The Legendary Tale of Captain Baz - Ruby and The Emeralds

Ruby And The Emeralds is a band name I've known about for YEARS. Paddy, their sax player, used to post on the forum on my old website under that name, and has talked about them since then. He was also Captain Baz when he first appeared on Twitter. Still hadn't heard them til tonight! 

So here's their album, uploaded to bandcamp - it's 2 years old (which, may even mean it was recorded when they were all music students... Paddy?), and is a really fun, punky, ska and reggae influenced collection, shambolic and energetic in all the right ways - kinda like a more ska-fied version of The Minutemen - recorded pretty much live (it sounds) but probably benefiting from the lively 80s American punk feel that gives it. And features some fab sax playing from Paddy. 

Enjoy! 

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Indeed yes we were all students when we recorded that (even our engineer, granted he was doing a PHD...)

we tried to do as much live as possible, ewan's (the vocalist) parents have a big big workshop, so we had the drum kit in there, with guitar and bass together (but with bass straight into the desk and the guitar amp out in the hallway) so they could all see each other for cues. I had to be super awesome on two fronts by being in a big cupboard just off the stairway (for awesome mid-side reverb) which had uncloseable windows so i was FREEZING most of the time (as was my poor sax) and i had to get all the cues by counting like a madman and guessing/knowing when ewan would call stuff back in.

we did all the vocals over the top (well ewan did, the rest of us barely sing on this, we were mostly upstairs playing foosball!) and if you want to see how we all behave, i highly suggest you watch this video of us doing the backing tracks to fulfillingly unsatisfied (you can here me somewhere in the background doing the take that ended up on the final mix) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aQ2XeVjJXQ

— Paddy Hare
oh and going by the bandcamp stats, no one has been listening to The Rider, its my favourite track (apart from maybe sudden change, one's upbeat latiny thing, other is super lovely mellow)
— Paddy Hare
Glad to know people are digging the tunes via paddy's words of infinite wisdom and glory.

Would just like to add that one of the greatest things about the sess was that my parents by coincidence had wireless headphones and loads of transmitters so we could make differnt mixes for everyone... I think dom, being the drummer was the only one who couldn't handle them and probably had his phones over his ear protectors in typical dom fashion... Also meant we could be up on the roof or in the bog and listen to everything.

ewan

— ewan
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