МЛН

May 2021
@shampooty 100 gecs 101 Things To Do With Your Modem 1080p 1969 1990s 20 is the new 40 2000s fashion 2012 2013 2013: Appropriating a 2013 2014 3D Animation 3D Cool World 5.4 A Guide to Buying Haunted Items A. G. Cook A.I. aaron carnes Abelton Abner Jay abstract art abstractionists absurdism acoustic action action figures Ad Hoc Adam Harper Adult Swim Adventure Time advertisements advertising aesthetic aesthetics Afterschool Specials AI art Alain Delorme Alan Vega album art alcohol Alejandro Jodorowsky Alexandra Rowland Alissa Timoshinka Alt Space altered states alvin & the chipmunks ambient American Apparel analyses analysis Andre Ulrych Angelina Jolie Angus MacLise Animal Collective animation Ann Steel Anthony Bourdain Anti-art anti-consumerism anti-fashion anti-virus software anti-war anxiety Apophenia Appropration Aquarium Drunkard aquariums architecture Architecture in Helsinki Architecture of Utopia archive ariel rechtshaid Army of Trolls art Art Bears art installation art museum articles artificial intelligence artist artists ASMR Astral Weeks Austin Psych Fest 2013 auteur authenticity Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response avant garde Avey Tare and Panda Bear b-movies Babette's Feast Baby Blue Baby Cartoon Rhymes bad operation Barf-O-Rama Barstool Sports baseball cards BASEKetball bass guitar bath salts Battle vs Death Battle bbrainz beautimus Begotten believers Ben Butcher Bernard Dumaine Berndnaut Smilde Bertolt Brecht Betamax Plus Bill Doss Bill Murray Billy Childish bio-dynamic biodegradable urn biosonic MIDI technology Black Dice Black Flag Blackest Rainbow Records Blackout Blade Runner blog Blow Job: An Extreme Wind Photoseries Bob Marley Bob Ross Bongwater Boo Boo books bootleg toys Bradford Cox brain tingles brains Brand New Wayo Brian Brian Eno Britt Brown Brittany Murphy Broadened Horizons: The Ultimate Shit List Bruce Goff Bruce Nauman Brushy Brushy Brutalist Architecture Bubblegum Bass Bubbly Bulbasaur Building the Bridge Burger bus stops butterfly Cadillacs and Dinosaurs Can cannabis career motivated Carl Sagan Cartoon Network Casino Night catbite Censorship chandelier Charles Grodin Charles Thomson Charlie Brown Cheddar Goblin children children's books Chillwave chopped & screwed chris cutler Chris Jordan Chris Maggio Chris Marker Christopher Columbus Christopher Reimer Christopher S. Hyatt Christopher White Chrysta Bell Church of the SubGenius cinema click and point games clothes Clothes of the year 2050 Clouds Coci Cocteau Twins Cody Meirick collaboration collage Collateral Damage collections collectors items comedy albums comedy films comic books communication Comus condition consciousness consumerism content drift conversations cooking cookwear copyright cosmic jazz costumes cottagecore cover band Cradle of Filth Crass creepy criticism Crock Pots crown shyness cult films cult movies cultural movements culture Culture Jamming Cyber Secrets #3 Dada Daevid Allen Dallas Observer Damien Hirst Damo Suzuki Dan Lam Daniel London Daniel Lopatin Danni Filth Danzig dark database Dave Allen David Bowie David Henry David Lowery David Lynch David Toro David Zucker Dean Ween Dean Zeus Colman December Decimus 4 decline Definition of Hunk Dennis Flemion dental calendar design Destroy All Monsters Detachment and the Spiritual Life Diane Cluck dick jokes digital art Digital DIY Labels digital trends Dimensions of Dialogue Dimitri Tsykalov Diplo director directory DIS Magazine disco Discogs Discordianism discussions distaste DIY DJ Dog Dick DJ Evangelion Fan Theory DJ Warlord documentaries dolphins Donka Doka Dope Diglett Dopesmoker Doug Ferguson Douglas Hill Dr. John drawing Drinkfy drone drone music drugs Duane Pitre dub Dudeism Duppy Gun Dustin Wong Dux Content dysmorphia dystopia Earth Eartheater eBay echo chamber edible fixtures eichlers electronic music electronica Eleh elevators Éliane Radigue Elias Mehringe Elizabeth Hart ELO Emily White emo fashion Energy Entourage Ephermeral Work Eric Copeland Eric Lumbleau esoterica essays etienne conod Eurock Evan Prosofsky events Excepter exercises exhibition experimental experimental cuisine experimental music eyesight fake toys Family Fan Fiction Fandom Music fashion fast food FDA feature films Felicita fiction film film reviews films fire place glass Fire-Toolz Fishing Floating Flying Spaghetti Monster Foetus FoFoFadi food food porn Ford Four American Composers: Robert Ashley France Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons fraud Fred Camper Freddy Got Fingered free free jazz Fun Boy Three furniture future pop gadgets gallery Gang of Four Gen Z Generation Y Generation Yawn Genesis P-Orridge genre George Harrison George Plimpton Germany GFOTY Ghost Capital Ghost Modernism Ghostcapital III ghosts Ginny Arnell Giorgio Moroder Glenn Branca Global Village Coffeehouse golden retrievers Gong Goosebumps (TV series) Gorilla vs Bear Goth graphic design grooming Groundhog Day Gruff Rhys