The all-female, all-star ska/reggae crew, Rude Girl Revue will be giving the holiday gift of new music to their fans with the release of two brand new, original songs on this year’s Jump Up Records Holiday 45, to be released on November 16. The disc kicks off with “Behind Every Santa, There’s A Mrs. Clause”, a vintage-inspired tune that would fit nicely between tracks by Brenda Lee and The Beach Boys, while tweaking the old “behind every good man, there’s a good woman” adage for the holidays. It is backed by “Slay Belles”, a dub reggae sound collage of femme empowerment partially inspired by the bitch tracks of drag queens. Both songs were recorded at Version City Studios with NYC ska capo King Django engineering the session. Django himself mixed “Slay Belles”, while Hub City Stompers’ guitarist Rob George mixed “…Mrs. Clause”.
With joyful artwork by Ben Heighton, this will be a limited pressing of 500 records on red, white, and green vinyl. This release closely follows the band’s five-song Supernova EP, self-released digitally last September during the Supernova International Ska Festival. The band performed two sets at Supernova: one of their own repetoire and one backing LA chanteuse Queen P, from 90s ska preservationists Oceans 11, on a set of classic ska and rocksteady by Jamaican female legends.
This holiday 45 will be released on Night Two of Slackfest Chicago, which is being held at Reggie’s on November 15-16, and at which the group will be direct support for NYC’s Jamaican rock’n’roll stallwards, The Slackers. Rude Girl Revue will also be playing in Toledo at The Ottawa Tavern on November 15, with punky reggae rockers J. Navvaro & the Traitors. The Toledo show is sponsored by Reverend Guitars, with whom guitarist Lady Hatchet and bassist Jade Tremba have endorsements.
