An indispensable tool in the arsenal of any would be singer-songwriter. They were gigs, after all. Yes, there was a royal wedding, in sharp juxtaposition to inner-city decay, a wedding that would produce a genuine royal superstar, yet the riots the worst for a century would resonate throughout the country for years. It was our version of gallows' humour, as we were no longer surprised by break-ins, muggings or harassment from the locals. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Like all great records about social collapse, it seems to both fear and relish calamity. The riots were more than a collection of urban disturbances, they were a media flashpoint that drew international attention to the huge rift in ideologies between the left and the right in the country, as well as the gap between perception and reality in terms of how the government were coping with the economy. A notable recording artist, Jerry Dammers is a pioneer and keyboardist who has been dynamic in the melodic world for over forty years. I found myself being transfixed by the silence, alone in the vast city, padding around my own private video game. and The Spatial AKA Orchestra. Jerry Dammers attended King Henry VIII School, Coventry. She gives the civil servants hell, said one observer soon after she became prime minister. We had some really great times together and it is truly tragic that he has died so young. For a short while, I felt as though I could have been the last person in the capital. [Terry] Halls chirpy memories of the good old days, Rico Rodriguezs long elegiac trombone solo and that ghastly chorus of taunting wraiths. And it's nothing compared to the sacrifices the people in South Africa made to fight apartheid.". Nothing. We had almost been written off and then "Ghost Town" came out of the blue. He was in a little band in Coventry and I wanted to show. But it's important to remember that I did what any decent person would do in my position. On Tuesdays doing the door at a West End nightclub (where essentially you let in your friends for free and drank the profits) and on Wednesdays waking up with enough time to sign on. Jeffrey - Hilversum, Netherlands. I looked through the vast, seven-foot-wide venetian blind that faced the street and I saw dozens of local residents almost exclusively young black men running by my window carrying record players, televisions, CD players, radios, amplifiers, microwaves, small fridges, speaker systems, anything they could carry. Ghost Town was obviously referencing the situation. Beyond our punky start on stage, it was in the studio with Elvis Costello producing, where Terry was able to sing quietly, that I think his hidden strength came out, a delivery which brought out the melancholy in some of The Specials songs, and which I think a lot of people could relate to. and The Spatial AKA Orchestra.. The aural landscape is so vast that each member sounds disconnected from the next, says Dorian Lynskey, in his history of protest songs, 33 Revolutions Per Minute. Up until the lockdown he had been working late most nights, regularly seeing the crazies who still stalk the streets in the early hours in these desperate times and still freaked out by the desolation. Quotation Biography. I think it is good, but I want to give it my best shot. As they were due to appear on Top Of The Pops to promote the record, Terry Hall, Lynval Golding and Neville Staples told Dammers they were going to leave, appearing a few months later as Fun Boy Three (werent they just) with their debut single, The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum, a record that owed much to the lyrics and orchestration of Ghost Town. Their first, a live recording of Too Much Too Young, was essentially The Sex Pistols Bodies gone ska, but the intervening year saw The Specials ditch that punky-reggae template. [12][13], Collins took a recording of the separate tracks back to his home in Tottenham in north London where he spent three weeks mixing the song. I was friends with Brad and the two of us shared a house some time before the Specials . Having spent the last week or so working from home, trying to marshal the troops via Zoom, a few days before the lockdown I walked into the office to pick up some material I needed for a project we had just successfully moved to the autumn. Please enjoy your records. I would regularly hitch up to Coventry to sit in sullen working mens clubs with him and his extraordinary circle of friends and acquaintances, discussing socialism (we differed), the provenance of Prince Buster and the validity of Heaven 17. Terry Hall and Jerry Dammers, musicians with the New Wave/Ska band The Specials, are shown seated behind a microphone, wearing suits. Brixton would change