Guest Mix Guest Mixes guide guides Guillermo del Toro guitar tunings gummy bears Guo Yi-Hun Guru Guru Gustav Holst GVC hacker culture Hackers hacking Haircut Halloween halloween mix hallucinatory hallucinogens therapy handcrafted objects Hannah Diamond Happiness Harmony Korine harry sword Harvey Milk Hausu Mountain healing HEALTH health & fitness Health Goth hearing loss Hella Hellraiser Hem Sandwich Henry and Glenn Forever Henry Cow Henry Darger Henry Rollins Hippos in Tanks hipster culture hipsters Holger Czukay Holly Herndon holograms Holotropic Breathwork holy fuck Holy Warbles Home Alone homes Homestuck hope hopepunk horror horror movies How to Have a Zen Attitude How to Keep Healthy httpster humaity humanities humor Hung I-chen Hunk Hunk uniform (loosely) hyper connectivity hyperreal Hyperreality I Have No Idea What I'm Doing Iasos ice cream identity Idrissa Diop and Cheikh Tidane Tall Igor Wakhevitch Illuminated Paths Ima Read imagination Important Records independent movies indie fashion indie rock indie sleaze industry news Infectious Disease Balls ink inspiration inspirato Instagram installations interior design internet Internet Archive internet art interview interviews intoxicants inverviews IRL Glasses irony it is most definitely art Ivan Cash Iván Diaz Math J Henry Fair Jabberwocky Jack Black Jack Long James Blackshaw James Bridle James Ferraro James Wines Jan Svankmajer Japanese Bug Fights Japanoise Jared Davis Jeff Bridges jeff rosenstock jer Jessica Chen Jessica Ekomane Jif Peanut Butter Jimmy Buffett John Brien John Carpenter John Fell Ryan John Hamblin John Lurie John Lytle Wilson John Maus John McAfee John Olson Johnny Lee Miller Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease Julian Cope Julian Koster Julien Pacaud junk food Junk Food Dinner Kane West Kazumasa Nagai Keippah Kelly Reichardt Kevin Ayers Kevin Champeny Khelifi Ahmed Kickstarter Kids Incorporated Kids Toys Adult Issues kill lincoln Kim Laughton King Frog KinoVino Kiyohiko Senba and The Haniwa All-Stars Kleenex Knitting clock Krautrock Krautrocksampler Kria Brekkan L.A. La Croix LA Vampires Land art Lauren Boyle law of attraction layout Les Claypool Lester Bangs Life Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone Life During Wartime lifestyle lilangelboi Lindsay Cooper liner notes linguistics link rot Lipgloss Twins lists literature Little Dolls live reviews live streaming lockdown Lol Coxhill London Longest Recorded Echo Lou Reed Lou Reed: Caught Between the Twisted Stars Love (sculpture) LSA LSD Luca Yupanqui Lucie Thomas Lucky Me Luke Wilson Lumen Lydia Lunch M. Geddes Gengras M. Sage Macauly Culkin Macintosh Plus magazines Magic and Superstition magic mushrooms maintenance art Majestic Casual Malcolm McLaren Malcolm Rebennack Male Chef Mandy Manicure Records manifesto Manifesto For Maintenance Art mannequins manz Marco Roso marijuana marine life Mark Prindle Mark Schultz Martin Short Mary Steenburgen masterpieces Matt Furie Matthew Lutz-Kinoy Matthew McConaughey Max Headroom Max Payne 3 Mayan Apocalypse McDonald's MDMA Mean Clown Welcome Meat Clothing media media culture Meditation memes Men Without Hats Meow Wolf merchandise Metal Machine Music Mica Hendrix Michael Nesmith MIDI Midjourney Mike Hughes Mike Kelly mike park mike sosinski Mike Stoklasa Mindfuck mindfulness Minecraft Miracle Legion miscellaneous Mist Mister Mellow Mix Mixes mixtapes modern music analysis modernism Molecular Gastronomy molly Monkees monkeys monoskop Moon Glyph Moth Cock movements Movie Promotional Merch Unlimited movies movments Mr. Impossible Mr. T Mr. Tinglemittens Mrs Doubtfire Mukqs murder music music charts music community music downloads music journalisim music journalism music marketplace music software music videos music websites Music with Roots in the Aether: Robert Ashley mustard plug Mutant Sounds My Bloody Valentine My Little Pony My Mother's Brisket & Other Love Songs my sharona Myles Byrne-Dunhill NASA natural Natural Materials & Structures: Trend Analysis nature Nautipuss negative influencer neon lights NEST HQ’S GUIDE TO NIGHTCORE new age music New Mexico New York New York Times news Nickelodeon Nicolas Cage Nicolás Romero Escalada Nicole McLaughlin Nightcore Nightcorey Nimbus Njena Reddd Foxxx No Use for a Name No Wave No-Neck Blues Band noise NOP Nora Ephron Normcore nostalgia Not Not Fun Not The New York Times NOWNESS NPR Nu Twee nudity Nurse With Wound Nurse With Wound List NY NYC HELL 3:00 OBEY obituaries Obvious Plant ocean oddball music Oingo Boingo Old Joy Oliver Rowe Olivia Newton John Oneohtrix Point Never Online Underground Op Art optical illusion optimism Organ Armani Ornette Coleman Otto Muehl outsider art P.T. Anderson Pacific Rim packaging paint paint flowers painting Painting With John paintings pandemic pandora's box Panos Cosmatos paranormal activity paranormal objects parody Party Pills pastoral Pat Murano Pat Pollari Pataphysics Paul Reubens Pauline Oliveros PC