Hey there, if you're listening to this and you support us on Patreon, you can hear it via the Patreon page ad-free. You're listening to Sound Opinions, and this week we chat with reggae scholar Heather Augustine about the underappreciated women of ska. I'm Jim DeRogatis. And I'm Greg Cott. But first, let's review the new album from Throwing Muses.
Sound Opinions is supported by Goose Island since 1988. Goose Island's been brewing beers in the spirit of Chicago. You can find 312 Weed Ale, Big Juicy Beer Hug, and so many other limited releases at either of... Goose's locations in Chicago, Goose Island Beer Company, Chicago's Beer. That's a little bit from the 11th.
Throwing Muses album, Moonlight Concessions. That's a song called Summer of Love, or a little bit of it. Throwing Muses, they've been around since the early 80s. Newport, Rhode Island, right? Yep. toured and recorded extensively into the 90s, and they had had several reunions since then. They're in the middle of that right now. The core member of the band, the one continuing member is...
Kristen Hirsch, the drummer too, David Narzizo has been there from the beginning as well. The one wild card has been Tanya Donnelly. And Kristen Hirsch were stepsisters and formed the band. Two great songwriters who really complemented each other. Kristen sort of delivered the really tough... dark, lyrically intense songs and Tanya had more of a
pop sensibility. So they were quite good together. Tanya left the band after a great album, The Real Ramona in 1991, and began to form that band Belly. Belly probably had more commercials. success than the Muses did because of Tanya's excellent pop instincts. And Donnelly was never replaced. It went down to a core trio at that time. Kristen continued with the group. Kristen has sort of balanced the two things side by side ever since. They've been throwing musisms and there have been a number.
of Hirsch's solo record. She's made eight solo albums in the 2000s. I got it. Only four Muses albums in that time. I got it as 12 solo albums, plus she had a side band, 50-foot wave. Plus, she's written several books. That's right. She's extremely prolific. And my point being that the solo albums have started to eclipse the Muses albums in the last two decades. So she's been more focused there. But she's back full on.
with the Muses here. Moonlight Concessions, there's some differences here than the traditional Throwing Muses records. We're going to talk about that in a bit. And you're going to hear some of that in the song we play here. It's called South Coast from Throwing Muses Moonlight Concessions on Sound Opinions. It's real This is the South Coast Hot winds are gonna blow I can see We are.
That is South Coast from the Throwing Muses 11th album, First in Five Years, Moonlight Concessions. South Coast, Greg, because Kristen Hirsch wrote many of these songs in New York. New Mexico and Southern California. Then they went back to Rhode Island to record Throwing Muses.
You know, you mentioned David Narciso as the other member there from the beginning, and I think he's an extraordinary drummer. The story was Kristen Hirsch and Tanya Donnelly liked him, and he wanted to be in a band. He couldn't play anything. It didn't matter. They secured him a drum set. It had no cymbals. And so he kind of developed this style, learning to play with Kristen, who is a great rhythm guitarist, great guitarist, period.
that did not rely on cymbals. In the same way the feelies tried to avoid those high register cymbal things clashing with the guitars. No, everything is going to put... put the focus on the guitar and the voice. I wish there was more Narciso on this album. He has taken a backseat to cello, which nicely complements what Hirsch is doing. Pete Harvey plays a lot of cello here, and it's got that mid-range tone that sits with the guitar and Hirsch's incredible gravelly voice. with this
prolific output for four decades, it is easy to take a band like Throwing Muses for granted. You said Real Ramona was a masterpiece. I would argue there and say Hunk Papa, the one before it, but they were all great, right? there is this sort of vibe. Kristen has been very frank in books and in interviews about the mental illnesses she has struggled with, a tragic bike accident when she was a teen, a concussion that led to...
