Take This One to New York City: The Reign of The Radiation Kings

How a group of Connecticut ska kids joined the NYC Ska Mob.

Last September, I released the book Hell of a Hat: The Rise of ’90s Ska and Swing on Penn State University Press. This companion newsletter is dedicated to telling the stories of important bands I wasn’t able to include.

One night in 1999, while she was in a frigid New York City basement recording vocals with The Radiation Kings—the Connecticut ska, rocksteady, and reggae band she’d fronted for two years—Lisa White found herself contending with a couple of jokers. One was Josh Taht, her group’s guitarist, and the other was producer Jeff “King Django” Baker, undisputed NYC ska don and owner of Version City, the dingy subterranean studio where the session was taking place. 

“They were acting like total asses, and I was laughing,” says White. “They did it purposely, because Jeff was like, ‘You have a great laugh.’”

Django so loved the sound of White’s unguarded chortling that he let it ride over the final 40 seconds of “Number 6,” an otherwise straight-faced post-coital slow jam built around the line, “Thank you for having me tonight.” Upon first hearing the song—a standout from The Radiation Kings’ one and only album, 1999’s masterful Early Years—White’s laughter sounds out of place, perhaps even at odds with the lyrics. But “Number 6” is an honest expression of gratitude after sex with a hottie. Anyone feeling that good might cackle to the point of crying.

“It’s almost very innocent,” says White. “Which is what I think they were going for, this girly giggle. ‘Let’s end with that.’”

That sense of innocence is one of many things White brought to The Radiation Kings, the last in a long line of great ska bands to emerge from Connecticut in the ’90s, after J.C. Superska, The Snappers, Mock Turtle Soup, Nigel Six, Sgt. Scagnetti, Spring Heeled Jack, and Johnny Too Bad and the Strikeouts. The Radiation Kings were the rootsiest crew in this lineage, and their laid-back take on vintage Jamaican sounds earned them affiliate membership in the NYC Ska Mob, the stable of killer bands centered around Django and Version City.

Though never a songwriter, White also gave the band its central character and point of view—that of a self-assured young woman with a soul-bazooka voice who’ll vanquish all foes yet make herself vulnerable for lovers worth the effort. 

The naturally shy, preternaturally gifted native of Marine Park, Brooklyn, moved to Fairfield, Connecticut, in the mid-’90s for middle school and knew little about ska before joining The Radiation Kings in 1997. She wasn’t even friends with the guys, who were a couple years older, though she’d seen them in the halls of Fairfield High. They were pretty hard to miss.

The group had formed back in 1994 or ’95, after bassist Justin Charles English happened to chat with future organ player Brandon Campbell in between classes. English and Campbell weren’t yet close buddies, but they’d separately discovered Connecticut’s thriving ska underground and begun attending shows at places like the Tune Inn in New Haven. When English asked Campbell if he wanted to be in a ska band, Campbell replied, “Sure, but I don’t really play an instrument.” Noticing the deck under Campbell’s arm, English replied, “You can play a skateboard.” 

Campbell actually started on alto sax—a remnant of middle school band class—before snagging a Hammond X5 and teaching himself the rudiments of ska and reggae keyboard. Based in English’s basement, The Radiation Kings initially bashed out jazzy third-wave-style instrumentals. Over time, they got more into Prince Buster, rocksteady, and northern soul. English went full mod and began rocking parkas and skinny ties. Campbell gravitated toward swing, lounge, and rockabilly; he’d show up to school in slim-cut suits. 

With the band’s love of soul and rocksteady came an appreciation for female singers, such as ’60s-era Jamaican songbird Phyllis Dillon. That played a role in their decision to recruit a female vocalist, though there was a more practical reason for going coed. As indicated by the 1997 compilation Welcome to Skannecticut—featuring the early Radiation Kings instrumental “Sudora”—most of the bands in the state had dude singers. The Radiation Kings figured they could differentiate themselves by adding a Radiation Queen.

When they held auditions, White tagged along with a friend who wanted the gig. At some point during the other girl’s tryout, White hopped on the mic and unleashed the massive voice she’d found as a child and honed in the Baptist church. “We were definitely blown away,” Campbell says. “Her singing style was leaning a little musical or theatrical, but she had that soul in there. So we sort of helped her amplify that.”