Music peace pedalstare Pee-Wee Herman Penny Rimbaud Pepper Mill Rondo perception shifts Perfect Lives performance art Perma personal growth Pete Swanson Peter Shumann Ph.D. Phil Connors philosophy phonebook Phonocut photography pig-snails Pilgrim Simon pitchfork pitchfork-bashing pizza planetary chocolates plates Plonk art Plop art Plug.DJ plunderphonics podcasts Pokecrew Pokemon Polaris politics Polluted Water Popsicles Pollution PON STOP NOP Poolside Radio pop art pop culture popcorn_10 popsicles porn post-internet posters pranks predictions Primer Procrastination Principle products prog rock Prolaps promo psilocybin psychedelia psychiatry Psychic Ills Psychic TV psychology public art Public Art Fund punk punk cd commercial punk rock puppetry Quasimoto Questlove quotes R Plus 7 R.I.O. Radio Broadcasts radio stations Randy Gilson Randy Warhol Randyland rastafarianism raw meat Ray Lynch Raymond Pettibon Readful Things Real Love recipes recommended records record label record labels records recycling Red Bull Music Academy Red City Noise reel big fish reggae reincarnated Religion Rem Lezar Remodernism Remote Viewer Repo Man retro reviews Richard Beck Richard Sears Rick Moranis Rick Springfield Ricky Allman Rinse.fm RIO Rob Tyner Robedoor Robert Anton Wilson Robert Ashley Robert Greenberg Robert Indiana Robert Smithson Robin Arnott Robin Williams robots rock in opposition Roddy Piper Roger Ebert Roky Erickson Runzelstirn and Gurgelstock Ryan Hemsworth Sally Fields Salvador Dali sampling Santa Fe Sarah Davachi sausage scams scans scary Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark sci-fi science science fiction Scotland Scott Shaw sculpture Seatec Astronomy self improvement self portrait serious? Sesame Street Seth Cohen Seven Figures Severed Heads sex sex tapes sexy Shane Caruth Sharkula Sherman Hemsley sherpas shoegaze short films sign offline signs Simpsonwave Site-Specific Art ska ska against racism skateboarding skeptcis skull slackers slang Sleep Slime Cake sludgefest Slyme Records Snoop Dogg Snoop Lion So You'd Like to...Be an Anti-Gen Xer (Part 1) So You'd Like to...Be an Anti-Gen Xer (Part 2) social networks Soloman Chase Sonic Wonderland Sonic Youth Sopa Pipa Sophie sound sound archives sound art soundcloud SoundSelf space space plates Space Trips Spencer Longo SPF420 spirituality spoof sports St. Bernard's Sports Star Trek Star Wars Stephen Colbert Stephen Gammell Stereo Mood Steven Stapleton still life stoner comedies stoner metal stoner movies streaming Stump Subcultures subversive humor Subvertising Suicide summer Sun Araw Sun Ra Sunday is Raining sunglasses sunshine pop surrealism sustainable fashion Swans synesthesia System Focus T.V. Shows Taco Bell Taiwan TALSounds tattoos technology Television Ten Steps on How to Become a Slacker Terrence Malick thc The 13th Floor Elevators The Adventures of Pete & Pete the angles of comfort The Apples in Stereo The Art Box The B-52s The Baseball Card Vandals The Beach Bum The Big Lebowski The Birthday Party The Black Madonna The Bread and Puppet Theater The Coen Brothers The Congos The Day My Kid Went Punk The Family International The Frogs The Great Puke-off the handmaid's tale The Illuminatus! Trilogy The Incredible String Band The Jetsons The Last Trick The Life Stains The Lounge Lizards The Master The Master Musicians of Joujouka The Music Tapes The Now Age The OC The Odd Recommendation The Oh of Pleasure The Olivia Tremor Control The Red Shoes The Relative Band The Roots The Shape of Jazz to Come The Shining The Simpsons The Strokes The Sweet Homewreckers The Sylvers The Tubes The Velvet Underground The Wire therapy Theses on Punk They Live Thibault Zimmerman Things Organized Neatly things that would never have happened until they happen This is how NASA wakes up astronauts Thomas Newman Throbbing Gristle Thurston Moore Tinashe tiny hands tips To the Wonder Todd Solondz Tom Green Tony Futura Tony Sly Toro y Moi Tox Modell toys Trans Air Records trash Treasure Hunt trees Trevor Cox Trevor Reveur Trey Parker and Matt Stone tribute Trippy Turtle tromp l'oeil Tron tumblr Tupac turntable.fm Tuxedomoon TV Operas TV shows Twee twitter udi koorman UK underground art underground music unicorn unknown unpublished Unresponsive Design upcycling Upstream Color Urban Dictionary urban legends Urban Outfitters URL shows V/A - West Indies Funk 3 Val Kilmer Van Morrison vaporwave vapourwave vegan Velvet Underground VHS video Video Art video edit video games videos Vince Guaraldi Vine vintage vinyl Vinyl Marketwatch Virtual Reality Wabi-Sabi Want to save your eyes? Change your light bulbs. Warp Records Washed Out Waterpark weapons websites WEDIDIT Weird Al wellness Wendy's WFMU What Makes A Bad Movie Enjoyable? WHTEBKGRND wifislilangel Wikipedia Wild Man Fishcher Will Oldham Williams Street Winston Riley Wolf Eyes Women Woods Yellow Swans youth culture youtube YouTube Poop Zebra Katz zen Zen Filmmaking Zim & Zou Zin-Say Zonal Zoom Lens