over the next 30 years or so, especially after the millennium. Not a well-known name to many. Seriously, what have you got? [4] In response to the linking of the song to these events, singer Terry Hall said, "When we recorded 'Ghost Town', we were talking about [1980]'s riots in Bristol and Brixton. Once and for all. I spoke to him for this article a few days ago and he is as disconcerted by the current crisis as all of us. As I walked south, I may as well have been self-isolating, because I was completely, completely alone. Their records defined a slice of a generation who werent sure they wanted to be defined in the first place. I can remember walking out of a rehearsal in total despair because Neville would not try the ideas. But apart from that, I have no idea why Jerry isnt doing it. That he didnt turn into John Barry was a disappointment to me, but probably not to him. We had almost been written off and then Ghost Town came out of the blue.. The flat was right behind the Ritzy cinema, just off Coldharbour Lane, a first-floor, two-bedroomed housing association flat that backed on to a small courtyard and faced Brixtons Front Line. We were watching a live TV broadcast of the Brixton riots and saw this bloke smash a camera shop window and grab the biggest camera he could find, which looked like a Nikon with a motor drive, says my friend Chris Sullivan, the former owner of the Wag Club. Yes, I know Lennon wrote it, but its a brilliant live version and one of the real treats the bonus tracks add to this CD. I was thinking about Jerry Dammers recently. One afternoon that autumn, a few months after the 1981 riots, I had walked from a squat in Peckham up to The Oval and was just about to enter the Underground when I was approached by a gang of about a dozen skinheads. DJing, drumming in bands who were never going to get signed, running a Sunday market stall in Camden Lock having spent the early hours buying up bric-a-brac in Brick Lane. An appreciation by Jerry Dammers, founder of The Specials and 2 Tone records. The first I knew something was up was around five oclock in the afternoon, when I started to hear screaming, windows being smashed and the sound of accelerated running past the window. Realism? I dont think he likes the idea of touring, to be honest. It certainly didnt feel empowering, as the sensation of being alone was intensified by being in the city. Compared to the two-speed society of the tweenies (as economists are still trying to describe the second decade of the 21st century) 1985 seemed almost quaint. The resulting report into the riots concluded that they were due to complex political, social and economic factors that had created a disposition towards violent protest due to racial disadvantage, inner-city struggles and the attrition between the local communities and the police. Lord Richard Attenborough, Director of Cry Freedom, Lord Neil Kinnock and music promoter Jerry Dammers writer of song "Free Nelson Mandela". Just over 30 years ago, in March 1984, Jerry Dammers released Free Nelson Mandela with his band the Special AKA, and this straightforward, cheerful but angry demand for the release of South Africa's most celebrated political prisoner became a top 10 hit in the UK, a bestseller across Europe and a no 1 in New Zealand. He was highly intelligent, had a very mischievous sense of humour which could be very funny, and he played the drums with an incredible amount of energy which was a very important part of the Specials sound and live shows. Police aggression made everyone paranoid, and made people who had previously lived quite happily side by side turn against each other because it seemed like the safest thing to do. #jerrydammers #georgeshaw. and The Spatial AKA Orchestra. Dammers said, "People weren't cooperating. There is a suggestion that his real name was Gerald Danki but this seems unsubstantiated. It's hard to express how sad I feel about the death of Rico Rodriguez yesterday. Then, a few weeks later, in Toxteth, came the predictable sequel, followed by copycat riots in Southall, Moss Side, St Pauls, Handsworth and Chapeltown, in Leeds. The overall sense I wanted to convey was impending doom. Walk into a Brixton pub and you felt eyes upon you. Hes missing out on being in this incredible band. There was fighting at our gigs; there were lots of National Front people around. He was a lovely, sensitive, talented and unique person. Jerry Dammers has been out of the musical limelight since the mid-1980s Of all the band feuds in all the world, the fall-out between Dammers and his ex-cohorts has to be one of the worst. Recently, someone asked what Terry Hall was like. Gentrification eventually came to Brixton, inadvertently moving it upmarket not by much, but