Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Ska Music

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore why ska music is secretly incredibly fascinating. Special guests: Dave Holmes and Riley Silverman.Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources and for this week's bonus episode.Come hang out with us on the new SIF Discord: https://discord.gg/wbR96nsGg5

Ska music, known for being 90s, famous for being silly. Nobody thinks much about it, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm very much not alone because I'm joined by my co-host, Katie Golden. Katie, hello. Hello. Hi. Hi. And we have two guests joining us as well, introducing them one at a time. We're joined by an editor-at-large for Esquire, former MTV VJ, and host of many wonderful shows, including the podcast Troubled Waters here on Maximum Fun, Dave Holmes. Welcome. Thanks for being here. Hello. Thank you for having me. I'm honored.

Oh, so glad to. And we are also joined also from the Troubled Waters, first the writer for that show, as well as a comedian, tabletop role-playing streamer, many other things, Riley Silverman. Great to have you back, Riley. Hey, glad to be back. I love doing this show. It's very fun. Yeah. Yeah. You were on the Blood Types episode. I was. That's right. And have now returned for the extremely related topic of ska music. It's a perfect fit. What was the one that I was always at? Oranges? Or there was like a fruit that I was involved in?

Pears? Was it pears with Jackie Kayshun? That was a fun one. Pears. Yeah. Pears as well. Yeah. And thank you all for having us on Troubled Waters at Boca time of the drive and also just for making an amazing show. I began listening in the international waters era and have remained way into it, but I'm so glad it's out there. Thank you so much for listening and sticking with us through our move into Troubled Waters. Our shapeshifting. Our shapeshifting. Our shapeshifting. And we receive most of our topics from listeners, picking them in polls. Thank you very much to Enus, Minus, Minus, Mosif for suggesting this on the Discord, as well as LS Gregor, JC R Dude, Burrito,

many others for getting excited about ska music as a topic. And we always start by asking folks their relationship to it or opinion of it. So what's your relationship to or opinion of ska music? Anybody can start. So I had this thought the other day about how, because I've worked with Dave for several years now on Troubled Waters, International Waters, and I don't tend to fangirl out about having been watching Dave as a VJ on MTV when I was younger. But I am thinking about the number of people in my life who if I told them I was on a Ska podcast with Dave Holmes,

they would be so mad and so jealous of me because they would care way more to be talking about Ska with Dave Holmes, like a music from the 90s with Dave Holmes. Because I will say I don't, for my exact age and my entire personality you would think that I was a much bigger ska fan than I am but I weirdly I was weirdly very into pop punk in the 90s and very into the swing revival but never apparently I was like well I like fast guitars and I like horns but never the twain shall meet in my mind apparently because yeah the only the only ska band that I think I got pretty into at any point was Real Big Fish. I mean, obviously, like I knew the Boston's number.

That was like the big single. Knock on wood. Is that what it was or whatever the real song was called? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The impression that I get. That's it. There you go. That's the impression that I get.

Yeah. So I knew that one. There you go. That's the impression that I get. Yeah. So I knew that one, obviously. I did get really into Real Big Fish for a while, but I think that was more as an extension of my pop punk fandom than it was me being super into ska music. And I like the soundtrack to 10 Things I Hate About You, which had a lot of ska on it, too.

So maybe I should have gotten more into ska when I was younger and did not. Yeah. A whole new world could have been open to you. I have a long background with earlier than this sort of the wave of ska that you're talking about, Riley. Like in the 70s, there was like the specials and to a degree like the English beat and like these bands from England that were on a label called Two Tone. And I had the incredible fortune when I was a little kid to have brothers in college, like in the late 70s, early 80s. And so they would come back with those records. And like that first specials record is like, ooh, it's something else. And, uh, so I, I grew up loving that also kind of liking the, the, the second or third, I don't know what wave I assume we'll break it into waves at some point, but, uh, the, the wave of orange County ska in the nineties was like, not my

favorite, but I kind of liked it and and the mighty mighty boston's were getting their start when i was in college outside of boston and so like i used to go and see them a lot and wear plaid and i was i had that moment for maybe three months of my life but i'm i'm um i'm scott tolerant i guess i would say thank you for all of that because i and katie i want to know what you think of ska music. My very brief relationship is I only knew about what is called third wave ska, it turns out, which is the pop punky US 1990s situation. And Dave, you're exactly right about like two tone being what is apparently the second

wave. And it was a real revelation researching this. There was just more things called Ska than I realized. Katie, were you in the same boat as me where I just thought it was a 90s thing that came out of nowhere? I'm, for the record, I'm a one years old baby. Ska kind of missed me or I missed ska. So my understanding of ska is maybe kind of jazz-ish, but also hats and checkerboards. And I also practice ska tolerance, scolorance, because, you know, I think all music, I don't count out any music as just that none of it can

be good. I think all music can be good. I agree with that. Scholarance, a wonderful message for the world. Sharing it today. For this topic of ska music, we start with a first mega takeaway of just what this is, because it is way more things than I was aware researching, and I think many people are. So mega takeaway number one. The name Ska refers to at least three different musical movements, and it all began in Jamaica. We'll briefly explore the history of Jamaica in order to talk about music that I thought was mainly what you call the Orange County ska, very humorously.

