WEIRD WINS

Every band has at least one guy who just won't tow the line, not forever anyways, who never read the mission statement. When that person happens to be the brains behind the operation, the main songwriter, and a founding member, the post-break up shake can be telling. When the Specials broke up in the early eighties, you had two separate camps, the Fun Boy Three and Special AKA. I don't want to get into a long thing about the differences, and which one I thought sucked, but Special AKA had Jerry Dammers, and that's when I started paying attention. Dammers has always been the most interesting ex-Special, his most recent combo, Jerry Dammers' Spatial AKA Orchestra, is his most challenging; heavily influenced by the Sun Ra Arkestra, which is to say other worldly and weird. And that makes more sense to me than the reunited Specials (still touring) playing their songbook from thirty years ago. It the battle of weird versus nostalgia, weird wins every time.

I've posted about Dammers and the Spatial AKA Orchestra before, but I just ran into a couple mp3s which weren't online the last time. In fact, these are the first I've been able to find at all. I don't think the band has ever recorded, and Dammers' site doesn't mention any releases. These were ripped from a Jools Holland appearance, and having been recorded in a TV studio, they're pretty clean.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Jerry Dammer's Spatial AKA Orchestra - Soul Vibrations mp3 at Eezy Weebly
Jerry Dammer's Spatial AKA Orchestra with Francine Luce - I'll Wait For You mp3 at Eezy Weebly