Yeah, I hate the title too. I never appreciated it as a genre name, but sure as hell loved the music. We’re going with an older one and then a few from the past year or so. You’ll see some articles about the ska revival in 2020, this is what they mean.
I’d seen a few tweets from @skatunenetwork about “What your favorite ska band says about you”. They make me so happy. Part 1 is great, but part 2 is what got me to pull up some older LJT records.
Less Than Jake “Gainesville Rock City”
We’re just a month shy of 20 years old for this record. Borders and Boundaries was the first LTJ album I purchased the day it came out (Losing Streak and Hello Rockview predated my foray into ska music). I was listening to it driving to a CHS basketball game at Lewisville. I ended up sitting in the parking lot playing through the whole record a second time before going in.
Some great nostalgia moments in this video, even though looking back on it, it was still early in their career. This is from the Roger is always wearing a Teen Idols shirt era. Just typing that has the hook from “20 Below” stuck in my head already. Also features some sweet heavy metal style two hand tapping guitar riffs.
Well I’m half awake, a world away
Less Than Jake
My past mistakes and this wasted day
I wouldn’t have it any other way
Kill Lincoln “Confession Obsession”
Interesting name, and rad band. Been around since around 2010, but certainly will be named in those revival articles I mentioned before. For good reason too, Kill Lincoln’s Mike Sosinski is the one who founded Bad Time Records. They are home to Omnigore, Catbite, Kill Lincoln, We Are the Union + JER (both from previous mentioned Skatune Network) and the record that inspired today’s title.
“The Shape of Ska Punk to Come” title and cover sealed my fandom of BTR. Purple vinyl to be coming in the mail, excited to hang the album cover up. It is a great play on the Refused album that music websites will tell you is the best of all time.
Fun fact if you wanted to love this band before you hear the first song: They killed at Fest 2018 doing a full set as Catch 22 playing Keasby Nights songs like “Day In Day Out“. That was my favorite ska band and record for the longest time. They’ll be some more from NJ’s finest at some point.
Catbite “Horizontal Aggresion”
This is a cover of a Omnigone song (as the video tells you). Weird connection, Omnigone features Adam D, the guitar player of now defunct but always kickass Link 80. Shouts to Adam (as x_AdamD_x or something similar) for telling Sles and I the chords to “Addiction” because we wanted to play it for our school talent show. Thanks Aol Instant Messenger.
If Catbite is your favorite ska band, that means you’re a cat person and have an incredible taste in both animals and ska music
Jeremy Hunter (again)
The video looks pretty fun for all the dogs, I’m not sure how much the cats are into it (tails down, looking away, I want to kill you look on the face, etc).
