The Ska Zone
(Triple X)
by Heather Eddy
Ska is like vodka: Pretty strong on it’s own, but generally mixes well with other stuff. You can have ska-core, ska-punk, maybe even ska-Goth (skath?), but heavy metal and ska is like oil and water. A grinding skank guitar solo doesn’t work, is annoying, and you sure as hell can’t dance to it. So somebody should tell the Selecter about this, because that’s what they’ve submitted for your (dis)approval on The Ska Zone compilation.
Maybe it was their decade off after the Two-Tone thing that led to them being so out of touch with the Third Wave. The revamped version of “On My Radio ’91” is totally ’80s in a Go-Go’s way, but “California Screaming” is straight-up metal, big-hair and all. They must’ve picked up their pals Big 5 at the mall somewhere between the new-age hippie cosmic crystal cart and the World of Science store, because these guys are all about kooky space bullshit. Their track “Beautiful World” might start with a trippy flute solo, but then they launch into this ‘mysterious’ and “exotic” gypsy carnival music with a breathy voice whispering, “If the vultures don’t eat you/ the sparrows will try.” Creepy. My crystal ball says this ain’t ska yet.
Potato 5 only has two tracks on the album, which, redeemingly are “ska” (I’ve forgotten what it’s like at this point). And they have Spyder Johnson on vocals, who’s typically the drummer for the Nutty Boys, an offshoot of Madness, so that’s probably supposed to be an asset. But ol’ Spydey proves right off the bat, with “Do the Jerk” that he should stick to the skins.
Will the sound of ska appear on this comp at all, or was the wrong jacket in the CD case? One last shot, with International Beat just happens to be the ONE redeeming quality of this whole thing, saving it from the pit of absolute ska despair. Finally, an old-skool, rocksteady sound with brass. ” Head Man’s Plans” and “Signs of the Times” have the familiar backbeat to support the even more familiar 2nd Wave Hammond organ skank. And I thought this was a lost cause.
Since the whole thing was pretty spacey, maybe the underlying theme was the ska twilight zone. And maybe the scary coincidence is that all of these ska bands played sci-fi metal instead of ska. I think not.