You know, there were downsides, serious struggles with her mental health, but also an upside. Synesthesia, the ability to see sound as color, right? A fascinating, I would say, blessing that men. people have. Her songwriting is so unique. in the pop, alt-rock, whatever you want to call it, firmament, it always makes me think of young Goodman Brown in those New England dark, scary woods of Nathaniel Hawthorne. And there's a bit of... and Wicca and just a shadow.
but also finding life affirmed by the power of music. There is, you know, throwing muses has a depth that few bands have, and to see Hirsch... After four plus decades and raising four sons, I should add, you know, continuing to make music 100 percent on her own terms as an independent artist. They started out, you know, in a shared house.
Rhode Island she's now living in the house next door to where the band formed in Rhode Island you know it's just like here is one of those great pop artist who is a true eccentric, who listens to nobody, had a tangle with the major label system, didn't like it, didn't let it stop her. I have a renewed fandom thanks to the strength of Moonlight Concessions. I mean, I've always followed the band, but it's like, wow, what a treasure to still have Hirsch.
Yeah, absolutely. You know, as soon as I heard that very first track, Summer of Love, I was like, wow, this is going to be good. And at the same time, I remember, you know, I interviewed Kristen a few times, and I remember in the middle of that 90s run that Throwing Muses...
were on, you know, and she was starting to experiment, you know, doing some solo stuff with acoustic guitars. She said, I just really love electric guitar. I love the sound we make as a band. I'm not sure the acoustic thing is for me. You know, but it is an outlet for something. But now the acoustic stuff has overtaken the electric stuff in terms of her solo. career kind of usurping the band eight to four in terms of album output the last two decades, as I mentioned.
But she's integrated those two impulses on this record. It's a largely acoustic record, but it's very much a throwing muses record as well. You're right, Pete Harvey, the cello player, is really kind of the star instrumentalist on the record. It's really a Kristen Hirsch record. I mean, her... I agree with you 100% about the lyrics, there's no one else like her. There's always this kind of threat of violence in the shadows of her songs, like something's about to go really wrong.
There's a sort of desperation there. Very novelistic. She doesn't spell things out, but just incredible detail in the lyrics, but also elliptical. There's a lot of room in there to imagine what might happen. you Although, as you know from interviewing her, me too. I mean, she's... A very cheerful, jovial even. She's always laughing. Yeah, she's getting some stuff out here. She's a great conversationalist. But that voice is the thing I want to talk about. I think she's an incredible vocalist.
That roar, the whisper, that sense of madness, tenderness, anxiety. I mean, she communicates a lot of different emotions, sometimes within a few bars of every song. that it's really striking. It's almost like she's doing a play, you know? And these songs are characters in that play. It's quite moving. And as you mentioned, the geography plays a big part in the way the songs were, you know, that New Orleans thing.
Southern California thing, very much a part, you know, the environment plays a big role in these songs. And I just love the fact that here's this little group from Rhode Island that has made an impact for four plus decades now.
In their own terms and still going, well, you know, it's nice when we, one of the great things about doing this show is to get to revisit a career we haven't talked about in a long time. Right. And to have it be as healthy and inspiring as ever. It is a rare thing. We have to celebrate it.
That is what we thought of the new album from Throwing Muses. But as always, we want to hear your take. Leave us a message on our website, soundopinions.org, so we can play it on the show. Coming up, our conversation with author Heather... Augustine on Women in Ska. That's in a minute on Sound Opinions. Sound Opinions is supported by Goose Island Beer Company. Since 1988, Goose Island's been brewing beers in and inspired by Chicago. They got 312 Weed Ale, Hazy Beer Hug, and...
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Take your meals from good to singing with joy great. And we are back. One music genre we don't talk about that often on Sound Opinions is ska. Sometimes the butt of jokes and younger listeners can often barely believe it was once as popular as it was. I never had a pork pie hat, Greg. I don't think I was 100% qualified to talk about ska. No, I'm kidding. The good stuff I've liked, there's been a lot of bad stuff. And it has been...
In waves, first wave, second wave, third wave, fourth wave, Scott, keeping track of it has often been difficult. I just know what I've enjoyed. I ain't skanked and I ain't ever wore a pork pie hat, though. You know, I'm with you on the first two generations of Scott, the originals in Jamaica and then the second generation in the two-tone movement were quite...
