The beat goes on with Dave Wakeling

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The setting was a gay cowboy bar in Austin, Texas, an "off-the-beaten-path" venue at South by Southwest, a recording-industry conference that took place last month. Making the best of it, Dave Wakeling and his band won over the mix of bar regulars and SXSW attendees with a lively set of dance-oriented songs that soon had the gaudy place jumping.

"We weren't sure whether it'd be an industry event where people would shake a leg or not," Wakeling recalled in a phone interview earlier this week. "Once it started, it was fantastic."

The tight, purposeful set was a promising preview of Wakeling's show tomorrow at Graceland. He and his band will play ska/pop hits from The English Beat, including "Mirror in the Bathroom" and "Save It For Later," along with songs from The Beat's successor, the more punk-influenced General Public, and a half-dozen new songs.

The English Beat's Dave Wakeling, The Diablotones Opens 9 p.m. tomorrow, Graceland, 109 Eastlake Ave. E., Seattle; $14, 206-381-3094, www.ticketweb.com.

In The English Beat, a top pop/ska band in the early '80s, Wakeling was the blond, Tab Hunter look-alike who shared lead vocals with black rapper Ranking Roger. The two later went on to form General Public in the mid-'80s.

Now that there's an '80s revival going on, Wakeling has been back in action, touring extensively and preparing for an English Beat greatest-hits album, followed by a box set and possibly a reunion tour. He's also planning to release a new CD.

"I'm hoping to make a record partly whilst we're on the road," the Birmingham, England, native said from his home in Los Angeles, where he's lived for 12 years. "I have this new idea of recording all our shows to master tape and then inputting everything into the computer and sampling ourselves! Building the record with half our live performances and half tapping away at the computer."

Wakeling wants to record on the road because he has a theory about live performances.

"I believe there's a hormonal quality to a live show," he explained. "Supposedly those deep, rumbling sounds stimulate ovaries to produce estrogen. That explains a lot of things, like when you see women with flushed faces at the gig, and guys hanging around looking at the women."

As for computer-generated music, Wakeling said it's essential these days, especially in producing drum sounds.

"I think you have to have nowadays a sort of metronomic precision making records," he said, "because anybody 12 and up, that's all they've ever heard."

The English Beat dabbled in politics in its music, notably with "Stand Down Margaret," an anti-Prime Minister Thatcher song. In the '90s, Wakeling supervised the recording of "Alternative NRG," a compilation album that raised more than $2 million for Greenpeace.

"I had a lovely day up in Seattle with the Rainbow Warrior (Greenpeace's ship) a few years ago," he said. "It was fantastic. I used to hang around onboard like I was one of the guys who hung themselves on chains and stuff, y'know, vicariously."

When he was young, Wakeling said, he thought he would help the world by becoming a Buddhist monk.

"Then I had a lot of dreams about girls and motorbikes that made me think, oh, I better do that later."

But he still is an advocate of meditation.

"It's one of the three most fun things in the world," he said. "Meditation, sex and singing music live.

"I just absolutely adore performing. It's like being-in-the-moment training. It just entirely fascinates me. Time stands still, you find you've got energy forever. It keeps me happy, young and sprightly. I have the luckiest job in the world."

Patrick MacDonald may be reached at 206-464-2312 or at pmacdonald@seattletimes.com.