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2 Tone was gone and all seemed lost for ska. Unforgiving popular
music overran the scene and just kept going, but the music was
not dead. People all over still had the offbeat sound stuck in
their heads, and new ska bands began to form. The London band
The Potato 5 played an authentic ska sound, and lead the new ska
following for a good five years with such bands as Maroon Town,
The Hotknives, The Riffs, The Loafers, The Trojans, and The Deltones.
Back in Jamaica, a monumental event also occurred in the history
of ska music during the summer of 1983. The Skatalites, disbanded
for 18 years, reunited at the Reggae Sunsplash Festival in Jamaica.
The Skatalites stole the show, and would go back to recording
and producing more material as well as touring all over the world.![](http://www.ska-t-boy.com/toasters.gif)
Ska had not just sprouted in the U.K. and Jamaica. In 1983
at 171A Studio in New York City's 'lower east side', members of
Buck's Forbidden Planet Crew and The Cooties got together to form
a new ska band. They originally recorded in 1983 under the pseudonym
'Not Bob Marley,' but today they are referred to as The Toasters.
At the same time, in Boston, a new ska band called Bim Skala Bim
formed during mid-summer of 1983 and played their first show two
weeks later.
The Toasters were led by their guitarist and singer, Rob 'Bucket'
Hingley. The band would not become well known until a four-song
demo, produced by Joe Jackson, was recorded in 1984 and released
to the public. This was later to be known as the "Recriminations"
EP during its rerelease in 1985. This demo paved the way for the
New York ska scene, giving The Toasters the exposure to headline
shows at CBGB's, and making room for more ska bands such as Second
Step, The Beat Brigade, and The Boilers. Hingley and The Toasters
would later record under Moon Records, a new label the band created
in the spirit of Jerry Dammers' 2 Tone Records.
Bim Skala Bim, though having difficulties finding a permanent
drummer, continued playing and just like Dammers with 2 Tone,
started their own record label called Fonograff Records. This
didn't last, however, and shortly after they released 'Bim Skala
Bim,' which was also released in the UK as 'Boston Bluebeat,'
they signed on to Razorbeat Records.
More bands emerged in various locations.
Bands like Burma Jam (Richmond, VA) and Let's Go Bowling (Fresno,
CA) came out of nowhere and lit a spark that made it possible
for people all over America to hear ska. New variations on ska
came about, and American bands began to experiment. The Mighty
Mighty Bosstones started playing the ska-core sound in 1985. Ska-core
blends the ska sound with harder metal, punk, and sometimes even
a hardcore sound. The band was originally called 'The Bosstones,'
until they discovered that this was the name of a 1950's Harvard
acapella group. Another group called Fishbone, also took on a
ska sound and blended it with funk. Their smash hit "Party
at Ground Zero" greatly increased the public's awareness
of the new ska scene.
Most of the spread of the third wave of ska should be attributed
to the bands that played music that borrowed from ska. Many modern
day rudeboys would be lying if they were to say that they were
not made aware of the music originally from The Mighty Mighty
Bosstones or maybe The Clash.
Once 1986 came around, enough ska bands existed that it became
as much of a challenge to find an interesting name as it was to
gain publicity. Bands with humorous names like The Skeletones,
Mephiskapheles, and others caught the ska scene's attention with
their unique names and styles of music.
A new record label
would soon be created called Moon Records. Its sole purpose was
to make it possible for ska bands of the time to have their own
record label. One that would not be a major recording label, but
basically a distributor of ska. Many of the popular ska bands
were signed to Moon Records and the label boomed to be to ska
music what Epitaph Records is to punk and Victory Records is to
hardcore. Moon Records (later changed to Moon Ska) would host
many of the better-known ska bands and distribute for them.
With all of different variations
on ska that were pumping out of the scene, many of the loyal fans
of the music became turned off. To compensate, many bands started
playing a traditional sound. These bands avoided pop, punk and
funk styles of ska and instead stuck to the original ska sound.
Bands like Hepcat, Let's Go Bowling, The Allstonians, The Israelites,
Stubborn All-Stars and others were accepted with open arms by
the die-hard ska fanatics.
Compilations were sprouting up all over the scene. Compilations
such as "Skarmageddon," "Skanarchy," "American
Skathic," and many others, pumped out tunes from the latest
up-and-coming ska musicians. Many bands would get the boost they
needed to kick off a successful music career from a single that
they had released on one of these albums.
The boom of the ska scene in recent times has not only generated
many new bands. It has also created a huge surge of public interest.
Interest in the latest ska movement has grown to the point where
the more popular bands in the scene are making videos for MTV
and occasionally getting airplay on some of the major radio stations
of the United States. Many people fear this trend, and blame the
bands that play variations on ska for the surge in popularity.
Often people will become confused in today's vast music culture
as to what is ska and what isn't. A major modern day misconception
is to assume that horns are all that is required to be considered
ska. Internet newsgroups, magazines, compilations, and such, spend
most of their time explaining the concept of ska to the uninformed
listener.
As the music becomes more and more popular, many wonder whether
or not ska will be the 'next big thing' to take over the pop charts
of America. Jamaica and the United Kingdom could not resist it,
how about the United States?