It's ok to like ska. I'm not kidding. It is perfectly acceptable to like ska.
With the current explosion of young ska bands coming up and their growing popularity, I've heard some peers kind of dragging on ska. That's ridiculous. The original ska music was VERY rebellious music. It was working class. And it was damn good. Go back and listen to those Trojan Records comps. Expand thy mind!
I did a bunch of years on the road as the merch guy for Mustard Plug. I think Dave from MP recently did an interview here at Scene Point Blank! I have had the pleasure of hanging out with all of the ska bands over the years. Voodoo Glow Skulls, Big D and the Kids Table, Suicide Machines, and The Toasters to name a few. Somehow I became the ska contact in my city. Ska was always a tough sell until recently. Even I was starting to get sick of being the ska guy. This was before the current wave. This recent wave is very good actually! The folks at Bad Time Records are nailing it! I'm really digging on Catbite, Kill Lincoln, JER, and that whole crew. It's cool as hell that we get new records from vets like Suicide Machines, Mustard Plug, and even Madness! What a time to be alive! And who doesn't love dancing? I fukn LOVE dancing!
OK, it's not all great. I have a core dislike for bands like Reel Big Fish. That shit is terrible. It's corny, but not in any cool way at all. Also I personally never understood the obsession with The Aquabats. Well, not until it fully manifested into a kids TV show. Then that whole thing made perfect sense. Those cats were obviously playing the long game with that schtick. Also I really hate Reel Big Fish. Did I mention that? Crap. I think I did already. I'm sure they are nice guys, but how do you grow up on Operation Ivy and decide that it's perfectly OK to be Reel Big Fish. Or even sound anything like Reel Big Fish. My hatred of Reel Big Fish is absolutely unreasonable, but here we are. WE ALL HAVE TO DRAW A LINE IN THE SAND SOMEWHERE!!!!!
Where was I? Oh yeah. Operation Ivy. How cool is it that we have seen Tim and Jesse get up and play a couple OPIV songs in recent years? That is insanely cool! I don't want a full blown reunion. That would be terrible. Tim's beard would distract me too much. I'm not even convinced that thing is real. Love Tim though. I got to meet him in Detroit. Rancid was playing on my birthday, so my gf back then and I went. We landed at the wrong hotel, but Rancid's tour bus was there. We pulled up on Tim. He was probably in his early 30s then. There is my ska punk icon, just chillin outside the giant rockstar tour bus, smoking a cigarette, wearing a tattered OPIV shirt, while sitting on the curb. We drove up excitedly. I rolled down my window and my gf yells "Hey, are you Tim Armstrong???".
He replied "Who's asking?"
It was hilarious. As soon as we explained that we were fans, he dropped back into his full punk rock persona and was trying to sell the show to us. We tried to explain that we already had tickets and we were in Detroit specifically to see Rancid. To be fair, it was hot as hell out there. It was August. Anyways, OPIV is cool as fuck and they are ska. Rancid is a favorite too. Well, only through the self titled 1998 record. Everything after that sounds like they stopped trying. I get it. They wrote like 102 songs and did it in 5 albums. That's a lot. They weren't all bangers, but even the bad ones were pretty good. That's mind blowing to think about. 102 songs in 5 records. Impressive!
I just wanted to use one of my columns to express my love for the genre. Not all music has to mean something, but thankfully this music does. Mostly. And it's the one of the few places where being a dork is completely acceptable and very much encouraged!
Fuck Reel Big Fish. Seriously.
