Too Much Too Young – Daniel Rachel
There have been many books over the last forty odd years which have attempted to put the importance of 2-Tone Records into context, but I think this 500 page monster of a label biography will be seen as the ultimate reference point and teller of the glory days of turn of the eighties ska in years to come.
The label’s existence can be seen as the root from which the modern ska scene in all it’s many flavoured varieties has sprung. It was never ashamed to acknowledge it’s roots in Jamaican Ska, or it’s acceptance of the then-current punk sound as a part of the bigger picture. As time went on, the label released a wider range of sounds, from swing to soul and on to almost out and out pop music, all of which have been adapted and adopted into the current ska scene by various bands to various degrees and quantities. It’s no exageration to say that without the work of Jerry Dammers in creating this short lived phenomenon, then there wouldn’t be a fraction of the ska bands there are today.
That there are so many cover and tribute bands pays witness to this simple truth, and that’s without looking at the frequency that band members who weren’t even born when the label was at it’s peak cite them as a major influence.
But the 2-Tone story is much more than that, as this incredibly well researched book shows.
The story begins by reminding those of us who lived through it exactly how Britain was at the time. It tells the tale of institutionalised racism and classism to a degree that is long since gone. 2 Tone Records played a very large part in that decline, and is one that remains relevant today, as witnessed by the famous photo of anti-racist protester Saffiyah Khan in her The Specials T-shirt in 2017, forty years after the formation of the label. You don’t see many protesters in Tamla Motown shirts, do you, despite both labels often carrying the same message in their music.
From here it takes us through the unfolding story of the early days of the label, of the infamous 2-Tone Tour that launched this manic music onto an unsuspecting label, through the bands that followed and their varying degrees of success, and onto the sad and premature death of 2-Tone only a couple of short years later.
That it takes so many pages to tell the tale of The Specials and The Selecter, Madness, The Beat and The Bodysnatchers, as well as the more neglected acts in the mind of the label fan – The Swinging Cats, Appollinaires and The Higsons, along with the individual work of John Bradbury and Rico Rodriguez – shows the detail that author Daniel Rachel had dug for while researching this book. I think there are very few tales missing from the lore of the label, and there are certainly many details that I, as a long time fan, have never come across before,
It finally tell the complete story, not written by a gushing fan as has been the case in many previous attempts at telling the tale, but almost to a scholarly degree. That’s not to say that reading it is hard going, far from it, but if you want to know the story behind the label, then this is the place to look.
– Skankin Joe
