The Beat are playing a THE CLEVELAND COURAGE FUND benefit on TUESDAY MAY 14TH: The Cleveland Courage Fund of the Cleveland Foundation was established by Cleveland council members Brian Cummins, Matt Zone, and Dona Brady after the discovery of three women held captive in a Cleveland home for a decade. The fund, so named because of the courage shown by these women, will directly benefit Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight, and Amanda Berry and her daughter. All money raised – 100 percent – will benefit the survivors and their families through nonprofit organizations.The Cleveland Foundation will not assess fees on this fund and will issue a tax receipt for all donations received.

Can;t make it to the show? That’s okay, because you can also donate directly via this link: The Cleveland Courage Fund

More details below, courtesy of the show poster:

cheers,

sirlou
The Beat

Reggae great Cedric “Im” Brooks (1943 – 3 May 2013) died recently, in New York at the age of 70. Brooks was a deeply influential saxophonist and flautist; a world class reggae originator!

Brooks was born in Jamaica and was known for his solo recordings and as a member of The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, The Light of Saba, and the incomparable reggae band The Skatalites.

From Wikipedia:

Brooks was a member of groups such as The Vagabonds and the Granville Williams Band in the early 1960s, but it would be the late 1960s when he would find his first major commercial success, as part of a duo with trumpeter David Madden, Im & David.[2] The duo released a series of instrumental singles for Clement “Coxsone” Dodd’s Studio One label. Brooks also became a regular studio musician at the Brentford Road studio, playing on many recording sessions, and released several solo singles in the early 1970s.

In 1970 he first teamed up with Rastafarian drummer Count Ossie, releasing tracks such as “So Long Rastafari Calling”, “Black is Black”, and “Give Me Back My Language and Culture” as Im and Count Ossie. The pair would later form The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, with Brooks acting as musical director and leader of the horn section. From this collaboration resulted the triple LP-Set Grounation. Brooks left in 1974 to form a new band, the Divine Light (later called The Light of Saba). After a single, “Demauungwani”, the group recorded their first album for the Institute of Jamaica, From Mento to Reggae to Third World Music, a collection exploring the history of Jamaican music, incorporating mento, junkanoo, ska, rocksteady, and reggae.[2] The band made two further albums of jazz-influenced Rastafarian reggae,[4] The Light of Saba and The Light of Saba in Reggae, before Brooks left, again going solo with his 1977 album, Im Flash Forward, featuring Studio One rhythms from the early 1970s, and regarded as one of the greatest Jamaican instrumental albums. The following year, Brooks assembled a new band of musicians to record the United Africa album.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Brooks released a few singles but largely worked as a session musician. In particular, he worked with Carlos Malcolm in San Diego, California, in 1998 as part of a 20-piece ska and mento orchestra known as “Zimbobway’s King Kingston Orchestra”. These albums featured Im both on saxophone and percussion in many of the 24 recordings. In 1999, after the death of Rolando Alphonso, former saxophonist of the Skatalites, Brooks joined the band.

Wikipedia: Cedric Brooks

He leaves behind seven children, and a legion of ska and reggae fans.

Peace, Im, one love mi brudda.

sirlou
The Beat

Demon Music Group, which brought you the outstanding 2 CD + DVD reissues of The Beat’s first three studio albums is at it again….

This time they’ve put together a really stellar vinyl collection of The Beat’s oeuvre, a FOUR LP set that is a must have the true Beat fan: THE VINYL COLLECTION!

“The Vinyl Collection” comes housed in a specially-designed rigid slipcase based on the distinctive artwork of the Go-Feet label 12” single sleeves, Edsel presents faithful re-creations of all three of The Beat’s albums, including the inner sleeves.

Also included is an exclusive BONUS album, only available in this set. Entitled “The Dub Album”, this contains all the fabulous dub versions from the band’s 12” singles and an extended version of “Save It For Later” (as covered by the likes of Pearl Jam and The Who). These versions have not been available on vinyl since the mid-80′s!!

