The 2014 Advent-ure : #13

As usual reggae and ska have been conspicuous by their general absence out in the wild this year. I have picked up a few bits and I can say every 45 I have found has been buried alone in a mountain of 70s and 80s pop and rock. This was one of them. Digging deep pays in the end. I can't help but wonder how they get there in the first place. I can't believe I've missed a reggae motherlode and just been left with a scrap, but if I have then I'm happy with the scraps.

The Skatalites - Beardman Ska   1965

Desmond Dekker - Get Up Edina  1963

My Island 45 is a 1980 press with Bonanza Ska on the A side. There is some sense to this being found amongst average 70s/80s pop fodder. But this doesn't apply to other reggae 45s I have found this year. Another one later in this series.

Toe poke

On Saturday, after yet another shift painting kitchen cabinets (almost finished now), I experienced shooting pains in my right big toe. (Sorry to bore you with my minor ailments, but I have been experiencing these pains off and on for a year or so now. In a recent development the pain seems to alternate between my right toe and my right thumb!) Anyway, the pains on Saturday were a bit worse than usual and caused me to hop about a bit and audibly wince. Mrs Darce was not impressed and, as usual, offered no sympathy, giving me instead one of those ‘man up’ looks. I hobbled over to the sofa, sat down and gave my toe a good rub and a squeeze.

Yesterday morning, early doors at the car boot, once again records were thin on the ground. The round had been done and I was talking to some other record hunters bemoaning the lack of reggae vinyl, in any condition, that I had come across this year (no doubt sounding like a broken record as it, quite frankly, has always been thus it seems). After the conversation had reached its natural conclusion I bid my compadres farewell and headed off to another car boot. Records were more in evidence at this venue than they had been for some time. At one table I paused and looked dubiously at what was fairly clearly going to be a stack of run of the mill 70s/80s pop singles. Expectations are never high when a lot of pic sleeves are visible but I have to look through them just in case. As it turned out my instincts were correct on both counts: the singles were all 70s/80s pop rubbish except, bizarrely, for a sleeveless one in the middle of the stack… a Ska single from Delroy Wilson with the title Squeeze Your Toe!  

Now that is worthy of a post I thought, and so it is that Feel It has been kick started (or, rather, toe poked) into life again.

This 45 (at least the playing surface) looks a bit battered, par for the course on most reggae and ska records found in the wild, but it plays through OK. A clean with the magic fluid has improved it a bit and, when I get around to it, the PVA glue treatment may help some more. In the meantime enjoy Delroy Wilson complete with the noise of 50 years of existence.

The next time my toe hurts I will play this 45.

Delroy Wilson – Squeeze Your Toe (ComeDown From Your Palms And Pray) 1963

Here’s the B side too…

Dimples & Delroy – Sugar Pie 1963