I thought it was guys with trombones in the late 90s. Key sources this week include an amazing piece for Folklife magazine by Jay Komiak. That's a project of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. And also a book called Ska and Oral History by writer and Purdue University lecturer Heather Augustin. Thank you to listener Burrito for the tip on that book. The name Ska is coming from Jamaica because that's where the music is from. According to anthropologist Ken Bilby, quote, Ska was born when urban Jamaican musicians began to play North American rhythm and blues, which was a style that had penetrated the island via imported records and radio broadcasts from Miami and other parts of the southern United States, end quote. 1900s collision of technology, culture, Jamaican national identity that creates a music that I think most US and Canada listeners have not heard before. That's really interesting. I wish I was

more educated on like music theory, because I think it'd be really, really fascinating how the progenitors of new genres of music and kind of if you could identify sort of the things that they took from, say, blues or from rhythm and then how they evolved in the process of making Ska. That would be really cool. But I don't. I lack that. I can barely clonk out

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the piano. Classic Ska hit, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. First way. That on the piano. Classic Ska hit, twinkle, twinkle, little star. First way. That's the first way with Ska. We also, I have a few clips that we'll hear a little bit of just right away and then talk about why they are Ska.

Just a couple of early clips of Ska. One of the first songs called Easy Snapping by Theophilus Bickford. This was recorded in 1959 in Jamaica. It's called Easy Snapping by Theophilus Bickford. This was recorded in 1959 in Jamaica. It's called Easy Snapping. So here's a little bit of it. I love that title. I love that. I like it.

Yeah. That's some real easy snapping. I like a song that tells you also how to do it. Like the title is like, yeah, it's easy snapping. Here you go. Let's do it. Yeah, like foot tapping, easy snapping, shoulder wagging. Tell me the dance move because I am not good at dancing. Yeah, I like a song that tells you how to dance

to it in the song. That's always a good fun. That's very important. I like that. And then from there, they almost immediately started adding more guitar. That song has a lot of piano mainly doing it. But let's hear two more clips so we can get where

the name of this comes from. The next clip is a song called Forward March by Derek Morgan. He made it in 1962. It's also referencing Jamaican independence, which also happened in 1962. Jamaica became independent from Britain. So here's Forward March real quick. I love it. That's awesome. It's the same song, but I love it. I love both of that song. There was some, there was some easy snapping in there. You are correct. There was some very easy snapping. I feel like I have heard a lot of ska based on this, but I didn't know what it was. Yeah, there's a really interesting musical progression here.

And the most samey element is kind of why it's the genre of Jamaican ska. The name ska is onomatopoeia, which I think deserves its own mini takeaway number two. The word ska is musical onomatopoeia based on an upstroke on the offbeat. Oh, wow. The rhythm of ska, according to Derek Morgan, was them trying to do something different than 1950s American R&B. Because a lot of that had kind of a heavy on-the-beat sound. But as we'll hear in one more clip here, it was all about a guitar upstroke on the offbeat. And so you kind of get a rhythm of one ska, two ska, three ska, four ska.

And that sort of Scott going upward on the guitar is where we get the word Scott and the name Scott. And it's become the beat in a lot of different music. Oh, that's cool. Let's hear it. This is musician Jimmy Cliff in 1964. This is a song called King of Kings. And you can really... I hope it's the same song again. I'll be so excited if it's Easy Snappin' again. I can't give me enough of Easy Snappin', so if all we're gonna do this episode is listen to more Easy Snappin', I'll be happy. Yeah. It's really

fun. But here's King of Kings by Jimmy Cliff. The lion says I am king and I reign. The lion says I am king in this reign. The lion says, I am king in this reign. I mean, I definitely hear easy snapping in there. I don't know if anybody else does, but I definitely, yeah.

Yeah, there's a strong vein of easy snapping. Now, we also heard horns in that for the first time in this set, didn't we, Alex? I believe there was a little bit of a horn, there was some horn happening there. That's absolutely right. Yeah. Easy tootin'. This music really progressed rapidly in terms of people knowing like, this is a great beat for this upstroke offbeat that we can just use as a foundation for everything. And it also got used for a really specific cultural and entertainment purpose.

Because what happens is Jamaica, the like 32nd history of it is that the name Jamaica comes from the Arawak native language from a word meaning land of wood and water. Taino people there were the main people there for many centuries. Columbus visits, Spain colonizes, and then Britain conquers the Spanish colony. And from 1670 all the way until 1962, it's a British colony and also a hub of British slave trading and shipping enslaved people places, making enslaved people grow, especially sugar there. But as Jamaica wins independence, they also are developing sort of a new pan-African identity, a new black identity. And they are also looking for their own music to play. Because not only do they want to have their own situation as a country, there's also a big local culture of parties based around what are called sound systems. And it's sort of the meaning of how we say sound system in a modern house, where it's like, this is my amp and my situation for hearing music. In the city of Kingston in the 1950s, that was a portable high-tech business. That was people using electrical engineering

skills to rig a bunch of amplifiers together and do pop-up dance parties at houses and streets and fields. And so they wanted really danceable music. And initially that just had to be whatever American rhythm and blues records they could get. But later they developed Jamaican music for Jamaican dance parties. And this consistent beat was danceable all of the time. It's easy, easy snapping. Taking those easy snaps to the streets. Yeah.

