Big D and The Kids Table - 'For the Damned, The Dumb & The Delirious'

You could go one of two ways with For the Damned, the Dumb & the Delirious, the new back-to-basics ska-punk record from Big D and the Kids Table. Either it’s a victory lap after all the genre hopping the band committed before inventing stroll, a new ska subgenre, on 2009’s Fluent in Stroll, or a creative backpedal after that record alienated some the D’s fan base. Given that Damned is steadfastly adequate, both assessments are fair.

Damned takes on elements from the D’s last three proper albums, How It Goes, Strictly Rude and Stroll, essentially making it a career overview in terms of style, if not quality. There’s the occasional dip into dub (“Roxboury (Roots n’ Shoots)”) and a couple of tracks featuring Stroll’s backing vocalists, the Doped Up Dollies, such as “Stringers.” But for the most park, it’s the ska-punk old school fans loved on Good Luck and Gipsy Hill.

While I love Rude and Stroll, I was still excited to hear D reunite with the mighty “fast beat,” and for the first few tracks, Damned is a fast, fun summertime record. “Walls” opens with such a classic How It Goes riff that I forgot Sean P. Rogan isn’t in the band anymore. The horns come in at just the right moment to push that song over. “Clothes Off” keeps the good vibes going, even if that chorus is way too sloppy. “Modern American Gypsy” is another quality rocker, while “Best of Them All” is top notch joke song about drankin’ with a slight Dropkick Murphys edge.

So far, so good, but not long after “Best of Them All,” Damned starts to peter out. Or rather, it repeats D’s previous successes. “Riot Girl” is another peppy ode to a brassy lady in the vein of “Doped Up Dollies on a One Way Ticket to Blood” or “My Girlfriend’s On Drugs,” but by this point in the band’s career you know where the song’s going. The way frontman David McWane keeps using the phrase “riot girl” comes off calculated, as if to say, “Forget that I wrote about being a scumbag to women on ‘Shining On;’ I’m down with feminism.’” Taking a stab at political hardcore on “Brain’s-a-Bomb” doesn’t go over so well either. A large chunk of the album’s middle is forgettable.

Damned rights itself near the end, and by the time “One Day” and the hidden track pass by, it’s even enjoyable. But in trying to recreate the band’s supposed glory days, it comes off as second rate nostalgia. While Damned doesn’t tarnish the D’s legacy and certainly boasts enough solid-to-good songs to justify its existence, it’s still a major disappointment after the string of creative successes the band pulled off last decade.

Playlist: Big D and The Kids Table

[Playlist is an attempt to distill my favorite artists to 80-minute compilations and, hopefully, provide a gateway into their music.]

Some say the best ska band around today is The Toasters. Or Streetlight Manifesto. Or The Skatalites. I like my ska sweetened with a dash of the punx, though, so I've always been partial to Less Than Jake and today's Playlist subject, Big D and The Kids Table. The band is ideal Playlist material - five full-lengths, a bunch of EPs, and plenty of non-album tracks fill out their discography, with a few dead ends and less-than-stellar releases mixed among some of the best ska albums of the Aughties.

To that end, this mix represents only certain aspects of the group's catalog. Their rap album, Porch Life, is not on here, because it's so bad that the group retroactively declared it a joke that no one got. Same for the remix records. Their pre-Gipsy Hill EP kind of got the shaft here too, with only "Find Out" from 1999's Good Luck showing up. I do feel bad about not giving that album (or the band's Shot By Lammi split) more love, but I only got 80 minutes to work with, and there are way more songs to discuss. So, apologies to "Dirt Lip," "Myself," and the title track.

What I was able to fit, in, though, were highlights from the band's three best full-lengths, each of which have their own style. How It Goes is where the band perfects their ska/punk sound. Strictly Rude skews more towards pure ska. Fluent in Stroll is where the group invents their own style, which they called "stroll," a hybrid of ska, punk, and R&B that recalls Northern Soul and Two-Tone at the same time. I've also thrown in some non-LP tracks for variety.

Oh, and a word about the homoerotic title: My roommate Eric and I are being wrastlin' fans and played Smackdown vs. Raw a lot. I quickly developed a love for '80s icon Rick Rude, with his gyrating sex organs and thick mustache. In those games, you can custom design entrances, which we took advantage of once we realized we could make dudes make out. Rude and Marc "The Alpha Male" Cor Von became Strictly Male, which combined Cor Von's nickname with a Big D reference. Randy Orton served as manager/third fighter when needed. So, that's where that came from. Don't you love my stories?!


