Why is ska the most maligned of genres? Why do some people say ‘ska‘ like it’s a dirty word? I spoke to Anthony Johnson and Bryan Scott, two bassists in Chicago ska bands and significant participants in the MidWest ska scene, about why they like ska and why everyone else hates it so much.
Bryan plays bass with Chicago ska band Beat the Smart Kids (it’s a Simpsons quote). Bryan was a ‘band kid‘ at High School in Ottawa, Illinois, playing tenor saxophone. And like most high school horn players, he was looking to branch out into the world of rock n roll, to play shows standing up, without sheet music, to people of his own age. Rather unbelievably, given the ease and efficiency of communication that we’re now used to with social media and cell phones, Bryan joined his first ska band in 1998 when he went to an all-ages show at a juice bar run by a clown. They had one horn player already, and he liked their music, so he approached them and gave them his parents’ home telephone number written on a piece of paper.
A few months later (I’m imagining that piece of paper being pinned to a corkboard for safekeeping) they called him up (‘Bryan honey, it’s for you‘) and asked him to come to a rehearsal. “We were playing shows every weekend for about four or five years“, but while they were busy, they weren’t necessarily entrenched in a scene. Rarely would there be another ska band on the bill. “We’re talking tiny shows in rural Illinois, in towns where there’s nothing else to do, so everyone turns up, and anything goes.” But they did land a couple of big shows with Mustard Plug and MU330 at the legendary Fireside Bowl. “Then you’d see kids turning up in full suits, or wearing backpacks covered in ska band patches.” Bryan saw 3rd wave ska as a natural progression from the punk bands he was already listening to. Rather than the laid-back feel of roots ska, or the politicized grooves of two-tone, ska-punk’s attraction for him lay in the chaos: “It’s the super fast upstrokes, and with the horns there too it’s like a wall of sound punching you in the face”.
Anthony, also in High School when the 3rd wave ska movement was at its peak, plays bass in Run & Punch and curates MidWestSka Fest, a DIY-style music festival in Chicago. He got into ska after hearing bands like Streetlight Manifesto and Big D and the Kids Table, and then worked his way back through two-tone bands like the Specials and Hepcat to roots acts like Charlie Organaire and Monty Montgomery.
While some find the fast, abrasive edge of 3rd wave ska incompatible with its beginnings in 1960s Jamaica, the defining musical characteristics are still there: the clean-upstrokes on the guitar, the four-on-the-floor kick drum, and the walking bass lines. And you’d be surprised how many 3rd wave ska kids are well-read on the previous waves’ discographies. “I actually never heard of ska until I was about 16 years old. I’m pretty well-rounded now, and the band members that helped me get into it were pretty well-rounded then. So even though I started off playing 3rd wave, I’ve been listening to it all.” says Anthony.
MidWestSkaFest picked up where Skappleton, another Ska festival, based in Appleton, Wisconsin (see what they did there?) left off. Skappleton started in ’98 and ran for 15 years, so Anthony decided to pick up the banner in 2012 and has been hosting MidWestSkaFest every year since. “It was sort of last minute at a smaller club, we had five to six bands, we usually get ten or twelve now and we’re in a lot bigger place.”
So is there a ska ‘scene‘? Or is it just fans of a band turning up to watch that particular band play, rather than a recognisable group of people identifying with a definable subculture? Anthony sees a distinction between the big names like Less Than Jake or Reel Big Fish passing through town, and the small DIY ska shows that his band plays. “I don’t personally believe a scene can have anything to do with big bands. If you don’t go to that Less Than Jake show there’s still gonna be a bunch of people there, so it matters less. It’s more of a scene when you go to watch a small band that’s building on something. You feel like you wanna be there and if you’re not you feel like you’re missing out.” There’s a social aspect that can’t exist on the scale of a 2000+ capacity show because of the anonymity that you get from the sheer numbers.
The big names certainly didn’t do the scene any favours when 3rd wave ska hit its peak at the end of the ’90s. As ska became absorbed into mainstream popular culture (the ultimate death knoll) certain ska bands made cringe-worthy appearances in Hollywood movies. Mighty Mighty Bosstones are the background band at an implausible L.A. night club in the teen rom-com Clueless, Save Ferris appear as the high school prom band in 10 Things I Hate About You, and all the other likely candidates, Less than Jake, Reel Big Fish and Goldfinger appear on teen movie soundtracks (remember when that was a thing?).
Soon after that, ‘ska’ became a bad word – “All the major labels were saying ‘no ska’ and horn sections were being replaced by keyboards. I went to see Rancid and they’d dropped the upstrokes in Time Bomb. They just played it straight down strokes, chugger chugger. It was so odd. Everyone was suddenly afraid to play ska.” remembers Bryan. Anthony says of the fans, “Everyone decided they were too old for ska, you’re supposed to hate ska once you’re out of high school like you’ve grown of it.”
Coincidentally this was also the same time we started hearing the death groans of the major labels, as they succumbed to file sharing and plummeting CD sales. After they’d milked grunge for all it was worth, pushing horribly mediocre bands like Bush and Puddle of Mudd into the limelight just because they sounded a bit like Nirvana, the majors sought the next popular genre to exploit and found ska. So for many, the genre smacks of commercial exploitation, and ska bands that had dynamic variety, lyrical substance and nuanced songwriting, got lumped in with the facile party music and overzealous skanking that they saw on MTV and the VHS tapes they rented from Blockbuster.
And the cause was not helped on the DIY side either, by the typical musical ability of a young ska band. “When you need seven or eight people to make a ska band, even making the band is gonna be tough, then you gotta not sound like shit,” says Anthony of his band’s early days. Getting three or four amateur musicians to play the right notes at the same time is one thing, but double the numbers and you have twice the margin for error. Bryan blames the horn section, “You can’t have out-of-tune horns, you just can’t. It’s like nails on a chalkboard.” Just because they’ve unenthusiastically serenaded the high school football team in marching band for three years, doesn’t mean they can play in tune.
But despite its demise almost two decades ago, ska hasn’t gone away. Less than Jake and Streetlight Manifesto are currently touring the US, The Bosstones have some dates lined up in South America and The Pietasters are going out on the road with Mephiskapheles in the fall. This year Skappelton returns, arm in arm with MidWestSkaFest, at Chicago‘s iconic and soon-to-close Double Door. Anthony says that there are currently ten or fifteen active ska bands in the Chicago area alone, and this year’s lineup was picked from 45 local ska acts that applied to play.
MidWestSkaFest is at Double Door on August 14th. You can buy tickets here, Beat the Smart Kids‘ debut album, ‘Broke Again‘ is available here.
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