I like it. Okay. Now, I asked this question knowing that I am an extremely white person from the Midwest. Do you know, Alex, is there information about what differentiates ska from reggae as far as being music of like music of of the era of the area and stuff like i feel like there's probably pretty similar timelines from when they developed and probably for similar reasons and maybe i'm wrong about that but i didn't know if in your research for ska if you found this information that's the exactly right question

because a whole nother amazing to me thing here, mini takeaway number three. Ska music is the origin point of reggae. It turns out pretty much everybody who developed reggae as a genre started out as a Jamaican ska musician. And that's also why we associate reggae so strongly with Jamaica. It's that everybody doing it was in this ska scene on the island. Asked and answered. Awesome. There we go. Jimmy Cliff, for example. And this Jamaican ska comes from a lot of sound system operators branching out into recording music. Not necessarily being musicians, but recording other people's music.

One of the biggest ones was Clement Coxon Dodd, who goes from sourcing American records to building a studio for Jamaican musicians to make Jamaican records. My favorite story of the ska genre and recording setup for it coming out of nowhere is the story of Leslie Kong. Leslie Kong was a Chinese Jamaican small business owner with a restaurant and an ice cream shop. He turned a spare room of that building into a record shop. There was just extra space to put a rack of records and sell it. That little shop attracted members of the music scene who were this new ska music scene. And pretty soon, Kong is also using the building for recording sessions. pretty soon, Kong is also using the building for recording sessions. Within about a decade,

he goes from being a restaurant owner to being the record label operator recording and releasing music by bands like The Wailers, as in Bob Marley and The Wailers. That progression took less than a decade. Do music experts do phylogenies of music? Because I would love to see a phylogenetic tree of ska, other music, just to track, help track like where music comes from in its offshoots. Yeah, I only sort of know the word phylogeny, but I think it means an evolutionary family tree. Yeah, exactly. Cool. Sounds like you Yeah, exactly. Cool. I don't know. They have- Sounds like you understand it exactly.

Oh, hey. That's pretty much it. You got it. There goes my low self-esteem again, messing with the show. There we go. But yeah, in this case, it's a really rapid evolution. And apparently it partly draws on what was happening in Jamaican culture post-independence, because it was a somewhat difficult post-colonial situation. A lot of

people making ska said, I want to start making like a slower music that has lyrics with cultural commentary, is not necessarily just for sound system dance parties. And that became a genre called rock steady. And then that almost immediately evolved into what gets called reggae. Apparently the band Toots and the Maytals coined that term in 1968 with one of their album titles. And yeah, from there it becomes a whole thing, but the roots are almost definitely Ska. It's just a few years later. In Heather Augustine's book, she interviews Sadella Marley, who is Bob Marley's daughter. And she says, quote, Ska was but one moment in the fast-moving Zion train of linked events that made up his life, end quote.

Fast-moving Zion train. Yeah. There's so many good turns of phrase that i can't wait to use yeah i like that a lot it's really good yeah yeah but yeah so like to my white midwestern american ear i hear jamaican scott in this first wave and i think oh that's like kind of reggae because that's how it's been transmitted to me. Yeah. I wanted to say though, when we talk about the strumming up and the guitar, I know like as, again,

as a white woman who has done some standup comedy, I have dabbled in playing the ukulele. And I know that like when you're playing the ukulele, the common strum is down, down, up, up, down. So there is like an up strum. And that's part of what gives the ukulele that like island, kind of like that tropical vibe to it is that. So I wonder if that's like derivative of a similar thing.

I know it's like a more traditional instrument over time, but I wonder if that's like part of why the up string is significant here. Because it's like a similar style of play to other instruments of regions and stuff like that. Yeah, it's definitely from the medium of these specific instruments. Yeah, it's kind of surprising. Easy Snapping did it on the piano because it's very from the medium of these specific instruments. Yeah. It's kind of surprising. Easy Snapping did it on the piano because it's very natural on a guitar. Yeah, that back and forth. I was going to I was going to balk at the generalization about white women. And then I looked over and I have a ukulele like in this room.

But to be fair, I'm not good at it. So there I wasn't either. I sold mine. I gave mine to somebody else during the pandemic. She was like, I'm not good at it. So there we go. I wasn't either. I sold mine. I gave mine to somebody else during the pandemic. She was like, I'm looking for a ukulele. I'm like, you can have mine. Get it out of my eye line. Yeah.

And this ska scene, it really kind of blossomed all of a sudden because there's this situation in the 50s where there are sound system, basically entrepreneurs, like small businessmen with a set of amps and whichever records they can grab. It was really DJ culture kind of stuff, like whoever had the best records picked out and played them the best way, you would win the battle of bringing people to your party. But it was pretty convoluted to get American R&B records to Jamaica. And also as the 1950s went on, a lot of American musicians started playing stuff like rock and roll.

And then there was British invasion Beatles-y kind of stuff that's just less danceable. And so then Jamaicans said, let's tape our own stuff. By the way, if you are, if the listener is in the Los Angeles area, there is a monthly Sunday afternoon party at Benny Boy Brewing in Lincoln Heights that is called Rhythm and Bruise. And they, and it's, they play only early Jamaican ska and rocksteady. It's super fun.