Amazing, I thought. It's the subsequent generation. It's sort of like pop punk. You know, like the originals are great, but then the repeats and then... You get to some 41. The bad carbon copy that's like on its third or fourth... generation ago, this doesn't really sound like the original. Although I did champion the Mighty Mighty Boss Tones. Yes, you did, much to my chagrin. Well, you're right. And our good friend Chuck Wren would argue with us, and Chuck makes a compelling case.
for all generations of Ska. But there are some significant aspects to ska that we need to celebrate, and they're definitely worth a conversation. A musical expression of shifting cultural values. I mean, ska was definitely that for a couple of generations.
The two-tone movement I just mentioned was a really significant step in England's racial integration during the Thatcher era. I mean, there were bands operating within the punk and new wave scenes that integrated our aspects of... reggae, rock steady, First wave ska music from Jamaica, multiracial bands playing dance music to try to resist government policies. I mean, I think that's pretty compelling. Oh, absolutely. And our guest today, Heather Augustine, is an expert on the genre.
She adds a new wrinkle to Ska history with her book, Rude Girls, Women in Two-Tone, and One Step Beyond. Now, you know, Heather found that the Ska scene was really focused on that anti-racist mission that you mentioned, but it... often neglected and ignored the contributions of some significant women. Today we want to help Heather rectify that wrong and give the rude girls their due. Welcome to Sound Opinions, Heather. We've been talking about doing this.
forever. Why did you want to write this book, this in particular? You've written a lot about reggae in your career. Six previous books. Right. for me what it was um i have like you said been writing quite a bit about um ska and jamaican music And I noticed a trend over the years is that I always had a hard time finding anything. Not just written about women, but anything in existing history about women.
in in jamaica all the newspaper articles all of the um advertisements it was always about men and um and the same thing happened with with two-tone i felt i you know we know um people who are familiar with totes two-tone know Pauline Black, they know Rhoda Dakar, and perhaps, you know, the Body Snatchers because they're an all-female.
band but outside of that um i knew there had to be others and i wanted to tell those stories just like i did with jamaican music so it was just that i felt that um especially given kind of what I do, which is interviewing and oral history. It's a way to access the history that hasn't been told. The notion, I think a lot of people, and myself included, you know, the punk era out of which Two-Tone was part of it, the ska movement in the UK.
I thought of it as an era of female empowerment for a lot of bands, and obviously there were female-fronted punk bands in both the U.S. and the U.K. But it still, it was still, they were still in a minority back then. And I think the point you made about the idea that Two-Tone was about... dealing with the racial issues that were going on in the UK, confronting that directly through the music, a cultural movement, didn't really extend to gender equality. It was really about race, right?
Right. Yeah, that was kind of perplexing to me. I thought, you know, here are these wonderful messages about unity. And I thought we've been left out of this equation as women. So how can you have, you know, like bands like the specials have eight men, madness, eight men, the beat, six men, bad manners, six men. um the selector six men and one woman swinging cat six men one woman it's like how could they have missed this
I felt like, you know, we had the racial unity. So everything I would read would say, you know, the band's makeup was, you know, black and white together. And of course, the iconic imagery of Two-Tone with the black and white checkers. to symbolize that unity of races, but it just felt like it didn't apply to the sexes.
Well, Heather, your book is definitive, and you talk to so many artists and tell so many fascinating stories, but we thought the best way to get a handle on it would be to have you highlight some of the... the towering figures. You already mentioned her, Pauline Black, the selector. Why are they important? So one of the reasons why I think the selector is important is because for the first time, young girls... and young women are seeing a band
of all men, fronted by a woman who doesn't look like the stereotypical queen in a dress. She wasn't wearing a dress. She looked like a rude boy. In fact, many people, including Dave Wakeling of The Beast, confused her for a boy at first. So she had a very androgynous look. And that look was I think important for women to see that you don't have to wear a dress and be the stereotypical female.
