WELCOME TOBACKYSKANK NEWS, AN IRREGULAR COLUMN THAT WILL BE UP-DATED WHEN THINGS IS SHAKIN' (and we don't mean over the trough in the toilets at Central Railway Station).
As we move through the early stages of this newly prefixed series of a thousand years (I didn't say millenium, because I'm not an idiot who doesn't know the difference between 999 and 1,000) we can see the force that is Backyskank aligning themselves with the sense of newness, of promise and opportunity that envelops the globe (except for maybe Indonesia, and parts of China . Hmmn, and the US. Well, Australia's not doing too good either, now that I think about it. Anyway, Jamaica's probably fine and that's what counts).
ANY WAY, the group has played
some recent Sydney gigs that WENT OFF!
The first was at Eastwood
Hotel with The Allniters and The Last Hemeroids, where they performed before
a crowd that were begging for MORE. Sad to say, Derek More, the previously
announced Kazoo-player from Portugal didn't show, so BackySkank played instead,
and won the audience over.
For anyone who read the Sydney Morning Herald's Metro Section on Friday, 31 March, you would have noticed a cutting edge article on a hot new Sydney fanzine, called DIG THIS MAGAZINE. DIG THIS got a rave write-up in the paper, and all fans of pop culture should know that the third issue is a SKA Vs ROCKABILLY issue. Well, punters who attended the launch of DIG THIS # 3 got a real treat on Saturday the 4th of March because Backyskank, and rockers The Howlin' MoonDoggies played toe totoe in a seething grudge match in a cage at the Bar Broadway that night.It was a rage, where the winners were the audience, and there were nolosers because live music rules! Backyskank jumped on a red-hot stage after the Doggies came off, and the night was peppered with give-aways,t-shirts, and readings from the cool contents of DIG THIS! NOT ONLY THAT, but Simon Smith, FrontyMan for Backyskank, was a Ska-history and culture consultant for some of the material that appears in DIG THIS #3, so you fans of pop culture, as well as you Backyskank completists, make sure you get a copy!
ON THE RECORDING FRONT the band has laid down bass and drum tracks for the up-coming album, and work will be completed progressively in the next few months on the rest of the contents of this long-awaited debut masterpiece, as other committments, and credit-cards, permit. The band's almost new bass-player'Irish' Tony is having a brief Ska-Battical (Hey! What's he up to? The fucker just joined!), touring with an Italian Elvis impersonator, but c'mon, how could you deny that opportunity to anyone.
And , finally, some of you
may have spotted TROMBONE-MAN Layne Visser in the crowd at the Acadamy Awards
telecast, sitting next to Lara Flynn Boyle. Yep, the Big Man himself got the
actress-babe's attention when she saw some of his LIP-WORK at a Sydney gig
she attended incognito some months ago. A phone call was made, air tickets
went in the mail, and after Layne punched out Jack Nicholson, the rest was
history. Sadly, the relationship is reported to be purely platonic, as Big
Vis put it: "She wanted me to go vegetarian - and its against my religion."
That's it for now, SKA fans.
P.S. RIP Ian Dury. You will be missed.
