Signing Off - UB40

It was 1980 and Britain was celebrating, if that is the right word, the 1st anniversary of the Thatcher government. There was one particular phenomenon which was affecting the towns and cities of Britain at that time and that phenomenon was mass unemployment. Not the mass unemployment which had risen above 1mn during the previous Labour administration but levels of 3mn plus. It would have registered at over 4mn if the Conservatives had not continually changed the method of counting unemployment. To receive unemployment benefit at that time you had to complete a UB40 form and it was this that gave the name of UB40 to a band of young men from Birmingham. For their first ...  Read the complete review

The legacy of punk has been widely recognised, we can see a direct link between the late seventies anarchic punk music and the more politically based new wave groups and indie guitar groups that followed in the 80’s all the way through to today’s nu punk bands. Another rather more unusual spin off of the punk era was a popularisation and eventual emergence into the charts of Ska/Reggae. In the early days when live punk bands were playing small venues DJ were filling in the time in between acts not with punk records as none of these new acts had been recorded yet but with reggae and Ska records. This led to an awareness of reggae to a young white audience and it wasn’t ...  Read the complete review

Most of the 2 Tone era bands were hyper energetic dance bands, deeply ingrained with a love of Ska and Bluebeat and stomping the night away. Dexys Midnight Runners at one end of the spectrum, fronted by the EGO of Kevin Rowland were avowedly a soul band, with passionate romance in their hearts (Searching for the young soul rebels, indeed) before they became gypsies with Come On Eileen. Over on the other wing, there was the dub and loping, smooth reggae sounds and political comment of Birmingham?s UB40. Even the name was a STATEMENT writ large ...  Read the complete review