The Specials Live From The Cathedral' - The Final Offering

 

It was with great anticipation that I waited the weeks it took from ordering to this being dropped on the doorstep. 'The Specials Live From The Cathedral', definitively the last album from The Specials, one of the greatest bands to have come out of the UK, is what I am talking about here. With this album the band come full circle from the city's pubs and clubs of the late 1970's to the majestic ruins of Coventry Cathedral in 2019. And this is the bit that really hurts, Gunta and I missed it. She is a Cov girl (with German and Latvian thrown in too!) and our son is christened Rudi ('It's an international name' we told our parents... of course our friends all knew where we were coming from!). I would have given my right arm to be amid the ragged masonry for one of these dates.

The paradox of The Specials is that as the standard bearers of the 2 Tone label and all of the founding principles behind it, they were at times one of the most volatile bands that ever shared a stage! This was seemingly totally at odds with their consistent message of tolerance and unity! If the tensions that led to the demise of the original band in 1981, they were never far from the surface even after they came back together in 2008, after a 27 year absence from our lives. In many ways they just started up again from where they left off! But, this of course is what made The Specials well... special. Songs like 'Concrete Jungle', 'Too Much Too Young' and 'Why?' absorbed that tension and converted it into creative brilliance.

In 2019 The Specials enjoyed their first Number 1 album (whatever that means in this day and age!!) and it is fitting that these cathedral gigs gave the material from that album, 'Encore' a good airing, offering a brilliant counterpoint to the angry punk/Blue Beat mix of the first album. As an aside, to the detractors of 'Encore' who bemoaned the fact that the album was no 'Specials', Terry Hall responded with 'Did they not listen to 'More Specials'?' 

On this final recording, Coventry boys Terry and Lynval take the lead on the mike between songs. It is clear that they are revelling on the warm welcome that the band received during these shows. 'This is the first time I've ever dedicated a song to a chip shop.... this is for the Parson's Nose' says Terry before launching into his musical autobiography of his youth in the city, 'Friday Night, Saturday Morning'.

Listening to this, yes I am angry with myself for the fact that we weren't there but I am equally thankful that we had the opportunity to see then a dozen times or so between 2009 and 2021. If the music changed with time the message remained the same, unbendingly so.

Every time I have been to that city and passed the 'Welcome to Coventry' signs I wonder just how much longer it will take before Walt Jabsco will appear on the sign to add his own skankin' welcome! 

Colston Hall Bristol 11th July 1980

 

And a Happy Birthday to this one from the 'Who wants The World?' tour. It has been posted on here previously (2012) but is posted here again with new artwork. Whilst it is not going to win any awards for sound quality, it is not so bad and great if you were lucky enough to have been in Bristol on this night a mere 46 years ago.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-OCS636zrEHAVcfmv

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-TdrTEUymNYdL1n2O

Ant Music For Sex People - Adam And The Ants TFTLTYTD #24

 

Whilst this is a familiar thread on the site, instead of marking the life of a musician. this time around I an remembering a famous or should that be infamous character who was failed the British legal system. Last Wednesday, the Home Secretary, David Lammy announced that by royal consent the death sentence carried out on Ruth Ellis was being commuted to life imprisonment. Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom. The sentence was carried out on 13th July 1955 and was the culmination of the case in which Ellis was tried for the murder of her lover, David Blakely.

I do not intend to repeat the history here, but if you are unfamiliar with the case please do take a look her the entry on Wikipedia (other online resources are available!). It is a terrible story. Ruth, her mother and sister were physically and sexually abused by her father from a very young age. She left home for the big city where she found work in prostitution and in the clubs of Soho. In this time she also had a string of poor relationships with men characterised by physical and psychological abuse.

In 1953 she met Blakely, educated at public school and Sandhurst and a racing driver to boot and they were soon living together despite the fact that Blakely was engaged to another woman. In time Ellis started seeing another man, Desmond Cussen, and started living with him whilst the relationship with Blakely continued. Ellis went through these years often pregnant, losing one child through miscarriage after being punched in the stomach by Blakely.

On 10th April 1955 she travelled by cab to Hampstead in search of David Blakely, eventually locating him in the Magdala public house. When he emerged from the pub with a male friend and went to his car Ruth Ellis shot him repeatedly. With her abusive lover fatally wounded on the ground she was quickly apprehended by an off-duty policeman. She made no attempt to flee. Upon her arrest she stated only "I am guilty, I'm a little confused."

Tried and sentenced at the Old Bailey on 20th June she was hanged by Albert Pierrepoint at Holloway prison and buried within the grounds of the prison. Later in the 1970's Ellis's remains were exhumed and reburied in Amersham in Buckinghamshire.

