Dance Craze - The Best Of British Ska .... Live!

What is Dance Craze? Well, let me start by saying that I'm referring to a film. A 1981 film about the 2 Tone bands and the ska revival at the beginning of the 80's.

I got interested in that scene when I read about Madness and The Specials back in the day. I hadn't heard any of their music but I saw the albums and their reviews in a Greek music magazine so I bought "One Step Beyond" the debut album by Madness. According to the article I had read "ska is reggae played very fast". It also stated that "there's reggae, there's ska and in between there's rock steady whose tempo is somewhere in between reggae and ska". The article erroneously stated that "ska had evolved from reggae" when in fact the truth is that it happened the other way round. The bands that played that music according to the article were "Madness, The Specials, The Selecters (sic) and the Ruts" (As we all know that band's proper name is "The Selecter"). So after "One Step Beyond" I bought the first Specials album, their "Too Much Too Young" single and the first Selecter album. I didn't however buy anything from The Ruts because they weren't mentioned again as part of that scene. Instead I bought albums by The Beat and The Bad Manners.

And suddenly, at some point, all these bands appeared together in a live album called "Dance Craze". This was apparently the soundtrack of a movie showing all these bands playing live. Of course the movie was never shown in Greece, but the album was released featuring a poster with all 6 bands (Madness, The Specials, The Selecter, The Beat, The Bad Manners and The Bodysnatchers). 

 

I never managed to find the film after I had moved to Britain and when I once again looked for it recently I learnt that it had never been released on DVD. I managed however to find a VHS copy. So the next thing I had to do was buy a VCR! 

I managed to find a second hand stereo one and once I had connected everything I managed to finally see the movie 40 years later! Well, better late than never!

I have followed the 2 Tone scene over the years buying more albums from these bands and I even managed to see two of them live: Madness in 2007 and The Specials in 2010. I have just been informed though that Dance Craze is now being released on DVD and on a deluxe edition triple CD. I have already ordered both and I will finally manage to see a restored stereo version.