The very next weekend, White debuted with the Kings at the El ‘n’ Gee nightclub in New London. The bartenders served her screwdrivers, even though she was 15, and she sang a couple of tunes. The crowd danced. The whole thing was a revelation.

“I’d been to punk shows, and it was so aggressive,” White says. “I’d been to other types of things and it was like, ‘Everyone’s smoking pot here.’ I was just not into it. But the ska scene, everyone was friendly and there to have fun and enjoy it. It was definitely new to me.”

The only downside was the dress code. White was a tomboy used to wearing sweatpants to school. That wasn’t going to fly with this natty group. “They were like, ‘You’re a girl—you need to wear a dress,’” White recalls. So she dutifully donned the female ska uniform.

Another key addition to the band was guitarist Josh Taht, who became the primary songwriter. “He had a really magic, Beatlesque touch to writing songs in a baroque kind of way,” Campbell says. “He was even thinking about strings in some cases, not that we had strings.” The Radiation Kings began swapping instrumentals for vocal songs and perfecting the old-school approach that would resonate with discerning NYC ska heads. One night in the East Village, The Radiation Kings befriended King Django, who was then heading up Skinnerbox and The Stubborn All-Stars, not to mention Stubborn Records. Django liked the Connecticut upstarts and offered to release a 7-inch on Stubborn.

White was all of 16 when she and her bandmates climbed down the broken stairs on East 3rd Street and entered into the grimy sonic playground that was Django’s now-legendary Version City studio. The cramped basement was stuffed full of equipment. Not for nothing, graffiti on the wall read “Don’t feed the rats.” And it was cold. But the place had amazing natural echo, and that helped to birth some of the finest traditional ska and reggae records of the ’90s. Version City mainstay and Stubborn All-Stars member Jayson “Agent Jay” Nugent produced and engineered the sessions.

In addition to White, Campbell, Taht, and English, The Radiation Kings at this point included drummer Phil Wartell, percussionist Chris “Porkchop” Campbell (Brandon’s brother), rhythm guitarist Michael Powell, trumpeter Jeremy Bonin, and saxophonists Michael Loren LaValle and Andrew Gibson. With Nugent at the controls, the band came up with A Look Back at Things to Come…, a terrific four-song collection featuring White on two songs: the mournful ballad “Can’t Find a Way” and the cocksure “NYC Blues,” an indicator of where The Radiation Kings were heading, literally and figuratively. There was also the spicy instrumental “Dia De Los Muertos” and the Taht-sung garage-ska stomper “This I Know,” all about the tricky acquisition of adult wisdom.

The Radiation Kings embodied a hard-nosed, organ-heavy, song-oriented feel akin to The Stubborn All-Stars and The Slackers, both major inspirations. Despite the heavy influence of ’60s Jamaican ska, A Look Back at Things to Come… lacks the sunny vibes found on records by contemporary West Coast trad bands like Hepcat and Jump With Joey. This was thoroughly East Coast.

Throughout 1998 and into 1999, The Radiation Kings continued playing shows in the tri-state area. At home in Connecticut, they filled a crucial void left by fellow fashion-forward traditionalists Johnny Too Bad and the Strikeouts, who’d relocated to Boston. And just like Johnny Too Bad, they would leave behind one fantastic album.

The Radiation Kings returned to Version City in 1999 to record their full-length. This time out, they worked directly with King Django, who also contributed trombone and backing vocals. The Stubborn boss presided over the sessions with his typical no-bullshit Brooklyn attitude. “He was easy to work with and would tell you, ‘That sucks—do it again,’” White says. “He was a really nice guy at the same time. When our egos got a little bit big, he would knock us down.”

Django also proved an invaluable song doctor. For example, he asked White to use her feathery head voice on the new version of “Can’t Find a Way,” a song she’d sung with full lungs on the 7-inch. Django felt it was a sweet, tender song. As Campbell remembers, Django’s advice to White was to “get sweet and lovely with it.”

Early Years is definitely sweeter and lovelier than the 7-inch—and it’s more of a showcase for White, the star attraction straight from track one, “Murder,” a warning to an unfaithful partner. On the slinky reggae tune “Carry,” White celebrates the kind of passion she’s chasing on “Can’t Find a Way” and “Spending Time.” White breaks the somber late-night mood on the self-empowering ska groover “Dem Try,” then lets the boys shine on “Hotter Fire,” an instrumental worthy of its title.