And then, of course, the sound. I mean, her voice is incredible. It's powerful. It's not doing the same things that, you know, like Diana Ross lover. But, you know, she wasn't doing the same thing that Diana Ross was doing. And, you know, and we're coming off the heels of, you know, a lot of the disco era. And there's, you know, a certain image of the female and Pauline Black didn't fit into that. He may need that.
Her energy on stage was unparalleled. Even today, she's going to be performing in the U.S. and still tours in the U.K., and her energy is not diminished.
but then her voice you know her voice i think and you know you just hear any of their songs and you'll hear what i'm talking about but it captures kind of that zeitgeist of the two-tone era where it's a this blend between punk and something that's um you know a little bit harmonious and and melodic um she would perform on stage with gaps hendrickson who just passed away um
And so the two of them together would be bouncing all over the stage and it was infectious. I mean, you couldn't help but dance and sing along. Another name that's come up twice, Rhoda Docker. Body Snatchers and Special, a.k.a. A two for there. Tell us about Rhoda, Heather. So, I mean, Rhoda, when she joined the Body Snatcher, she was kind of...
recruited because of her look. So she was friends with a lot of the people that the body snatchers knew. So she was attending a lot of clubs. Like that's one of the things that I noticed about the story is that. it was kind of, it doesn't, as an American, I had to pick up on it. But as a Brit, it's probably a little bit more obvious. But a lot of these people were in the right place at the right time because
it was like ground zero of where things were happening. And that doesn't exist so much in the US. I think in the UK, it's a lot more condensed, especially in London. And so a lot of the members of the body snatchers, including... you know rhoda were just kind of like at ground zero when things were happening and so for um for rhoda she was you know she was friends with the people that the bodies that members of the body snatchers
were friends with. And so when they saw her dancing at a club or at Camden Palace is where it was, they liked her look and just said, can you sing? And if you, you know, yeah, I mean, she had a beehive. She put, you know, she dressed kind of like a little bit of a mod, but but put a white ribbon in her hair. And if you look at the film Dance Craze, which.
is really an iconic two-tone. It's live concert footage of the two-tone tours, the second one. And you'll see Rhoda on stage. And if you see her... then you'll understand oh yeah that's the look I understand so they just asked her can you sing and she said yeah what's it to you and that's kind of her attitude too is that she's she has a lot of moxie and I think that that comes
through on the stage but to tell that kind of story one might think that I'm not um addressing the substance of Rhoda as much and I want to be very clear Rhoda has a very powerful voice, a very powerful presence. She was trained in theater. And so I think that what is... One of my favorite things about Rhoda is her songwriting. She rewrote some existing songs with a female slant. And then she also wrote songs like Easy Life.
which is really a feminist song if you listen to the lyrics about how kind of easy it would be to fall into the stereotypical woman, housewife. you know raising kids but that she or the the narrator of the song chooses not to go that route and how it's it's not an easy life it's a struggle Really her pinnacle song though is the boiler which she penned and that she would perform live with the body snatchers. There are some live
recordings of it on YouTube, but really it was only recorded with the special AKA. And that song is essentially a theatrical kind of a performance. of a woman's experience with date rape and it's powerful because it ends with um a very startling um screen because it tells it from a first person point of view Needless to say, I guess I'm saying needless to say because the culture band, the song from Airplay.
um stores stopped carrying it and so again woman's story about um being um oppressed by men with rape, that story is silence. The other thing that's interesting about the body snatchers is that, you know, you list the band members here, Heather, in your book, and it's all women. A rarity in itself, right, for that era. It was. So the Body Snatchers being all women, that was a statement. That was their statement that women should be in a band. But, you know, they faced a lot of sexism.
from that, from music journalists who, I mean. You can imagine the things that they said, everything from, you know, overt sexism to, you know, microaggressions. But yeah, this was their statement. And there were, you know, eight, nine members. of the body snatchers. Sometimes they would have like an alternate or one would come in or out. The thing is, is that they were formed that way. So there was an advertisement that Nikki Summers...
