The Specials
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Review by Vivien Goldman, New Musical Express, 20 September 1980
YOU REMEMBER the scene from Hollywood: overnight the lovable brat grows up into the most compelling person in the room. Suddenly – you're beautiful! ...
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The Clash/The Specials: Friar's, Aylesbury
Live Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 8 July 1978
FOR PEOPLE who like to put things in neat little pecking orders – and because of our conditioning there's a lot of them – the ...
The Specials: Moonlight Club, London
Live Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 24 March 1979
Speciality of the house ...
The Specials: Rude Boys in the Jungle
Profile and Interview by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 7 April 1979
DAVE McCULLOUGH REJOICES AS THE SPECIAL AKA (MORE COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE SPECIALS) BREAK FREE AND GAIN COMPLETE CONTROL. ...
The Damned/UK Subs/The Specials: The Lyceum, London
Live Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 21 April 1979
WITH ENOUGH police grouped manacingly outside in coaches, in squad cars and standing around to supervise a couple of Manchester United away fixtures, I suppose ...
The Specials: Music Machine, London
Live Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 19 May 1979
Tighten up: Long Shot Kick The Bucket (Slight Return) ...
Gang Of Four, Mekons, Specials, Delta Five: Lyceum, London
Live Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 9 June 1979
"ROOD BOIZE" Yeah! "ROOOOODD BOOIZZZZ" Uh huh! ...
The Specials, Madness, The Selecter: Electric Ballroom, London
Live Review by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 4 August 1979
In the heat of the night ...
The Specials: Don't Call Me Ska-Face!
Profile and Interview by David Hepworth, Smash Hits, 6 September 1979
SO WHAT'S SPECIAL ABOUT THE SPECIALS? David Hepworth is the man with the answers ...
Interview by Deanne Pearson, New York Rocker, October 1979
THE SPECIALS A.K.A., a.k.a. the Specials. They are contracted under both names, adding to the confusion already created by billings under one name or the ...
2-Tone: Ska Authentic And More.
Report by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 6 October 1979
GARRY BUSHELL CHECKS OUT 2-TONE ...
The Specials: Specials (2 Tone CDL TT5001)***
Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 20 October 1979
Rudies in a rut ...
The Specials: Specials (Two Tone)
Review by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 20 October 1979
YOU JUST can't shake the tunes out of your head, can't stop beating your feet to the heat as The Specials' unique excitement surges through ...
Specials, Selecter, Dexy's Midnight Runners: Lewisham Odeon, London
Live Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 8 December 1979
Top skanking inna Lewisham ...
The Specials, The Selecter: Lyceum, London
Live Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 15 December 1979
TWO TOP FIVE two-tone bands in one night. The message comes through loud and clear: rude bwoy can't fail. ...
Profile by Van Gosse, The Village Voice, January 1980
DADUHDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA/DAduhDA.... Triplets in two-four, the sound of the Specials: call it ska, call it punky reggae, it's a jumping groove, the group going up and ...
The Specials: Hurrah, New York NY
Live Review by Roy Trakin, Melody Maker, 2 February 1980
Up to you ...
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 3 February 1980
MADNESS PROVIDED the L.A. rock audience with its first tantalizing taste of the ska sound that has taken off in England in the past six ...
Live Review by Andy Schwartz, New York Rocker, March 1980
IF THE REACTION of the New York rock press is any indication (and it usually isn't), the Specials are going to be Very Big In ...
The Specials: The Specials (Chrysalis)
Review by Don Waller, New York Rocker, March 1980
BY THE END of side one, I found myself plastered spread-eagled to the ceiling, tongue and eyes bulging, my face frozen in a delirious grin. ...
The Specials: Stanford University, California
Live Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 1 March 1980
THE SPECIALS' mini-tour of California has, predictably enough, been full of incident. Three sold-out nights at the Whisky in LA, the club all decorated in ...
The Specials: The Whisky, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 1 March 1980
WE GOT to hear the second – the best – half of the show twice. The first time sardined in the long line outside the ...
The Specials: The Whisky, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Mark Leviton, BAM, 7 March 1980
BEFORE THERE was reggae as we now know it, Jamaica had a ferociously happy, syncopated music variously called bluebeat, rock steady or ska. ...
The Specials: Rude Boys Can't Fail
Report by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 15 March 1980
THEY DON'T muck about, the Yanks. These buildings go all the way up like the architect was getting paid by the cubic foot although exactly ...
Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 16 March 1980
ROCK MUSIC'S vitality depends on a constant influx of new sounds. Just when American audiences are catching on to the three-year-old British punk/new-wave movement, a ...
Specials: Rude Boys Spread Manure In Yank Bed Of Roses
Profile by Simon Frith, Creem, April 1980
THE SPECIALS are the first group I've followed from first gig to international stardom. Nobody else realizes this, but their first ever press mention was, ...
The Specials: The Specials (Chrysalis)
Review by Jim Farber, Creem, April 1980
BRITISH PEOPLE have given the world plenty of jerky things over the course of history: mercantilism, the white man's burden, Mary Poppins. But perhaps the ...
The Specials: Scam & Scandal In The Family
Report by Andy Schwartz, New York Rocker, May 1980
IN THE LAST issue of NY Rocker (#27/March '80), we printed an "Emergency Editorial" decrying the $10.00 price of tickets to the Specials' show presented on March ...
The Specials: Today Coventry, Tomorrow — Coventry
Interview by David Hepworth, Smash Hits, 29 May 1980
Terry Hall treats David Hepworth to a short course in TwoTonics and explains how to keep out of the Rat Race. ...
The Specials: Too Much Too Young
Report and Interview by Paolo Hewitt, Melody Maker, 21 June 1980
PAULO HEWITT joined the Specials Seaside Tour expecting fun and frolics. He found a band grappling with self-doubt and the 2-Tone monster. ...
The Specials: More Specials (2-Tone)*****
Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 20 September 1980
TO BET or not to bet, that is the question. Whether it be nobler to sit pretty with a winning formula or take a gamble ...
The Specials: Stop The Tour, I Want To Get Off
Report and Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 27 September 1980
IN ST AUSTELL, Cornwall, it is only a few minutes since the pubs have opened for Sunday lunchtime. The red-faced moustachioed police sergeant and the ...
Report and Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 4 October 1980
Big day for JA precludes Specials occasion ...
The Specials: More Specials (Chrysalis)
Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 20 November 1980
CAUTION: Anyone expecting More Specials to duplicate the ferocious wallop of the British ska band’s live performances or debut LP is in for a surprise. ...
The Specials: More Specials (Chrysalis CHRS1303); Madness: Absolutely (Sire SRK6094)
Review by Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, January 1981
THE MUSICAL trend of the year in Britain, a nation which obviously relishes its fads, was the emergence of the neo-ska bands. Buoyed by a ...
The Specials: More Specials (Chrysalis/2-Tone)
Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, March 1981
SO HOW would you like to be sitting on top of the Specials' 2-Tone global music empire right about now? You can bet it's a ...
The Specials: English Music Scene Like a 'Ghost Town'
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 15 August 1981
This town coming like a ghost town... Bands won't play no more — Too much fighting on the dance floor... Why must ...
Report and Interview by Julie Panebianco, Boston Rock, 1 October 1981
INSIDE SPIT, amid cans of Tab and boxes of equipment sat the Go-Go's looking... well, miserable. ...
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
Report by Betsy Sherman, Boston Rock, 1 October 1981
Merit Badges Goes To Dianaland ...
Report and Interview by Betsy Sherman, Boston Rock, 1 October 1981
YOU COULD'VE taken a seat in the Bradford Hotel lobby and gotten a pretty good show for free. Besides all manner of impatient fans milling ...
The English Beat: Wha'ppen? (Sire); The Specials: 'Ghost Town' (EP)
Review by John Swenson, Musician, November 1981
TWO TONE is not merely the introduction of a black sensibility in British pop for the first time, it's a true melding of the interracial ...
Report by Fred Dellar, Andrew Tyler, New Musical Express, 16 January 1982
FRED DELLAR and ANDREW TYLER report on the vicious race attack that put Lynval Golding in hospital ...
Report and Interview by Johnny Black, Smash Hits, 21 January 1982
The rise and rise of the pop video has brought mini-movies into every living room; Adam in panto, The Human League in detective thrillers, Barry ...
Profile and Interview by Deanne Pearson, The Face, February 1982
From the Wareika Hills to Top of the Pops. A profile of Rico, the Specials trombone ace, with a side order of oaths for the ...