That's amazing. That sounds fun. It is fun. And it's also, this is, you know, I'm probably, I'm skipping ahead in the story, but it's all of the DJs are like Orange County people. And it's like the dress code is like very strict. Even if it's 110 degrees outside, everyone's, you know, in a long pant. What's the Orange County dress code?

God, how would I describe it? It's a kind of mod? It's a lot of plaids. It's a lot of mod. It's, you know, yeah. You got to have like a cool kind of biker jacket. Again, even if it's an August afternoon, a big thick Doc Martin boot.

It's a lot of fun. It's good music for beer beer drinking on a uh on a sunday afternoon would one need to wear like a a black and white checkerboard hat you would not be turned away in a black and white checkerboard hat okay i don't participate in the dress code but the people who who are like putting it together you can tell you can tell who's really into the scene because they're dressing to impress one another i do feel like that's a scenario where if I can tell the advantage of being post-transition with that is that like I could probably wear like a cool sundress that has like a kind of checker vibe to it and a pair of Doc Martens and I'll be totally fine.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Homecoming queen. Could I just put a chess board sort of like wear it like a sandwich board and play chess as I'm listening to Scott. And would they accept me? However you get there is how you get there. I'm going to tell you if I'm at any party and someone shows up in a chessboard sandwich

board, I'm not going to be the one to question them. I am going to let them do that. There's something happening that I don't want to be involved in and I'm letting it happen. Let me do me. I feel like you could do it as long as they don't catch you with any pieces. Right? Like if you have a night and you're like, get out. Now it's just the game.

Get out of here, Anya Taylor-Joy. Come on. This is not the place for you. Yeah. Yeah. It's this, this topic is kind of a fashion topic the whole way too. And cause we have this first wave of ska, it forms one whole musical branch of reggae. Also, the original ska creates the concept of a rude boy.

Rude boy. Like in Jamaica, especially in the turbulent 1960s, a rude boy was what you call like a disaffected Jamaican youth who just wants something different from life. But then as new waves of ska come, they just keep calling ska fans rude boys. And especially with this second wave in the 1970s, that is mainly a British wave of music. It's British bands influenced by ska and by rocksteady. And it's also really, really influenced by like 1970s British punk. And so Second Wave Ska is faster, harsher. I see. Let's do a few more clips.

One of them is the band called Madness. This is a clip from the 1979 song One Step Beyond. Love that. Love that saxophone. Yeah. You've still got that upstroke in there, but it's also a bunch of other stuff. Yeah. I had a moment where I was like, oh, I know the name Madness is a band. And then I remembered it's because Madness has a track on the 10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack that I already said was the thing that I know from Ska. Yeah. I'm realizing that I have heard a lot of Ska, and I think it is from like Nickelodeon shows from the nineties. I think, you know what,

like, like the live action Nickelodeon shows, I think had a lot of ska on them or something. I can't put a finger on any particular one, but it's very familiar. That makes sense. Yeah. Then also the second wave, it didn't just draw on the original Scott, it also drew a lot on Rocksteady. Dave mentioned the Specials is probably the most influential band in terms of the fashion and also some of that draw. And here's a clip of probably their most famous song. It's called A Message my head for all of the time I researched this. Yeah. Oh, my God. What a great song. What a great song. I do feel like it's becoming less easy to snap to it.

It's no longer easy snapping. It's more complicated snapping. Not only is that special song more of a rocksteady song than Ska, it's also a cover of somebody else. The 1967 musician Dandy Livingstone in Jamaica, he made that rocksteady song. It's about giving a message to rude boys about like living correctly. And then it just got covered and kind of out of

context by the specials. And this is starting to be a lot of music coming together different ways. There is the introduction to the song Stupid Marriage on the first specials album, if you have it, is one of my favorite things in the world. It's like there's a little spoken word intro. I would do it myself, but I don't want to do a problematic accent. And it's a ball. It's a ball. Since we mentioned it, let's play the intro to the Specials song Stupid Marriage.

Let's play the intro to the specials of song Stupid Marriage. My name is Judge Roughneck, and I will not tolerate any disobedience in my courtroom. Rude boy, you have been brought in front of me and tried to smash in this woman's window. Before I sentence you, what have you got to say in your defense? I love it so much. That's fantastic. I love it so much. I love it so much. I love, by the way, knowing now where Rude Boy comes from, because I have heard that term my entire life.

I never knew what it meant. And now I'm excited to know. Yeah, it was pretty, it almost reminds me of how we talk about the 1960s US and counterculture and Woodstock and psychologically handling Vietnam. Like in that same decade, Jamaicans are dealing with the Rastafarian movement getting oppressed by the government and like economic turmoil and like a lot of vibes that led them to say, let's explore music differently than we have before. And Rude Boys were responding to all that. Like it's really culturally interesting. And then in the 1970s, it becomes more like British people wearing black

and white colored clothing and listening to Punky Scott, which is cool. cool well i was gonna say even from the british punk scene like i mean punk as a term like was similar like a backlash for economic downturn in the uk and like a right-wing government and stuff like that and then punks became the term for that kind of of of bloke essentially and then america and co-opting that as well but like it's a very similar evolution so i'm not surprised the two have very similar origins and terminology andopting that as well. But like, it's a very similar evolution. So I'm not surprised the two have very similar origins and terminology and stuff. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, like what is the, I was going to ask,

like what is the etymology of punk? Did it originally mean like someone, like a delinquent? Yeah. Yeah. Why don't we have a music genre called delinquent? I think if we have punk, I think that might be the reason why we don't, yeah. Too many syllables in delinquent. I think if we have punk, I think that might be the reason why we don't. Yeah. Too many syllables in delinquent.

