POLL: Which left a bigger shit-stain on the '90s? Swing or Ska

what's funny is that, in my socal 90s experience, ska and swing were pretty intermingled. they both kinda came out of high school band class! at least that was the way it was at my high school. Suddenly dudes who could play horns were playing in swing and ska bands. both sucked! oh well.

actual skapunks in the wild circa 2009:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax87yohhNds

where do the Mighty Mighty Bosstones fit into this shit? I still have some Bosstones-related PTSD, I think.

― richie aprile (rockapads), Sunday, February 21, 2010 10:25 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

loooooooooooooooooooooooooool

The first show I ever saw was Mighty Mighty Bosstones with Murphy's Law opening up in Ithaca, NY - 1995. I fucking loved a lot of that ska shit at the time and would be lying if I said that it doesn't still hold a soft spot in my heart. That swing revival stuff was much more annoying imo.

skankin', the dance everybody could do

ha true

One thing that confuses me about 90s ska revival is that, in Philadelphia at least, I remember bands being around who were kindof ska (usual with some punk mixed in) in the mid-to-late 80s, so I'm not sure when it was supposed to have gone away (but Philly tends to be late in letting go of musical trends, genres, etc., something I like).

Skanking consists of a “running man” motion of the legs to the beat while alternating bent-elbow fist-punches, left and right.[2] The punk version features a sharp striking out look with the arms, and is sometimes used in moshing to knock around others doing the same.

Skanks include the "Jungle Skank", the "Migraine Skank" and the "Tribal Skank". These are renowned as the truest and purest form of skanking. Any other skanks, notably those involved with drum and bass and dustep music are rubbish.

Scott can probably back me up on some of that.

x-post

I grew up in Philly in the 90s, and I don't remember any Philadelphia based ska bands - all the regional ones I listened to were from NJ

OK thing #518 that I probably should not admit on the internet:

The beginning of this song was my outgoing answering machine for a while when i was a freshman in college. I was 17 - cut me some slack!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z70jVUTAbo4

x-post:

Well maybe it died in Philly while it was reviving elsewhere.

xp Did people actually leave messages or hang up in disgust?

"Scott can probably back me up on some of that."

scram?

xp - ha.

scram were weirder though than most hyper jumpy skapunk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzeMN4coQ8M

there was some good Japanese ska from the 90s too iirc

Scott, yeah I was thinking of Scram! though really only a small percentage of what they did was ska. They were one of my favorite local bands. Too bad "Here Tonite" is not on youtube, that really was a classic song. If I ever get some of my old cassettes digitized. . .

I do remember some lesser lights being around doing similar things.

most cities had SOMEONE doing ska since the 80's. just like there were always at least 3 to 4 mods on scooters or 5 to 6 trad skins or 2 to 4 mohawk punks in philly at all times.

ska. swing was ignorable.

was 311 ska?

I think that what made Swing forgivable for me was that it was a hop, skip and a jump from Swing to Lounge and from Louge to Space Age Bachelor Pad Music and I am full of love for Esquivel and Spike Jones (and if you keep going that way, you get to Stereolab and Broadcast which is just fine with me.)

The Cherry Poppin Daddies were a ska band first, then they became a swing band, and now they're back to being a ska band. They just released an album last year called "Skaboy JFK: The Skankin Hits of...".

Clearly, they're the most evil of any band on this list.

Seriously, what the fuck?
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Shit, I meant this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIyvp6ga5Tw

have a huge soft-spot for these guys and this song in partic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZOyQT4aVz4
interviewed dicky barrett BITD for melody maker when i was just starting out and he was hilarious. we junked my prepared questions and just talked abt how awesome madness were for ages

i think Rancid are pretty ace too, tho more when they're in hardcore mode than skacore mode

Somehow every local band in my hometown was a mediocre ska revival band. I guess this was ok in the context of the time but it's *still the case,* like 90% of the bands there play 'ska.' There's four or five '90s-style ska-punk bands here, too. I voted ska bcz its detrimental effects have been so long-lasting.

