SKA authority Paul Williams celebrates his 40th birthday by presenting Roddy Radiation & The Skabilly Rebels tonight at The Junction, York.

This will be the first major gig under the banner of YorkSka Promotions, the company set up by Paul to "bring out-and-out Ska acts to York".

"I've been a fan of British Ska and 2Tone for 28 years now and in that time I've written the first account of The Specials in You're Wondering Now - A History of The Specials, " he says. "I was editor of the international Ska fanzine Street Feeling for eight years in the Nineties and now I have the fanzine online as a website."

In 2004, Paul was the subject of a BBC Radio 4 programme on The Specials and 2Tone as part of the 2Tone 25th anniversary. He has run Ska nights in York over the years, and last year he brought Roddy Radiation and his band to Certificate 18 gig, where they were joined by British Ska act Rough Kutz.

"I'm now doing promotion for the band Skaville UK, who'll be playing at Cert 18 in April with a lineup of ex-Bad Manners and Selecter members , and they've been setting the UK scene alight, " says Paul.

"In June, hopefully at The Junction, I'll be putting on the massive travelling 2Tone revue Ska Dance Craze, which features the band This R 2Tone, who have an amazing set of visuals on screen and have resident DJs with them."

Ever busy in the cause of Ska, Paul also runs the myspace pages for Roddy "Radiation" Byers, The Specials and The Bodysnatchers, and is administrator on the official Specials website.

Tonight's concert features guitarist Roddy Radiation, support act The Spectre and DJ Miggy, who promises the best in Ska music.

Radiation was a co-founder of The Specials, creators of the 2Tone Records label that spawned The Selecter, Madness, The Beat and The Bodysnatchers, and he wrote such Specials numbers as Rat Race, Hey Little Rich Girl and Concrete Jungle.

After the group split in 1981, he formed The Tearjerkers, a mix of rockabilly and ska he called Skabilly, and from the late Eighties, he played with cult bands The Bonediggers and The Raiders, before returning to his roots with the The Skabilly Rebels.

"They're a six-piece outfit and they play regularly up and down the country and in Europe and at festivals, and Roddy still performs Specials tunes in his set, mainly the ones he wrote or co-wrote, " Paul says.

Radiation also plays in the 2Tone/punk acoustic supergroup 3 Men & Black, alongside The Selecter's Pauline Black and Nick Welsh, Dave Wakeling from The Beat, Jake Burns of Stiff Little Fingers and The Jam's Bruce Foxton. At present he is writing new material and working on the new Skabilly Rebels album.

Tonight's gig starts at 7.30pm at The Junction, in Leeman Road, and admission is £5.