The Toasters
Hard Band For Dead (Moon)
by Skankin’ Dave
This title would be good for a posthumous album, or perhaps a post-breakup greatest hits package, which results in even greater popularity (can you say Nirvana?). But ska is coming into a bigger and wider audience, thanks in large part to the undying efforts of The Toaster. This is the Toasters’ sixth album in 13 years, an impressive feat for any band, let alone a ska band. As the third wave of ska nurtures a plethora of upshot bands from high schools all across this great land, only a few will achieve the longevity and creativity of The Toasters.
This CD is like an old comforter. Some places give you that warm, soothing ska feel, while other spots are worn thin from extensive use (but you still enjoy it). That said, not all the cuts off this CD represent the best of The Toasters. The disc’s first cut is “2-Tone Army,” a simple ska riff with a mediocre horn arrangement and unchallenging chorus. This song almost seems to have come from some ska songwriting formula. Luckily, the rest of the album gets better, sometimes only a little, but most of the time quite a bit. The Toasters brought in a few special guests for the album, and it was a good move.
The CD brings togther several different types of songs. There’re two with departed Toaster, Coolie Ranks, a couple with Lester Sterling (The Skatalites) on sax, a few TV-inspired songs, a pair of covers, two with impressive guest vocalists, and one with Jerry McGee ( from surf legends the Ventures) on guitar (“Friends”).
The Coolie tunes, “Friends” and “Don’t Come Running,” continue in the style of past Toasters discs, most notably Dub 56. Lester’s appearance on “Mouse,” a traditional old-skool instrumental that relies heavily on impressive horns, augments the already talented horn section. The presence of Mr. Sterling is also enjoyed on the titlesque track, “Hard Man Fe Dead,” a Prince Buster song that augments its boppy, traditional style with soul-inspired keyboards. As for those songs inspired by the idiot box, “Secret Agent Man” and “Maxwell Smart” represent the light-hearted side of the disc. The former is a cover of the Johnny Rivers TV theme, the latter a silly instrumental (again theme-song based). Laurel Aitken, the grandfather of ska, croons on the swinging “Speak Your Mind” while Django (Stubborn All-Stars, Skinnerbox, Slackers) chats on “Properly,” an interesting reggae number with the drummer providing lead vocals.
Two songs that grab are near the end of the forty-minute effort. “I Wasn’t Going To Call You Anyway” seems inspired by a lost address book in a Heidelberg (Germany) cab, and how Bucket (guitarist/vox/big kahuna at Moon Records) kicked the Dance Hall Crashers off Moon but lost their number (as if he cared). “I read your bullshit in the press, it didn’t hurt me like you wanted to… I wasn’t going to waste my time.” The other standout is “Skaternity,” a keyboard-heavy-sounding-guitar-cool-grooving-killer-almost-anthem-like-song (YOU buy the CD and try describing it!) Hard Band For Dead is a must; The Toasters are a little winded but far from dead.
(Moon Ska, PO Box 1412, New York, NY 10276)