How Chicago Label Hausu Mountain Became a Home for Oddball Experimentalism

 

      Graphic by Drew Litowitz

Defined by carnivalesque sonics and a kaleidoscopic visual aesthetic, the label is proving that outré music doesn’t have to be serious all of the time.
Kent, Ohio’s Moth Cock were the first band that Hausu Mountain worked with outside of Allison and Kaplan’s own projects. “They’re probably the most accurate representation of the Hausu Mountain sound,” says Kaplan. “It’s completely prog, completely shred.” Released in 2014, Twofer Tuesday is the band’s second offering for the label, boasting two side-long descents into loop-pedal delirium. “Moth Cock is my favorite band that exists in the world,” gushes Allison. “Every single time I’ve seen them play live, it has inspired and baffled and stunned me. Part of their appeal is their humble, homespun practice, which barely uses any gear—it’s two pedals, a trumpet, sax or clarinet, and microphone. But it’s extremely charged with personality and weird ideas. The results that they wring out of that are truly beyond comprehension.”


The Breakthrough: Eartheater’s Metalepsis (2015)



Allison and Kaplan met Eartheater, aka New Yorker Alexandra Drewchin, when her band Guardian Alien played a DIY show in Chicago. The three became friends, and Drewchin completed a solo album for the label, but Allison and Kaplan pulled the plug on the project at the last minute. “It was more rock or indie,” recalls Kaplan. “I like it a lot; it’s very good music. But that drone part of the equation was missing. It didn’t feel quite right.” So the trio worked on a new project for a year and a half, resulting in 2015’s Metalepsis, a breakthrough for the label. “It really felt like the first time that we were taken seriously by a lot of people,” Kaplan adds. “We had been releasing so much one-take ambient or noise music, and then this person from that world suddenly has an album of gorgeous, spectral, angelic pop,” Allison says. “That laid the groundwork for the idea of working with tons of other more song-oriented artists. It was like, ‘We can do this. This is part of our identity now.’ So we owe her a lot, for sure.”


