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THE ESCALADES ARE NO LONGER PERFORMING. We lasted about as long as any group...as long as the Skatalites, at least! (Late 2002 we started singing together on songs like "Left with a Broken Heart", after a break in 2003 started again in Sept. 2005, ended July 2007). NOTE THAT I DON'T DO THAT MUCH WITH THIS PAGE...mostly just logged on if I'm stalking other people on MySpace ;) !! Check out my new reggay riddims project (in progress). And watch this wacky memorial to the Escalades (yes! That IS us playing Morricone's theme):

Thanks to everyone who supported us and appreciated our music; we had a lot of fun singing together.

love,
The Escalades lads

ABOUT THE ESCALADES:

Short & Sweet:

'Drawing on the common roots and repertoire of American and Jamaican vocal R'n'B, the "riddim 'n' bruise" aesthetic of The Escalades resonates nostalgically and sub-culturally, for boomers and bangers, 'billies and rudies. Their greasy bag of oldies-but-goodies contains the stripped-down chassis of Du-Wop, Rocksteady, Reggae, and Street-corner Soul. Kindly turn off your mobile phones.'

Long & Sticky:

Remember the scene from The Harder They Come when a group of singers approached “Mr. Hilton” at the gate to his studio? They said, “We have a boss song,” and he said, “All right then, sing it.” And they did, in harmony and to the accompaniment of just an acoustic guitar. I have always found that to be the most precious moment in the film, and perhaps the film’s best song.

This was Jamaican group singing—the core of the music. Remember that they were “groups,” not “bands” (a band is what you march to in a parade!). Groups such as this had all the components necessary to create the music. Their identity belonged only to this ensemble. It was only when they went into the recording studio that their group was given the more elaborate accompaniment of independent studio house musicians.

Such independent groups also formed the core of American R&B. “Doo Wop,” as it was later to be called, represented this independent spirit of local lads making music together, without the encumbrances of bands and venues. It was street-corner music, rough and ready, that showcased the skills of boys from a given area...

...The vocal group sound—doo wop—was the main thrust of R&B in the 1950s, and its influence on Jamaican musicians was massive. Let’s not forget that as the first “wave” of doo wop waned, at the end of the 50s (and before its revival in the early 60s), the apparent “lack of good R&B records coming from America” is what necessitated that Jamaicans create their own. Some of the earliest recordings of the modern era of Jamaican popular music (circa 1960) are straight-up “doo wop.”

While the Ska rhythm was largely a replacement for boogie-woogie/ jump blues, the soon to follow Rocksteady took most of its influence from the R&B “oldies” sound, along with current “Soul” (Give a listen to Brenton Wood and it will be plain to see the effect of that music on Rocksteady). If one were to look at the writers for the songs of the Rocksteady and early Reggae era one would find that a majority are re-interpretations of American songs. (Interestingly, because of U.K.-related phenomena, one finds many people nowadays who are followers of both 60s Jamaican music and Northern Soul. However, Jamaican music has much more in common with the slower Soul (Southern, LA, Philly, mainstream Motown, etc) and Doo Wop than with the fast “Northern Soul” style).

American...Jamaican...it’s all R&B (or, if you like, “black music,” “soul music,” etc). Groups on both sides worked within the same paradigm; their techniques, repertoire, style and sentiments were shared. What differentiated them was the local varieties of rhythm. Both have become “golden oldies” that have their devout followers. Both were superseded by new developments, whose listeners grew their hair longer, used more drugs, preferred politics to romance, and who perhaps lost the slick edge and the sense of pride held by the older generation which the newer mistook for squareness.

Finding it impossible to separate the two worlds, the Escalades allow them to remain merged. Who would really try to separate “Ska” from “Rocksteady” from “Reggae”?; their rhythms are different, as per the regular shifting fashions of every few years, but they are all “Jamaican R&B.” Nor would anyone segregate Boogie from R&B from Soul from Motown.

The Escalades are not “reviving” this style of music. There are plenty of “bands” who do that. What the Escalades are doing is reasserting the original “group” paradigm, the “neighborhood,” the “street,” and the “cheap” paradigms. They relish the ability to participate in and enjoy this music without the muck of CDs, stages, promoters, P.A. systems, egos, cyber-scenesters, Borders Books and Noble Amazons, clubs, door charges, drinking ages, sound checks, flyers on the sidewalk, ticketmasters, amps, tour buses, iPod downloads, gigs, "opening acts," guitar wankings, “recording artists,” genres...none of which, despite what you may tell yourself, are “necessary evils.”

The Escalades revive the way people used to just get together and sing songs they liked because it was fun, it made them feel proud, it charmed girls, and it brought something LIVE and worthwhile to their community without treating the community like consumers.

Who needs Mr. Hilton?

Oldies forever,
The Escalades

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