In Defense of Ska by Aaron Carnes

Author:Aaron Carnes [Carnes , Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CLASH Books
Published: 2021-05-01T20:00:00+00:00

Heavy Manners: America’s original ska sweethearts

It was not financially feasible to tour as a six-piece ska band in the early ’80s, and there was hardly interest in the Midwest outside of Chicago, though they did occasionally scrape together enough funds to tour the region, but their focus was on the longshot: scoring a major label deal. Money earned from sold out shows was invested in cutting demos. Several labels, including Columbia and A&M Records gave a listen, but continuously passed. “They kept saying, ‘We really like it, but we’re not sure if we hear the single yet,’” says drummer Shel Lustig. “We pretty much heard the same thing, several times.”

The band self-funded a video for “Flamin’ First” in hopes of getting on MTV, something possible in those days, but exceedingly hard for a band not on one of the coasts. A couple of local TV shows played it, and that was it. The video increased their local status but didn’t build anything beyond that.

In October 1982, they released their debut record, Politics and Pleasure at local Chicago club Park West. Lustig recalls going to sound check in the afternoon, worried they might have aimed too high by picking a one-thousand-person capacity club for their record release. After dinner, he saw a line formed around the block. “We were happily surprised,” Lustig tells me.

Attendance that night reached twelve-hundred, a new record for the club. In the first week of release, Heavy Manners sold two-thousand copies of their LP. Things were looking bright. But still, the biggest obstacle the band faced was geography. In the ’80s, if you were from Chicago, you might as well have been from Greenland.

An opportunity came to the group in 1983. They were asked to open for reggae legend Peter Tosh at the Aragon Ballroom. Tosh approached Robinson after the set and told him he liked how the band mixed reggae, punk, and politics, and would be interested in working with them.

The band was on board. Tosh was an idol. The band’s attorney, Linda Mensch, who they hired to find them a record contract, negotiated a deal where Tosh would produce some tracks and give them the industry push and connections they needed to get on a label. Tosh brought engineer Dennis Thompson (Bob Marley’s live engineer) to run the board. In five days, they recorded four songs. Tosh sang vocals on a couple of the tracks.

Nothing came of it. Even Tosh couldn’t land the band a deal. The group felt they really had no opportunity to take themselves any farther. They’d already gotten as big as they were going to get in Chicago, and they couldn’t get anyone else to pay attention to them. Heavy Manners played their final show in July 1984 at Park West as a farewell to their fans, some of whom would go on to form ska bands years later, like Skapone. It was a sold-out show, but the band was already seeing ska’s popularity fading in Chicago. “It was getting harder to attract new fans to our shows because we were heading towards the mid-80s,” Lustig says.

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