you know, kind of the original member, put in the New Music Express and asking for women. So this was definitely a political statement to have a band that was all women. I mean, now.
it's not it's kind of hard to view this um out of context but that was a very very big deal back then of course we had the slits and and um raincoats and punk bands like that but this a band this size because you know ska bands can be pretty big um this to have a band this size of all women and here's the thing too is that these were women who were playing their instruments
That's even more rare. So women were frequently, it was more common to be vocalists or backup vocalists. But to have women playing their instruments and punk enabled them. You know, as you said, Greg, it was punk that empowered women. And over and over, women that I interviewed told me that it was punk that showed them that you didn't have to sit in the audience and support your boyfriend.
in the band anymore. You didn't even have to know how to play your instrument. You can just get up there and do it and that's what a lot of the body snatchers did is that they learned to play their instruments while they were gigging. And that was fodder for a lot of music journalists who wanted to draw attention to the fact that they didn't know how to play. They were very open with that is that they were learning to play a lot of.
the members of the body snatchers were students at art school together they were artists they were creative so they were bringing knowledge to this musical space in other ways not just their music you know knowing how to play a trumpet. And to be quite honest, the reason why they didn't and the reason why women and girls didn't is because they weren't given the opportunities to when they were younger, like boys were. So if you think about it, a lot.
of instruments are stereotyped by gender. Women weren't really given an upright bass or a bass guitar. They weren't given drum kits. They were given clarinets or pianos.
to singing lessons and so they didn't know you know the the women of the body statures didn't know how to play the trumpet right away or the the saxophone right away or You know, so they, the key, well, the keyboards, there is no trumpet in the Body Snatchers to be clear, but one of the members of the Body Snatchers who went on to play in another band literally picked up a trumpet at the market, taught herself to play it.
They were multi-instrumentalists in the end, but that's because they were self-taught in the beginning. A lot of the women who did know how to play guitar, they were not playing punk originally. They were playing a lot of folk music. So like Joan Baez and same with Pauline Black. She was playing folk music. So that's how they were trained.
on acoustic guitar or they trained themselves. So it's kind of, I think, fascinating to see how they go from one style and are able to adapt into another. And that's a real testament to their talent as well. When we return, we continue our conversation with author Heather Augustine. That's In a Minute on Sound Opinions. And we're back. We've been talking with Heather Augustine, author of the book Rude Girls, Women in Two-Tone and One Step Beyond. Let's get back to the conversation.
We asked you, highlight five, because we could talk literally about every single band that you go into in this book. I love the chapter on the adjacent band, not a ska band, but bow-wow-wow. Boy. Malcolm there and what he put Annabella Lewin through. Alright, that's a whole other show. But next on your list was Fun Boy 3. Yeah, so...
Fun Boy 3, I think, could rightly be called Fun Girl 6. And this was, I think, to give credit, it was part of Terry Hall's vision to kind of reverse... the the you know the the trope that had been said of uh women in the front singing and men in the back performing and so we have just the opposite so we have neville staple we have linville golding we have terry hall who had just left the specials and now they're being
Well, at first, they performed with Bananarama together, and there was a bit of reversal on that as well. So the song... It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it. Fun Boy 3 were playing the instruments and singing together with Bananarama, and then Bananarama switched that. on their single. But after that is what I really like to focus on. It's because the six women... that were the instrumentalists for Fun Boy 3 were amazing, skilled, trained, highly trained.
um musicians and so they brought in even the strings of cello um so if you listen to like songs like our lips are sealed which is the the Fun Boy 3 version of that. We know the Go-Go's version, probably. And that song was co-written by Jane Wyndland of the Go-Go's and Terry Hall of the Specials, the front of the Specials. But there's, you know, it's a beautiful arrangement, Fun Boy 3's version. But we have, you know, June Miles Kingston on drums and...
