(soothing synth music)
Downloaded from YTS.MX
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- [Narrator] There was a time in the 1990s
when it seemed like ska music was everywhere.
On the radio, in movies, on TV,
even on top of the Billboard chart.
- Exciting.
These are the stories you dream about.
- Like that time it felt this was right.
It felt like if I could define a music
for the mid-'90s, it was ska punk.
- This is so different and so weird
and my parents are gonna hate it.
I love it.
No one's gonna get it.
I get to go back to high school
and the preppy girls are gonna be like,
where'd you go this weekend?
I'd be like pfft, you're not even gonna understand ska.
Ska is ours.
It's for the weird kids. (chuckles)
- Before that it was two-toned,
very black and white specials.
Everything was just (vocalizes).
Somehow the color exploded from the No Doubt,
Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake and Goldfinger.
That was that positive, here we go.
- Now you're startin' to see a national level,
a band like the Bosstones come in.
This is bigger than our little thing.
This is somethin' next level.
- Back then, it was like the people
that liked the music loved the music.
- I just tell people, it's the perfect dance music.
In their mind, they're probably thinkin'
maybe hip-hop or something.
- I think a lotta people just looked at,
especially the ska music of the late '90s,
as this kinda wacky, silly thing.
Don't take it seriously, it's just a joke.
But it means a lot to us.
- As a teenager, it was just like wow,
there's a music out there
where it just makes me feel positive and makes me feel good.
When the right band does it, you feel it.
- If literally somebody walkin' down the street that's like
why do I wanna come see your show?
I'm like you'll like it, I guarantee.
Come in, like '90% chance you'll like it.
- It made me really happy.
To watch the way a bunch of young musicians in America
decided they would love and use this really powerful
dance music with an incredible groove that they had.
It was amazing for me.
- It's kinda hard to deny ska in a lotta ways.
There's an infectiousness to it
where if you're not open to it,
maybe you're not gonna get there.
But if you're at all susceptible, it's gonna get you.
- It's just fun music, man.
It's like you can dance to it.
You feel like you can let go of all the shit
that happens in your life.
- It's a very infectious sound
and a very fun, positive music
that is lovable.
- I think every generation has their we were hippies, man.
We were at Woodstock, that was the greatest time.
I'm sure it was awesome, but I was lucky enough
to be in a dumb, dopey ska band
playing with some amazing other bands.
Get to see the world,
get to make friends all over the place.
- I think just right place, right time a lot too
where the world was ready for fun music.
I think ska especially in Orange County,
Southern California and the United States,
it blew up at that time.
- The idea of us being a ska band was kind of ridiculous.
Let's just call it like it is,
we're just a bunch of dumb white guys
from Southern California.
We probably have no business playing ska.
- Yeah, the way SoCal blended all the punk
that was already SoCal punk with the modern ska
was really unique and powerful at the time, honestly.
Even if got laughed at afterwards.
- Ska defines who I am as a person
and I will never turn my back on ska. (vocalizes)
Looking back, I have no regrets.
- You should. - Yup.
- It was a very short window of passing time.
Then by late '99, 2000, it was over.
Bands were gettin' dropped.
- A lotta people thought maybe we were a joke or something
because we were a third wave ska band.
- Blame us, why don't you?
Just come out and say it,
it's Orange County's fault that ska crashed.
Yes.
Yes, we overdid it.
Are you happy now?
(jazzy ska music)
♪ Pick it up ♪
♪ Go team go ♪
♪ Pick it up ♪
- It became different because in '87,
you'd be hard-pressed to find people
who knew what ska music was.
But seven, eight years later,
you'd be hard-pressed to find a young person
who'd never heard of it.
(lively ska music)
♪ Aww yeah ♪
- Hi, I'm Scott.
We're here in Time Square in New York City
and we're gonna talk to people about ska music.
See how that goes.
Ska.
Ska music, familiar?
Ska music, you know about ska music?
Sir, ska music?
Ma'am, no?
We're asking people on the street in New York
if they know anything about ska music.
- Not at all.
- Are you familiar with ska music?
- What kinda music?
- Ska music. - No.
- Ska music, do you know anything about ska music?
- Ska music, never heard of it.
- Are you familiar with ska music?
- No.
- There's no pressure.
This is not a test.
There's no money involved.
Would you know
like Sublime?
- No, I'm too young for that.
- (chuckles) No no no, that's like '90s.
(Scott chuckling)
- Unfamiliar territory.
Completely.
- No, what is ska music?
- Have you ever heard of The Specials?
- No, what are The Specials?
- They're a band.
- The Specials?
- I've heard of them.
They're an old English band, aren't they?
- Yup. - Yeah.
- What do you know about ska music?
Do you know about ska music?
Come here, talk to me for goodness sakes.
- I hate saying No Doubt 'cause they're not really ska,
but they have the elements.
- How about No Doubt?
- I have heard of No Doubt.
Gwen Stefani, right? (laughs)
- Okay, great.
How familiar are you with ska music?
- Ska?
Not at all.
- How familiar are you with ska music?
- Very familiar with the ska music.
It was the precursor to the reggae music,
the British beating
and all those great bands that came out.
The Skatalites made you move.
Even if you didn't wanna move, it made you move.
- This is so great.
I just learned somethin' today.
You learn somethin' new every day, hey.
- [Narrator] Where did ska music come from?
Ska begins in Kingston, Jamaica at the end of the 1950s.
The homegrown music of the island, mento,
blended with the jazz music
performed for tours and nightclubs
and the rhythm and blues picked up on transistors
from American radio stations.
It was a strange recipe of lively horns and drums,
sometimes a piano and maybe even some vocals.
But it was that distinctive, syncopated rhythm
that really made ska its own creation.
It was different, it was fun.
It was a source of upbeat, uptempo joy
no matter what the political, social or economic situation
of those who wore their best shoes and danced.
Danced to it they did in places like Forrester's Hall,
Chocomo Lawn and Tile Jubilee Gardens.
These were the original dance halls.
Some had walls, some were outdoors in yards
with nothin' but a zinc fence surroundin' the space inside
where Kingston DJs, called sound system operators,
held dances every night of the week.
Imagine payin' a few bucks or shillin's
since Jamaica was still a colony of Britain back then.
Walkin' inside a sound system dance on a Saturday night.
Bass pumpin', horns blarin' from massive handmade
speaker boxes stacked high in the hot night sky.
Speakers strapped to tree branches
so every man, woman and child from miles around
could hear their records on the turntables.
The sound waftin' mixin' with the smoke of curry goat
and fried red snapper.
