I don't suppose I'm completely out of line to say that Ska is kinda stagnant. The underground scene is always around but as I search for it, I can't really find it. Ska isn't in the purview of most people. Usually, when I tell people I play Ska music, they ask, "What is Ska?" I search for forums...most are dead. No new posts in years. I'm on this one because I feel deprived of an outlet for my curiosities.
I've been playing guitar for 18 years. A few months ago, I switched to 8 strings. Don't even play 6 strings anymore. It's really brought out a new sense of wonder as far as Ska goes. Sure, my personal style has never been all that traditional. It's not analogous to any of the 3 waves entirely.
Truth be told, and don't take this as a slight against you, I find Ska boring. Did I mention that I tattooed SKA on my fingers. Handpicked. That's how much I love the feeling Ska gives me. I'm bored because Ska is boring as far as song structuring goes. I love me some simple music, but simplicity is only one type of "ity". Complexity is probably my favorite "ity".
I remember when I first got into Streetlight Manifesto. They blew my mind because there was so much going on. Eventho they still stuck to a pretty basic structure, the music was overwhelming. Basic music doesn't overwhelm me. It used to when I was a kid, but after studying music for years and years, listening to Prog and "Other" musics, I'm kinda biased. Reminds me of the movie Fight Club and how Edward Norton says that after fighting, it's like everything gets the volume turned down. Regardless of your opinion of Dillinger Escape Plan, I listened to Calculating Infinity to such an extent...I understand it. After that, the simplicity of Ska is all I really notice.
I tried to start a Ska band over the summer. I had three 6 string guitars and an amp. Found a sax player and that's it. I never really fit into the Detroit scene but that's a story for another time. The band never formed and I gave up on 6 strings. I sold my amp. Personally, I'm fed up with the lingering nonsense of the 3rd wave. Every time I go to a local show, some group of teenagers covers Reel Big Fish's Sell Out and it makes me lose hope, ya know? Sure, I love RBF and I'll always think of them as the best SkaPunk band from the 90s. Their talent is unparalleled. They are the most overrated band by ignorant people and the leastmost underrated band in the music industry. They've never given us label influenced crap like Less Than Jake and they never gave up on Ska like The Suicide Machines and The Flatliners.
But, Sell Out is just the very, very beginning of SkaPunk. It's the go-to anthem of what...20 years ago? Back in the 1900s. We have no champions. Underground Ska is great. Many of the 3rd wave bands are still kicking out impressive stuff. Yet, they don't speak for now. They aren't doing anything worthy of mass attention. I've requested Ska on the radio. I pretty much get laughed at. I've talked to pros...they don't care. Not just other genre pros...the Ska pros don't care. The bands around Detroit are all egomaniacs riding the 3rd wave. They act like rockstars instead of Jazz musicians. They aren't just regular people making music. They're histrionic like rappers. They act like they deserve some elaborate perversion of respect.
And, no...I can't speak for them all. I've not met everyone. I've not heard every band. I'm not the most social person ever. The most recent show I went to...it was at some piece of crap venue in the heart of ghetto Detroit. Some Punk rock nightmare of a place...it was B.Y.O.B. A converted small church. I thought it would be classic but all I really seen was a bunch of plagiarists pretending like it was the heyday of Punk. It was a small show. Not many people showed up. But it seemed like people were willfully living a stereotypical SkaPunk life. Like a bunch of fakers. I watched band after band take the stage and not a single one of them did anything important.
One guitarist was totally hammered. When I criticized his behavior the next day in an online review, everyone turned on me. They told me that it was a Punk show...and therefore I should accept some belligerent fool screwing up every song because that's what Punk is. Really? Punk is making someone pay to see your band play and then giving them garbled nonsense because you're too pathetic to wait a few hours to get trashed? Punk is telling me that I shouldn't be able to say that's a load of crap? When has Punk ever been about not speaking out about things that upset you?
And all I tend to see is the same type of tired crap going around and around while everyone just rips off a handful of bands that have been around for decades. So I gave up on 6 strings. I'll tell you, 8 strings aren't the same. The music I've been coming up with isn't 3rd wave. Even when I try, it sounds wrong. It sounds like everything that these fake Ska fans couldn't enjoy because it isn't contrived attempt at copying things they've already heard.
Not that I'm the future of Ska or anything like that. Heck, the last time I talked to a Ska kid, he told me I don't look like a Ska person. I made acoustic Ska for years and everyone turned their noses up at it. I'm over it, tho. I'm no longer concerned with 3rd wave Ska soiling itself, looking pathetic, playing boring typical music, and then wondering why no one really gives a hoot about Ska as they point their fingers at everyone but themselves.
So what is my intention? By now you've probably assumed I'm looking for a bit of attention. I've done said a bunch of unintentionally hurtful stuff. Am I here just to complain or am I going to try to prove myself as a musician? I guess I have to. I hate being a musician because it always feels like begging people to waste minutes of their precious life.
What have I come up with? Examples. Perhaps a framework for one possible future of Ska. I've been putting lessons online...teaching how to approach SkaPunk from a more intelligent angle. I don't consider myself special but if special people took a moment to really learn something new, well, perhaps we would be able to type the word Ska online and not have it come up underlined in red.
So here is a place to start:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCrUV6xT2Wk