Dance Craze celebrates the 2 Tone scene on film

The Specials : Nite Klub

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On February 15, 1981 Dance Craze, a documentary about the British ska scene, made its premiere in London. The film was directed by American Joe Massot, who also made Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains The Same. The hope was that Dance Craze would do for ska what The Harder They Come did for reggae, but critics were disappointed that the film was just a series of clips of bands performing their songs. 

Dance Craze wouldn't play to American audience until the Spring of 1982, where it appeared in art theaters and then vanished almost without a trace. Never released on DVD or to streaming services, Dance Craze reveals the incredible energy the 2 Tone bands brought to the stage. If you had to see it to believe it, this remains one of the few ways to see it. 

At some point in my collegiate career I managed to get a copy of the soundtrack album, a terrific primer to the 2 Tone scene. The soundtrack peaked in the Top 10 of the UK charts in 1981 and at 145 on the American charts the following year. More importantly, it influenced the next wave of ska artists, including Fishbone.

The performances in order:

"Nite Klub" – The Specials 

"The Prince" – Madness 

"Ne-Ne-Na-Na-Na-Na-Nu-Nu" – Bad Manners 

"007 (Shanty Town)" – The Bodysnatchers 

"Three Minute Hero" – The Selecter 

"Ranking Full Stop" – The Beat 

"Big Shot" – The Beat 

"Concrete Jungle" – The Specials 

"Swan Lake" – Madness 

"Razor Blade Alley" – Madness 

"Missing Words" – The Selecter 

"Let's Do the Rock Steady" – The Bodysnatchers 

"Lip Up Fatty" – Bad Manners 

"Madness" – Madness 

"Too Much Too Young" – The Specials 

"On My Radio" – The Selecter 

"Easy Life" – The Bodysnatchers 

"Rough Rider" – The Beat 

"Man at C&A" – The Specials 

"Inner London Violence" – Bad Manners 

"Night Boat to Cairo" – Madness 

"Twist and Crawl" – The Beat 

"Wooly Bully" – Bad Manners 

"Too Much Pressure" – The Selecter

 "Mirror in the Bathroom" – The Beat 

"One Step Beyond" – Madness 

"Nite Klub" – The Specials

 

Joe Jackson Band and Bad Manners release new singles

Joe Jackson Band : The Harder They Come

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In June of 1980 Joe Jackson began to shed the sounds that pegged him as an Elvis Costello impersonator. His cover of Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come", released as a three song EP,  failed to chart in the UK despite a Smash Hits reviewer's claim that "sprinkled with emphatic drum breaks and searing hot harmonica played with crazy zeal, this single screams of success".

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Bad Manners : Lip Up Fatty

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A much bigger success was Bad Manners' UK#15 hit "Lip Up Fatty", a Sounds magazine single of the week. The subject of the song is Buster Bloodvessel's weight and how kids at school would taunt him. A year later he would tell an interviewer he had eaten 28 Big Macs in one sitting. Years after a career in which the band scored nine Top 40 singles, a 434 pound  Bloodvessel would undergo laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery and drop 250 pounds.