It's never good to have that many syllables. Yeah. The, um, I don't want to step on you here, Alex, but this is an area that I do know, that I do know a bit about because I, I, uh, I read a book about it a couple of years ago called, uh, Walls Come Tumbling Down about how the second wave of ska happened. Are you familiar with Eric Clapton's involvement in this story? I am. And please talk about it. Yeah, please. It's so exciting. You are. OK.

You have my attention. I'll tell you that. So Eric Clapton has been a trash can for his whole life. And in the mid-1970s, he started rambling and ranting during his concerts about immigration in the UK. Uh-oh. And, you know, all the f***ing nativist s*** that we are hearing in the States now, he was saying in 1975. And in the UK, there was a big influx of immigrants from the West Indies and from Jamaica. So he was ignorant about that. And a bunch of young punks who may not have called themselves punks yet started a thing called Rock Against Racism that led to these parties where it would be like rock bands and then rock steady bands and ska bands on the same bill and then they started to like cross-pollinate and play with one another and

that's how two-tone records started and that's how the specials were formed and all that kind of thing so it's like if eric clapton weren't such a we might not have second wave ska i love it yeah and say the name of the book one more time just so people know it uh walls come tumbling we might not have Scott. Second wave Scott. I love it. Yeah. And say the name of the book one more time, just so people know it. Walls Come Tumbling Down. It's an oral history of a rock against racism. It's like the butterfly effect,

but being a d***. Yep. Yeah. Yep. That's all exactly dead on. And I'm so glad listeners picked this right when we separately just planned to do a

podcast together, because you're the perfect person to talk to about this. Because mini takeaway number four. People like Eric Clapton helped make Second Wave Ska an anti-racist movement. People like the band The Specials and other second wave ska bands combined black and white musicians in the same British band, which was sort of shocking in the 1970s in Britain. And they called it two-tone records, partly for fashion purposes, wearing black and white, and also almost kind of as a racial harmony meaning, even though that's sort of hidden in the fashion and the other stuff. And an era, too, where I don't know the exact timelines and branching, but where punk started

moving more and more racist and you got the skinhead movement and stuff like that, where because originally skinheads were not an anti-racist movement. And then they kind of moved. It became a defining term for very, very racist neo-Nazi type. Yeah. There were like two brands there were two sets of skinheads that would violently fight each other the yeah not the not racist or anti-racist skinheads and then the like neo-nazi skinheads yeah and then you get a no doubt song where it's

christmas eve and they're fighting on a rooftop which i think is also a cover of another song but yeah yeah it all comes together back into ska so i'm saying no doubt and sublime and a few other bands like that are definable as third wave ska even though maybe they would not be into that definition too apparently like third wave ska which i had thought was the only ska previously it turns out that is so wide ranging that some american bands that play pop punk with horns just kind of get lumped into that, whether or not they want to be. And even like second wave Scott turns into a whole bunch of other groovy things, you know, like the specials sort of becomes fun boy three and like, um, like, you know, the clash is not, you know, the clash is more of a punk band, but they,

they have like sort of Scott elements at times, and then obviously they evolve and whatever. It's such an interesting few years of music. Why Orange County? Are we going to cover why Orange County? I think L.A. and Orange County because of K-Rock, probably. Because in the late 70s and early 80ies, they were, they were like the only people who would play that kind of music, you know? And it's like, it's fun music and, you know, sound system culture is not called that, but like is a large part of like Southern

California life, like going somewhere and listening to music. You can do it all year round. You can do it at the beach. But yeah, I think it's just access to K-Rock. And I do feel like in the 80s and 90s, the beach really felt like the pinnacle of the coolest teenage experience in America. Like any sort of this is the good life sort of depiction of teenage life was always like Saved by the Bell or other like Southern California, cool kids at the beach kind of thing. So I can see that being sort of the apex of a, of a cultural revolution. Cause I don't know if that's still true for kids nowadays at the beach is like the coolest place to be, but it was very much the beach was like the, like the mall plus 10, right? Like it was just Sandy mall.

Yeah, exactly. No stores. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's basically just hot dog on a stick. Uh, but, uh uh the universal store yeah riley you and i live in los angeles what's the last time you went to the beach i dave i'm writing a novel right now and i literally have a paragraph or two in my novel about that exact thing about how like it's it's it's the the mild amount of traffic that gets to the beach is a

reason not to go and you and i live in a relatively similar area we do but like you have to go on a freeway and go over a hill not today friend i don't think so yeah yeah because it could take you 25 minutes it could take you two hours and 25 minutes yeah there's no way of knowing can i like write a chapter of your book about how frustrated I am with the infrastructure that doesn't allow people in California to easily go to the beach? Oh, yes. Yeah. I don't know if that would fit in my lesbian rom-com, but I do like the idea of it being in there. Yeah. I'll make it work. I promise. I mean, I just think that's what's so cool about, I mean, learning about ska and the social aspect of it, right? I mean, I just think that's what's so cool about, I mean, learning about ska and the social aspect of it, right?