The Master Improvisation: TALSounds’ All the Way (2015)



Allison and Kaplan met Natalie Chami shortly after graduating college and began playing with her in their band Good Willsmith. At the same time, she kept up her solo project TALsounds, making loop-based improv at her residency in a small Chicago bar. “It’s hard to fathom how much she puts into her compositions, all the different elements. And it’s all live using loop pedals, no computer,” says Allison. “All the Way demonstrates that her approach to song-building can happen on-the-spot and be so sophisticated. She is a genius-level worker. She has put so much into this practice.”


The Crazy Future Shit: Fire-Toolz’s Skinless X-1 (2018)



Allison and Kaplan knew Angel Marcloid as a noise musician on the local DIY scene. Then they saw a video that paired an image of the artist (under her alias Fire-Toolz) screaming with vintage NES game footage. “We’re just like, ‘What the fuck? This is Angel?’” recalls Allison. In 2017, they released Fire-Toolz’s Drip Mental, which slalomed between screamo and vaporwave, then followed it up in 2018 with Skinless X-1, where Marcloid smoothed out her customary stylistic whiplash by heaping on new age and fusion. “She immediately became a very important artist for our label,” Allison says. “Her music is absolutely unique, one-of-a-kind, crazy future shit.” Kaplan adds, “There’s no artist we’ve worked with that has a better idea of what their vision is. Angel is usually a couple steps ahead of us. She actually might be the label boss and not us.”


The Contemplative Carnival: Dustin Wong’s Fluid World Building 101 With Shaman Bambu (2018)



Both Allison and Kaplan were longtimes fans of Dustin Wong, who was once the guitarist in experimental rock band Ponytail and has since released several solo albums on Thrill Jockey. “This one speaks to us very deeply,” says Kaplan. “Both of us have a heavy rock background, and it’s cool that this is a guitar-centric album but still totally HausMo, carnival-core all over the place.”


The Gonzo Endurance Test: Pepper Mill Rondo’s E.D.M. (2018)



In a catalog that hardly lacks for batshit propositions, Kaplan and Allison’s work as Pepper Mill Rondo probably takes the guano cake. A 100-minute endurance test of inside jokes, karaoke performances, and moments of genuine brilliance (e.g. “I’m sitting in a room,” a tribute to Alvin Lucier’s magnum opus of conceptual sound art made out of millisecond-long pop samples), it takes the art-prank plunderphonics of Negativland and raises them to the galaxy-brain level. “It’s a vaporwave-adjacent thing that rejects vaporwave,” says Kaplan. (Hence “Lesser Artists Borrow, Great Artists Vape,” which collages together interview snippets about the contested subgenre with commercials for vape pens.) He likens the experience of listening to it to a kind of ego death: “It’s about going into the zone and getting overwhelmed and staying in there for a long time. If you’re going to listen to these crazy samples for 100 minutes, by the end, you’ll be pretty nullified.”


The Mutant Jock Jam: Prolaps’ Pure Mud Volume 7 (2020)



Hausu Mountain put out a handful of tapes from Bonnie Baxter and her group Kill Alters before she teamed up with Machine Girl in the duo Prolaps, who mix rave, metal, hardcore, and industrial into a self-described “mutant” sound. “There’s a huge Jock Jams influence,” says Kaplan approvingly. “One of the things that makes this album really shine is that the heaviness and metal edge are balanced with a totally scatalogical sense of humor and meme-ishness. It’s super heavy and over the top, but it’s never scary or satanic or evil. It’s ‘evil’ in quotes, where they’re singing about buttholes.”


The Off-the-Wall Hip-Hop Adventure: Sharkula x Mukqs’ Take Caution on the Beach (2021)



Chicago rapper Sharkula is a ubiquitous figure around town. For years, he’s been out in bars, on the sidewalk, on the Blue Line, selling his art and his music. “I’ve loved hip-hop since I was very young,” says Allison. “I always had the idea of wanting to make beats and be a producer, and Sharkula was an obvious choice to work with, because we have a great rapport. I definitely look up to him as someone that is a lifer in music.” All the vocals on this year’s Take Caution on the Beach were recorded in a single day. “It was like bringing in a lead soloist, but it just happened to be in his very idiosyncratic, off-the-wall rap style,” Allison adds. “His zest for life comes through in his music. He might have moments where he discusses his struggles or gets into more goofy, graphic, or scatalogical, but so many times, he’s talking about staying positive. It’s inspirational.”

