Sunday 15 November 2009
Brighton Goes 2-Tone: The Specials Follow This Art 2-Tone Exhibition
This Art 2-Tone is an exhibition of the iconic, black & white, rude boy art stuff that ruled the early 80s in dance music with Ska and its edge of punk, by designer John Sims (aka Teflon) who worked with the Two Tone bands.
After a successful exhibition in Margate This Art 2-Tone moves to Brighton at In My Room, 35 Gloucester Road, from 16th to 21st Nov (extra day just been added)
Teflon be in Brighton at In My Room retro shop with the owner Oliver Learmonth on Thursday 19th Nov from 1pm to meet 2-Tone fans and sign posters and postcards and again on Friday morning at 10am onwards.
Then The Specials continue their 30th Anniversary celebrations with the announcement of the final dates of their tour, one of which brings them to the Brighton Centre.
Their earlier dates in April and May of this year sold-out in record time, and received spectacular reactions and reviews.
If you are undecided as to whether to dust down your trilby, then we'll give the last word to Mark Lamarr:
"With their expected (but heartbreaking) immaculate timing, the Specials couldn't have picked a more perfect time to split (1982) if they'd had a team of strategic scriptwriters to work out the elegance of a perfect Hollywood ending.
"Their final release was not only the most prescient 45 ever (Ghost Town), but also their most musically avant garde.
"They were no longer merely the greatest ska band around, imagine Ghost Town being allowed anywhere near the charts today. Not only near the charts but No1. Not only No1, but a chart topper during the punch in the face that was the hideous experience of a Royal Wedding.
"Ghost Town hit the charts the week before the Toxteth Riots, somehow still journalistically given the tag of Race Riots, as if anyone riots because of their race. Let's face facts, a mixed race riot is a class riot.
The sound and vision of Ghost Town, was not only the perfect backdrop to the despondency facing the youth but also the despondency facing the group (let's not forget " bands don't play no more, too much fighting on the dancefloor").
All of which doomery and gloomery has somehow left the Specials with an undeserved legacy of miserabilsm. Explain that to the millions of 12 year olds who jiggled themselves stupid to Monkey Man.
"With unexpected but equally immaculate timing the Specials are back in a world that somehow doesn't feel three decades removed from the first time.
"Yes the mind numbing town centres are now mind numbing retail villages, but recession and depression have hit again, jobless statistics are heavily on the rise and racial intolerance is the boiling pot it was in the late 70's, not the melting pot we had long ago assumed it should be by now.
"And look around, all those who were skinheads by choice in the early 80's are skinheads by default today.
If you were 12 in 1979, the Specials were easy peasy lemon squeezy the greatest band on the planet. If you're 42 in 2009, nothings changed."
The Specials play the Brighton Centre on Thursday 19th November. See www.brightoncentre.co.uk for more details.
by: Mike Cobley
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The Specials: Undeserved Legacy Of Miserabilsm
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