The album represents the culmination of a conscious move toward what Campbell calls a “loungey, nostalgic sound.” The addition of a second keyboard player, pianist Scott Palmer, meant that Campbell could deviate from doubling the guitar skanks and experiment with funkier licks. The music is warmer and groovier and supremely palatable to the ska-averse. “I was always really into that New Year’s Eve kind of sound,” Campbell says. “To me, that’s the vibe.”

Here’s another way to describe Early Years: Frank Sinatra meets Skatalites saxophonist Tommy McCook. Campbell name-checks both musical heroes in the thoughtful essay he wrote for the CD liner notes. He ends with an explanation of how the album got its title: The best years of our lives? We’ll wait and find out. For now, we’ll just call them the Early Years.

“There was no indicator we would never put out another record,” Campbell says. “We still had a bunch of other songs that we were working on that we were all pretty excited about recording.”

In late 1999 and into 2000, The Radiation Kings took time off from their respective colleges to stage their first and only tour. They traveled down the East Coast and played a monster gig in Miami, where non-ska folks who chanced upon the show danced on the sidewalk in front of the venue. But for much of the trek, The Radiation Kings performed for empty restaurants. When they got home, there was no blowout argument. They simply stopped booking shows and ceased to be a band.

The failure of the tour and the subsequent breakup were partially down to bad timing, as ska at the turn of the millennium was about the least cool thing you could be associated with—even if you were playing the eternally credible ’60s variety. Had The Radiation Kings reached their peak in 1997 instead of 1999, everything might’ve been different.

“We would’ve probably released another record,” Campbell says. “Honestly, I suppose a lot of people would’ve held off on pursuing education if there was more energy in the ska scene and a better energy among the group. We tried to keep picking up the pieces off and on and recording stuff that never quite landed.”

Both White and Campbell regret the fact they never made a proper recording of “Funny How Things Turned Out,” the transcendent soul-rocksteady tune that closed the band’s shows in the final year. “That’s the song where I’m always like, ‘If we did that, we would’ve been that much closer to being able to do this as a living,’” White says.

In the years immediately following the band’s demise, Campbell started an anti-folk project called The Festival. White moved to Philadelphia and sang demos for the hip-hop and R&B label Ruffhouse Records. “The money was nice,” she says. “But it was a harsh environment. They’d have me sing for like 12 hours straight. That’s not supposed to happen.” Wartell the drummer became a lawyer, Palmer the pianist a teacher. Chris Campbell completed a film degree.

The Radiation Kings reunited in 2006 for a Version City party at The Knitting Factory in Manhattan. They played a few more shows around that time and regrouped in 2012 for the Stubborn Records 20th anniversary celebration. White had a baby three weeks before that show. The rest of the band ventured up to her house in Connecticut to rehearse.

These days, White works for a nonprofit that advocates for special education. The mother of four sings exclusively around the house. Sometimes her husband records her while she’s washing dishes. Her kids get a kick out of hearing Early Years, but then they’ll tease her by saying, “Hey mom, remember when you were young…” 

Campbell is a designer and animator based in Atlanta. Other members of the band live in North Carolina, New York, and Connecticut. A reunion would require plane tickets and babysitters, but neither White nor Campbell is ruling anything out. It just so happens that Stubborn Records turn 30 this year. “[Django] hasn’t talked to us about any reunion show,” Campbell says. “But I feel like we could rally enough people.”

Even if they never play another show, there’s reason to believe The Radiation Kings will live on. Several artists, including the Philippine ska band Out4lunch, have covered their songs on YouTube. “It’s funny, because you think it’s such a forgotten time of your life,” White says. “I’m 40 years old now. It was so long ago. But then something pops up like that, and you’re like, ‘It could still be relevant if people listen to it. I think people today would even still like it.’”

“It’s always cool when I hear of people knowing us,” Campbell says. “We felt like we were definitely a presence for a hot burning moment.”

For more great stories about ’90s ska, check out my book Hell of a Hat: The Rise of ’90s Ska and Swing, out now Penn State University Press.