Available for purchase NOW in the US and worldwide!!
US: Amazon.com
Worldwide: Amazon.co.uk

Check out the One-Sheet (click on it to view the full size PDF) and product images below, and following that is the full track listing:

The track listing is as follows:

LP 1
1 Mirror In The Bathroom
2 Hands Off…She’s Mine
3 Two Swords
4 Twist & Crawl
5 Rough Rider
6 Click Click
7 Big Shot
8 Whine & Grine / Stand Down Margaret
9 Noise In This World
10 Can’t Get Used To Losing You
11 Best Friend
12 Jackpot

LP 2
1 Doors Of Your Heart
2 All Out To Get You
3 Monkey Murders
4 I Am Your Flag
5 French Toast (Soleil Trop Chaud)
6 Drowning
7 Dream Home In N.Z.
8 Walk Away
9 Over And Over
10 Cheated
11 Get-A-Job
12 The Limits We Set

LP 3
1 I Confess
2 Jeanette
3 Sorry
4 Sole Salvation
5 Spar Wid Me
6 Rotating Head
7 Save It For Later
8 She’s Going
9 Pato And Roger A Go Talk
10 Sugar And Stress
11 End Of The Party
12 Ackee 1-2-3

LP 4
1 Too Nice To Talk To [Dubweiser]
2 Psychedelic Rockers [Dubweiser]
3 Doors Of Your Heart [Dub]
4 Drowning [Dub]
5 Save It For Later [Extended]
6 What’s Your Best Thing [Dub Style]
7 Stand Down Margaret [Dub]

Hope you pick this one up as soon as you can!!

Direct links:
http://www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductID=6221

http://www.amazon.com/Vinyl-Collection-Beat/dp/B008YQNETQ/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1367879807&sr=8-7& keywords=the+vinyl+collection+the+beat

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Vinyl-Collection-VINYL-Beat/dp/B008YQNETQ%3FSubscriptionId%3D0RXGSR71VJZ2568K3782%26tag%3Ddemonmusicgro-21%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB008YQNETQ

cheers,

sirlou
The Beat

Ok, today I bring you news about a scrappy, high energy, entertainment juggernaut…no not The Beat, this time it’s Veronica Mars!

For those of you not familiar (c’mon you know you’ve heard of it!) with Veronia Mars, she was the strong, winsome heroine of her own eponymously named teen detective/crime procedural/film noir set in the fictional town of Neptune, CA, which aired from 2004 to 2007 on UPN/The CW.  The series showcased the enormously talented and comely Kristin Bell as the tireless seeker of truth and teen angst sufferer, Veronica.

Well, a few years ago the silly folx @The CW decided they no longer needed a sassy,  forthright, intelligent young female Private Investigator in their line-up…and cancelled the show.  Fans mourned, show creator Rob Thomas cursed the fickle fates, and Kristin went on to become an even bigger movie and tv star, but she always had a hankering to get her Veronica Mars back on…

Fast forward to the wonderful world of today wherein Internets have provided the collective Veronica Mars-consciousness (channeled flawlessly by creative genius Rob) with the ability to make our Neptune-inspired dreams come true!  A little shy of a month ago Rob Thomas set up a Kickstarter campaign: The Veronica Mars Movie Project.

His goal: making a VM movie a reality for the fans.

Since it started, the project has completely surprised and stunned Hollywood with it’s Veronica Mar’s style kick-butt, can-do attitude (stun gun anyone?) – overwhelming expectations and smashing through one record after another.  It only goes to show that Kristin and Rob knew all along: the fans were and have been invested in the quality story-telling that was Veronica Mars, and it ended too soon and we want more. Rob started with the lofty goal of $2M, and we the fans have spoken by providing Rob, Kristen and the gang with two and a half times that much, $5M to date, to make us an amazing movie!