I mean, I guess it's obvious music is a social thing. But I think in sort of our modern, especially sort of like post-pand music at the beach for people to dance to for any, you know, like the general public to like join in rather than, you know, everyone, everyone's just kind of like isolated and listening to music on their headphones. Totally. Yeah. And this probably also coincides with the advent of skate culture. A whole harborside. Because that all happens because of the drought in the late 70s. It leads to a lot of empty pools. And so people have these house parties where skaters can do tricks in empty pools.

And you've got to have music for it. So this sort of punky ska music is like, it's a crowd pleaser. I grew up in San Diego and I'm learning so much about Southern Californian culture that I never learned. From two Midwesterners. Yeah.

I just was like skateboarding, it's fun. Sure. Yeah. These changes can just bubble up around us from random demographics. Like, I'm sure you're right, Dave, about local radio impacting a second and a third wave or impacting especially an Orange County third wave where it's just on and then you hear it. impacting especially an Orange County third wave where it's just on and then you hear it. And the first, first wave in Jamaica was partly because the U.S. state of Florida filled with people. Like from 1900 to 1960, population of Florida gets 10 times bigger from about 500,000 to more than 5 million. There's brand new cities like Miami and they build new state-of-the-art radio broadcasting systems.

So then people in Jamaica pick up very faint signals of that, enjoy that, and then want to get American R&B records. That's the music for Jamaican sound systems. And then they want their own stuff after that. But they didn't do that thinking like, I'm really glad the demographics of Florida have changed and Miami is thriving. It just happens. And then you get this stuff. So amazing. And yeah, and the last thing for this mega takeaway of all the sky waves is it's partly because I was a kid in the 90s.

But with that third wave in the US, I think it was easy to miss the origins of this. miss the origins of this. People in that second wave did stuff like that specials intro where it's very clearly referencing Jamaica and where the band is playing in festivals like Rock Against Racism that exist because Eric Clapton and a little bit David Bowie are being super weird publicly. And the Jamaican roots of this are really exciting and really make the whole thing make sense as a concept in a way I just didn't know before and with david bowie it was just the cocaine it wasn't him it was the cocaine yeah it makes you real messed up yeah he seems like he was okay yeah yeah like you're real kooky i think he came around to being less racist by the end uh but i would say before we move on too far that song from madness that was on that soundtrack was wings of a dove because i want to say it so

somebody at home is not like when is she she going to say the name of the song? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't want to interrupt you at the time. Yeah. I mean, it's, that is sort of not really a ska song.

Like they, they, you know, obviously our house was huge and whatever they started to, you know, uh, take on like different sounds and whatnot. Yeah.

Uh, yeah, they were, but they were super, yeah. Super punky ska at first. Yeah. That. They were, but they were super, yeah, super punky ska at first. Yeah. That was definitely a song that when listening, when watching that movie, I remember like stopping and then having to like, in the early days of the internet, like go up and like

Google that, the lyrics and find the song. And that's kind of how I found Madness and everyone was, oh, it's the same song from our house. And I was like, okay, it's called All Comes Together. Yeah. Cause I'm, I'm not extremely musical literate. So I, there's a lot of times where I'll find out that a song I like is by a massively popular band that I'm like, well, I feel dumb now, but this is fine. And it, I like that Ska is just kind of all around us in a way I didn't know.

Like I, I tried to even look into, is there a fourth wave of Ska, right? Is it happening? And the answer is basically S ska has become so intertwined with reggae, pop punk, British punk, all kinds of other music that there isn't really a new wave of it. It's just part of the musical foundation of what we hear in a bunch of different ways. It's become part of everything we do. I do love that scene in Love Actually where Bill Nye is singing, Ska is all around us. Yeah. Where would we be without Ska?

It's truly everywhere. God bless. Yeah, I guess I have declared a Ska actually type scenario that we're all doing it potentially. But folks, we have explored so much about this genre, we're going to take a quick break and then come back with stats and numbers about some more elements of it. So stick around. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess.

I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. the next bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year.

Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace, because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. And we are back with our wonderful guests, Dave Holmes and Riley Silverman, part of the wonderful podcast, Troubled Waters. And we're talking about Scott music. The rest of the episode here is our stats and numbers segment. It always has a different name every week. This week, that's in a segment called... Stat count with me, oh yeah.

Stat count with me tonight. The podcast where you're a segment is going to give me lots of numbers and fascinating little stats tonight. Love it. Love it. I love to see Alex's musical progression on the show. Like the more of these intros he has to sing, like he's getting, he's getting good. Thank you.

What if, what if like late in the show, I just revealed that I was in real big fish. Like, Oh yeah, by the way, I was a member. I would have no choice, but to believe you. I would have no choice, but to believe you. I've interviewed them and I would, I would a member. I would have no choice but to believe you. I would have no choice but to believe you. I've interviewed them and I would believe you. Yeah. Yeah.

