Ska

Search: The 100-200-300-400-500% Dynamite comps that come out every so often. Great mix of all reggeae genres (Ska, Dub, Roots, Dancehall).

I tend to think ska (and reggae in general) all went wrong when it fell into the hands of the US-based white middle class college fratboy set. Reggae/Ska's dancable accessability+association with gettin' high makes it an easy target for watered down rip off white rasta trustafarians who watch 'half-baked' after band practice.

It went wrong with Madness.

ska = Jamaican polka. And polka = Slovak rock. Hence, its attraction to Slavs (such as my relatives in Poland I visited six years ago, though the Poles seem to have snapped outta it and are recently responsible for a good batch of death metal -- Sto Lat! ).

Come to one of the beer-soaked jock-rock fests passed off as ska around here and you'll never find a more joyless, sad experience. Especially when those fuckers in the Bosstones are involved.

There are only like 5 references to Bim Skala Bim on ILX, but I've heard one of their songs twice as background music for cable tv shows. First in an emeril green segment on salads, then last night on a travel channel segment about the world's largest halloween store in worcester, ma.

I haven't listened to it in ages, but I used to rep pretty heavily for their live album.

fsr photo of my hs ska band in this buzzfeed article 23 things that totally made you ska kid in high school http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/23-things-that-totally-made-you-ska-kid-in-high-school

oh we postin about our hs ska bands here?

I went to my folks house in February to look at the Super Bowl with them, and my mom had put the contents of their VHS/DVD collection into a box and tasked me with reviewing it and choosing what wouldn't be destroyed for eternity. I couldn't not save a professionally-reproduced DVD that our Peruvian Mormon Trumpet Player's mom had made of our rad Aquabats-style anti-communist multi-racial themed ska-core band that took 2nd place at the 1998 Battle of the Bands and I'm proud to say FIRST PLACE at the 1999 Battle of the Bands, an honor legitimized by a $200 cash reward and a formal opportunity for us to play on the campus's outdoor stage during lunch a few weeks before graduation (we covered Less Than Jake, it was 1999).

anyway here's the back of the DVD (thumbs 1-3 are the ska band's opening band, which was the Peruvian Mormon Trumpet Player's sub-band consisting of three members of the main band, where he played piano and the ska band's drummer and singer backed him up on drums and bass, respectively. We covered Ben Folds, it was 1999)

https://i.imgur.com/N5zSHEN.jpg

i was playing a pearl export kit with cheap paiste cymbals in a 7-piece HS ska band around those years. i salute you!

i played trumpet in a ska band in HS too, we were called the 'skaskank redemption'. gawd. the best day of the band's life was when streetlight manifesto played in our small town in wisconsin for some reason

i always associate wisconsin and new jersey with high school ska bands

do I wanna go see Less Than Jake and Bowling For Soup when they're touring together here pretty soon?

seems kinda fun, right? or ...

note: i have never been a fan of either band or ska, but am feeling open to this.

following up on my own question...I had *zero* idea which band was "bigger" and/or headlining, so I looked at Spotify monthly listeners:

Less Than Jake: 797,068
Bowling For Soup: 3,065,902

it's certainly not a perfect way to measure, but does that feel right?! is BFS really 3 to 4 times bigger than LTJ?