Ska’s New Generation Is Here To Pick It Up Pick It Up

 

BY ARIELLE GORDON

photo credit: Eden Kittiver

A look at the new book In Defense Of Ska and a network of artists giving the oft-maligned genre a fresh burst of life


When Aaron Carnes began research for his book nearly a decade ago, he didn’t intend to write from a defensive stance. A former ska drummer turned music journalist, he set out to write a definitive book about the history of the genre when he discovered there were shockingly few books on its history. Back in 2013, “I was really noticing how much music journalism had no interest in ska whatsoever,” he said by phone recently. It wasn’t until he began compiling the hundreds of hours of interviews he did with current and former ska musicians, DIY vets, venue bookers, and music historians that he realized he might have to fight a little harder for his beloved scene. “Why don’t I just address the elephant in the room,” he concluded. “I know you don’t take this music seriously. And I think you should come take the music seriously and have fun with it.”

The resulting book, In Defense Of Ska, is part memoir, part oral history, part musicology, all told with a mix of reverence, humor, and pride. Out this week via Clash Books, it arrives just as ska is witnessing an undeniable resurgence in public consciousness and pop culture. A new crop of labels and bands, with support from some of the genre’s most outspoken proponents, are redefining ska by reimagining its origins as dance music, recalling its roots as an anti-racist movement, and building out the community ethos that once made ska an integral part of local music scenes across the US.

As Carnes outlines in his book, ska is an international movement that traces the growth of its sound across continents: It originated in West Kingston, Jamaica in the ’50s, combining elements of jazz, R&B, and traditional Jamaican folk music known as mento. Some might be surprised, as I was, to learn that reggae actually developed as an outgrowth of ska, with rocksteady as their conjoining linkage. It was easy to dance to, its sound defined by emphasizing the “upbeat” in a measure of music (genres like house, by contrast, hit the “downbeat,” or first and third note, in a 4/4 measure). 

By the 1970s, it gained popularity in the UK thanks in part to Caribbean immigrants sharing the sound with local, mostly white countercultural movements. The resulting bands often had both white and Black musicians, and the name “2 Tone” came to define their more aggressive, politically motivated music as a result. It wasn’t until the 1990s that ska really took off in the US. Because it followed the Jamaican and UK movements before it, the new bands that came out during this time were often referred to as “third wave” ska. Carnes’ book focuses primarily on his experience in this period of ska. If you grew up on Reel Big Fish, Mustard Plug, or the Mighty Mighty Bosstones — who, coincidentally, have a new album called I Don’t Believe In Anything out this week — Carnes’ book fills in the grey areas of those massive acts with the smaller scenes and dozens of passionate ska bands that sustained the genre on a local level.


Depending on what era of the genre you imagine when you picture ska, the idea of a new generation of eager fans skanking and moshing to a diverse lineup of young, thriving bands might seem like a Hard Times headline. For many who grew up in the late ’90s and early aughts, the Hawaiian shirts and goofy lyrics of third wave ska were seemingly everywhere: punchlines in Blink-182 songs, background music for Disney Channel interstitials, and fodder for petty inter-band disputes.

Carnes, as promised, addresses the genre’s outward optics head on at the very beginning of the book, opening with an anecdote about the Killers’ Brandon Flowers attempting to tarnish the reputation of rival post punk revivalists the Bravery by “outing” them as ex-ska musicians. In Defense Of Ska is filled with these surprising ska connections; despite bands like Tears For Fears or mega producers like Ariel Rechtshaid shying away from public mentions of their ska past, their previous involvement in the genre actually serves to reinforce its sonic diversity and knack for attracting talented musicians.


To discuss its contemporary revival, it could be instructive to talk about how ska developed such a scarlet letter connotation for the crop of Gen X and millennial fans who grew up on its third wave. To the musicians who were keeping the ska underground alive in the 1990s, ska’s popularity was its ultimate downfall. As major labels began to sign any band that had a remotely ska element, bands that were once proud members of the genre started to distance themselves from the categorization. 