Ska was more than music.
Ska was an experience.
Dances attracted hundreds of people who dressed sharp
to move to the music of local artists,
like Laurel Aitken, Derrick Morgan, Prince Buster,
Desmond Dekker and even young Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley.
To supply the music, sound system operators
also recorded these new Jamaican artists.
Auditioning vocalists in their studios
every day of the week.
Behind the singers were the house bands,
hornsmen as they were called.
They were highly-skilled musicians,
trained in jazz and classical music.
They came to the recording studios to try to earn a livin'.
A few coins for a recording that the sound system operators
then used to play that night.
Sometimes they'd battle one another for the biggest crowd
in what was known as a clash.
Competition was tough.
It was a big business.
There were fights between groups
that aligned themselves with the sound systems.
These were The Rude Boys.
They dressed to the nines, wore sunglasses at night
and exhibited their power by breakin' needles
from the rival turntable and pushin' around the audience
to break up the party.
How did this music, dance and culture
even make its way to America?
It wasn't a direct route.
It was through the migration of Jamaican people
to England that ska travels,
like a bird with a seed where it's planted in places
like Brixton, Nottinghill, Coventry.
They came in search of work and brought their records
and musical taste with them.
Show at house parties and dance clubs,
Jamaican immigrants felt like they were home.
The white working class youth
who lived and worked alongside the Jamaicans
loved what they heard.
They loved My Boy Lollipop by Millie Small.
They loved Desmond Dekker's 007 Shanty Town
and Prince Buster's One Step Beyond.
They also loved their style of dress and attitude,
sharp and cool like The Rude Boys.
When the white youth brought their own musical backgrounds
and taste into the mix, punk and soul,
another recipe for ska was born: two-tone.
Two-tone became wildly popular in England
as early as 1979 and lasted until 1984.
Named after the record label founded by
Jerry Dammers of The Specials, this ska movement
sounded very different from its Jamaican parents.
It wasn't just fast, it was phonetic.
Bands like The Specials, The Selecter, The Beat,
Madness and Bad Manners topped the charts with songs
that spoke of politics and racial unity.
Members of these groups were both black and white.
Their songs were either brand new creations
or covers of their original Jamaican songs.
But the sound always featured that distinctive ska rhythm.
It was through this British version
that ska began to take foothold in America.
(crowd cheering)
- I'm just thinkin' 'bout how
before you'd have to explain to somebody what ska was.
- What is ska?
What is ska, Sascha?
- (mumbles) rock band and you don't know
what ska music is?
Geez.
- I don't know what ska music is.
- People say, "What is ska?
"What do you play?"
- I guess if my mom asked me what ska music is,
I would say it's a danceable, upbeat,
major key, fun party music.
- I say it's fun.
It's got horns in it.
You can dance to it.
What I wanna tell 'em is about the tribe
and how important it's been in my life.
If I have longer, I'll explain.
Oh no, I found people with this common music interest
all over the world, but the short answer is fast reggae.
- Ska, the way I explain it
is ska's a upbeat version of reggae.
- It's basically just fast reggae.
- I usually just say it's fast reggae.
- I was gonna say it's fast reggae.
But if you didn't know what reggae is,
then that wouldn't work.
- The description was it's faster reggae with horns,
which is terrible.
- In reality, ska is the grandfather to reggae music.
- Before reggae, there was ska.
- It would slow down into rock steady couple years later,
which turned into reggae which has spawned the world.
- Without ska, there would be no reggae.
- Everybody's heard ska before,
but you don't know how to put it into words
or you try and describe bands that play ska or played ska.
People will say, "I never heard of 'em, never heard of 'em."
Even when you go all the way to the top echelon
which is No Doubt you say, No Doubt?
They go like oh yeah, I've heard of No Doubt.
You go, haven't you heard any of their really early stuff?
They're like no, not really.
- Not like if any of them had (mumbles),
but picture that with horns.
If that doesn't resonate you just go,
picture happy music with horns.
They go, like Chicago?
If you're tryin' to get outta the conversation you go,
yeah just like Chicago.
We're exactly like Chicago.
- To me, ska music is such a beautiful thing
because of where it came from.
It's the ultimate story of underdogs prevailing
and creating beauty out of nothing.
- It's Jamaican people taking American big band rock 'n roll
and making their own version of it.
I'm sure without a few joints and some rum,
I made this thing that they called Skarum
because they had to come up with somethin'.
'Cause it wasn't jazz, it wasn't big band.
It wasn't rock 'n roll; it was their thing,
so they called it Skarum.
- Then you get the musicality of it as well.
The guys in The Skatilites were all jazz guys to begin with.
Their heroes were people like Lester Young,
John Coltrane and Charlie Parker.
People like this, they idolized these guys.
- As soon as you hear that opening
timbales or that opening snare run,
all of a sudden the bass starts rollin'.
The keys start bubblin'.
- Everything is on the second beat
and the fourth beat as an upbeat,
which has this very fun, danceable energy to it
that's pretty infectious.
- We all had these little worlds of music
that we were exploring.
When we'd get in the van together or rehearse,
these would all clash.
- You have this circle which represents reggae.
You have this circle that represents punk.
This circle that represents rock 'n roll
and this circle that represents jazz.
When you push 'em together at their points of intersection,
the nexus of intersection of all those styles
is where ska music sits.
Because ska music is not only drawn from these sources,
it's givin' back to it.
It's a mixture of all those things.
- I remember hearin' the first English beat
for The Specials back around when I was 16
and just goin', what the fuck?
What is this?
I love this shit.
It's fucking great.
- Listening to Madness, The Specials and Selecter
and hearing bands like that as a kid,
not really knowing that was ska.
- The Specials in hindsight
are the greatest ska band of all time.
- That record if you don't like it,
then there's something wrong with you.
♪ Stop your messin' around ♪
(singers vocalizing)
♪ Better think of your future ♪
- We saw these wonderful ideas about changin' the world
like most generations do.
We just ended up getting fucked up. (laughs)
But we've made a lotta people happy while we're doin' it.
- Check, check, check.
- This is Tuesday the 8th of March, 1988.
("Sound System" by Operation Ivy)
♪ Sound system gonna bring me back up ♪
♪ Yeah one thing that I can depend on ♪
- Operation Ivy only put out one album.
One album.
They're more popular now than they were
when they were a band.
That album, Energy, that's a classic.
- It's one of those things like you don't know Op Ivy,
get on that if you're gonna be into ska music.
Then you can pretend like you've always known.
- I was just like what in the fuck is this?
