Bring that beat back

Ranking Roger says the Beat's audiences these days are a mix of young and old.

Yes says Ranking Roger of the Beat, they know they have to play Dream Home In New Zealand when they're here. Yes, it might be a minor track from their second studio album - 1981's Wha'ppen - which never made any of the many subsequent best-of collections. But it would be rude (boy) not to.

Roger, born Roger Charlery 45 years ago, is bringing his latest incarnation of the band, which formed in 1978 and helped propel the British ska revival which flared in the wake of punk.

Despite their alignment to the ska wave, the Birmingham band also stood apart from it. On their albums they threw in covers of everybody from Smokey Robinson (Tears of a Clown) to Andy Williams (Can't Get to Used to Losing You), veered into fiery soul-funk (Too Nice to Talk To, I Confess) and jangling guitar pop (Save it For Later). And they delivered the era's single greatest bassline on Mirror in the Bathroom.

"We pulled our influences from obscure things - underground bands, African and calypso music and Indian music," Roger says. "That's why you listen to it and go, 'What year did this record come out?'

"Like Mirror in the Bathroom, I could hear that in 20 years time and if I never heard it before I'd think that record came out a month ago.

"It's timeless. It's not rock, it's not reggae, it's its own cocoon of sound. While the other bands were like ska we were more like punky reggae. So we came in lovely on the New Wave tip with bands like the Police who were like punky reggae.

And they did politics, too - most memorably on the anti-Thatcher Stand Down Margaret , which, says the singer, gets changed to Stand Down Tony some nights - and, of course, the Cold War-themed Dream Home.

"We figured that if a nuclear war went up that it would take seven minutes for it to reach around the world and New Zealand would be the last place that actually would be surviving when the world ended."

As for the seven-strong Beat line-up heading here, only two members - Roger and drummer Everett Morton - date from the band's original heyday.

It's not the only Beat that goes on. On the same night the band plays in Auckland, the band's original singer-guitarist, Dave Wakeling, will be performing with his own, The English Beat, in Tampa, Florida.

About here is where the band's history becomes ska's answer to Spinal Tap. When the Beat split after three albums in 1983, Roger and Wakeling formed General Public, which got them some mid-80s American pop success. So did Beat guitarist Andy Cox and bassist David Steele after recruiting signer Roland Gift into their Fine Young Cannibals.

As the years rolled on, and with the split of General Public, various incarnations of the Beat kept touring. As well as Wakeling's English Beat there was Special Beat, International Beat, the New Beat and Roger's Twist and Crawl, which eventually took back its original moniker.

Saxa, the band's saxophonist, who had a couple of decades on the rest of the members in the original line-up, finally retired last year.

"Basically, he's still our mentor and our inspiration," Roger says. "He's there egging us on and telling us what we are doing wrong."

Among the younger ring-ins in the touring line-up is Roger's son, Murphy, who has been re-christened Ranking Junior in his co-vocalist role.

Roger says Cox and Steele have given their blessing to his Beat carrying on under the original name. But as the competing Beats might suggest, there's little love lost between Roger and his former co-frontman Wakeling.

"Dave Wakeling and myself, we haven't got on for a couple of years so I just don't really bother with him.

"He doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned.

"In America he does General Public when he feels like it, and then when he feels like it he does the Beat as well.

"We're both doing the Beat except I think our version is closer to the original than his."

And you suspect that both younger ska fans, and those who first heard Mirror in the Bathroom as teenagers, might be dancing too hard at their shows to be fussed that the band on stage aren't quite the same.

"Oh it's definitely not a tribute band," Roger says. "At our concerts we get the older heads our age and we get quite a huge array of young kids who are very much interested in ska - a lot of surfers and skaters and they just want it because it's live and it's still got an atmosphere and it's energetic.

"Our audiences are pretty mixed and we love that.

"We've got young blood on board and that is bringing more young blood into our audience."

Lowdown

* Who: The Beat, enduring English ska-plus band outfit formed in 1978

* Studio albums: I Just Can't Stop It (1980), Wha'ppen (1981), Special Beat Service (1982)

* Playing: Friday, September 29, Studio, K Rd, with support from the Managers (tickets, Ticketek and Real Groovy); Saturday, September 30, San Francisco Bathhouse, Wellington; Monday October 2, Jetset Lounge, Christchurch

Website: www.twistandcrawl.com