In Defense of Ska

Eugene Robinson was at many iconic hardcore shows in the 80s--as a musician (He played in Whipping Boy), as a journalist, and as a fan. The scene was not always a pretty place. He's been in enough fights that he wrote a book about it. Fight: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ass-Kicking but Were Afraid You'd Get Your Ass Kicked For Asking.  But Eugene's latest book details his hardcore years and it's anot...

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE BONUS EPISODE!

This month we give you a bonus episode about emo!

Why? Because Adam and I don't know a lot about emo, and there are some pretty major parallels to the story of ska and the story of emo. Besides, a lot of the new wave of ska bands were influenced by emo, so it makes A LOT of sense for us all do do our homework on emo! 

To do that, we brought on an emo expert! Andrew Sacher, editor at Brooklyn Vegan...

Only a handful of bands made up the 2 Tone era of ska in late 70s England. Today, we bring on Rhoda Dakar, the singer of The Bodysnatchers, an all-female ska band that released 2 singles on the 2 Tone record label before breaking up. The band also recorded a few Peel Sessions and were featured on Dance Craze. Though short-lived, The Bodysnatchers were an important band and are still loved by many to this day.

Rhoda also s...

You probably know our next guest for playing keyboards with Catbite. But Esteban Flores has played with a ton of ska bands, (live or just recording on some tracks). We're talking somewhere in the range of 80 groups! The point is that Esteban is THEE keyboardist of ska, so he needed his own episode.

We talk about the many bands he's played with like Matamoska, The Steady 45's, The Bandulus, Mr. Kingpin, The ...

Bedouin Soundclash are a household name in Canada, The UK and other parts of the world. But in the US, they are a lesser known group. They formed in 2000 in Ontario, Canada and scored the big hit "When The Night Feels My Song" in 2004. The song made it to Radio 1 in the UK and got airplay on The Edge radio show in Toronto.

Not only did "When The Night" launch their career, the song developed a life of ...

Scowl is one of a handful of new hardcore bands blowing up at the moment. And, more importantly, they are a band with ska roots. Specifically, their bassist Bailey Lupo, who used to play bass in San Jose ska-punk band The Caps (or CAPS). So, we brought them on to get all the deets on their ska past.

Bailey told us about packing records at Asian Man Records as a teen. (They begged Mike Park to release the Scowl record in 2...

Dance Craze recently got re-issued in the UK. So we figured it was time to give it another watch.

Adam had never seen Dance Craze. I've not only seen it several times, but I interviewed several people involved with its creation.

We got together and watched the film and said all of our thoughts! Hear what we had to say.

If you want to watch the film along with us, here's the link. Start it when we say! https://www....

In the early 2000s, Jamie Stewart wanted to go to Vietnam. They brought a rubber baby doll with them to take photos while they were there. One of those photos became the cover for Xiu Xiu's excellent A Promise album. But, for this trip to happen in the first place, Jamie needed to raise some money. For 8 months before they left, they recorded as many punk and ska bands as they could (One of the bands was Short Round).

Aranivah didn't dance when she was a punk teenager living in El Salvador. It wasn't till years later after she immigrated to New York that she fell in love with ska, cumbia, soul music, and dancing to these genres. With no formal training, she discovered that she was really good at it. But she wasn't just good at moving her body. She made it accessible to other people. Her videos dancing to ska and other subgenres so...

Chicago would become a major ska town in the 90s as the home of Jump Up Records, Slapstick, and Fireside Bowl. But before any of this took off, there was Heavy Manners, a Chicago ska/reggae band that formed in 1980. Within a few years, Heavy Manners were the biggest band (of any genre) in town, but they weren't able to create the same kind of passionate following outside of Chicago. So, in 1984, they threw in the towel. 
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Welcome to our 116th episode, the one that TRULY matters. This conversation is what everything has led to...where host Aaron Carnes interviews co-host Adam Davis! We did this in our first episode, but in this episode, we go so much deeper.

Adam's band, Omnigone just released an incredible album called Against The Rest on Bad Time Records. So we brought on Adam (Not a co-host this time!) along with Omnigone/Blast Band...

 Is 2023 the year ska comes back? Oh I know, you've heard that one before. But it does seem like there's some great things happening in ska in 2023, and we thought we'd talk to one of the leaders of the new ska scene (JER of Skatune Network and We Are The Union!) about what this all means for the future of ska!

We originally released this episode in Jan 2023 exclusive to our Patreon subscribers. Many of them...

The Hooters were most known for their handful of rock singles in the 80s: "And We Danced," "Day By Day," "All You Zombies," to name a few. There is a reggae-tinged to "All You Zombies." Earlier versions of the song were more overt because when they formed, The Hooters were one of the US's first ska bands.

Today we sit down with Hooters' members Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian ...

Chris Farren doesn't know a lot about ska, despite his claim that he "practically invented modern ska guitar playing." However, he IS an amazing ska podcast guest. We discuss the various ways his non-ska career has intersected with ska and ska people. We also just wanted to hear Chris' amazing stories!

Chris starts by reading us his texts from TikTok celebrity Mike Park. We also learn what it was like ...

Before David J discovered David Bowie & T-Rex--the artists that inspired him to play music for a living--he fell in love with ska/rocksteady/reggae. As a young teen, David J snuck into skinhead clubs where he fell in love with reggae's deep bass vibrations, and got to see the slick fashion and vibrant dance moves associated with the subculture. Years later, he brought elements of ska and reggae into his band, Bauhaus. 

Stranger Cole doesn't recall a time before he started singing and writing music; it was always a part of his life. As a teenager in Jamaica in the early 60s, he took several of his songs to record producer Duke Reid, who liked his songwriting, but not his voice. He had Eric Monty Morris sing Stranger's song "In and Out The Window." After the song became a hit, he let Stranger sing a few of his songs. The next tw...

Buffalo New York ska band The Abruptors formed in 2015 and came out the gate playing 2 Tone and trad ska grooves. They looked around and didn't see very many new ska bands in their region playing a similar style of the genre. That didn't bother them. They just did their thing. However, Mike Park noticed and immediately forged a relationship with them. They released their latest record, Noticeably Cheerless, on Asian Man R...

Everyone loves Half Past Two! And as a fan of the band, you surely ADORE their lead singer Tara Hahn! But are you familiar with Tara's SECRET past? You will be if you listen to this special episode of In Defense of Ska that is available EXCLUSIVELY to IDOS Patrons!

And if we do say so, this is our BEST bonus episode of In Defense of Ska TO DATE! You won't want to miss Tara's CRAZY stories from her previous life!
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When Eric Daino formed The Holophonics in Denton, Texas in 2012, there weren't a lot of other bands in his area playing ska. That was fine with him. The group went hard regardless, recording originals and a ton of ska covers (18 covers albums in fact!). The vibe was goofy. They imagined exaggerated versions of Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake as characters they were playing.

That changed. The band no longer plays cov...