I was impressed that you found that you managed to have picked to parody the song from the one band that I mentioned that I actually knew of Scott from earlier without you knowing that was going to be the band that I was going to name. They turn out to be kind of significant, don't they? Is it just because it's an easy name to remember but they come up a lot yeah and i i remember they have a couple of really fun yeah sell out is like i think like one of those defining songs of that era and i think also uh as as a queer person i i do love she's a girlfriend now which i felt like that was she has a girlfriend which i felt like in the era there wasn't a whole lot of songs about like people being queer and like so it was like yeah this is great and as a trans person that song especially has a strange weird resonance in my life so it's also like is it like the song is basically like

i'm not gonna repeat it because it's not that great of a line actually but it's about like i'll transition for you come on i'll be your girlfriend still it's fine like that's not quite how it works but it was like a line that as a person in the closet in that era was like i kind of get where they're going with this. OK, cool. But yeah, oddly progressive for its time. Yeah. It's like Lola where like Lola nowadays doesn't feel very progressive.

But if you look at it in the context of when it was written, like this is extremely progressive. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. By the way, the stats song was suggested by Alan Denton. Thank you so much, Alan. And we have a new name for this every week. Make it as silly and wacky and bad as possible.

Submit through Discord or just hit podachemo.com. And first number here is January 2022. That was recent. Surprisingly recent, because that is when the band, the Mighty Mighty Boss Tones, announced that they're winding down, breaking up, no longer being a band. Oh. I hate to see it. Mighty Boss Tones announced that they're winding down, breaking up, no longer being a band. Oh, I hate to see it. Pitchfork covered it. And they said the Mighty Mighty Boss Tones made 11 albums. Their 1997 album titled Let's Face It was certified platinum, certified gold hit single, the impression I get. And I wanted to find like a, what's the top selling ska artist. And that's not very clear, because jamaican

charts and american and british charts are kind of separate but the mighty mighty boss tones are probably the most commercially successful ska bands mainly because they were selling cds at the 90s cd era in the third wave of ska blowing up so that that's probably the top seller of all time are they one of those bands that was just touring constantly before like i know it's funny to go oh they broke up in 2022 like we didn't know they were still around but there are all those bands that just tour endlessly and they make a lot of money doing it but yeah totally yeah they they never came off the road and dickie barrett was the announcer jimmy kimmel for the first few years i didn't know that i didn't know that wow i think i was there for one of the shows that he was doing.

Yeah. Yeah. Apparently almost all the original lineup has been together until January 2022. And they could just do it again. Why not? You know, like these bands are still around. And next number here is November 2018. November 2018 is when UNESCO gave World Heritage designation to reggae.

And Smithsonian Smart News covered this. Apparently, there's a register of intangible cultural heritage of humanity. And UNESCO, it's the cultural agency of the United Nations. They honored reggae as, quote, uniquely Jamaican. And in the write-up of it, referenced Ska as one of the key influences on it. So that's probably the greatest honor Ska has received in the world, is to be in the write-up for a UNESCO heritage for reggae. I disagree. I think being the subject of a medley on the Cher show in 1975 is the highest honor that reggae could achieve. Have you seen the Cher reggae tribute?

No, but I'm trying to imagine like the outfit she wore and whatever it is, it's amazing. Oh, it's incredible. It's incredible. And I think the highest honor Scott could get would be to be on the 10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack. So I feel like that's really for me. It's Shakespeare.

It's Shakespeare. It's Heath Ledger at his earliest. It's just, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Speaking of the whole range of Ska in various incarnations, I got curious about something people kept referencing when I was researching this and chatting on Discord. They kept typing, pick it up, pick it up.

And I was like, what's pick it up? And then I listened to enough ska to find out it's in a lot of songs. The number about that is 1964. Because that is when Jamaican ska musician Prince Buster released a song called El Capone. released a song called El Capone. And that song is the origin point of people saying, pick it up over and over again in ska songs. Let's hear the end of the song El Capone,

where he does the thing just saying pick it. But then other songs, especially one by The Madness, use the phrase pick it up. And then from there, this just became something people do in ska songs. But it turns out that comes from the jamaican origin even though in a third wave song you might not know interesting i'm i'm not gonna lie i think the pick it almost sounded like the spoken version of easy snaps it kind of felt like it was on that exact same beat and the exact same yeah yeah Yeah. I'm like Katie though. I'm not, I'm not someone who is as good at breaking down like the way songs and musical forms change into each other and stuff like that. But I do love when I find out that there's like a piece of language that gets moved from song to song,

like this pick it up thing. Like, I think that's always a really interesting thing to me of like, Oh, this is like a motif somebody started using. And then it becomes like a shared piece of this particular genre or sound. And that's always really fascinating to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It became shorthand for you're listening to a ska song. And that's fun that it would be that phrase. And I think it has a vibe of let's pick up the

dancing. Let's pick up the music. Let's let's make this as much of a party as possible. And by the way, a lot of a party as possible and by the way a lot of these fans are really big and the mighty mighty bostones did have a dedicated dancer there there was a guy on stage who did not play an instrument he just danced so it sure they're gonna be a pick it up a pick it up person yeah his feet were his instrument his feet were his instrument very last number just because it's fun. It's the year 2007. It kind of brings Pick It Up full circle. 2007 was the first season of the animated kids show Yo Gabba Gabba.

Oh, yeah, that one. Big characters. They did very bright colors and a lot of dancing. They did. And let's hear a little bit of their song about cleaning up your room. And if you see it, it has a ska looking character. So here's a little bit of that song. It's Judge Ruffneck. It's basically that. Yeah. It's Judge that. Yeah. It's Chacharata.

