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One of my favorite music genre's is SKA !
The Beat ( The English Beat in the USA ) is one of if not the top SKA band. Dave Wakeling
is the lead and still fronts the band. They currently play around the West Coast and really hit the LA area hard.
I've seen them in Salt Lake City @ Shaggy's Velvet Room -- a great venue --
Click on some stuff on this page and see where it takes you .....
The (English) Beat hit the scene in 1979. The six member band consisted
of Dave Wakeling (vocals & guitar), David Steele (bass), Andy Cox (guitar), Everett Morton (drums), Saxa (saxophone) and
Ranking Roger (vocals). The band fused all of their respective musical influences - soul, reggae, pop and punk.
It was at that point that Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger recuited Stoker (drums) and Mickey Billingham
(keyboards) of Dexy's Midnight Runners and Horace Panter (bass) of The Specials and formed General Public.
Their first album "...All The Rage" included a guest appearance by former Clash guitarist Mick Jones. After the fantastic
success of "...All The Rage", the band spent two years writing and recording their follow-up.
While Dave and Rodger were working on their second album, David Steele and Andy Cox were busy trying to
put a new band together. Having trouble finding a lead singer, Andy and David went so far as to place an ad on MTV. Although
they received over 300 tapes from all over America, ultimately it was Roland Gift, the lead singer from a band called The
Acrylics who opened a few gigs for The Beat in 1978, who got the job. With Roland now in the band, The Fine Young Cannibals
was formed. From the release of their first single, Fine Young Cannibals received critical raves
and outstanding success. Their second album "The Raw and The Cooked", with singles such as "She Drives Me Crazy" and "Good
Thing", achieved multi-platinum success in several countries.
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