Earth and Fire - Weekend 7'' (1979)

I have so many of these songs by non-ska bands that are worth knowing about and maybe worth hearing once or twice, but really they aren't good music. Just a bunch of bands that either used to be famous and they saw their audiences disappearing or bands who were never famous in the first place and they thought they could grab some attention by playing ska-type-stuff and then impress their new listeners with their real sound later. I don't think it worked for anybody in the end. Either the crowd was disappointed when they went to the show and heard what the band really sounded like, or the one ska/reggae song the band did was a throwaway song from their original set and they just threw an upstroke into it.
There are a lot of terrible songs that came from this era and this line of thinking and I was going to do one big blog-post called Bad Pop does Bad Ska...or something equally as clever.
This is one of the songs I was going to include in that post but in the last week this song has really grown on me.
I'm still going to do that post and you'll see that this really is a superior product compared to some of the other shit that's out there.

Earth and Fire were a 70s rock band from the Netherlands who had a number of releases between 1970 and 1990. This is their only attempt at a ska/reggae song and it was their biggest hit ever. So big that it even got them attention outside of the Netherlands. It was number 1 in Switzerland, Germany, Denmark and Portugal as well. It never did make a splash in the UK, the US, or even in the Republic of Suriname - until now!

The song is really not a bad little ditty and the singer Jerney is just adorable. There are a few videos of this song on Youtube that are about the same exact performance with her in different outfits. (I ain't complaining). And they all showcase her ability to dance with all the finesse of an 8-year old in front of her bedroom mirror. ('Turning around' is a dance move attempted by many, mastered by few).


(...and her smile is so warm...so genuine...)




A - Weekend
B - Answer Me*


http://www.mediafire.com/?33e1ibvrc76188o

*(see, now they hooked you with a 'ska' song you can hear their real sound. Aren't you impressed?)

Alpha Boy School feat. Joe Scholes

Alpha Boy School is working on a new album with new vocalist Joe Scholes -aka- Joachim Uerschels from The Braces.

Joe has a blog called joescholes.com...

...in his own words:

"The blog joescholes.com is a documentation of getting together the songs for a new live set and a new album. I'm also willing to include a whole bunch of other stuff, as thoughts about how spreading Ska Music was achieved in the 80s compared to today, how the scene worked etc.. There are a lot of plans, better not to talk too much in advance ..."

A very informative site with lots of audio samples - full length songs and live cuts. If you're a fan of The Braces or Alpha Boy School you'll appreciate his site.