I don't even understand how they're even playing this stuff,
but I'm gonna figure it out.
- I would get into my car for high school.
It be early in the morning and really cold.
I dubbed the LP to a cassette.
I would have a lotta moaning in my head.
Life's hard.
Why do I have to go to school?
Then I put up the Operation Ivy record
and immediately I'd be in a good mood.
It would just fill me up with energy, if you will.
I'd be ready and my thoughts would be more positive.
I remember thinking that was such a great gift
that this band had done for me.
I appreciated it so much.
I was in my car and I remember saying,
"I'm gonna do this for other people."
- Ska punk, it didn't exist before Operation Ivy.
Then Operation Ivy kinda pushed into the early '90s
and became what we're talking about now.
- From there, that was the gateway.
It was Bosstones' Fishbone.
- Without Fishbone, I wouldn't be doin'
what I'm doin' right now.
I'd go to Fishbone, it'd be on a school night.
I wouldn't be able to sleep after the show
because I'd be so wired, a natural high
of just wow, what I just saw was amazing.
♪ All day long ♪
(muffled lyrics)
- They were so influential.
Not only musically, but just as minorities.
Just seeing people of color playing
rock 'n roll beats music and singing.
- We were super into Fishbone.
We tried to play funk and it was bad.
Our bass player couldn't do the thumb thing.
He could play arpeggios really fast.
I'm like we sound cool playin' ska, let's do that.
- That's how new music happens.
You tryin' to emulate your heroes a bit,
but you're probably not that good at music at the time.
It comes out something completely different
and that's new music.
(lively ska music)
- What is skanking? (chuckles)
- Skanking is so mechanically easy
that it gave every awkward kid the opportunity to dance.
- Skankin', man.
You're doin' that.
A lotta jumpin' goin' on.
I think the challenge I always had with the word skanking
is it's got skank in it.
- The skank is a primal move.
It really is.
It's just a way of being, a way of moving.
It's just raw.
It's hard not to move when you hear a good ska song.
It's hard not to bounce your head or tap your foot
or just get into it a little bit.
There's always one guy that is like this during a ska song.
He'll roll his eyes.
But then after he does the song, he's like.
Then towards the end of the song, he's like.
Then he'll look around like did anybody see me?
- St. Louis, we were on tour with the Dance Hall Crashers
and we played this show.
Again nobody moved.
They're like boo, where's Dance Hall Crashers?
The next day, we had an interview.
The guy said, "Tell me, how do you feel about
"the Midwest in general?"
I said, "Man, F the Midwest.
(Alex laughing)
"We come all the way out here
"to play music and nobody dances.
"Everybody was just standin' around lookin' at us."
The guy's like, "Whoa whoa whoa, cut the tape, roll it back.
"Listen, the reason nobody dances to your music
"is because they don't know how to."
For me, it was like a I'm sorry moment.
It was from that point that Alex and I
began doing kind of synchronized dances
to give the crowd an idea that you could do this,
you could do this, you could do this and it worked.
- Before you come in and everyone would dance
in a line together and that's it in the audience.
Everyone is lined up and there's no marchin'.
Then it was marchin', boom, boom, boom, boom.
It was just chaos and the ska got faster too.
You had more like The Specials-type vibes
and then it just went into more like the Bosstones.
Everything was the Bosstones.
Everything.
♪ I guess I really don't know how to party ♪
- If you wanna talk about third wave ska, that's the band.
- They were the ones who really said
this is what it means to be a ska band in this era.
- Think of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, how many members?
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight members.
Like Ben Carr, bless him.
But what did Ben Carr do?
All he did was dance and it's the same dance
for the entire show.
- He's the best at what he does.
Nobody does it better than that.
We were a young band.
We couldn't get into the club unless you were in the band
'cause most of us were under the drinking age.
Ben was just like a guy that was hangin' around with us
when we walked in the back of the Rat,
we just basically said, "Yeah, he's in the band."
He got up on stage and was in the band.
He really ran with it, so to speak.
- Picture some big music business guy
with a cigar being like we don't need him.
Stories like that where a band is still brothers,
they still take care of each other and they get it.
They're not looking to the horizon for something else.
They realize what's in front of 'em.
What's working and what's good.
The fact that I heard that he's an equal member,
it's what it's made of.
- [Narrator] Goin' to ska shows
was a unique experience and audiences just like in the UK
just like in Jamaica, often dressed up for the shows.
It was all about dancing, supportin' the bands
and havin' one big party at ground zero.
- We would go to shows and go what's everybody wearin'?
- As you can see, (chuckles)
I like dressin' up, man.
- I love my pork pie hats and my Doc Martins.
- Suit and tie, polo shirts with the little collars.
- The skinny tie with the little punk rock button.
- You have the variations of were you a Rude Boy
or were you a mob?
- The mob movement with the Vespas, the Lambrettas,
the Ben Sherman and the Fred Perry.
All of it.
That image will always be in my brain
as that's what cool people look like.
- When you went to see a ska band,
they cared that they were playing a show.
They dressed up for it.
- Fashion in The Bosstones?
Don't get me started. (chuckles)
The whole plaid thing and all that,
that just kinda grew out of us tryin' to have fun
and be entertaining.
- Back then it was like we're playing clubs
where literally 110 degrees in the club
and I got a full three-piece suit,
all buttoned up, the whole show.
Even to this day, my wife will be like "Dude,
"take off your fuckin' tie," halfway through the set
'cause I'm drenched 'cause of sweat.
That's the other dilemma.
I would sweat so much in these suits that they'd shrink
because they're not supposed to be washed.
The next show, they'd be like up to here and I'd be like.
- We're the kinda dudes that
whatever we were wearin' that day on tour.
We'd get outta the van and that's what we were wearin'
on the stage probably that night.
- The older crowd that came up in the '80s.
We kinda looked at these kids goin',
"You need to tuck your shirt in."
- There were these unwritten rules
where you had to look a certain way.
You had to wear your hair a certain way.
- We would go thrift shopping and look for vintage suits.
It wasn't like let's wear a random suit and a skinny tie.
We had to have everything perfect.
- Instead of skinny ties, we started wearin' fat ties
and buying cheap polyester suits at thrift stores
'cause that's what was available.
- You'd have these kids at ska shows
who were raiding their father's closets,
basically putting on their dad's ties and their dad's suits
and some hat that they would find
in the garage or something.
- There's always gonna be the guy in the Hawaiian shirt.
- I had a little bit to do with the Hawaiian shirt
being associated with ska.
I'm sorry or you're welcome.