“What you really started to see was a lot of bands get embarrassed about being associated with ska, and they tried to wiggle their way around that,” Carnes explained. “They wanted to be ‘rock with horns.'” Jeff Rosenstock, who proudly waves the ska flag as former frontman of local Long Island legends ASOB and Bomb The Music Industry!, also chalked some of it up to parallel movements, like the 1990s swing revival, taking the inherent playfulness of ska and turning it into an out-and-out joke: “One of the beautiful things about ska is that it’s a genre where it’s okay to be a little bit of a goofy dweeb,” he said. “There’s a really fine balance, though.”


For many of the newer bands carrying the torch for ska, the joyfulness of the genre is part of the reason they felt drawn to ska in a contemporary setting. The Bay Area-based musician Russ Wood, who makes music as Eichlers, released his take on ska blended with sounds from hip-hop and hyperpop (what some have referred to as “hyperska”) on the full-length i may b cute, but im dumb af in late 2020. He was inspired to create that hybrid after discovering the emo trap scene in 2018. “The basis of that music is sampling Hawthorne Heights, for example, something that’s super nostalgic, but not that old. And I thought, ‘Why hasn’t anyone done this with ska? Why aren’t people making ska beats? That seems like a no brainer,'” he recalled. “So I started revisiting all the bands that I loved and grew up with and got into the new scene.”

Though it might seem like an unlikely combination, Wood is one of several musicians who have seen electronic potential in the infectious upbeat rhythms of ska. “There aren’t a lot of boxes that need to be checked for a band or artists to be a ska band,” he said. “I think the main rhythm having some sort of focus on the upbeat is the factor. There’s a lot of ska bands and artists who aren’t always getting that in every song, but they’re still a part of that scene. So I feel like if you can incorporate an upbeat, upstroke rhythm, whether it’s on guitar, keys, or some sort of percussive element, and there’s a danceability to it, I feel like that makes it ska.” Case in point, later that year hyperpop mavens 100 Gecs released the obviously ska-influenced Christmas ripper “sympathy 4 the grinch,” complete with upbeats and plenty of “pick it up” ad-libs.


Another artist mapping the stylings of ska onto other genres is Jer Hunter, who performs in the long-running Ann Arbor ska band We Are The Union. The 25-year-old musician is perhaps most known for their project Skatune Network, which set out with the ambitious goal to prove that any song can be a ska song. With ska covers of Modest Mouse, Green Day, Mariah Carey, and yes, even the Killers, Jer is expanding the notion of what ska can be and, perhaps equally importantly, exposing an entirely new audience to ska through their extremely popular videos on YouTube and TikTok. “People who don’t know a lot about ska are finding out about it,” they said. “Gen Z doesn’t remember when it was really cool to hate ska. So they find ska and they’re like, ‘I don’t know what this is, but I like it.’ They don’t have that preset mindset of hating the genre for no reason. I think that’s a huge part of why it’s becoming more successful.”


Jer also noted that TikTok has given them a platform to correct misconceptions about ska, and reinforce its history as a progressive, politically active movement. “There’s a whole history behind it being anti-racist, and that was never forgotten in the scene,” they said. For many newer ska bands, that anti-racist, anti-capitalist thrust is the animating force behind their whipfast basslines and upbeat rhythms. Bad Operation, a blistering ska punk band out of New Orleans, are in many ways continuing in the lineage of the legendary 2 Tone bands of the 1980s. On their self-titled record, released last year on Bad Time Records, they address issues of racism and raise class consciousness. On the simmering cut “Kinda Together,” they encapsulate ska’s mixture of progressive politics and emphasis on liberation through celebration: “2020 calls the downfall/ Of corrupt capitalism/ Transphobia and racism/ And if you’re not dancing/ You can stay your ass at home.” They even coined a new nickname, “New Tone,” to describe their 2 Tone-influenced sound and political perspective.


Catbite, out of Philadelphia, is another group heavily inspired by the sounds and symbolism of 2 Tone. The band started out doing ska covers of Little Richard songs that quickly gained attention online. Like Jer, they have found social media to be a boon to finding a new audience, especially during the pandemic. “In the last year, everything stopped, shows stopped. I think we knew that we needed to keep the momentum going,” Brit Luna, the band’s lead singer, explained. Tim Hildebrand, Catbite’s guitarist, also agreed that an online presence has made it easier to reach younger audiences that would likely be excluded from traditional tours. “It’s so hard to play all ages stuff and make money, because you need the bar sales,” Hildebrand explained. “But now there’s so many people aged 13 to 20 who are now listening to us because of the internet, getting this constant content that they have access to.”


