Is there still a market for SKA?

It would be.

http://www.hypopsycho.com/

they're skapunk i guess.... nice guys. low expectations. they're just riding the wave of hilarity. their behind the music special would have gary coleman (or was it re-run) appearing in one of their videos as their career zenith.

seriously tho... cool, punk rock guys. (gville hardcore! woogie!)
m.

see the police and the clash in the early 80's for example... then later with the popularity of "red red wine" et al in the later 80's... then a ska explosion in the 90's...

maybe no rude boy resurgence, but...?
m.

http://www.hypopsycho.com/

i don't understand newish ska's affinity with punk and hardcore, since the original ska was a mutation of r and b.

Could England not have a blues or country band because they "originated" elsewhere?

no oit's not silly, you wally - it's true because they are not ska... hell, i commissioned jerry dammers to write a piece a about ska a few years ago... he said pretty much the same thing, so i don't see why you should think any different

my understanding is that that stuff is considered '2nd wave' ska because it was a self-conscious revival of sound + iconography from jamaican pop of the mid 60s.

i don't see any reason not to call it ska just because it's mediocre.

the specials are mediocre? the beat are mediocre? are you fucking mental? i'm no purist at all and i love this shit. it's the first music i can ever remember hearing and understanding as a scene (i was but a baby at the time, but for some reason those bands really hit me) and funnily enough i've been listening to lots of it lately, again. and the whole scene was known as two-tone, people even used to wear only black and white, damn these records were the first i ever bought and i was only saying this lunchtime that i think it's, in some way, informed a lot of what i like to this day [chris help me out and rescue me from these maniacs!]

Logically, isn't that the same as saying that we should call Busted a punk rock band because they say they are? It's just a load of names anyway... and the first Specials album is great so gertcha... (not aimed at you Dave, obv)

Their vision of an acquatic future is, in the field of contemporary music, shared only by Drexciya. I think people should mention this more often.

of which charlie higson of the fast show was a member, if anyone doesn't know and is vaguely interested in a bit of trivia

When I started to learn a bit about Jamaican music it struck me as odd that most of the 2-tone acts didn't really use ska rhythms much, they tended to rely much more heavily on rocksteady and early reggae forms.

The great Linval Thompson and Lynval Golding (sp?) might both be surprised to hear about the former's tenure in the Specials, Joan. Ah, what's a Friday afternoon without a bit of pedantry, eh?

Sorry.

where would i be without you old geezers to set me straight!!! ;-)
no, you can see the point though, can't you? the distinctions between ska, two-tone, us rock with a slight ska influence are useful in order to know what we're actually talking about?
and good spot re linval thompson - it hadn't read that post as i was concentrating on the higsons! damn you hopkins!

Generic names are as much about use as about logic and your argument reminds me of Philip Larkin on jazz, which I never really agreed with (he argued that be-bop and later jazz forms just weren't jazz, they were something different).

I love the Higsons. Hoo-HAH! A dibby dibby dibby etc etc.

yes, but for the sake of this thread, we're not going to be talking about jamaican ska because it doesn't really exist as a genre (dancehall being the flava of the day). or am i wrong?

anyway, let's all be friends yeh?

The few bands that are doing anything vaguely 'authentic', like the Slackers and The Pietasters, have no market beyond ska enthusiasts and the odd curious teen who heard them on a sampler. (They're both still good though)

of which charlie higson of the fast show was a member, if anyone doesn't know and is vaguely interested in a bit of trivia

Haha! And one of the other Higsons (Andrew) was my university film studies lecturer!

All long-running musical forms - jazz, country, hip-hop etc. - have different branches.

But the worst part of the "2Tone aren't ska" argument is the geographical element. Why does geography matter in defining a musical genre/form? If two nearly identical pieces of music come from different areas/regions, are they not still the same genre?

We've all been trained by our worlds

I cannot see no one but me
No one can feel my emptiness
Everybody must fend for themselves
There is no openness

We've all been claimed by our worlds (X2)

But I have heard of ways
That say there's light beyond the darkness
And everyone can keep their children warm
And togetherness will guide us safely
Through all Storms

Unyielding Conditioning
Remove all trace of memory
No one needs justice anymore
No voices raised in anger

We've all been tamed by our worlds (X2)

But I have heard of ways
Where people topple all injustice
No one lives their lives on bended knees
And all bigotry is like a disease
Drowned in the sea
And all can hold their head up high!

Modern ska gets a bad name from all the awful ska-core and ska-punk and fratboy ska bands (and looking at it, from the very name ska - there's no way to say that and sound cool).

Wow, that about says it all, doesn't it.

I'm inclined to agree, I was in a ska band that played one gig. It was great fun, but that's about as far as my interest went.

third wave ska, etc is terrible like bad garage rock, exept that there never have really been any good third (or even second) wave ska bands -- too many jokes, too much paint by the numbers, too many punk hybrids and too many jazzbo concoctions and never any stretching any of those fronts.

(* = yes, i know that there are some who find ween and zappa too smug fer their tastes. vive la difference and all that.)

The hybrid-ska bands that did those songs were largely children of the '80s, their sound and style were heavily influenced by the era (No Doubt has only been good since they gave up the ska pretense and embraced being a pop band) and their covers of the era came off not as condescension or posturing, but "gee, this was a lot of fun when I was a kid." (That's not to defend them as good works or interesting.)

Goddammit, I missed ya, man! :)

i think these distinctions are overpronounced in the literature though, or rather, the distinctions most salient in jamaican music were always the new dance steps and the music to go with them, which the official (anglo-american) history of ska-->rocksteady-->reggae doesn't really capture.

The few bands that are doing anything vaguely 'authentic', like the Slackers and The Pietasters, have no market beyond ska enthusiasts and the odd curious teen who heard them on a sampler. (They're both still good though)

still out there pumping out great gigs.
last night in bristol was just amazing and a total surprise given that i haven't paid any attention to ska since the 'death' of 2-tone, especially as i hated the dreadful ska-punk scene with a passion.
yet last night there were 300-400 people jumping and singing along to every word, and not just a bunch of greying 40 year olds as i expected, but lots of young beautiful people.
during the excellent Slackers set, lyn golding jumped the stage and dropped in a few verses from pressure drop the place went crazy, justifiably so.
i expected good stuff from the festival hardy headliners, pama international (rock steady/dub/ska), but evenso, their specials encore with stage invasion prompted by lyn made me smile more than i ever would have believed.
what a great great night.

Has Mark Lamarr been told?

my housemate is the singer in a ska band called Weightloss - Ska Punk not being my thing, still gotta admit they're a very competent bunch doing some very interesting stuff.

I had a flyer for that Bristol show... I was never likely to go but the Slackers were great the one time I saw them (w/ Susan Cadogan on vocals) and I like the one Pietasters album I have so I don't doubt your testimony for a second

Haha didn't realise that bit you quoted was posted by me. Pumped for the 2012 thread revive now

Has Mark Lamarr been told?

no but corrie fixated tabloid worrier craig charles most certainly has, but i aint holding that against pama intl.

Just tell them to incorporate that vital rockabilly input and Lamarr'll have them in for a session in no time.

http://tinyurl.com/3kgv2r8

mute the vid on the left, but watch that vid!

lollin

http://queenanne.komonews.com/news/crime/739963-police-gun-pulled-following-poorly-attended-ska-show-queen-anne