- You can go to a ska show dressed however you want
and you're accepted.
That kinda became the whole wacky thing about ska.
You wear the checkers.
You wear the crazy colors and the outfits and stuff.
It all fit.
It didn't match and it fit.
(lively ska music)
(playful ska music)
- We're rollin'.
- We're still goin'? (claps)
Go!
We just said, "Hey,
"let's get a bunch of our friends together
"and start a ska band," kind of as a joke.
Our friend Boyd who worked at a wetsuit company,
he's like, "I got an idea.
"Let's be like Devo, we'll all wear the same thing
"and just be a silly ska band."
That's the beginning of The Aquabats.
- It was a trip.
In The Aquabats, it was such a different style.
It was more new-wave and experimental,
so many different styles.
We would play a punk rock song.
We would write a Latin song.
We would write a super new wave song.
We would write a surf song.
Anything goes.
- Travis, he shows up.
He comes backstage and I give him his costume.
He's like, "What's this?"
I'm like, "That's your costume.
"You wear a costume.
"On the record, we're wearing costumes."
He was like, "Really?
"I didn't know that."
(chuckles) He was like super disappointed.
I'm like, "Yeah bro, that's on the record."
He was like, "I thought that was just a joke
"for the record cover."
I'm like, "No, that's how we play."
He was like, "(sighs) Alright."
(muffled lyrics)
- Personally I think after grunge,
we needed something to make us feel better.
- Kurt Cobain was the lead singer of the group Nirvana.
Their albums were bestsellers;
their songs filled with images of despair and violence.
- When Kurt Cobain killed himself,
No Doubt was like (vocalizes) right around the same time.
I think that was more of a cultural reaction
to a pendulum swing.
It's like heavy?
Let's lighten it up a little bit.
- It seemed like ska scene had that same angst
but with a certain amount of tongue and cheek,
sarcasm, irony and fun.
Nobody ever said you could be angry and have fun.
- [Narrator] Many people were tired
of the heavy drone of grunge
or the hairspray and testosterone of arena rock
or maybe people just finally caught on
to what had been happenin' underground for a decade.
- You hear on KROQ, you'd start hearing Sublime.
You'd start hearing No Doubt and you'd just go
how?
What is happening?
This is confusing.
("Date Rape" by Sublime)
- The way it got on the radio was grassroots
with the help of Tazy Phyllipz
and Jed the Fish in KROQ.
- Once you put those songs on the airwaves, it was magic.
- It just did what these songs rarely do,
which is light up the switchboard.
Back then, that meant a lot.
- I think it's like the third most requested song
in the history of KROQ.
- Date Rape was not really Brad's favorite song
or the band's favorite song, so it was bittersweet.
They were stoked to hear themselves on the radio.
But then after that, it was played so heavily
and brought recognition to 'em
at these small venues they would attack all the time now.
New fans were there and they were shouting out,
"Play Date Rape, play Date Rape."
After a while, it wasn't their favorite song to play.
- That's what you get right there, ska.
The power of ska in the '90s because the single
for this golden cassette release was Date Rape.
- That was like wow, there's a song
with horn and skanking guitar.
That's crazy.
Whoa, something like our scene is on the radio.
As one band started kinda getting exposure,
it brought more outside exposure in.
- Then Sublime was not the easiest of bands to work with.
At what point do they go is there another band
that we can deal with?
- Oh Gwendoline.
(electric guitar strumming)
Where's she at?
Gwen Stefani from No Doubt.
Say what's up, alright?
- Hi.
- We were this local band who had had this great super fun
eight or nine year long run just having so many great shows.
(lively ska music)
- They were like the big local band
for a really really really long time before they ever broke.
- Then suddenly at a rehearsal,
somebody runs in and goes, "Did you guys see?
"No Doubt from the cover of Bam Magazine."
Suddenly the thought and the reality
that's known now, that was like the first day of it.
- We didn't think that anybody was gonna get huge.
When No Doubt got big, we were like wow.
Oh man, this is huge.
This is huge for them to get big.
All of us thought probably just this one record
or just this one single.
We didn't expect anything like that.
- No Doubt became huge.
Even though they weren't really playing ska music as much,
you would see they have a video
and the guy's wearing a Madness shirt.
They're still showing their roots.
- They were speaking to me in code.
I heard the ska in there on Tragic Kingdom.
I'm like okay, you may not be saying out loud,
but you're winking at all of us ska fans.
We know; we get it.
- Could we talk about ska for a second?
Is there a revival happening or is it just a coincidence?
- I think it's a coincidence.
What do you guys think?
- I think that ska will remain underground.
(Gwen chuckling)
I don't know why.
But people who are into the traditional ska,
don't really like the commercial aspect,
the commercial success of it for some reason.
They wanna hold it back.
We just play whatever music we feel like it.
If we throw in a ska song here and there,
it's all the same to us.
- Right.
No limits here.
- As we were having Don't Speak
came out as a huge pop hit on all the pop stations,
they would always say ska band.
I always felt like in our past we had been a ska band,
but I don't think Tragic Kingdom was a ska album.
But still that tag got attached to us.
I imagine there may have been a feeling amongst legitimate
ska bands in the scene we came out of.
This is exciting, but No Doubt's
not really a ska band anymore.
- Suddenly all these elements start coming together
with what's gonna happen.
I honestly to this day believe they put the fear of success
in a lotta people's heads.
- Ska has always been a thing that was evolving.
I can't think of any other genre
that's been described in waves.
You know what I mean?
- They call from third wave.
Obviously we're talkin' about traditional ska from the '60s.
Desmond Dekker, Toots, and those guys.
The two-tone bands took what the traditional bands
were doing, then added a little punk rock at the time
like Ramones-esque.
Same thing, we're doin' the two-tone kinda music
and mixin' it with a little NOFX and Descendants in there.
That's what third wave is.
But it's just an evolution out of this Jamaican music.
It feels kinda isolatish,
like you're isolating people into different groups.
It's music, man.
This isn't fuckin' sports.
- I think ska bands are always holding their horns
in their promotional photos
because there's so many dudes in the photo,
you wanna explain why that's happening.
People see three guys, they're like a band.
Cool.
But if they see like 18 guys like,
they're gonna be confused.
Why is this photo in this magazine of all these dudes?
If they're holding horns, then they're ska bands.
(lively ska music)
- I started in elementary school.
- Same. - Same.
Elementary school band program,
fourth grade. - School bands.
- Fourth grade.
Pick an instrument, fourth grade.
Saxophone looked cool.
