Titan Ups Launch a Rocksteady Dance Party at Cafe Du Nord

Better than: What the uninitiated think reggae sounds like.

There are times when musical innovation is the last thing needed, and last night at Cafe Du Nord -- the first Thursday of 2011 -- was one of them. Headlining were Titan Ups, a local rocksteady ensemble obsessed with maintaining absolute allegiance to Jamaica-descended music of the 1970s, from Toots and the Maytals to the Kingstonians to the Specials, through both covers and original songs. But unlike so many wannabe reggae bands, Titan Ups weren't an utter embarrassment. In fact, it's hard to see how their show last night was anything other than a total, terrifically fun success. With original-issue songs and a casual, funny demeanor, the seven-piece outfit stroked a medium-weight Cafe Du Nord crowd into the kind of joyful, freewheeling dance party you rarely see anymore.

Titan Ups

​What made this fun, thrilling, and not at all embarrassing was largely the chops with which this all-white ensemble played, and the attention its members paid to the subtle inflections of their elders. Early reggae and rocksteady are pretty basic styles of music on the surface, but start paying attention to the details of a great band like Toots and the Maytals, and you realize there's a lot more to it than just a couple of up-strummed chords. You could even go so far as to say that reggae and its related styles, all of which use the basic offbeat rhythm, depend on the subtle inflections of players to emphasize changes in the music. (The singer has a lot to do with it, too, but we'll get to that later). Titan Ups showed an incredible grasp of these details last night. Every cowbell roll, guitar pluck, and piano chord change was handled with the lazy precision of an authentic rocksteady band. Instrumentally, their set sounded like a Trojan Records compilation. The band didn't try to add a new-age twist or otherwise shift the attitude of the songs, leaving them exactly as they should have been.

----

Location Info