Hers was a life in freefall from a young age and she was just 28 when executed. There was never a denial of culpability on Ruth Ellis's part for the crime that she committed and was thus always going to be punished for her actions. However, this was 1955, an era in which the extreme provocation of domestic abuse and coercive control held little sway in a British court of law.

The Family tragedy did not end with the execution of Ruth, subsequent to her hanging, suicide took other close members of the family, with her first husband and her son taking their own lives in 1958 and 1982 respectively. Ruth Ellis's mother attempted suicide by gassing in 1969.

If ever their was a case with extenuating circumstances this was it. The Ruth Ellis case ultimately did much to change the law in the UK, from the abolition of capital punishment to the acknowledgement of the impact of domestic abuse in criminal behaviour.

The link to Adam and the Ants is tenuous, but their 'Song For Ruth Ellis' is the only song that I am aware of that references this infamous British murder case. The track was recorded in several demo sessions that the Ants did prior to getting signed to 'Do It' records. I have said it elsewhere but as good as 'Dirk Wears White Sox' is, it is undeniably true that much of the material that preceded it is equally as good if not better. This I guess is the reason why these various demo sessions are so enduringly popular.

The BBC's reporting of the granting of a conditional pardoning can be found here.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-DZHYE23xaWuDETEX

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-kBY8fRCP3gTEz38a

'Waiting around in London hoping to get permission for just an afternoon!'

Surely 1978 marked the height of the bands notoriety, particularly in London. Here you had the situation that a London band that were outselling all of their contemporaries were consistently having any plans to play in the capital blocked. An ongoing feud with the Greater London Council (GLC) was understood to be behind it all. Here's how the music weeklies reported  on how The Stranglers' camp struggled with the arbiters of good taste in London.

Record Mirror (6th May 1978)

New Musical Express (6th May 1978)

New Musical Express (20th May 1978)

Finally, management threw in the towel, accepted the fact that for the time being a London date for The Stranglers was not in the offing and arrangements were made to bus fans wanting, but struggling to see the band, to the Bingley Hall gig.

Record Mirror (20th May 1978)

At this time Burnel went on record to say that if he had his way the May gigs that were going ahead would be scrapped in favour of club gigs which were 'fairer for the kids'. As issues with the GLC rumbled on over the summer of '78, the bass player ultimately got his way when the band returned to their pub rock roots to play a handful of 'secret' pub gigs in their old London haunts.

In the battle with the GLC, The Stranglers pretty much closed the chapter with the Battersea Park gig. After Battersea, the band's music took off in a markedly different direction that appeared to change local authorities attitudes to the band (although JJ had some issues with bookings on his Euroman tour going into 1979). Moving forward, after 1978 issues with the band playing in the UK were largely resolved. Gigs on the Continent however were a different matter...

Cliffs Pavilion Southend 13th March 2015

 

A good sounding recording here for a Saturday afternoon. One of Chatts that he shared with me some years back. It's in WAV format as I cannot locate the original FLAC files, however Chatts's info file is included in the download.

'Four Horsemen' is in there, that one should have appeared more regularly than it ever did.

WAV: https://we.tl/t-5jBVCUfZMB6bxES7

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-7AQ85d9T7PjpipBt

Dead Kennedys Central London Polytechnic 26th November 1982 ('Spend July 4th With Dead Kennedys)

 

So today is a big anniversary, 4th July 2026. A date that marks 250 years of American Independence. Without doubt it is a great country with some laudable beliefs and principles... only of late it has gone awry. Let the orange man-baby spout his incoherent nonsense today... it will soon be over.

Whilst this great recording of the Dead Kennedys makes reference to 4th July, like most of what Trump utters, it is an untruth. The gig took place at Central London Polytechnic on 26th November 1982 where the band were promoting their soon to be released 'Plastic Surgery Disasters'.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-2TLqBENtmWdXjMua

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-qVaBYffsts9PQ5Rb

The Jam Park West Chicago 6th March 1980

 

Bruce Foxton has been in the news in the last couple of weeks. Due to ongoing health issues he was forced to cancel a couple of his new band's gigs. In a subsequent post it transpires that on top of the ongoing oncology treatments/follow ups that he has, he has now in addition received a Parkinson's diagnosis. We wish Bruce all the best!

Here is a brilliant radio broadcast from the US leg of the 'Setting Sons' tour. At that time the band were in rude health and on top of the world.

An inferior version of this gig was posted on here many years ago for which the links have been long defunct (rapidshare!).

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-gDVuhHGbPAOtBwrP

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-7NhP0Ppsd2sNhMW9