- Trombone looked cooler.
- The trumpet has a smaller case.
You could actually carry it.
- When you're in school band, that's geeky.
- When does it actually become cool?
Never.
You're playing jazz.
You're goin' like cool, I'm finally cool.
I'm in the seventh grade jazz band.
No, you're not cool.
- All of a sudden the band geeks had a place
to be in what was a really vibrant, great indie music scene.
- Seein' horn sections on MTV on videos
was a big deal for me and other kids my age.
All of a sudden it was okay in my town
to have horns in your band.
It was actually cool.
- Horn players becoming cool because of ska
is kinda the only dark side to ska.
(Sascha chuckling)
'Cause horn players are not cool.
- Yeah man, all of the horn players are nerds. (laughs)
- They were the odd people out that never were into punk,
scene or into ska punk.
They were just like I'm gonna play in a band.
I literally only played alto sax
in my concert band and jazz band for this.
That kinda stuff.
- Just hate for horn players.
- No.
(Matt chuckling)
I got love.
I got love for horn players. - You're a horn player?
- But you know what I'm talking about.
- I hate trumpet.
- When you're in high school,
what other musician friends do you know?
All the guys in marching band.
Your natural progression is we're gonna be a ska band.
- Literally was like oh, what do you play?
A flute?
Fuck, you could be in my ska band.
Who gives a shit?
Let's go.
- Indie ska became the more horns, the better.
(all vocalizing instruments)
- So much horns, just chill.
(grunts) Drivin' me nuts.
You know what I mean?
There's other times where it's like man,
we need some horns or somethin' and this song's boring.
- We're playing a part that's just as important
as a guitar part or a local lead or whatever.
It's all part of it.
- It turned out great.
Seriously, the music just spoke for itself.
I think a lotta people really got a lot out of it.
It was like they mattered.
I mattered; it was kinda crazy.
- [Narrator] Many of the ska bands
in the '80s and '90s had a DIY ethic,
partly because ska and punk were so intertwined
and punk was built on the principle of doin' it yourself.
In the early 1990s, there was no internet
or at least not as we know it today,
so hearin' about new music or learnin' about a new band
was largely word of mouth or catchin' a band
at a ska show or readin' a zine.
Zines were frequently made by hand,
xeroxed, folded in half, stapled
and mailed to lists acquired at shows.
Some like Moon Records were also catalogs of ska inventory.
Posters and flyers to advertise the shows
were also made by hand.
- We'd go to the Kinko's Print Place
in the middle of the night, cut and paste a flyer together
or draw somethin' and make a bunch of copies,
then drive 'em to all the record stores.
- Makin' your own flyers at Kinko's.
You drop the blue little cartridge.
You drop it on the floor and reset it,
so you could do it for free.
(lively ska music)
- They're just like the original drawings.
When we were makin' our first shirt,
this is the front pocket logo and the back.
- We just did it ourselves.
Totally we were a really DIY band.
How do you get on a record label?
Call this record label. (chuckles)
- It wasn't like we're DIY, we're super cool
or anything like that.
It was just literally no one else is gonna do this for us
and we wanna do this.
Let's call up every bar on the east coast
and see if any of them will let us play a show that night,
like that kinda thing.
- The ska scene was kinda different for everybody.
- East coast ska and west coast ska
is totally different.
- We tried our best to instill an East Coast
versus West Coast kinda thing.
We wanted to start a rap battle,
have drive-bys and stuff like that but it never took.
- Can you imagine?
It would just be like trombones beating each other,
like drive-by piccolos or whatever. (chuckles)
Really wouldn't work the same way.
- The New York scene, it was poppin'.
There was tons of energy, people were excited.
The kids were excited.
The bands were helping each other.
We were playing.
There was a lot of back and forth
with bands from Washington, from Boston.
- Grand Rapids didn't really have a ska scene at all.
No one knew.
The only people in Grand Rapids that knew about ska
were the ones in our band.
If you were a ska fan, you were in Mustard Plug.
If you didn't know how to play an instrument,
it didn't matter.
You were in Mustard Plug.
- We definitely stuck out like a sore thumb.
Since the early '90s, everybody was tryin' to sound
like Pearl Jam or Soundgarden or somethin'.
Here we'd be sandwiched between these bands.
(lively ska music)
(muffled lyrics)
Not without tooting our horn,
I think we helped create a scene in Florida.
- A local scene starts with a local band.
- They were like, "Hey, we're starting a ska band
"and we're gonna play shows."
I was like, "I didn't know you could start your own band."
- You don't just have to listen to music
in your headphones or in your car.
You could actually be in a room full of people
all enjoying the same music.
- I wasn't cool.
I didn't know there was music scenes.
I thought we'd be playin' in the garage,
then some guy in a suit would come in with a briefcase
and be like hey, you guys want a record deal?
(clicks) Show me all his money.
I didn't know how it worked.
- The scene was a big part of it for me
in Southern California.
It was during the mid-'90s, it was so underground.
Most of the shows got shut down.
So many venues got closed.
They weren't even venues.
They were just places you could have shows.
Someone would rent out a spot and put up a PA or whatever.
- Thinkin' about goin' to a show by myself now,
I'd be like oh my god, scary.
Back then, I would just get in my car and drive to a show.
Know that everybody I knew was gonna be there.
It's a big deal for me 'cause I'm really awkward.
- We'd play every show no matter who it was
came to Detroit to play with them.
Some of those friendships have lasted 'til now.
Less Than Jake, Skankin' Pickle, all those guys.
- We would start out in St. Louis.
We were right in the center of the country.
Lots of touring bands would come through
and we got to be the biggest ska band
in our little area of St. Louis.
- The Midwest was still about bein' wacky
and havin' fun a lot.
When you get to the east coast,
there's a lotta like awesome musicians and more musicianship
with the bands and horns and everything.
They took it all a little more seriously.
I think bands on the east coast were a little wary
of us silly West Coast bands.
- The promoters,
there was a big jam band scene
and we started pushin' the ska music on them.
It literally was always some younger guy
in the promoter office that was pushin'
the old school bigger promoters.
C'mon, we gotta try this music.
Ska's happenin'.
The other thing that was challenging
with booking these bands.
All of the other jam bands and stuff like that,
they didn't care about an all-age crowd.
The promoters, that's how they make their money
is by sellin' beer.
Skankin' Pickle and some of these other bands came along
and they were just like, no it's gotta be all-age.
We book a tour and '90% of it would be all-age shows.
I'd bring 'em some club show that was 21 and over.
They were just like nope, not doin' it.
