Dizzybeat.com – ska, reggae, rocksteady, mod and skinhead

While many ska and reggae fans will have, at one stage, gathered around a computer together to share the joys of Yo Gabba Gabba, particularly the Aggrolites doing Banana or an animated Alex Desert from Hepcat highlighting the benefits of cleaning your room, when it comes to bringing the soul, Sesame Street is the originator.

Having grown up with Sesame Street, like so many others, it doesn’t really ever leave you. The reason being, the quality of the songs, as well as the fairly novel approach to them, making them universally infectious.

What started the youtube marathon of Sesame Street was Gen putting me on to a reggae tune about a rubber duck, after I’d bought her a St Pauli FC one for her birthday.  A favourite topic of Ernie, of course. With the wonderful credit, from the motion picture The Harder They Scrub, it is an extravaganza of muppets, introduced by the Count, and catchy to boot.

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We’re heading to the Hollywood Hotel this Saturday night in Surry Hills for a night of ska, soul, mod, reggae and punk for Uptown Top Ranking. It’s always a great night, with a welcoming locale and great tunes on the wheels of steel.

The date is Saturday May 28, 2011 in case you weren’t sure.

And just for the record, in case some “readers” at Dizzybeat think otherwise, we celebrate ska, reggae, rocksteady, rhythm and blues, soul, garage and punk. We’re a positive movement that welcomes any race, sex or creed.

Also, we don’t post comments in response to the haters on this site or any other. It seems obvious, given some feedback, that the haters assume people don’t share my views and don’t act in their own ways. Of course, after ten years of doing dizzybeat.com, I know that many worldwide believe what we believe, and wholeheartedly support our love for music, are welcoming to us, but also act in different ways to us with our best interests at heart.

To another ten years!

Rhoda Dakar and Jerry Dammers are amazing, by the way.

A good friend of mine from Melbourne, Gary “Skaman” Rosch, has got a new band following the premature split of his previous band The Hightides. They sound great with originals in the set this time around and a characteristic Australian sound that works as well as it did with Loin Groin and Commissioner Gordon. LEt’s hope they continue to go from strength to strength!

I was put on to this video by the excellent Duff Guide to Ska.  It’s a 17 minute focus on Gaz Mayall’s club Gaz’ Rockin’ Blues in Soho, London filmed for Spine TV.  If you’ve ever been to the club or are familiar with Gaz, you’ll definitely find this of interest.  The club night is something special, and Gaz himself is eccentric and dedicated.

We were so lucky to have Chris Murray grace our shores recently, and even luckier that he agreed to play in our backyard for my birthday.  Here is the first of a few videos from the day.

There’s nothing new about child prodigies in reggae, but this time around they are the kin of Max Romeo and calling themselves Rominal.

This post is just a little pat on the back as looking at the statistics for our videos on Youtube we’ve had over 100 000 views of our collective videos!

Check out our channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dizzybeat

100 000 views suggests we’re doing something right I reckon. There is quite a bit from over the years that could still go up too.

By far the most popular of our videos was Max Romeo’s Chase the Devil last year at London’s Jazz Cafe. It’s one popular track, and what a gig it was. Thanks to Gen for this and many of the other videos.

One Night Band in Sydney

Ska Nation in Melbourne, November 2, 2009