Whatever ska's crimes, the convention of naming your band with a bad 'ska' pun is endlessly hilarious to me (though you might count this as part of ska's crimes).
Where are the swing-pun bands?

The first show I ever saw was Mighty Mighty Bosstones with Murphy's Law opening up in Ithaca, NY - 1995.

― t(o_o)t (ENBB)

which venue was this at?

ska didn't register much with me either way except i liked what i heard ok enough. the swing revival was ubiquitous for awhile there and i think half the people i went to college with who ended up in l.a. were still riding the wave of 'swingers' nostalgia w/r/t fashion and language. that shit was embarrassing, ska is not.

All the shitty third wave and beyond ska-punk bands made neo-traditionlists like Hepcat sound like the Maytals. But Hepcat was still pretty great, regardless.

Ska is one of the worst genre ever imo

I don't think ska is inherently bad, its just a very narrow genre that is virtually impossible to do really well.

a lot of the 90s ska bands got sucked into the 311 vortex, ditch all ska elements for that revved up, glossy mall rock.

Ska is one of the worst genre ever imo

― Zeno

Mercifully I kept my distance from both during the '90s, but I wonder, which revival was more successful in terms of helping people get into original ska or swing? I agree with the comments above that '90s "swing" was more like jump blues, so I don't know if it turned a lot of people on to (say) Ellington.

had a high school friend that was really really into 1st-2nd wave ska in the early 90's, i think it was all he listened to at one point, and he sniffed at the later stuff. he mustve hipped me to hepcat, pretty sure he 'approved'. so I already had a little persective and took the 90's stuff in song by song (most of it was bad yes). i wasn't opposed in principle to the swing stuff (meant less 'grunge' for one thing) but i didn't end up liking much beyond squirrel nut zippers, they laid it on thick but there's some good songs and production there

I think the real answer to this question is post-grunge though. I mean, that one still dominates alt-rock radio through its influence.

^^^This. I saw and enjoyed a good number of the bands in the 90s being bitched about above (learning swing dance certainly helped.) If you offered me three tickets today -- Squirrel Nut Zippers, Slackers, Staind -- I know which one I'd refuse, or which one would make me hit my car radio button.

One of the worst things about the Swing revival was that it crushed the much more fun Lounge revival off the dancefloor. The lounge scene had a large range of great music, both old (Sinatra/Herb Alpert/Sergio Mendez etc) and new (Fantastic Plastic Machine/Pizzicato 5/Bertrand Burgalat/Tipsy/Arling & Cameron etc), and lots of other stuff too - even Stereolab could get played. I can remember having a few drink-soaked rave-ups in the name of lounge - great nights of dancing, comedy, spoken word, and a fair amount of weird experimental stuff. When the swing nazis showed up, all that eclecticism disappeared almost overnight, the music got really boring and conservative and it was all over. That was my experience with it anyway. It may have been different in other cities.

i think a major thing that distinguished the squirrel nut zippers -- who were never exactly "swing" anyway -- was katharine whalen. there weren't a lot of women in that whole neo-swing thing. i have one of her solo albums, more traditional lounge-jazz stuff, she's not bad.

yeah that's fair, they rode the wave somewhat but would have been doing what they were doing anyway

SNZ really predated the revival and were only associated with it out of writer laziness.

That's really true of Cherry Poppin' Daddies, too -- although most of their other influences (Oingo Boingo-ish smartass new wave, white boy funk) aren't generally critically accepted either.

well alot of these bands predated the revivals but to leave out bands like them and say, bosstones for ska doesn't leave much of a revival to talk about. i guess you gotta question which bands individually contributed to the stain ('put their two shits in') and go from there

every generation has its "we should dress up and wear suits" movement, doesn't it? seemed like the clothes mattered a lot.

So far none of the bands mentioned have a ska pun in their name which to my mind disqualifies them from being a proper 3rd? wave ska band. (were madness and specials 2nd wave or 1st wave?)

Mephiskapheles was the band name that finally sent me over the fucking edge.

Is some of the hate for swing coming from it being popular with the wrong kind of white people?

What kind?

Mephiskapheles was one of the best groups though! xxp