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Music Preview BY WARREN FOOTZ King Apparatus Wednesday, March 15 at the Sidetrack Café Though they hadn’t played a gig together since 1995, the assumption that the ska band King Apparatus had broken up was apparently a misconception. According to the band’s leading light Chris Murray, what had become a collective of musicians surrounding the core of the band wandered away, as the original members also headed toward different interests. "We hadn’t had a stable lineup for a number of years and at a certain point, we just stopped playing. We ceased." This inspired reunion was initiated when Murray crossed paths with a few friends. A deal had been worked out with a chum at an Internet music download site, newmusic.com, to offer King Apparatus albums on their Web site. Then an agent who had worked for King Apparatus all those years ago dropped by and pointed out there was still a strong ska scene in Canada and that a King Apparatus reunion would have an audience. "I started talking to (bass player) Mitch (Girio) – we were really the members who never left, that’s why there was no break-up. Mitch was into doing some stuff. We called some other guys and they were into doing some dates. "We’re really just planning to do about a dozen shows in Canada to say, ‘hey, here’s the stuff, it’s good to see you again.’" When King Apparatus came on the ska scene in the late 1980s, they were in at the midstream of a revival of a style that had originated in Jamaica as far back as the time of the Second World War. From those origins and seminal bands like the Skatalites, Madness, Bad Manners and the Specials were born. Then came Murray and crew. Though, like a lot of Canadian bands at the time, it took a while to get where their direction was set. "We were just playing in London, Ont., a college band having fun. After a couple of years, everybody who was in the band who wanted to continue with the band had finished school and had relocated to the Toronto area. At that point we made a specific goal for ourselves, that we were going to focus on original material." They didn’t want to be just another cover band. They’d seen that happen to other bands and saw it would be just too easy for King Apparatus to fall prey to that distraction. Keeping it unique has always been the drive, especially for Murray, who brought the ska sound to the band originally. It’s a direction he’s never abandoned, to the point where, ever the innovator, he’s now become known for plucking an acoustic show of ska as Venice Shoreline Chris. But this is the band thing and as he’s done with his solo act there’s a desire to build on what had come before and not to resort to a paint-by-numbers existence. "We wanted to draw from all the stuff that we liked about ska and present ourselves as a ska band, but also to really make it our cause to become innovative and to see where we could take ska that it hadn’t been before."

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