Steel Pulse are probably my favourite roots reggae band. The reason for this is that a good number of their songs are upbeat danceable numbers as opposed to the laid back style of most roots reggae bands.

Steel Pulse started in 1975 in Birmingham, England with David Hinds, Basil Gabbidon and Ronnie McQueen. Rastafarian in faith, the band were from a very early age conscience in their outlook. Even in 2006, Jamaica is 80 per cent Christian and so Rastafarianism in 1975 was not necessarily embraced by the Jamaican population in Birmingham at the time and the bands conscience Rastafarian music was likewise not embraced by the community.

As punk began coming to the fore in England shortly after their arrival on the scene, they began playing with punk bands and on Rock Against Racism bills. They put out a couple of small releases before being picked up by Island Records before moving onto a number of other labels due to a number of ongoing grievances.

Steel Pulse found a lot of their success in Europe and the USA where they still continue to tour. In fact, in 1986 they picked up a Grammy Award for their album Babylon the Bandit. This is one of close to 20 albums they have put out in their time, including a number of best ofs. If you’re a vinyl collector, there are still plenty of Steel Pulse around, even in Sydney. If not, there are plenty of their CDs available online through the usual big websites.

For tracks to taste Steel Pulse try Back To My Roots, Ku Klux Klan, Taxi Driver, Reggae Fever, Handsworth Revolution, Rollerskates or Your House, which are some of my favourites.

The Pioneers are one of my favourite Jamaican vocal groups. They tasted a fair amount of success both locally and in Europe and fantastically they are still playing today. The vocal group was of course very popular in Jamaica, with other groups including the Maytals, the Melodians, the Techniques and the Jamaicans to name just a few. With the talent in Jamaica in the mid to late sixties in wasn’t surprising that people passed through multiple groups. Vocal groups were also the beginnings of many a solo career such as John Holt of the Paragons.

The core of the Pioneers was and is Sydney Crook, Jackie Robinson and George Dekker. Others such as Glen Adams (The Heptones, The Upsetters) also sung with the group on some recordings. After recording in Jamaica with producers Joe Gibbs and Leslie Kong a number of hit songs, some of which made the UK charts on the Trojan Label, the Pioneers headed to the UK to base themselves there permanently.

This move to the UK wasn’t all that surprising. They’d toured the UK previously and reggae in the UK was becoming increasingly popular, supported by the youth subculture of skinheads. On reflection, one can really see why their sound would have been popular with skinheads, with an upbeat danceable style that included lyrics referencing the group’s support. One of their songs, Blam Blam Fever was redone as Reggae Fever with lyrics like, “You can know a skinhead, by the way he skins his head”. Skinhead went out of vogue for a while, but the Pioneers didn’t die the same death, bringing a range of influences into their show.
What can’t be passed over, despite its obvious pop sensibilities, is the fact they recorded Let Your Yeah Be Yeah by Jimmy Cliff, which went on the Harder They Come motion picture soundtrack. A fantastic movie and the Pioneers deserved to be a part of it. I like the song, but I’m sure many don’t.

Note: This review concentrates on a selection of the bands, due to time and taste. For reviews of other bands who played at Ska Splash, there are a number of other sites on the web who covered the event.

Thursday

Although the decision to come to England came before the announcement of Ska Splash, it was Ska Splash which Gen and I bought tickets for some time before we’d even chosen our flights to the UK. The line-up of the festival was too enticing – a collection of names some would only dream of seeing in a lifetime, let alone a weekend.

By the time it had come around, we’d settled into London living and had already seen a host of great acts, though few that were playing the Ska Splash Festival. Apart from great UK ska stalwarts Intensified pulling out at the last minute and a change of venue that meant nothing to us, we were pleased that eight months had passed and the gig was going ahead as first intended.

With Australian friends Dave and Tessa in town to celebrate their honeymoon, we jumped in a hire car on Thursday and made our way north. Gen was given the job of navigating and Tessa driving, being the only one who could drive. It was a five hour trip – only one and half hours more than it should have been and some lovely detours through London’s past – the walled village of Stamford is definitely worth a visit.

We’d been warned by a few people not to expect much from Skegness, the seaside town where the festival was being held, but we didn’t expect on-site caravans for as long as the eye could see, a waft from the ocean that suggested the sewage system would have been at home in Victorian times and a population that thought mobility scooters weren’t only for the immobile, but for everyone. Still, our caravan was clean, modern and spacious and the venue was both close to our digs and perfect for such an event.

Pop-A-Top Records
http://www.popatoprecords.co.uk

While I enjoyed the last record released by Pop-A-Top Records, their latest offering, Earth Scorchers, left me a little disappointed. I commend them for doing something a little different to others knocking about at the moment, but this particular album doesn’t offer much to make me sit up and take notice. Organ driven reggae is what you will get, and although it has the potential to offer the traditionalist a great authentic sound they can sink their teeth into, it doesn’t keep pulling me back to it like an excellent record does.

I will start with what I do like though. Track nine is my favourite, an instrumental based around a great saxophone line, from a bloke called Preston Steel. His other song Boss Train is one of the other better tracks on the album. The other song worthy of mention is The Last Wilderness, by The Erin Bardwell Collective. It is an instrumental reworking of the song Stole Your Mind from the previous album, A Showcase of New Sounds in Reggae Time. The keyboard here is great and puts a strong stamp on the song.

I think my frustrations with this album really overshadow the sound of this project, which I do actually like, but I can’t help but be irked. For instance, I do not feel the best of Sandra Bell is captured. She has four songs on this album, and not once do I feel she is belting it out. Her past as the singer in a soul band doesn’t show. Whether this is due to the production or her recording I am not sure. As well, the clapping that was used sparingly to great effect in the previous album is used too frequently in this album. This one fits into the too much of anything is bad for you category.