Ska'd for Life: A Personal Journey with The Specials

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In Ska'd for Life Horace takes the reader on a musical odyssey with the Specials from their early days on Coventry's punk circuit to chart storming success with singles like 'Too Much Too Young' and the eerily prescient 'Ghost Town', released as the race riots saw Toxteth and Brixton go up in flames. Written with wry humour, taking an affectionate look at a band whose sublime music remains influential today, this is a must for all Specials fans. The internet gives us more opportunities so we are trying to use it to build relationships with our fans, and I run the record label from my one-bedroom flat. There's something -particularly charged, too, about familiar songs sung by a familiar voice, even if it's the first time song and voice have met in public. Suggs's matter-of-fact staccato is unmistakable, and a number of the songs Madness essay are standards. There's Desmond Dekker's 'Israelites', a touchstone not badly damaged here by the Madness treatment. There's Bob Marley's 'So Much Trouble in the World', more consolatory than Marley's righteous original.

Interesting account of Horace's time as bass player for The Specials, from meeting Jerry Dammers in the mid 70's to playing small clubs and pubs with The Coventry Automatics and the eventual rise and fall of The Specials, one of the UK's biggest bands from 1979 to 1981. When both our bands imploded we got together. I wanted to do something more British and his songwriting has a real British style.” One of the lessons they’ve learned is that the evolution of technology and the shifting patterns of making and receiving music mean more opportunities for bands like DOGP. It’s a rite of passage for any aspiring musician but with Death of Guitar Pop we have been able to taste the fruits of our hard labour.” Read More Related Articles Though the band comprises just the two of them, they regularly perform as a nine-piece including a full brass section and it’s clear these guys are taking having fun very seriously indeed.

We have a 30-day return policy, which means you have 30 days after receiving your item to request a return. Over the last thirty years I’ve read allot about The Specials and the Two Tone bands and although this doesn’t really add anything to the story it is great to hear it first hand from someone who was there rather than watching on, which I was doing myself. The stories reverberate with a freshness particularly in the parts of the book which were taken directly from the tour journal Horace kept throughout the American and Japanese tours which ultimately led to the break up of the band.

We are planning to put out an album every year for the next ten years – then we’ll see how it goes from there. It was animated and it was fun – it was like watching a musical. My younger brothers were still in nappies but we’d all be together skanking to it. I decided there and then that that was what I wanted to do.”DOGP have enjoyed good support from the very word go but neither Silky nor Top Kat have forgotten the years they spent learning the ropes with their previous bands. I was in my previous band for 13 years and it was a gruelling apprenticeship,” said Silky. “We had a record deal but it didn’t work out and we lost money at gigs.