Beth Ann Peters on bass, Ingrid Schroeder on keyboard, Annie Whitehead on trombone for this band. We'll be right back. I want to draw your attention to Nikki Collins. She was the musical director, highly skilled, and was in a... a band called the Ravishing Beauties, which was kind of like an art. Well, I think it was said in one review that they were the thinking man's Bananarama, and that got the attention of Terry Hall. Oh, that diss is Bananarama. I love Bananarama.
And I think, on occasion. Yeah, it's quite a compliment, so I guess. But yeah, so they recruited the women to perform the music, and I think that you can... hear how, you know, talented they were. I could go into each woman's biography, but suffice to say that I think Many of these women went on to have successful solo careers. They played in many other bands like the Communards and Everything But The Girl.
they were substantial and this album that they performed on by funboy3 is the waiting album and it was produced by david byrne and so i think that they were all really excited to not just work with funboy3 because the members of the specials were very popular by that point. But to work with David Byrne, I think, was, they all told me, was really special for them.
Yeah, they had huge success, and as Jim mentioned, Bananarama was no slouch either in the hit department. In fact, I think they did Fun Boy 3. More chart-topping songs, chart-hitting songs, right? I mean, it was an amazing group from that standpoint. And I appreciate you underlining that, Heather, in this book, because I was aware of some of this. The thing that really stuck with me is your description of the way the band was marketed.
you know, Fun Boy 3, and you basically saw the three guys, you really never got a sense of who else was making this music so great. I mean, would that song, you know, Our Lips Are Sealed been the same without Carolyn Lavelle's cello part, right? But you didn't know about that if you looked at the marketing campaign for the group. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. In fact, it was kind of hard to find pictures of the entire band.
the illustrations that are used on the album itself. It's just like the little stick figure people of the fun boy three. So, you know, you you wouldn't know it unless you kind of looked into it a little bit deeper. But I think that. um i don't know i was really blown away by their stories at nikki holland obviously she went on to um be the musical director and go on tour with tears for fear so she wrote most of the music on songs from the big chair um so
These are big women that we should know. Untold stories, and you are shining a light on them. Who were the deltones? So the deltones were not two-tones. So that's why I call this book Women in Two-Tone and One Step Beyond, because... If it were just going to be about the women of two-tone, it would be a very small book. So I had to cast my net a little wider. And the women of the deltones came in about 1985.
They got together and began gigging in about 1986. To be clear, they were not influenced by Two Tones. So there are, you know, a few bands that... that kind of ride on that two-tone coattail. The deltones are not one of them. They wanted to be very clear about that. In fact, when I approached them, they said, well, we're not two-tone. Why do you want to talk about us?
And here's where they make the distinction. They were influenced by original Jamaican ska, rocksteady, and reggae. And that's important because their sound is less... punk because that's where two-tone was coming from so it's less punk and it's more of that kind of like harmonies the sweet girl harmonies the rock steady kind of swinging rhythm a little bit
And so they were listening to that stuff. They liked it and they formed a band. I think there's like 11 women and then one guy that they have as the drummer. In fact, if you get their album in the UK.
It's called Oddball Boy, and that's the drummer. But it's... be asking why and it's just because they couldn't find a female drummer that could commit to the kind of schedule that they had so um but anyway uh they performed uh with potato five so they were kind of a a sister band of the potato five those were some of their friends that that were in um in university together and then performed together these were bands that played uh in the mid
mid to late 1980s with Gaz Mayall. So Gaz Mayall had a, I think he still has it, but he was, he had the Rock and Blues Club. And so they he was a promoter and he helped to promote these bands and would send them out on tours frequently together. But a lot of times. the deltones would perform on their own. They recorded an album in Paris, which I think has just been reissued, but it's called Nana.
Nana Chalk Chalk in Paris. There's a story behind that title, which is kind of, it's kind of a crazy title. But some really good songs, and I think they're very catchy. I also think that the women, obviously, their stories, their biographies are extremely impressive. And they come from a variety of different backgrounds. Some had singing lessons, some had dance lessons, some had, you know, no lessons, but they kind of taught themselves to play too. And they just had a really good time together.
