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Describing the roots of a movement is good, but history is never simple or linear. How bands on the East and West Coasts introduced ska to unexpecting masses? Just how did Rob 'Bucket' Hingley start the Moon Records ska empire? When he lived in London in the late 70s, Rob Hingley played in a band called Eye-Witness which featured members of Bad Manners, including West African percussion maestro Jimmy Scott - everything, according to Jimmy, was 'High-Life'. To be a white person playing reggae was pretty acceptable, because many bands with white members were experimenting with the genre. Chart-topping band UB40 is a prime example. In England at the time, the neighborhoods were far more racially integrated than they are now (in the contemporary USA.) Because of this contact, the music was more accessible. It wasn't till around 1981 that Mr. Hingley realized that he was going to be in the United States for more than a short stay, so he started entertaining the idea of putting a band together. The first line up of the Toasters were pretty much made up of his fellow co-workers at New York City's sci-fi comic book shop, Forbidden Planet. Around 1983, the Toasters were ready to gig. The name, 'the Toasters' is NOT a reference to the kitchen appliance, but a tip-of-the-hat to the original rappers and chanters of 60's Jamaica. Before settling that name, Buck's unit went of the names of 'the Bouncers' and 'Not Bob Marley'. Back in the UK, Hingley played a couple of ska tunes in his band, but it was predominantly reggae. In NY, there was no ska scene, absolutely nothing. Hingley was always into ska music, since buying his copy of 'My Boy Lollipop' by Millie Small in 1964 on his way back from Nairobi, Kenya, where his father had been stationed in the British Army. When he came over here there was no ska music at all and a million reggae bands. He was flabbergasted when he saw a mere 100 or so people show up for the English Beat in 1982 at Roseland ( a large concert hall.) That put him on a "mission from God," so to speak. Certainly ska music in the UK had peaked, but it was amazing to him that a really great band like the Beat couldn't draw a crowd in the US. And he saw Madness at another venue (the World) a year after that, and there was nobody there, either. At the very beginning in the early eighties, the audience was just basically people from the neighborhood. As the Toasters played more and more gigs, first at the notorious AZ club, then at CBGB, they found people in NY who were really into ska music that had no idea that there was anything going on at all till somebody told them about the Toasters. By the time 1986 had rolled around, there were many more bands playing - what is now considered the New York old school - Beat Brigade, the Boilers, the Second Step and the A-Kings, to name a few.. The Toasters released the "Recriminations" EP around 85, with Joe Jackson helming the production and even playing melodica on the track, 'Run Rudy Run'. The EP crystallized things because it was the first nationally distributed release for a domestic ska band in the US. |
