Why the name "2 Tone Ted" if there's no 2 Tone in the set?
The name came from my days as a radio DJ. I got my start as a DJ at the beginning of 1990 when The Rude Review radio show launched on KSPC. The show broadcast to a large part of Los Angeles and the Inland Empire for 5 ½ years, until I moved to Washington DC. As my musical tastes became more sophisticated during these years, the sounds moved to Jamaican ska and rocksteady, but the DJ name stuck.
My first break DJing at a club came when Joey Altruda invited my radio partner, Rude Drew, and me to spin between Jump with Joey sets during one of their weekly gigs at the King King Club back in 1990. At the height of the L.A. ska scene, I did a lot of gigs for Steady Beat Productions.
During the summer of 1991, when I was home from college, I started a radio show on KDHX in St. Louis called Ska's the Limit. That show is still going strong, and is now hosted by JJ Loy. Check it out here: http://www.kdhx.org/programs/skasthelimit.htm
I was a founding member, and later manager of the Los Angeles rocksteady band, The Dynamics. Members of this band have gone on to play in Ocean 11, The LA Allstar Revue, Amber Foxx (rockabilly), The Boogaloo Assassins, and Police and Thieves.
When I moved to D.C., I was struck by the lack of traditional ska sounds, so I started a band called Eastern Standard Time with some cats that I knew from the DC scene. They continue to make music to this day and are one of the leaders of the ska/jazz movement:
http://www.myspace.com/easternstandardtime or http://www.easternstandardtime.com
In D.C., I also had a weekly DJ residency at a club called State of the Union and later at a club across the street called Club Erico.
When I moved back to L.A. at the end of the 90's I stopped DJing for a while. It had been 8 years since I had DJed a club when I was asked to DJ for the Skatalites/Aggrolites show at the El Rey in November of 2007. Definitely good times! Now I'm spining pretty regularly again.
I'm a resident DJ at Ram Jam Club in Santa Monica and Trojan Lounge in downtown L.A. I also DJ often for Soulside events and at the Rocksteady Lounge @ Akbar and other random gigs here and there.
If you'd like to listen to a continuous mix of ska/rocksteady/reggae with female vocals, check out this rough mix I did for the Pressure Drop podcast:
http://pressuredrop.podOmatic.com/entry/eg/2007-07-09T21_15_ 15-07_00