They fell apart because a lot of them became mothers, and that became very difficult. That was a common story I found with women, is that women have to make choices that men do not necessarily have to make. And so, you know, there were stories that the women in the Deltones told me about performing on TV as their milk was coming in and they looked in their front of their shirt was all wet because they were nursing and it just had.
baby and you know these are things that men don't have to deal with and so these kind of complications then ended up affecting the band. Well, it's interesting, too, I think this brings up the point. You mentioned that they weren't two-tone disciples in any way, but they were very influenced by Rocksteady and reggae. You know, maybe people don't realize how West Indian culture permeated England post-World War II. I mean, a lot of those folks were brought over to help.
England rebuild after the war. You make a point of that in your book. And, you know, that was around them, English culture all the time. Immigrants combined, blending with young white folks who were... This is a totally organic street thing that a lot of these kids grew up with, right? So the deltones seem to be an illustration of that. Here's some people that grew up with this music around them and adopted it as their own thing at a point where...
It had gone out of fashion, certainly in the U.S. It wasn't like a big thing in the U.S. at that time at all. But in the U.K., it seemed like it was always there. Exactly, yeah. It never... It never took off in the US because we just, like you said, we just didn't have that culture. So we didn't have familiarity with Desmond Decker or John Holt or, you know, like Prince Buster. I mean, nobody.
Maybe even still now, you know, you ask an average American who Prince Buster is or Derek, you know, Desmond Decker, and they're not going to know. But I think that during this time. uh like you know the late 70s um and this is the wind rush generation um influencing the youth uh because this is the music that that they're hearing it's
It's all around them, and so it's a lot more common. And that's why I think that two-tone didn't really take off here in the U.S. like it did. Two-tone is so political, and it is so entrenched in... british politics that's why it didn't translate very well in the u.s so it's not just that we didn't have like the
our population didn't look like the British population, that we didn't have the West Indian immigrants to kind of provide that backbone of the music, but that we didn't have the same, you know. politics that was happening at the time this was like the 1980s that was the the reagan years and um you know we had our own kind of sets of of issues that were going on that that two-tone didn't really respond to and so I think that's why a lot of the two-tone just didn't translate.
If we look at the history, Heather, you know, Lester Bangs is pilloried for taking on punk rock racism, you know, because he's looking around New York City in the Lower East Side and wondering, aside from Ivan Julian on stage with the voice, Oidoids, where are the black people? So in that way, two-tone being a culture, the UK was ahead in terms of racial.
or striving toward. In this ideal community where we're forming, in the music world, in punk and in two-tone, we can at least strive to be better than mainstream society. But maybe the place to... wrap up, you shine a lot of light on a name I was completely unfamiliar with, Tammy Jacobs and the Lemons. Very obscure. A very obscure band. I had to pick an obscure one. You're digging deep there. One hit one, you are going deep. Deep, deep, deep. Right.
Yeah, and they're a bit, so when I said one step beyond, I mean, so this is, the lemons were on a label called Race Records, and that was a label that had been established by John Bradbury, who... was the drummer of the special so a lot of diy stuff happening from the punk ethic during this time so that's kind of what the two-tone label is it was an offshoot of you know chrysalis it was under the umbrella of chrysalis but um it
It's the same thing that a lot of people were kind of, after that breakup of the specials, they're starting their own record labels kind of in that same vein.
The Lemons were signed to that label after they came to the attention of John Bradbury, kind of liked how they sounded. He liked their look because they were called the Lemons. They dressed in... all yellow so uh they had uh one they were fronted by a female but she um also played the trumpet as well and she was an actress and she had been uh
to theater school and ran with a theater crowd in London during the time when, you know, a lot of things were happening. Like I said, it was kind of ground zero. So she got in with a group and ended up with um a boyfriend who played spider in quadrophenia so if anybody's familiar with that mod film um she had a few speaking parts um i asked her what they were and she said you know they were things like hiya And so she was. And one of the coolest haircuts ever captured on film. Exactly.