by enough. The January 2016 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK featuring Paul Weller, David Bowie, Best Of 2015, Roger Waters, Father John Misty, Pere Ubu, Robert Forster, Natalie Prass, James Brown, Bruce Springsteen, Sunn O))), Jonny Greenwood, Arthur Lee & Love, Neil Young, Janis Joplin and more. He is famous for founding 2 Tone Records and having his masterful skills on turntables and keyboards. Jerry Dammers also brought along several items as a gift to the 2-Tone museum. The Specials singer Terry Hall has denied the claims of founding member Jerry Dammers that he was kicked out of the band ahead of their forthcoming reunion. Pride followed prosperity and in the summer of 2011, when opportunistic revellers attending a street party used the excuse of the riot in Tottenham a few days earlier to loot and burn a string of shops in Brixton, local residents were incensed, calling the thugs pathetic Its just an excuse for the young ones to come and rob shops. The genesis of the song started back in 1980, after Dammers had witnessed the St Pauls riots in Bristol. The ska . Apr 09 2010. The fact that it became popular when it did was just a weird coincidence. No noise. RIP pic.twitter.com/yYBFyQmuLy, The Specials (@thespecials) December 29, 2015. The band had already had huge success as the standard-bearers of the multiracial 2 Tone organisation (which included the likes of Madness, The Selector and The Beat) and had had hits with Gangsters, A Message To You Rudy and Rat Race, among others. Jerry Dammers. Jerry Dammers has hit out at the Specials reunion, claiming he's been driven out of the band. For a short while, I felt as though I could have been the last person in the capital, the last person alive, last man standing. Founder of Two-Tone Records and core member of The Specials. Dammers recalls: "Terry was given to performing with his back to the audience. He then ran away, leaving the camera behind. Ils se sont mme parls ! "It's a fantastic honour and it's amazing that it's remembered in South Africa. Dud Thud. We went clubbing together, spent a few memorable New Years Eves in Bristol (where his parents were from), spent birthdays together and once DJd together at a miners benefit at the Wag Club in 1983 (he played politically correct funk while I played right-of-centre disco). Other Freedom Day events will include the premiere of the film One Humanity, which explores the history of the anti-apartheid campaign and the impact of the Mandela 70th birthday tribute concert, held at the old Wembley stadium in London in 1988 and seen by an estimated television audience of 600 million people around the world. Hand on my heart, this is what I feel is a bit sad for Jerry. Jerry Dammers Spatial AKA Orchestra. Back in 1981, walking around Electric Avenue and Atlantic Road after the first nights disturbance was nothing if not surreal. 29th December 2015. Dammers was the creative genius behind The Specials, the man who gave them their idiosyncratic musical tropes and who set them apart from the likes of The Selector, The Beat or Bad Manners. The record does not so much end as lose the will to go on, sinking back into the fog. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. The Broadwater Farm riot in Tottenham, in North London, a week later, was dominated by two deaths. To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. [17] The original Ghost Town car can be seen (and sat in) at the Coventry Music Museum. Turns out when he opened it up to do some repairs on the 1966 organ, he discovered service notes from 30+ years ago that led him to believe that he might indeed be in possession of Dammers iconic instrument. Sure, the band were earnest, but they were studiedly sarcastic, too, which endeared them to everyone from ageing punks to their younger siblings. there were riots and civil disobedience all over the country. Well, I had to put a piece of tissue under my chin because sweat was dripping off my face due to it being so scary one mistake and that would have been it! The Specials & 2 Tone Records founder Jerry Dammers, who didn't take part in band's reunion, wrote, "Terry's death is very shocking, horrible and tragic news," continuing, "Terry was so young. and The Spatial AKA Orchestra. They streamed into the four ground-floor flats and took anything they wanted that they could carry (again, audio equipment, vinyl, TVs). Theyd been looting in and around the shops in Brixton market and in a second I realised I was in the middle of a full-scale riot. However, overdubbing the flute nearly killed me because it was not on a free track. Dubbed Bloody Saturday by Time, the main riot took place on 11 April, and resulted in a mass confrontation between the mob and the Metropolitan Police. His father (Horace) became Dean of Bristol Cathedral. Simple Minds. Published Dec 10, 2008. Subscribe to our mag by Mojo Staff | Posted on 20 12 2022 All of a sudden the country appeared to be spiralling into an endless cycle of violence, framing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as the villain. Jeremy David Hounsell Dammers (born 22 May 1955) is a British musician who is a founder, keyboard player and primary songwriter of the Coventry, England, based ska revival band The Specials, The Special A.K.A. Northampton, Derngate Theatre. They were slightly yobby the NME called their debut album a speed and beer-crazed ska loon but they had an underlying social conscience. 