Hey Rudi - Everybody's Happy In The UK (1999)

This one doesn't feature on Discogs, nor could I find a picture on Google, so I had to photograph it from my copy. There's a reason for that - I don't think it was ever widely circulated. Hey Rudi were (are?) a ska band based in Dover.

At the time I worked at a school in the town and every Friday night a group of us would catch the train to Canterbury for several pints of light refreshment to celebrate the end of the working week.

One of the nearest pubs to the station, so often the first pint was The Cardinal's Cap, a hostelry which has since changed hands, names and been through various scandals and closures since. At the time, it was very much a punk pub, rough round the edges but very friendly. A guy who taught maths at our school, Pete, mentioned that his band were playing there one Friday, so we all piled down, and had a great time. The band was Hey Rudi, a ska combo, whose highlight seemed to be a ska version of Paranoid. Great gig, and on Monday, several of us bought the band's album. This is it.

It's a dozen (plus obligatory hidden track) short (not much over 2 minutes), bouncy, very listenable original ska songs, with highlights including opener Work, the jolly, optimistic Smile, and Running Ska'd, with a little guitar lick reminiscent of the Beat's Whine Or Dine. There's not much variety, until the slowed down instrumentals Cleverclogs (words by Darryl according to the insert), followed by the lively Skank Skank. Big Fish Skank is a grand song, as is the slightly cynical Everybody's Happy.

The band was great live, and while this recording doesn't quite catch the energy of a gig, it's still a really enjoyable document of Hey Rudi in their early incarnation.

All I could find on the web were poor recordings of the band doing covers of ska classics, so sorry, no link.

3* - this is a fun album of decent ska songs.