Find somethin' else, I don't care.
We'll play in somebody's garage if we have to.
It's gotta be all ages.
They pushed it and pushed it and pushed it.
I think during that time, we really changed the landscape
of the concert world in pushing those all-age shows.
- It was young people that really wanted
to make fun, danceable music.
- You could feel that somethin' special was happening.
- There was an energy in those shows that was palpable.
People were going crazy.
It was really fun, good time.
That was the goal.
How much fun can we have?
(crowd muffled shouting)
(lively ska music) (muffled lyrics)
- Now you're on both sides.
You have the band and you have the record label.
Does that create a conflict for you?
- I think the best way to win a game of tennis
is to play both sides of the net.
- Then records were sold, over 1/2 million records.
Mostly outta my basement before we had a storefront
in New York in the late '90s.
- Moon Records was putting out a lot of records,
so we gave a lot of bands a chance to be heard.
- I always called Moon the Little Engine that Could
because we did a lot with nothing.
I think a lotta people had an inflated sense
of what we were and what we're doing.
But for most of the Moon Records' career,
it was just me workin' outta my basement.
- I was obsessed with mail order as a kid.
I used to put cash in an envelope,
which is exactly what my parents told me not to do.
Then these record companies would send me albums.
If they threw in an extra sticker,
it was the highlight of my life.
- [Narrator] It was too risky to bank on an unknown band
if you were a small label.
But puttin' out a compilation with 12 bands
each supplyin' their best song for the exposure of a label,
it just made sense.
Moon Ska, Jump Up, Asian Man, Stubborn Records, Hellcat
all released compilations of bands they represented.
- Ska compilation CDs were huge to the ska community.
- CDs, it's a piece of plastic that you put into this thing
and it spins really fast.
- Compilation was such a way to get a whole bunch of music
out to a bunch of different people.
To get all these different voices heard.
- As a band, it was a fantastic way to get exposure.
You would go to a town and they would come just to hear
the one song that they'd heard on a compilation.
- In these comps where you call us up,
we just said yes to everything.
We didn't have any new songs.
Here, take the crappy version of this off our demo tape.
Just take it.
But the thing was, it really showed you there was way more
of this going on than you knew.
- You didn't have a podcast or a radio station
that was gonna expose you to the new stuff,
but you might have a compilation CD
where 28 out of 36 tracks felt like they changed your life.
("Time Bomb" by Rancid)
- When I remember it really startin'
to cross over commercially, I think it was like '95.
That was Rancid's song, Time Bomb.
- It's on, it's happenin'.
This is a mainstream radio station
and they're playing a straight-up ska song.
Celebrating.
- The label's an independent label.
Somehow they crossed over into commercial radio
when that was getting really difficult to do.
- They're a punk rock band that plays ska,
but they played some of the best ska.
- I remember just being stoked
going holy crap, Rancid is on the fuckin' radio.
That's nuts!
I guarantee you, even those dudes probably were never like
we were gonna be on the radio, you know what I mean?
Or we're gonna be the clash of our generation.
I guarantee you they didn't think that, but they are.
(energetic ska music)
- [Narrator] Ska bands, unless you signed to a big contract
just could not sustain themselves financially.
Think about it: if venue booked four or five bands a night,
but each of those bands had to split the take of the door
five ways then divide up the cash
between seven or eight members each;
then the trombone player would be lucky
to cover his own drinks.
- You have be able to take care of 'em 'cause money talks.
People will lie about that or skip around that.
A lot of it's money, man.
You have to keep a band fed on the road.
When you're underground at all with no radio play, no label,
it takes a special kinda person, a special breed of person;
a special breed of wife or girlfriend
or whatever you got at home.
- If you had a seven-piece band,
then this was your sole income.
It's too hard compared to being
in a three or four-piece band.
- How is anyone gonna make money that way?
- DJs are stoked.
- (chuckles) Yeah, they are.
- A ska band is the worst business model.
Anything divided by 10 is zero.
- When you're young, you never really think money.
It's like whatever what we make tonight.
You didn't care.
- I remember always thinking like
if there were only four of us in this band,
I'd be really doin' well.
I would probably be the first one to go too
'cause I'm a horn player, so I'm pretty thankful.
- There has to be some kinda passion beyond just the money.
For us, it's always been the fun.
It's been the fun.
Now that we've been a band for 20 years,
we're making more money than we've ever made as a band.
But we're spending way more money on fun.
We spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars
on inflatable beach balls and stupid stuff every show.
How can we have more fun?
How can we make it more fun for our fans?
For us, that's what it keeps the Aquabats going.
I'm sure that's not the answer that maybe our families
or our wives wanna hear.
Wait, you're how much?
What?
Cut that out.
- I worked with really good bands.
I could call a promoter and say look,
you may not make a lotta money on this show.
You might even lose a few bucks,
but it's gonna be a really really good band.
I promise you.
I'm gonna keep them comin' through your market.
We'll build the crowd.
If we can build that together,
then that's how this whole scene is gonna grow.
- I'd done enough time in retail
to know I never ever wanna go back to that.
When they kept asking for us to play shows, I'm like yes.
I just said yes to everything and I still do.
We have that world's record.
We played 385 shows in 1996,
which was the most shows ever played by a touring band.
- Our first tour, we'd literally get
one hotel room for eight of us.
One hotel room.
Eight adult men in hotel room.
I would be like, "Guys,
"could we please get two hotel rooms tonight?
"Please."
- We ate peanut butter and jelly.
We lived on $5.00 a day.
That's why I ate all those McDonald's.
- That's when I learned that
when you have remanence of seven people's Taco Bell.
People would go to throw out their Taco Bell,
I'm like, "What are you doing?"
There's all those scraps right there
and I would take the scraps. - Oh man, I forgot that.
- Of seven people's Taco Bell. - That's kinda disgusting.
I'd forgotten. - That's what I ate.
That's what all there was to eat.
- I forgot that you did that. - I lived well on that.
- But it was tough, man.
A lotta people in our band sucks.
You'd see a band like MxPx on the Warped Tour in their van
and there's just three of 'em.
They're like-- - Your own bench?
- "Dude, they have their own benches.
"I have to sit next to this guy for eight hours a day
"all fuckin' summer long."
Fuck.
- You're just like wow, this is great.
I can actually stretch my legs,
just 'cause we don't have a trombone player.
- It's interesting being the only female
in a band of eight guys because every guy
is gonna treat you different.
There's definitely the older brother guy
that is almost waiting for someone to talk to you mean
so he can get in a fight for you.