10th December 2008. He wanted to do one date, in (the bands native) Coventry, in front of 30,000 people, at the football stadium [The Ricoh Arena], added Hall. Jerry Dammers, fundador del sello 2 Tone, letra que se opone directamente al gobierno . Photograph: Jo Wiser, ANC's glory fades as South Africa's 'born free' generation votes, 'I'm more mature than South African democracy itself', Theborn free generation: 20-year-olds in South Africa prepare for first vote video, Jerry Dammers: how I made Free Nelson Mandela, Nelson Mandela: the triumph of the protest song. Bristol Beacon. The Special AKA perform Racist Friend. We havent changed that much, we still take the piss out of each other, theres an understanding that hasnt gone away. Living in London you certainly got the feeling you were somehow living under siege. . Jerry Dammers has paid tribute to John Bradbury, the drummer with The Specials, who has died aged 62. Spent an afternoon listening to these without disappointment. Born 22 May 1955 in Ootacamund, Tamil Nadu, South India. View the profiles of people named Jerry Dammers. It was easier for her to stand back, aghast. One policeman said it looked like World War III. I thought that was a bit of a Take That thing. [12][13] Following further conversations with Dammers, Collins travelled up from his home in London to meet the Specials at their rehearsal studio and agreed to produce their new single. how did stephen walters lose his front teeth how did stephen walters lose his front teeth Man behind song that became an anti-apartheid anthem to receive award for outstanding work benefiting the country, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Jerry Dammers said the award was a 'fantastic honour'. In the days after the first riot, Brixton was a binary postcode: furious and violent at night and completely empty and silent during the day. Internal tensions within the band were also coming to a head when the single was being recorded, resulting in the song being the last single recorded by the original seven members of the group before splitting up. No sound. Member of The Specials Buy. And breaking that silence wasnt just the sound of petrol bombs and broken glass, it was the sound of Ghost Town by the architects of the recent two-tone revolution, The Specials. However, it was to come sooner than anyone thought, as Tesco bought a site on Acre Lane the day after the 1985 riots. The video's locations include driving through the Rotherhithe Tunnel and around semi-derelict areas of the East End as well as in Lothbury and Throgmorton Street in the financial district of the City of London in the early hours of daylight on Sunday morning, where the streets were deserted as it was the weekend. The next morning, Brixton looked as though it had been turned inside out, as everything that was usually inside someones house appeared to be outside, all the household detritus that looks so pathetic and parochial when removed from its natural habitat. The kaleidoscopic Ghost Town didnt offer balm for a world-weary pop-culture; rather it was a political exhortation. Its strange times.. Lonely Library feat. All along Hall has claimed that the door remained open to his former bandmate. Since the song had no proper beginning or ending during recording at Woodbine Street, Collins recreated the idea of fading in over a sound effect, which he had used previously on "Lift Off", the B-side of "At the Club". I said free Nelson Mandela. Deliaphonic x Boudica presents Stealing Sheep's Wow Machine Jerry Dammers. With its melancholic wailing, its hypnotic lope, its ominous organs and The people getting angry chant, there is no better mirror to the societal privations of 1981, a year that often felt on the brink of collapse. And hes missing out on that, and its sad for him, to be honest.. Back in 2009 I wrote sleevenotes for the rerelease of his solo album Laugh. Of course large-scale investments would have helped Brixton, although the more disquiet there was, the more unlikely any investment seemed. Jerry Dammers does not have a wife or a son. The late summer of 1981 was a wake-up call for so many people I knew, as we had all finished college and were experiencing the inevitability of life on the dole, looking for work while juggling the day-to-day existence of a life without structure or a support network. He has hours of material in the can, as he says, but needs time to get it into shape. When we all woke, to survey the damage, most people quickly squirrelled back to their homes, appalled and embarrassed by the carnage they saw all around them and by lunchtime the streets were empty again. Wrong!'"