Rare & Fatty

by Rick Anderson Bad Manners is the only 2-Tone band left -- the only group from the original British ska revival that never broke up, never stopped touring, and never stopped making great music. Rare & Fatty is a collection of previously unreleased demos, outtakes, and remixes, most (but not all) of them recorded fairly terribly but all of them infused with that gleeful, good-natured yobbishness that informs every Bad Manners record. Included are a fine version of the classic rock steady instrumental "Double Barrel," and a remix of the epochal "That'll Do Nicely," and a song called "Paranoid" that has nothing to do with Black Sabbath. There's also a weird and wonderful reggae tune called "Are You Monster," a weird and... well, just weird reggae instrumental called "Elizabethan Reggae," and ten more. A must for fans, but newcomers might want to start with something a bit more well-produced.