What do you want me to do? Hurt myself? We can't have that. We can't have that. What I want you to do is clean this up right now. I want you to pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up.

Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up.

Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up.

Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up.

Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up.

Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up.

Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. Pick it up. So that's the idea. And exactly right, Dave, it's that intro and it's all these different Ska things coming together into just fun children's entertainment based on it. And if you're a tiny kid in 2007, that's almost like the third wave. It's just going over your head,

but it's good. Yeah. Wow. So who was, who was like the first third wave Ska band? Do we know? first third wave ska band do we know like what was the origin we we kind of don't or we kind of don't know yet it seems to be really bound up in pop punk and so it's almost a thing where bands seem to add more horn players if they wanted to be on a ska and then be more guitar driven if not And then be more guitar driven, if not. Each wave gets another horn. Yeah. You know, I think also something that made it grow in Southern California is marching band culture. That makes sense.

You know what I mean? Like, I think it's like, it's a way for like the kids who know how to play a horn to get into a rock band, you know? So it's like, yeah, you could have three or four guys. God, that would have been huge for me. Yeah. I played French horn in high school. I didn't know I could be cool. Yeah. It was like high school band people could mix with like rock band people.

And yeah, I mean, that's the real breaking down of waltz, you know? This would have changed my life. Like if at your high school, if Heath Ledger was dancing on the stands to a Frankie Valli song, you could just throw your horns in and then you're a rock star. I love it. Right? Right. Yeah. By the way, for Scott, actually, I'm imagining Andrew Lincoln standing outside of a house with a bunch of cards in his hand.

But the cards say pick it up. So when he drops them, Keira Knightley is so confused because she's like, you're the one dropping them. Why are you telling me to pick it up? I don't understand the process here. They just all say the same thing. Pick it up, pick it up, pick it up, pick it up, pick it up, pick it up, pick it up. Yeah.

I love it. It's got legs. Hey, folks, that's the main episode for this week. And I want to say how wealthy we are in terms of guests and amazing guests for any episode, including this one. Riley Silverman, as we said, has been on this show before. She was on the episode about blood types that got written up in the New York Times last year. So also just very thankful about that. And a great guest on any episode of anything. And then Dave Holmes, I hope I created enough space for him to share things he knows about Ska. I never ask guests to do research, but he knows a lot off the dome

about music and music trivia and the world of music and encyclopedic knowledge of that. He is the host of their show that Riley writes for, Troubled Waters, very funny and wonderful comedy and game show here on Maximum Fun. And also, if you are a music head, if you want music information in your life all the time, Dave Holmes is somebody to follow. So those recs are just one part of our outro. We have many other fun features for you, such as help remembering this episode with a run back through the big takeaways. Mega takeaway number one, an overarching takeaway for kind of the whole show.

The name Ska refers to at least three different musical movements, and that all began in Jamaica. Takeaway number two, the word ska is musical onomatopoeia for a guitar upstroke sound in the foundation. Takeaway number three, ska music is the origin point of reggae. Takeaway number four, people like Eric Clapton were so publicly racist, they sparked a wonderful anti-racist message in Second Wave Ska. And then numbers and stats about Third Wave Ska, waves beyond that, and how Pick It Up comes from Ska's beginning. Those are the takeaways. Also, I said that's the main episode because there is more

secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now if you support this show at MaximumFun.org. Members are the reason this podcast exists, so members get a bonus show. Every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode, this week's bonus topic is how Ska created a mysterious emoji. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than 14 dozen other secretly incredibly fascinating bonus shows, and a catalog of all sorts of MaxFun bonus shows, including wonderful Troubled Waters bonus audio. It's special. It's just for members. Thank you to everybody who backs this podcast operation. Additional fun things. Check

out our research sources on this episode's page at MaximumFun.org. Key sources include the book Ska and Oral History by writer and Purdue University lecturer Heather Augustin, tons of digital resources from Smithsonian Folklife, the U.S. National Archives, native-land.ca, and more. And speaking of native-land.ca, I'm using those and other resources to acknowledge that I recorded this in Lenapehoking, the traditional land of the Munsee Lenape people and the Wappinger people, as well as the Mohican people, Skadigok people, and others. Also, Katie taped this in the country of Italy. Dave and Riley each recorded this on the traditional

land of the Gabrielino or Tongva and Keech and Chumash peoples. And I want to acknowledge that in my location, in Dave and Riley's location, in many other locations in the Americas and elsewhere, Native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode, and join the free SIF Discord, where we're sharing stories and resources about Native people and life. There is a link in this episode's description to join that Discord. We're also going to do a thing on the Discord where you should type the emoji from the bonus show this week, once you hear it, once you know about it. It can also mean a message that we've applied to it. Secret bonus stuff. Anyway, we're also talking about this episode on the Discord. And would you like a tip on another episode? Because each week I'm finding you something

randomly incredibly fascinating by running all the past episode numbers through a random number generator. This week's pick is episode 140. That's about the topic of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. That phrase and concept and monkey art. Fun fact, a lot of stuff about Japan, the culture and the language and more. So I recommend that episode. I also recommend my co-host Katie Golden's weekly podcast, Creature Feature, about animals and science and more. Our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by the Budos Band.

Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Special thanks to the Beacon Music Factory for taping support. Extra, extra special thanks go to our members. And thank you to all our listeners. I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.

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