The Special AKA: The Skars Have Healed
Interview by Tony Fletcher, Jamming!, March 1984
"WHO IS he anyway?" enquires one of the tastelessly coiffeured punkettes of Jerry Dammers as the main man poses for photos in Soho's Chinatown. Jerry ...
Special AKA: New Band, Old Cause
Profile and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 8 November 1984
SAN FRANCISCO: Jerry Dammers, leader of the Special AKA, is a very idealistic man. He believes, for instance, that popular songs can change the way ...
The End of 2-Tone: Madness/The Specials/The Selecter
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1986
Farewell, Madness – the last of the 2-Tone tribe. Phil Sutcliffe follows the fate of the three groups that pioneered the ska revival. ...
The Specials: More Specials (2-Tone)
Review by Lloyd Bradley, Q, July 1989
GIVEN THE QUANTITY of ska compilations on the market at the moment, it's a good time to revive the ska revival of 10 years ago. ...
RAR! RAR! Disputin'! The History of Rock Against Racism
Retrospective by John Harris, New Musical Express, 16 October 1993
ON APRIL 16, 1990, a proud man who'd spent 27 years in the custody of a vicious racist regime arrived in London. He'd come to ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, May 2002
Digitally remastered and enhanced with two videos per disc, the Sound Of Young Coventry before The Streets ...
Jerry Dammers: A Ghost From The Past
Interview by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 20 April 2007
THE MAN WHO created 2-Tone, Coventry's own Motown, and wrote Britain's most perfect fusing of politics and pop, the single 'Ghost Town' by his great ...
The Specials: The Making of 'Ghost Town'
Retrospective and Interview by Nick Hasted, Uncut, October 2007
Spring 1981: the Coventry boys' eerily funky hymn to their home city nailed the spirit of the times, and remains the best piece of political ...
The Specials: Original Gangsters
Retrospective and Interview by Lois Wilson, MOJO, May 2008
Out of the inner-city misery and post-punk experiment of the late '70s came a group of black and white Coventry kids called the Specials who ...
The Specials 2009. But Where's Jerry?
Report and Interview by Nick Hasted, Uncut, April 2009
SLIGHTLY DOWNWIND of Pentonville Prison in a north London photographer's studio, six Specials are posing for their first pictures since 1981. ...
The Specials: O2 Academy, Newcastle****
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 24 April 2009
THE PAST three decades seemed to fall away when the Specials began their comeback tour with this explosive and exciting performance in Newcastle upon Tyne. ...
The Specials: 02 Academy, Birmingham
Live Review by Simon Witter, Daily Telegraph, 27 April 2009
FROM AGING ROCKERS who won’t let it be to '80s ravers going to pilled-up, Facebook-coordinated reunions, everybody these days is raging against the dying of ...
Jerry Dammers: Booted Out of the Band I Founded
Report and Interview by Chris Salewicz, Daily Telegraph, 3 March 2010
Jerry Dammers talks about his exotic new project – and why he wasn't part of the Specials' reunion. ...
The Specials: Apollo, Manchester
Live Review by John Robb, Rock's Backpages, 16 October 2011
THE SPECIALS, of course, not only sound great, they look great. They hit the stage in matching suits. Razor stitched threads that are cut from ...
Bassists: Let's Stick Together
Overview by James Medd, The Word, February 2012
They are "the glue" that cements the music, the mysterious put-upon souls plying their crucial trade in a cloud of dry ice by the drum-riser. ...
The Specials: Rude Standards Agency
Report and Interview by Tom Doyle, MOJO, March 2013
The Specials storm the BBC studios, tantalise with talk of new bhangra, Arabic and jazz material. ...
Richard Russell: Rich Pickings
Interview by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, March 2018
As Richard Russell's collaborative album, Everything Is Recorded, is released, RC's Jamie Atkins meets him to talk about the recording and the music that led ...
Memoir by Paul Wellings, Louder Than War, June 2021
10. The Good, The Bad And The Queen, Rock Against Racism 30th anniversary, Victoria Park, London. 2008 I went to the original RAR gigs and ...
Memoir by Paul Wellings, Louder Than War, June 2021
10. Terry Farley, Superstar House DJ Terry was my Editor at Boys Own fanzine. He was a country bumpkin from Royal Berkshire but he had ...
see also Fun Boy Three
see also Terry Hall
see also Roddy Radiation & The Tearjerkers
see also Special AKA, The
see also Jerry Dammers
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