The Specials: Ghost Town C/D

It's now one of my favourite songs.

Classic.

ever notice how boring the video is?

Jesus Christ, peepee - I believe I've met you!! You're PAT PETRO, right?! I DJ'd at CJAM for a year in '87-88! And my mentor (Jim something) told me that he actually REMEMBERED that initial "Ghost Town" airing - there was a huge recession, and it seemed that Windsor itself was becoming a ghost town, he said. Mentioned a highway overpass leading out of the city, on which somebody had spray-painted "Will the last person to leave Windsor please turn out the lights?"

I'm still stunned! (Assuming you ARE PP...)

For the first and probably last time I completely agree with you.

And recorded in Leamington Spa! Hurrah!

I assume it's about Coventry (or Bovventry as it's know locally ... bovva=aggro in UK parlance). I particularly like the Scooby Doo organ chords in the intros.

the song, of course, is a classic. i'm surprised that it often gets wheeled out as the quintessential Specials song, though, since it's neither their best song nor all that representative of their stuff overall.

Man, clueless.

Myonga, tis me, PP

*that* video.

surely THE best way ever to have ended your classic line up era?

i am proud to say that i spent my first 18 years in Coventry and it's just as bad as the song makes it out to be. the bit at the end of the video where they're chucking stones into the dank, murky canal, with crumbling bulidings in the background, says it all (whether or not it was filmed in Coventry; if not, i feel for the people who live wherever it was filmed). all the clubs were, indeed, closed down just like the song says. how can a city of a 1/4 million people not have one decent place to go on a saturday night?

Having just watched it, I reckon it was filmed in London. One of the office blocks you can see near the start is the NatWest Tower, and another shot looks like the side of the Bank of England. I'm pretty sure the 'canal' at the end is the river Thames, east of the city centre before they started tarting up the docklands.

Yep, that's definitely true. But I don't agree that either of them are better. Ghost Town doesn't sound like the Specials because it doesn't sound like anyone, but then that uniqueness is a big part of why it's great.

My second favourite Specials song is Friday Night, Saturday Morning...which was on the B-side, as it happens.

Picking my second favourite it would probably be either "Stereotypes", "Do Nothing" or "Rat Race"

i feel it is my duty to any young people who might have stumbled across this thread, young people whose friends have told them about two tone and the ska revival but who have yet to taste of its fruits, to expose these statements as the scurrilous, dumbfounding lies they are. this song is, on the contrary, SO good, it'll make you want to start a family with your teenage girlfriend. my duty is now discharged.

i can spot two mistakes! no, i guess i see what you mean. i like that it goes on and on, but if you don't like the song to start with, that'll kill it for you sure as anything. it does speed up a little in the middle though, so you can't say it doesn't do anything. i also love the adolescent vitriol of the lyrics. i remember when i used to feel that strongly about things, before ground into apathy.

it's a shame that no one has stuck their neck out and tried to decry Ghost Town. there's nothing quite as flat as universal approval.

one of the most underrated specials songs is "it doesn't make it alright".

I was watching Nardwuar interviewing Franz Ferdinand - and there's a moment in the pt2, just in the beginning of the video, where Alex Kapranos discuss listening to Ghost Town's master tapes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C1Bn5bt6k4

He mentions it is recorded live, goes for 15 min, and the single was edited down from it. Has this ever been released or bootlegged?

... and now I'm confused, because the description of the session seems way different from what he describes. The producer says:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Town_(The_Specials_song)

https://www.localrecords.com/ghost_town.htm

And so the experiment began. On the first day in the studio I wanted the rhythm tracks to be recorded: drums, bass, rhythm guitar and guide organ. The Specials usually recorded by all playing together live, but I was used to building a backing track bit by bit. They wouldn’t have all fitted in the studio anyway. I got drummer John Bradbury to set up just his bass drum, snare and hi hat; and bass player Horace Panter to plug directly into the mixer, going for a Sly and Robbie sound.

... I sorted out the beginning and end of Ghost Town by using my kit-built Transcendent 2000 synthesiser to make the ghost sound effect at the start of the final mix, fading up The Specials from Brad’s drum count-in and fading down the synthesiser under Jerry’s chromatic diminished chord sequence. At the end, I muted everything apart from bass, drums and backing vocals, dub style, and faded the ghost synth back up just before The Specials come to a halt, leaving the synth on its own again for a few seconds before the final fade.

maybe there's a final master with all these little touches left unfinished?

http://2-tone.info/articles/john_collins.html more here

well seems like bass drum and guide organ was recorded live with the overdubs on top.. thats what hes probs referring to

yep, that's true!

also, there's more here: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/specials-ghost-town

"The guy who played the flute was a member of the (Coventry-based New Wave) band King and we recorded him in the hallway with a microphone at the top of the stairs to get the natural reverb from the stairwell,” Rivers recalls. "However, overdubbing the flute nearly killed me because it was not on a free track. (Flugel horn player) Dick Cuthell and (trombonist) Rico Rodriguez had already gone back to London, and I had to record that flute by actually dropping in. Originally, the lead part was done on Jerry's guide organ before the flute was dropped in on the brass track. Well, I had to put a piece of tissue under my chin because sweat was dripping off my face due to it being so scary — one mistake and that would have been it!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMxI3usc8BA

Soul Music episode:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001n1h5

heard that by accident at the weekend, really good. is the series an unofficial sequel to 'the people's songs'? seems similar but also a step up in quality.

It's a long-running series. One of my favourite shows. Episodes are sporadic.

d-_-b