Strictly Male

1. "Checklist," The Gipsy Hill EP [This is the song that got me into them.]
2. "LAX," How It Goes
3. "Taking Back the Rhythm," Boston to Beijing [from their split with Brain Failure]
4. "Steady Riot," Strictly Rude
5. "Not Fucking Around," Fluent in Stroll
6. "Evil Girl/Angry Girl," The Gipsy Hill EP
7. "Noise Complaint," Strictly Rude
8. "Souped-Up Vinyl," Strictly Rude
9. "Doped Up Dollies on a One Way Ticket to Blood," Fluent in Stroll
10. "Those Kids Suck," The Gipsy Hill EP
11. "Little Bitch," How It Goes
12. "175," How It Goes
13. "Try Out Your Voice," Strictly Rude
14. "Find Out," Good Luck
15. "President," How It Goes
16. "Salem Girls," Salem Girls
17. "Strictly Rude," Strictly Rude [My girlfriend hates this song]
18. "A Kiss A Week," Fluent in Stroll
19. "New England," The Gipsy Hill EP
20. "Halfway Home," Strictly Rude [vinyl only], also available on the Noise Complaint EP
21. "We Can Live Anywhere," Fluent in Stroll
22. Moment Without an End," How It Goes [I've always associated this with cancer ever since it ended up on the In Honor: A Compilation to Beat Cancer benefit comp, which in a weird way makes the lyrics more hopeful.]

Vinyl Vednesday 1/6

[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it kinda is. Since Picasso Blue is posting the top 100 albums of the decade this week – 20 a day ya’ll – VV will be looking at three of those picks on wax. E-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]

Records: Big D and The Kids Table’s Strictly Rude (2007) on black and white, Flogging Molly’s Swagger (2000) on clear green, and Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros’ Streetcore (2003) on black.

Place of Purchase: Strictly Rude came from the kinda sketchy Springman Records. Swagger was purchased at Repo Records in Philadelphia. Streetcore was the hardest to track down; I eventually overpaid to get it on eBay.

Thoughts: Given that these all ended up on the My Decade in Music list, you can imagine how much I love each of these albums. I’m pretty selective in my ska tastes, but man oh man do I love Big D and The Kids Table almost unconditionally. Strictly Rude is my favorite D album overall. It’s the most dub-influenced, marking the beginning of the end for the band’s punk influence. It was a bitch getting the album on vinyl – Springman “forgot” to mail it for about five months – but once it finally came, my anger gave way to joy, as I dropped my needle on tracks like “Souped-Up Vinyl,” “Try Out Your Voice,” and vinyl exclusive “Halfway Home,” which is one of my favorite D songs ever. Which reminds me; I still have to buy Fluent in Stroll on wax.

A lot of people compare ’em to the Pogues (Celtic folk + punk rock), but I’ve always preferred Flogging Molly. Their debut, Swagger, remains their best album, although last year’s Float is a close second. Plus, their whole discography is worth owning, so ranking the albums seems a little beside the point. Still, though, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to recapture the thrill of hearing Irish stompers like “Salty Dog” or “Devil’s Dance Floor” again. As an Irish-American teen with a love of punk, Swagger struck a couple dozen chords with me, combining two sounds I was familiar with (Irish folk and punk) into something completely different. I’ve since heard several other bands/albums in that same vein, and save for Rum Sodomy & the Lash, they’ve all been a waste of my time. The previously mentioned celebratory tracks mix so well with sadder songs like “The Worst Day Since Yesterday” and “Life in a Tenement Square” that Swagger fits pretty much any mood I’m in.

While I already owned The Clash’s The Singles prior to ’03, Streetcore was my real indoctrination into the world of Strummerville. I originally got a promo CD of it from Sam Goody, my place of employment at the time, and picked up the vinyl pressing a few years later. I received a picture disc seven-inch of “Coma Girl” backed with a cover of The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” in the mail today, so I think it’s pretty clear how much I love Strummer, The Mescaleros, and this album. “Coma Girl,” a love letter to touring with his daughter, is the best song Strummer finished for Streetcore before passing away Dec. 22, 2002. But the album doesn’t let up from there, alternating between heavy dub thumpers like “Get Down Moses” and acoustic demos like “Redemption Song.” If “Coma Girl” is the penultimate “happy” song of the Mescaleros’ catalogue, then closing track “Silver and Gold” is the saddest. Strummer covered the tune on a four-track for the heck of it, promising to “kiss all the pretty girls” and live life to the fullest before remarking “But I got to hurry up / Before I grow too old.” Even though he made it to 50 (and, uh, wrote freaking London Calling), I still feel like Strummer was cut down in his prime, and a fourth Mescaleros disc remains one of my most wanted/impossible wishes.

