska/ punk sound that had worked so well on the first LP. It’s odd mix of lounge muzak and various styles from the funky soul of ‘Sock it to ‘em JB’ to the rockabilly of ‘Braggin’ and Tryin’ Not to Lie’ (available on the free 7” that came with it) I found most disconcerting and took a bit of getting used to. Then of course in the summer of ’81, while we were all waiting to see what the band would come up with for a third LP, they released ‘Ghost Town’. The timing and essence of this record could not have been better as rioting broke out across most of England’s major cities. The song also served notice on The Specials who split while at the top with a number one on their hands, and also began the slow death of 2-Tone as a label. At the end of ’81 a big change happened for me to as my school closed and we were sent packing to another school up the road. Most of the boys in the year I joined happened to be Mods, and as 2-Tone was now no more I slowly drifted. Ironically on starting there as a rudie I got a bit of stick for still liking 2-Tone, as it was considered ‘old-hat!’. But with no new sounds to buy it wasn’t much of a jump to start hanging around with them. I started frequenting a local Mod club on Thursdays and in 1984 went off on my first scooter run to Morecambe Bay, even though I was only 15 and so too young for a license. In the August of that year I also went to the I.O.W scooter run. The rally was held in a couple of big fields just outside Cowes and was the biggest rally of the year. For those of you not in the know, there were two types of scooter rally in the early 80’s there were Mod rallys run by the Phoenix Society. These were strictly Mod orientated events and there were the National Rallies. Now the national rallies were more open with all types of scooterists present there were Skins, Psychobillies, Punks and well just about anyone who enjoyed riding scooters. The thing is despite this mix of clans at the all-night discos the music was still Northern Soul, but in 1984 that was all about to change and imagine my joy after arriving there on the Friday lunch time and making our way over to the music field when, in between a couple of old northern soul numbers I heard Neville’s dulcet tones burst forth from the speakers with “BERNIE RHODES KNOWS DON’T ARGUE!” ….aahhh, I was back home again.