Exactly. I guess she's adorable. So but she was she couldn't even remember the name of the vehicles that they rode around on. I said scooter. She's like, yes, that's what that horrible thing was. It's such a part of that movie and that culture and mod culture, of course, but it made me laugh. But anyway, she had an artistic group of friends and kind of because she lived across from the Hope and Anchor, which was one of the ground zero for madness and a lot of musical acts during this time.
ended up being in a band that got together and said, we need a singer. And so, you know, again, a lot of the members of these bands, one of the bassists went on to be the, you know, perform with the Pogues and things like that. But they were really just having fun. During this time, they're not very prolific, but they did quite a bit of gigging regularly. But they just kind of broke apart because nothing really happened with the band. But she ended up having a pretty amazing...
amazing career in West End theater and was in Les Miserables and was in Cats. And so I just think that she was a pretty special person that we should know about. Well, it's a fun story. It absolutely is. All right, Heather, I got to ask you one more question. Like I said, this is your sixth book, and it's a great one. Rude Girls, Women in Two-Tone, and One Step Beyond. Scar.
Why does it make your life what it is? What joy? Because I think a lot of people, you know, they look at the pork pie hat, they look at the stereotype, right? But you have really, as a music lover and as a journalist, music journalist, you have devoted your life. to this form. So what does it give you?
Well, Jim and Greg, I must say, I've been listening to your show for, you know, many, many years. And I've always asked, why not ska? So I thank you for. We have done one or two. We have done one or two shows on ska, but not not. Now, you would not be. You would not be happy unless we did two Sky shows a week. Because this is your life, and I admire that. But what does it give you?
So ska for me is, you know, I think everybody has kind of a ska origin story. That's a ska, you know, dork like me. But they like the first time that they went to a show. And that was that was it when so it was for me, it was. 1994, it was a toaster show at the Metro in Chicago. Coming off the heels of grunge, loved it, but, you know, needed a breath of fresh air. Ska was that breath of fresh air for me. And when I went to the show and everybody was...
dancing and they weren't, you know, it wasn't arena rock. You know, I grew up on U2 and REM and all that great stuff on 120 minutes on MTV. But, you know, put the lighters away. It's time to dance. And that's for me. what ska was and once it hooks you it's you know it is a it is a scope subculture here now and um you know i'm at a ska festival in virginia this weekend so it's something
that for me, I can't play an instrument. I took 10 years of piano lessons. Sorry, mom, but I can't play a lick now. But my instrument is my pen. So for me, that is how I enjoy it. is I go to shows and I write about it. I know you guys can identify with that, Greg and Jim, but it's just a way for me to think it's part of my identity. It's an identity thing. I think I've seen a picture of you on a scooter.
Well, that's interesting, your story about, you know, your moment was in the 90s, the grungier. My first sky experience was seeing that heavy manors. I'm sure you're familiar with them. But this was like when they were just starting out and they produced a record. Peter Tosh had produced a record of theirs. Right.
But they were our favorite band at that time. It was like early 80s, and we loved them because you'd go and dance. You could have fun at their shows dancing. Exactly. And they were just a great high-energy band. Ska music was always... dance music since day one since you know 19 we can argue about the day but like 1959 1960 in Jamaica it was dance music it was recorded music second but it was always live dance music first and that's what I love about it
Yeah. Good, good reason to love it. We have been talking with Heather Augustine. Thank you so much for joining us, Heather. Thank you. Now we want to hear from you. What do you think of Ska? Are there any women in Ska that you'd like to praise? Leave your opinions in a voicemail on our website, soundopinions.org, so we can play it on the show. on the show next week.
Next week, Jim, really looking forward to this one. We had a great interview with Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Boy, man, the good, the bad, the ugly of being in one of the great rock bands of the last half century. close relationship with Tom. That rarest of rare things in rock literature, a truly frank and honest autobiography. Indeed it was. And don't forget to check out our bonus podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts.
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