Now we’re coming down to the last 24 hours and want to make this the most funded single Kickstarter campaign ever, and we need your help!  You can join in for as little as $1, or as much as you want! You can help this be the best movie they can make and show the entertainment industry what we really want: not just reality tv and talent shows, but honest, intelligent entertainment that does not talk down to or insult its audience, entertainment with heart – and that’s a hell of a lot of fun to boot!  Just like The Beat’s music!!

Direct link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project

Thank you for listening and have a great day!

sirlou

p.s. The Backer gifts on this Kickstarter campaign are awesome, and amazingly good value for money!

Here’s an excerpt from the article, and you can read the full thing via the link below:

‘Stand Down Margaret’: English Beat’s Dave Wakeling Reflects on Anti-Thatcher Anthem

The American perspective of Margaret Thatcher, certainly from a foreign policy point of view, was that she was a trusted ally — of Ronald Reagan’s in particular — and did a pretty good job at it. And there’s an argument there.

But what most Americans didn’t see was the complete dismantling of towns and villages, of people’s lives being cut short and then cutting their own lives short because they thought, like the Sex Pistols said, that there was no future. That time signaled a breaking of the English spirit, where people who used to have each other’s back, and used to talk to strangers — Thatcher turned neighbors into competitors.

Direct link: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/stand-down-margaret-english-beats-435073

cheers,

sirlou
The Beat

Mrs. Thatcher’s passing is a momentous event for those of us who lived through the era when she, like her U.S. counterpart Ronald Reagan, stood like two Atlas-sized school bullies, looming over the globe, dictating and talking down to the lot of us. Reagan passed back in 2004, and now the Iron Lady joins him.

The Beat’s lead singer Dave Wakeling had this to say on learning of Mrs. Thatcher’s passing:

“Although I rejoice in no one’s death, Margaret Thatcher’s passing is an important event for those who lived under her regime. She made competitors out of neighbors, and people stopped talking at bus stops, even about the weather, in the shadow of her affected, pretend posh accent. Margaret made herself big on the tears and suffering of others, more Cromwell than Churchill, yet however much pain she caused us, I wish comfort and solace to her family today.”

In memorium, I share a couple versions of The Beat’s poignant call to Mrs. Thatcher, from back in the day, to try to amend her strident ways.

Wishing you all peace, love and unity..Two Swords and all that, innit…?

sirlou
The Beat

Just passing along a great article from a recent interview Dave did with GOLDMINE MAGAZINE. Check it out via the link below:

Direct Link: http://www.goldminemag.com/article/the-beat-goes-on-for-ranking-roger-dave-wakeling-and-company

cheers,

sirlou
The Beat

Just wanted to share the sweet video of two fans and a very happy crowd cheering on this English Beat themed wedding proposal on 1 February, 2013 in Chapel Hill, NC.

The band played “Hands Off She’s Mine” while Steve proposes to his lovely wife to be Crystal. Hands off indeed! Sorry lads, Crystals taken.

A very hearty congratulations, and here’s to you Steve and Crystal, from all of us in The Beat: a toast to love and laughter, and happily ever after!

cheers,

sirlou

The Beat helped ring in the holidays with a brilliant show the other night at House of Blues, Anaheim. If you weren’t able to get out to the show, don’t fret, because we’ve got a great slideshow t share with you, courtesy of OC Weekly photographer Mary Bell.

Check out the while slideshow by clicking on the image below:

Photo © Mary Bell
Web: www.marybellphotography.com
Email: marybellphotography@yahoo.com

Direct Link:
http://www.ocweekly.com/slideshow/english-beat-house-of-blues-anaheim-38421542/

cheers,

sirlou
The Beat

Here’s wishing you and yours a very, Holly Jolly Holiday Season, and a very Happy New Year!
Here’s hoping 2013 brings peace, love and unity to all humanity!

cheers,

sirlou
The Beat