Very sad news to report with yet another one of the most influential musicians in the genres we adore having passed away.

Read the report on the Jamaica Gleaner website: http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20100123/ent/ent1.html

Melbourne shows its cultural prowess with this film festival celebrating reggae and rocksteady music. I wish I could get along to see Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae, as it is meant to be a great documentary, and Babylon on the big screen will be a hit, I'm sure. Find full details of the film festival below (or by clicking read more).

The Ska is Dead tour, a well established regular jaunt around the USA, has come to Australia. The premise is intelligent enough – include a mix of bands likely to appeal to different tastes to maximise interest. The Australian tour featured The Resignators from Melbourne, Dan Potthast from the United States and One Night Band from Montreal, Canada. Our interest was in One Night Band, having reviewed their excellent CD Hit & Run last year while in the UK. We caught the band’s first Australian show @ the Annandale. The turnout was fairly good for a Thursday night, though disappointingly most weren’t there for the Canadians. Local Sydney act Chris Duke and the Royals, The Resignators and Dan Potthast all got good receptions, but I couldn’t help but being surprised that the ’98 sound that was so big is still around. Still, if it gets people into ska it must be a positive thing.

One Night Band were even better live than they were on their record. They were energetic, tight and most importantly great exponents of the organ driven reggae sound, which is perfect for dancing. I think a lot of the "third-wavers" were surprised at how good they were. Their set included fantastic covers of Desmond Dekker’s Keep a Cool Head and the West Indian favourite Shame and Scandal. Their own material should not be discounted however, as it just as infectious, and enticing enough to win over those who had never heard the band before.

We left their Sydney gig determined to head to Wollongong on the Sunday to see them. Talking to some of the guys on tour, there was a fear that a drive from their Brisbane gig on Saturday night to get to Wollongong Sunday evening was cutting it a bit fine, but we were keen to see the band again. Long story short, it was cutting it too fine, and not all of One Night Band (or The Resignators for that matter) made it to Wollongong that afternoon, so we were left to watch some Wollongong locals – including Val the Greek’s new band Steel City Allstars - and wallow in the misery of missing a performance by one of the best bands knocking about at the moment.

Still, on to Melbourne and the Ska Nation weekend, where we’ll get to see One Night Band for a final time before they head home.

Check out the videos, taken by Gen Murray.

One Night Band - Keep a Cool Head

One Night Band - Trigger

The Joe Strummer tribute at the Hopetoun Hotel in Sydney on Saturday night was probably the best local gig I've been to since I got back from England at the beginning of this year. While I have previously complained of a lack of positive invigorated musical projects in Sydney, seeing bands like King Cannons, The Rumjacks and Trenchtown brought back memories of how enjoyable the Sydney live music scene can be. As well, Backy Skank, stalwarts of the Sydney ska scene, benefited greatly from being on such a positive bill. They really needed to rise to a certain level, and they did so.

Over the next few months, I will have the pleasure of seeing King Cannons a number of times, in Sydney, the Blue Mountains and their hometown of Melbourne. This band puts on such a great show, and while I would love them to play a whole set of reggae, their stage performance and musical ability makes their other tunes still very enjoyable. Get along to see them if you can.

The folks who bring you SNAP! in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney have something new in store and they're taking residence smack back in the middle of Sydney town. Garage Land is the name of the new night to be held once a month on a Thursday night at UTS's Loft Bar on Broadway. The first night is July 9, 2009 and it's FREE!

I'll be DJing the opening night with the SNAP! boys, but more importantly, The Rumjacks and The Booby Traps will supplying the sounds. Doors open at 5pm (with cheap beer for an hour), but the sounds run long into the night. Please come along and help support punk, ska, reggae, rock and soul in Sydney!

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=91486794083&ref=nf

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/garagelandnight

Hawk-eyed readers amongst you will notice I've made a couple of small, but important additions to Dizzybeat. The first is adding a "widget" down the bottom of posts that allows people to tell other folk about the article using their favoured social networking site. So please, don't hold back. The other addition is a section in the right hand column that features interesting ska and reggae news from the web. I figure it is better than simply rehashing the content as my own.

Finally, if you are on Facebook, be sure to "become a fan" of Dizzybeat by following the link below. It's in addition to the Facebook Group, because groups seemed to have taken a backseat. Who knows, maybe we'll even get on to Twitter soon.

Become a fan of Dizzybeat on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Everything-Crash-and-Di...

Long time readers of Dizzybeat.com will know I have occasionally mentioned a print zine we have published called Everything Crash. Earlier this year it was relaunched with a very small run of, confusingly, issue one. It coincided with a visit to Australia by Pauline Black of The Selecter and great singer songwriter Ed Rome. I was lucky enough to get to meet both of them and took the chance to get photos of them reading Everything Crash (inspired by Hoi Polloi zine).

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be putting content from issue one of Everything Crash on to Dizzybeat.com, but for now check out the photos!