various artists - Keep The Pressure On: Contemporary Traditional Ska!

I preordered a copy of Trust Records' reissue of Hepcat's second LP, "Scientific", along with the attendant Scientist dub version, within minutes of it being announced. I knew it'd make a killer gift for Mrs. Mummy, who's a huge Hepcat fan as well, and I figured that dub 12" would be a tough one to track down after the fact. Turns out I was correct; darn thing's already sold out.

Needless to say, the gift was a hit.

It reminded me of this comp, an early release from the short-lived but high-quality Minneapolis label Kingpin Records. Both records are led off by "Country Time", just a killer opening track by one of the bands from the third wave that still holds up well. But I suppose that applies to everyone here, even for the bands with cutesy-pie names or puns that were bad immediately after being ginned up. Every great band drawing from the JA wellspring of ska from this era is here. The Slackers, Let's Go Bowling, Skavoovie & the Epitones, the Allstonians; all bands that, within a span of two years, made records that still get regular play. Quite frankly, if you like JA music, but haven't checked out "Mr. Twist" or "The Allston Beat" in a while, you ought to come back to them.

But, for me, it's the non-Moon Ska bands that continue to feel relivatory. Like, how did Ocean 11 only get a handful of comp appearances and a single CD? Jump With Joey cut a live version of "Summer Come Lovin" with Rolando Alphonso, Ernest Ranglin, and Eddie Thornton that they contributed. Even the locals in the Siren Six! and the Jinkies are worth revisiting, reminding me of that time when I got really stoked by the music the band nerds made after high school.

Discogs

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various artists - Skankin' 'Round The World: Vol. 1

I took the opportunity a few weeks back, during Discogs' select retailer sale, to snag a cheap copy of this from the good folks at Academy Records, a joint I've tried to visit every time I've gone to NYC in the past twenty years, and a semi-regular haunt when I'm looking to fill in gaps of my Impulse! collection and what not. They're a helluva good spot to find those random records I wanted a quarter century ago,

So it was, in addition to a Benny Carter CD I'd never owned and a pair of Lungfish records I sold off a number of years ago, that I ordered this, one of the earliest looks at the 3rd wave of ska. I'd never been able to lay hands on a copy when I was living that life back in the 90s, but, for nostalgia's sake, I couldn't pass this up. This is all mainstays of that era; the Toasters, Bad Manners, Mr. Review, Skaos, Potato 5, and Bim Skala Bim. I was a bit taken aback from the number of names I didn't recognize. I knew Les Saxas, but didn't know they appeared here under their old name "Saxawhaman", I knew nothing about the Donkey Show, who had a terrible name but a secret weapon in future Slacker/Hepcat Dave Hillyard. The Deltones, Kortatu, Spy Eye, Blue Chateau: it's pretty cool to discover these bands 35 years in the past, coming just a few years after 2-Tone petered out. There's five volumes in this series, and I'm sorely tempted to track them all down, $5 at a time.

I initially planned to post this last week, in honor of Skanksgiving. I'll see myself out.

Discogs

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various artists - This Are Moon Ska! 2

Sorry for the day's delay; I clearly got wrapped up in pre-Thanksgiving wildness and forgot to cue up a post for yesterday.

Eh, fuck it, you didn't notice.

This'un covers most of Moon Ska's roster from 1996-7, including label headliners the Toasters, long-time third wave standouts like the Slackers, Ruder Than You, and Let's Go Bowling, as well as old heads like Laurel Aitken and the Skatalite-adjacent Tricia And The Supersonics. If'n you wanted to know how things sounded in the third wave scene right as the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Reel Big Fish started to break (really) big, then this is in your wheelhouse. 

Discogs

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