Big D and The Kids Table - 'Fluent in Stroll'

Big D and The Kids Table have always challenged themselves within their ska tunes, bouncing from ska-punk to two-tone to techno to hip-hop to the Salem witch trials over the years. With new full-length Fluent in Stroll, the Boston band takes on two new skancepts, with the first being LOVE. Ska songs about romance are perfect for summer, and Fluent in Stroll delivers another in a series of strong albums from the D. It’s also the first D record that isn’t a tribute to a style, but rather a new innovation called “stroll,” a mix of double-dutch, ska, reggae, and soul. The band’s punk elements are pretty much gone – most noticeably on tracks like “Stop, Look & Listen (Shake Life Up)” and “Known to Be Blue” – and this new sunny, fun genre complements the love songs better.

The fellas receive further help with their odes to the opposite sex from backing vocal group The Doped Up Dollies. The quartet announces their presence right away on track one, “Doped Up Dollies on a One Way Ticket to Blood.” They get fun times rolling with Internet references and schoolyard rhymes. Frontman David McWane carves out a little vocal niche for himself, describing his special lady friend as “See my mujer impressionante is known to dance / with sleeping feline eyes / ‘Cause she’s a long cat / a sly cat / Not someone going your way / She’s quite a little ninja / My tough little ninja.” Later in the song, McWane and his chick escape on an elephant after busting a crime, which explains the ninja bit. Also, yeah, this song is awesome. The Dollies are a welcome addition to the group, enhancing the D’s songs without cluttering them up. From the dubious boozing advice of “A Kiss A Week” to the posi-love jam “We Can Live Anywhere!” to the raucous lecturing of the title track, the Dollies provide a highlight in a record already full of ‘em. I hope the lasses tour with the band and, if so, serve up their own interpretations to the band’s older material.

Not that the record live and dies on the Dollies’ breath. “Describing the Sky” recycles the horn section from “Shining On,” but it’s a good part, so the song gets a passing grade. Big D deserves an A+, however, for track three, “Not Fucking Around.” Hit with a series of ridiculous hypothetical questions meant to test his fidelity, McWane fires back with brilliant responses. My favorite Q and A is the first verse: “If I found myself stranded on an island with six million girls / Well I’d put them all to work / We’d build a kickass sailboat / To get me back to you / See I’m not fucking around.” The song also recalls “Shining On,” if only because two years later, McWane is finally ready to say, “I’m damn well smart / And I know what I got / And I won’t be fucking around.” “Where Did All the Women Go?” is another statement of fidelity, with McWane going from being awash in wrong girls to seeing his one ‘n’ only. It’s another in a series of airy, cool jams.

Big D has always been good at closing out their records, and like “Moment Without an End” and “She Knows Her Way” before it, “We Can Live Anywhere!” is a damn fine hummable finale. A welcome upswing after the lumbering, slightly disappointing “My Thoughts Take Me Away,” the song condenses Away We Go’s optimism and romance into three minutes, 41 seconds, and without all those uncomfortable scenes about miscarriages and vaginal flavor. A haunting saxophone jazz solo segues into a rolling drum beat, chiming voices, and McWane’s assurance that “We can live anywhere / Pack you’re your things up c’mon let’s go / Didn’t you know we own this world? / Yeah we can live anywhere.” Plenty of political artists from the Bush era have struggled to find something to say in the Obama age, but Big D and The Kids Table successfully bring hope ‘n’ change on this track.

To a certain extent, Fluent in Stroll shouldn’t shake up listeners quite as much as Strictly Rude. The band’s break from punk is complete, bringing them closer to The English Beat than Less Than Jake. And while there isn’t a single “Checklist” or “L.A.X.” to rock the mix, Fluent in Stroll is a cohesive record. The title has a double-meaning – this is a band comfortable with its style and its meaning, not to mention enough sense to avoid power ballads.

regarding new Big D.

Big D and The Kids Table, who've been my favorite ska band for like five years now, announced a new record for the summer called Fluent in Stroll. Two tracks are streaming right now on label Side One Dummy's Web site. Not sure how indicative the tracks are of the overall album, but they're definitely a departure from the two-tone of Strictly Rude. I'm digging the new emphasis on vocals.

Fluent in Stroll drops July 7.