Syracuse Ska Forum

http://www.punknews.org/article.php?sid=15175

2006 promises to be a high point for ska at Hellcat - WBT's upcoming album, as well as new Aggrolites and Slackers are coming from Tim Armstrong's label.

Does anyone else find it really random for those three bands to be on Hell Cat? Do they even have any ska punk bands or do they go straight from punk to trad ska?

No, this makes perfect sense. Hellcat notoriously HATES ska-punk. That's well established. And totally consistent. Hellcat and Epiitaph don't book poppy bands and by definition, that's what most ska-punk is. They don't book pop-punk bands either. I hope you can appreciate that.

BTW, I meant to announce this myself after I found out Monday, but I forgot to add it to my weekly mailer. But I called Obi on Monday night and he's pretty excited, understandably, to finally get this signing done. They've been negotiating with Hellcat for the last 6 months, which I knew about all along. Obi told me about this last June when they played here at the Westcott, with the understanding we couldn't talk about it publicly until the contract was actually signed. And we talked about it some more at Skalloween.

But hey, it's nice to have friends signed to Hellcat Records.

Epitaph is home to Matchbook Romance, The Matches, and Motion City Soundtrack. It also has a very large population of post-hardcore and pop-punk/indie bands.

The Epitaph Tour consisted of those bands and From First To Last (a post-hardcore band on the label)

Epitaph was also home to The Offspring, Millencolin, Pulley, and Ten Foot Pole.

In all fairness, Epitaph is/was home to numerous bands with pop-punk leanings, as well as bands who are playing what is currently trendy.

Okay, that's what I get for not being more on top of them.

Besides, the cheesy pop-punk line isn't clear cut. But I remember all the hardcore kids getting upset when Victory signed Catch 22. All labels try to diversify. It's just smart business. Hellcat is a ska and old school punk label, which travel well together. I guess they put the poppier stuff directly on Epitaph. Works for me.

Epitaph had poppier bands cause that was what was big in Cali with the whole skate scene and what not.

If you want to see what non-cheesy pop punk looks like, come see the Emersons next Thursday, January 19th at the Bug Jar in Rochester. You'll also be able to see what the Clash would look like if they were in their 20's (and not ... well ... the Clash) through the Flour City Knuckleheads, and what the Pogues would look like if they got in a fight with NOFX while they were on speed, courtesy of Tom Foolery and the Shannanighans.

not to mention they have some girls and the locust

I thought Westbound Train went to Hellcat a while ago?

Because I remember saying something about it before.

is tiger army old school punk? because theyre on hellcat

labels are signing different style bands. look at fearless, they went from having good bands like beefcake, 30footFALL, the aquabats, and the white kaps to having a bunch of terrible emo bands. it's what happens. they loose money so they gop for whats popular.

they are rockabilly fused with old school punk. thats why it is called psycobilly.

And don't forget....bad religion...nofx ...

<3 Westbound Train <3

<3 Tim Armstrong <3

thats not the point i was trying to make. karen was saying how they have a lot of trendy bands that are popular now, but in contrast they have some pretty f*ck-ed up grind bands.