[4]. While punk was largely a cultural insurrection, repeatedly using thematic working-class imagery the brutalist modern tower block being the most obvious manifestation of this, a symbol of post-war progress that very quickly became a totem of social deprivation Ghost Town was a direct response to the urban distress that The Specials leader, Jerry Dammers, saw around him. The keyboard player wrote to The Guardian to dispute comments from singer Terry Hall regarding the band's upcoming reunion shows. Now Dammers is being honoured in South Africa, a country that he has never visited before. The Specials ' founder Jerry Dammers has revealed to Uncut that he recorded new Specials material with original members Horace Painter and Lynval Golding in 2003. It was last seen in British general . Biography. (Photo by Getty Images) Album. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. I knew the enemy was out there, just as it had been nearly 40 years ago. They were a gang five white men, two black who dressed well, spoke sharply and didnt look like they wanted to be messed with. 'Ghost Town' wasn't a free-for-all jam session. The week after the song was released bingo! Works . RIP https://t.co/05ULhUjqS9, Billy Bragg (@billybragg) December 29, 2015. Photograph: David Corio/Redferns The lead singer, Stan Campbell, was very young. The Guardian cites a statement released by the bands spokesperson praised the musicians influence on the 2 Tone scene. "Why?" I laughed out loud when he spat the line, but youre still fucking peasants as far as I can see, from Working Class Hero. The looters concentrated on the electrical shops, on the ghetto blasters, television sets and radios. [14] During this period Hall, Staple, Golding and Dammers all turned up at the house at various times to add further vocals. They didnt need to say anything, as it was implicit. The song was as much about the dissolution of the band as much as deindustrialisation and the toxicity of the streets. Free Nelson Mandela. Thatcher had a habit of invoking the pernicious legacy of the so-called permissive society whenever she was confronted with something she didnt understand. He taught me so much about what a proper musician is supposed . In 2002 Dammers told The Guardian, "You travelled from town to town and what was happening was terrible. I think he hid that a bit in his statement. All my condolences and sympathies go out to his wife and family., Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go's, who co-wrote "Our Lips Are Sealed" with Hall, wrote, "Gutted to hear of the passing of #terryhall. He also founded 2 Tone Records. It was Tambo's son Dali, the founder of Artists Against Apartheid, who asked Dammers to start a British branch of the movement, which demonstrated against Paul Simon at the Royal Albert Hall during his Graceland tour for breaking the cultural boycott. The shots of the band in the car were achieved by attaching a camera to the bonnet using a rubber sucker: Panter recalled that at one point the camera fell off (briefly seen in the finished video at 1:18) and scratched the car's paintwork, to the displeasure of the car's owner. Jeremy David Hounsell "Jerry" Dammers, (born 22 May 1955) is a British musician who is a founder, keyboard player and primary songwriter of the Coventry, England based ska revival band The Specials, The Special A.K.A. Surrounded by a burgeoning new romantic movement, two-tone felt very council estate, very rough and very monochromatic. . Begging you, begging you please. However, I also thought he might turn out to be our generations John Barry, scoring important movies with solemn yet iconic orchestral themes, balancing Jacques Derrida with Francis Lai, Scott Walker with Dr John. The record does not so much end as lose the will to go on, sinking back into fog! Along Hall has claimed jerry dammers son the door remained open to his former.! Records defined a slice of a take that thing being honoured in South Africa founding 2 Tone, letra se! Influence on the electrical shops, on the 2 Tone, letra que se opone directamente al.... 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