There's the chivalrous ones
that when there is a couch, they will give it to you.
Then there's the ones that are gonna push you outta the way
and make sure they're just fair.
You have to almost work twice as hard
to prove that you're worthy of your space.
Reese, our lead singer, Reese Roper.
He's the only one that always tells me I look pretty
and he still does it.
I think that comes from having a sister.
Then there's guys that don't wanna know
if it's that time of the month.
They're just avoiding me like the plague.
- The more people you have, the more chances of somebody
bein' like I think that's a stupid idea.
We should do this.
No.
- On the road, you tend to break down into factions.
The little groups of people stick together.
- Our horn players would kinda be over here
if there was a fight goin' on.
These guys would be over here.
I could kinda join whichever team I wanted to be on.
- That's one of the nice things about being in a band
that's got so many people.
We're like a bigger rat pack.
Who wants to go to a bookstore?
I do.
Who wants to go to the amusement park?
Hey, I'll go.
- You don't get to just bro out
with four other guys from this band.
You get to bro out with 12 of them.
- Yeah.
- Then there's three ska bands, so there's 35 of you.
You know what I mean?
- It's definitely an instant party.
- You're on the road with two ska bands.
If you go anywhere, you pretty much own the place.
Everyone walks in and everyone in the restaurant's like
what the fuck is goin' on?
What is all this?
Who are all these people?
- We were on a tour with Long Beach Dub All Stars
and Blink was also on that tour.
They had some issues with their drummer
and he had to go home for some family thing.
- Mark and Tom came to me and said,
"Dude before you play your set with the Aquabats,
"can you come learn our set or the show's not gonna go on.
"We're not gonna have a drummer."
- He played our set.
Then he took off his costume and he was like (vocalizes).
He killed it.
The other guys in our band were like,
"Ooh it's over," 'cause they could tell.
- When I got the offer to play with Blink, I told Christian.
That was honestly the hardest thing was leaving them.
If I could've played in both bands
and stayed in both bands, I would have.
- I was like, "There's no way, Travis.
"You won't join their band.
"There's no way.
"They have nothing in common."
(chuckles) I was wrong.
- It emotional because they really were my brothers.
- If you start off something as a joke,
then pieces of your joke become worldwide sensations.
It's a bit of a trip.
- To keep up ska band's needs
requires a lot of love, yeah.
Love towards ska music.
Love towards each other.
Love towards band.
We need love.
- I automatically assumed that we didn't have a lot of love
from the punk scene
because we were just too happy.
- It was oil and water.
You couldn't blend these two to save your life,
let alone the people in the crowd.
But after all these people started seeing the bigger picture
and started finding ways to connect the two, they now do.
- Most people when they first heard the music,
I heard it out loud, "That's not ska!
"That's not ska!"
Okay.
- The purists, the traditionalists that were like
if it doesn't sound like two-tone
or if it doesn't sound like The Skatalites,
we don't want anything to do with it.
- Yeah, they weren't as into
some of the pseudo-punky ska combo, which is what we were.
- When you're a kid, you're not gonna wait
until you know every single thing about this genre of music.
Let's just do it, woo!
Are there horns?
You just do, woo!
We're makin' ska music.
That's not ska music.
Yeah, it is.
No.
No?
No.
- We didn't really notice it until we started heading out
on the road and doing little jaunts.
Get to San Francisco where you've got some real
two-tone kids who were like, "The fuck are you doin'?
"What is this fuckin' shit?"
There's a glam rock element in Reel Big Fish too
that people were not necessarily on board with right away.
- Yeah, there was definitely some elitist stuff goin' on.
People that only wanted to listen to two-tone
and no heavy guitars, just upstroke stuff.
You had the ska punk purist.
Is this band ska punk or is this band punk?
That stuff was goin' on.
I tried to do this to a lot of it
because I didn't feel by playin' with any band,
we were hurting anybody or anything.
If you didn't like it, you didn't like it.
- [Narrator] But sometimes a crowd could turn.
One minute, everyone would be singin' along in unity
while skankin' to the horns.
The next minute, there'd be a fight breakin' out.
It was usually someone who had too much to drink
or worse, a racist who somehow found a way into a ska show.
Ska stood for racial unity.
Black and white together side-by-side.
Bands did not stand for it.
Nazi skins had no place in ska.
- There was this time where all these guys
would come to the show with shaved heads.
They'd just run in circles and punch everybody.
I don't know what that was about.
That was a bummer.
- We played some dangerous shows in the '90s
where skinheads would show up
and police in riot gear would come.
- We used to stop mid-song when there was a fight
and say, "We're not gonna play anymore
"until you guys stop it or take it outside."
- I don't know why that's a thing
goin' to ska shows and fighting.
But I've seen more fights at Hepcat shows
than I've seen at any death metal show
or whatever weird show I've been to.
- [Narrator] In 1995, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
played during a club scene in the blockbuster hit Clueless.
Dicky Barrett's snarl, Ben Carr's skank,
and the world was introduced to this brand of ska.
Boston's ska-core, the next big thing was finally here
and audiences like what they heard:
the corky, fun, fast music
that was described as punk with horns.
The impact of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones'
appearance on Clueless helped to bring attention
to all ska bands.
Like they say, "A risin' tide lifts all boats."
- We didn't wanna be portrayed as a fad or something.
Back to the Beach had just come out.
Fishbone was one of our favorite bands.
Looking back on it now, it was kinda cool.
But at the time, it was kind of a drag
seein' them dancin' around with Annette Funicello.
- Do you girls know how to Jamaica ska?
- Jamaica what?
- But I think to the young Bosstones,
we thought it was pretty lame.
But the fact that Amy Heckerling was making it,
who had done Fast Times of Ridgemont High,
made us feel a lot more comfortable.
Also we had gotten into some tax trouble.
We were like, "Yeah, we can do this movie.
"We can pay off our taxes."
For us, it was a lotta money.
It ended up being pretty awesome, cool and fun.
Some of the guys in the band still get
royalties from that movie. (chuckles)
- When you say ska, people say one of three things.
They'll say, "Ska, what's that?
"What did you say?"
Ask you to repeat it.
They'll say, "Ska," and they'll laugh
because they think it's this novelty
that fizzled out in the '90s
or they'll say ska and they'll get it.
They'll know it and they'll love it just like you do,
then those are your people.
(lively ska music)
- Anybody know anything about ska music?
Anybody know how to pick it up?
- Yeah, kind of from my growing up.
- Okay, what ska bands come to mind?
- They sing this famous song, impression that I get.