It’s hard to discuss the American anti-racist tradition of ska without mentioning the seminal Ska Against Racism Tour of 1998, organized by Asian Man Records founder and legendary Skanking Pickle saxophonist Mike Park. To Park, ska’s message of inclusivity and its roots in Black musicians differentiate it from neighboring scenes. “If you look at the hardcore scene, it doesn’t have its history in Black music. Or if you look at punk, the history is not from Black music,” he said. “Ska is from Black musicians.”


Last year, Park, along with Bad Time Records, released a 2020 Ska Against Racism compilation, featuring classic third wave bands alongside newer groups. As Park explained it, the record was a natural response to the growing division, bigotry, and hatred that spread under the Trump presidency. “In the past four years, from 2016 to 2020, I kept getting hit up about Ska Against Racism,” he said. “It seemed like a daily thing.” The pandemic quickly made an in-person tour impossible. But with some prodding from Bad Time Records and the website Ska Punk Daily, the compilation came together and quickly sold out its limited official pressing. For Park, the newer ska bands represent a closer connection to the genre’s political beginnings. “There’s a big difference from newer bands and the third wave bands. Nothing against the third wave bands, of course, because I was smack dab in the middle of it. But it just seems like there’s a lot more emphasis on social injustices, whether it be lyrically or just speaking out against it on social media.”

Catbite, We Are The Union, and Bad Operation all found support from Bad Time Records, one of several indie labels that have started in the past decade in response to the increasing interest and demand for new ska. Run by ska musician Mike Sosinski, who also performs in Kill Lincoln, the label started as a platform for new ska punk. He started the label “because I knew there were bands, and I knew there was a need for a collective community. We’ve been building that community for a long time; it just felt nice to formalize it and say, ‘This is who we are.’ We’re here and we don’t suck.”


Sosinski had been performing in ska bands for a decade when he finally decided to start Bad Time Records in 2018. In the years since its founding, Sosinski says, he’s seen overwhelming support growing for ska punk across the country. “We started noticing that something exciting was really happening. We were selling tickets in advance like we never had before,” he recalled. “[Kill Lincoln] went to Japan and had a crazy experience, with the ska scene over there and how excited they were. We never thought going to Japan was something that we’d be able to do as a band.”

Sosinski and his label represent what the bands in Carnes’ book already knew: there is no ska music without a ska community to support it. Rosenstock brought this community into the mainstream last month with his surprise release, SKA DREAM, a collection of ska reinterpretations of his excellent 2020 record NO DREAM. Like ska itself, the album combines serious musicianship with a tongue-in-cheek outlook, and reads like a love letter to the genre that fostered Rosenstock’s earliest bands. “We all love ska. We’re all still in a ska band, or we’ve been in a ska band in the last five years,” Rosenstock said. “So we wanted to do a good job with it, but we knew that the seed of the joke was funny.” Like the Ska Against Racism compilation, it also brings together musicians spanning the American ska tradition: Jer performs trombone and trumpet throughout the record, Park contributes saxophone, and, much to Rosenstock’s delight, Angelo Moore of the legendary ska band Fishbone even contributed a sax solo on “p i c k i t u p.”


The mutual love and respect within the contemporary ska scene was obvious from the conversations among musicians; Rosenstock asked me to say hello to Carnes, and Park told me that Catbite was his favorite contemporary ska band. Sosinski repeatedly referred to Park as a role model for his record label. There’s a sense of camaraderie across locales and eras that feels increasingly rare in the highly segmented communities of underground music. 
Like any self-respecting ska historian, Rosenstock and almost every musician I spoke to balked at the term “fourth wave.” Why? As Rosenstock put it, “[The term ‘wave’] makes it seem like it’s going to pop up for a couple of months and then go away. But there’s bands that, like, are still going and still playing. It’s whether or not music culture wants to demonstrate that it exists. It’s cool to see the newer bands getting some respect and getting coverage from blogs that 10 years ago really wouldn’t have the time of day for anything that has to do with ska.”

Rosenstock, who still writes ska-inspired tunes for the Cartoon Network show Craig Of The Creek, sees the new generation of ska bands succeeding because they’re able to shrug off the mockery of the late third wave. “They’re getting ahead of the criticism. Before anybody can talk shit, they’re already putting out something new that’s good. They’re making it undeniable.”

Once upon a time, there was cottagecore

 

Meet the aesthetic where quarantine is romantic instead of terrifying.

MKRdezign

Contact Form

Name

Email *

Message *

Powered by Blogger.
Javascript DisablePlease Enable Javascript To See All Widget