Forgive me, I’ve been drinking with librarians, but I’d like to amend my earlier post where I put down a list of musicians who I was happy to have met while I worked in the music industry. Let me please add Dave Wakeling of The English Beat to the list. He came to visit us with his new incarnation of the band, and you could not hope to meet a friendlier, more down-to-earth guy who genuinely wanted to talk about music and life and get to know people in a non-star, real kind of way. Top bloke. Diamond geezer.
I’m thinking about Dave Wakeling because, as I mentioned, I’ve been drinking with librarians and I came home to an episode of VH1’s “Bands Reunited” on my Time Warner Tivo equivalent, and I’ve just started watching it. I guess the point of posting now, after only watching for five minutes, is to say I don’t care what happens in this show, if you don’t know The English Beat you should download or otherwise get into your possession their album “I Just Can’t Stop It.” Generally I try to be forward-looking, but despite roughly one brazilian listenings in the past 25 years, I never tire of that album.
Forgive me if I’ve written about this before, but The English Beat came through Carrboro five or six years ago and I went to see them, and I think it was actually my birthday. I had been a bit overserved, and I started to dance, and before I knew what was happening I remembered my move. I had completely forgotten that a quarter century before, when I regularly danced to The English Beat, I had a move. It involved some kind of foot-sweep-behind-the-leg motion that was very tight and very ska. It came back to me only in the heat of battle, as it were, like a mist descending over my eyes and taking charge of my reason. Right now, sitting on my living room floor, I can’t quite remember what the move was. But I know it would come back if I went to an English Beat show.