Many Brit bands sojourned to the beat, boot-camp-like training grounds of Germany’s seedy port cities. Even further north, the Netherlands were quick to pickup on the jungle drums and Dutch Beat bands like the Motions, the Outsiders and Q 65, were singing phonetic English to audiences far and wide. Kids everywhere were gettin’ down, with beat music.
Around the same time, a groove beat emanated from the tropic heat of Kingston Jamaica. The precursor to Rock Steady and what eventually became universally popularized as Reggae. Ska revolutionized popular music on a whole new Jamaican society. Strongly influenced by American R&B, Ska, or Blue Beat as it was known in London, was brought to the public ear by music impresarios such as Duke Reid, Prince Buster, and Sir Coxsonne Dodd, who’s Sound System was known to all as Downbeat, the Ruler. Coxonne’s live dance hall parties became so popular; he started his own label, for his Downbeat sound, Studio One, whose impact on popular music lives strong today. The Downbeat sound survived the 60’s, morphed into Reggae and its off-shoot, Dub, in the 70’s, and was brought to a global audience by the commercial success of such island artists as Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Toots & the Maytals. The London punk movement of the 70’s paid homage showing clearly Rude Boy roots, from bands like the Clash, and a rebirth of Ska with Two-Tone bands like the Specials and the English Beat. Punk in the USA went New Wave, and bands like Blondie were quick to hit with revamped Reggae chestnuts, owing great debt to the Downbeat Sound of Studio One.
And the beat goes on; all of these elements are second cousins to one another, and all with a groove in mind, and in behind, brought to the music world some of the coolest in hybrid sounds. It is from these sources, and others, that the Downbeat 5 draws their inspiration.