- What bands come to mind when you think ska music?
- The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Reel Big Fish.
- Reel Big Fish.
Everyone knows Reel Big Fish.
We can go for that.
- Do you know any Reel Big Fish songs?
- Yeah.
- Could you sing one for us?
- Will you sing one with me?
- Sure.
♪ Called me late last night ♪
♪ To say she loved me so ♪
♪ Didn't matter anymore ♪
♪ Said she never cared that she never will ♪
♪ Do it all again ♪
That's the second verse.
Do you have a familiarity with ska music?
- Yes, I do.
Back in the '90s, I came down to a number of ska shows
from all over the village, like The Skatalites.
I met the Ska Police.
Oh man, The Slackers.
How 'bout you guys?
- Oh yeah, I was in a band called Reel Big Fish.
I was in the band for 17 years and don't remember the words.
- Hello, what's up?
- 'Cause there was a big resurgence of ska in the '90s.
- I did a lotta drugs, so I don't remember a lot of that.
- Thank you so much.
- Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you as well.
- I already forgotten your name.
- Scott and Makayla, yes?
- Scott, Makayla.
Reel Big Fish, not Reel Big Fish.
(muffled crosstalk)
- [Aaron] You're crazy.
I wouldn't drive that.
- (mumbles) play. (claps and laughs)
- Oh boy. - Are you sorry?
- (mumbles) course.
We got lucky.
We were in the right place at the right time.
Holy shit. (chuckles)
- That was the first band ever that I insisted
I needed to help try and get them signed.
I brought them to Mojo Records.
- I used to work at Subway, sandwich place.
Then one of those nights,
we played one of those really big shows.
This huge crowd was singin' along to my songs.
I had to work at Subway.
I had to be there at like 8:00 the next morning.
I got up, no way.
I'm a rockstar now.
I quit Subway the next day
and I was really broke for like a year,
(chuckles) but it worked out.
Yay.
- Let's Go Bowling, Reel Big Fish, Daddies,
we all crammed into a hotel room
waiting for Reel Big Fish's video to come on.
They played, we yell yeah!
We got drunk and the whole thing.
- That was exciting.
That was like in the movies
where everybody's like yeah, you're on TV.
We're all dancin' around.
- Then almost immediately, it was just (vocalizes).
They're just huge.
- They just had this funness about them.
It was infectious.
- And roll camera. - We're good to go.
- Three and action.
(crowd cheering)
(balloons popping)
- Oh hi. - Start over.
- My name's Monique.
I'm in a band called Save Ferris.
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Hey hey hey hey ♪
(Monique vocalizing)
♪ I was sittin' and waitin' ♪
♪ Just thinkin', contemplatin' my life ♪
♪ When I heard the phone ♪
I came into the ska world mostly because
I grew up in the center.
We kinda call it ground zero for the third wave of ska,
which was in Orange County in Southern California.
(cat meowing)
Is this distracting?
I wasn't a scene kid
until probably my freshman year of college
because I was studying opera.
I knew this is where I need to be.
I'm in the right place at the right time
and I better take advantage of this.
- Back then there was no internet or cellphones
like it is now, so you kinda once in a while
you'd talk to somebody at home and they would say,
"You guys are getting played on the radio every 20 minutes."
We would just be like, "Cool."
I'm in Oklahoma at a burger joint.
We were disconnected from what was really happening at home.
- For me as a woman, seeing No Doubt and Save Ferris.
That was really cool.
It felt like women were invited to the party.
- Your audience was 50% girls,
so it didn't ever feel like
you were the lone girl in the room.
Me and Elyse, we have our whole act together on stage.
The whole band sorta comes alive when they're on stage.
♪ I don't wanna go ♪
- I loved Dance Hall Crashers.
Oh my god, they were like everything.
♪ Began with a mistake ♪
♪ I didn't know what was at stake ♪
- Being a woman in the scene you get.
It's the door people and the sound guys
that think you're like the backup dancer or the groupie.
There's been times I haven't been able to get into a club
I'm headlining at because they just don't believe me.
Especially if I'm dressed up ready to go on stage
and I'm coming from outside, they just don't believe you.
They just think you're a groupie.
"No, I actually gotta be on stage in five minutes.
"If you don't let me in, the show's not gonna go on
"and you're gonna be fucked."
- There weren't a lot of women in bands at that time
in ska bands or in the scene.
I looked different from everybody else.
I'm a size 12, I wear sexy dresses.
I've told an entire audience of men to fuck off. (chuckles)
You're just gonna have to fall in love with me, I'm sorry.
I know I'm different, but here I am.
I had a little bit more meat on my bones
and I had to sell it.
All I wanted to do was sing.
Selling myself was a means to be able
to get on stage and sing.
I also felt the responsibility to the girls in the audience
who felt different like me, but inside I was so sensitive.
I look back on those videos.
I'm like you look good, little Mo. (chuckles)
You look so pretty.
- Now the curtain has gone up on another unique attraction,
ska music.
- The scene was taking off so rapidly.
- Then ska exploded.
We all got famous.
- Then people started getting signed.
Reel Big Fish got signed to a big label, Save Ferris did.
- When labels go after a certain sound,
it's really happening.
A lotta major labels signed ska bands at the time.
- Couldn't believe it.
It was on a answerin' machine.
I remember comin' home, I was deliverin' pizzas at the time.
"Yeah, (mumbles) from Capitol."
I'm like who's pullin' our leg here?
This isn't real.
That guy followed us around for eight months
tryin' to sign the band.
Around this time, Suicide Machines got signed.
Goldfinger got signed.
To us, there was such a stigma in the '90s
about you can't be on this label.
You can't sell out.
To us, we had to be on Fat Records or Epitaph.
We had rejection letters from both of those labels.
We were like they don't want us, but this label does?
What's this guy hearin' that they don't hear?
- We started playing to a larger audience
and there was less skanking in the audience,
but the love was still there.
It was nice because we were able to spread the love to
other people that weren't into ska.
We introduced them maybe to something new.
- Clever and energetic.
I don't think I can keep up with them.
- That's good music though. - Toe tap.
- [Narrator] Ska was startin' to get radio airplay.
Radio executives called it fresh and different.
Ska was now heard in Akron, Ohio.
Jackson, Wyoming and Wheeling, West Virginia.
- How you doin'?
Carson Daly, MTV Skaturday.
I'm your tour guide to the music known as ska.
- Ska is a type of music that has its origins in Jamaica.
The music enjoyed its biggest popularity in the '80s
with bands like The Specials, The English Beat and Madness.
Yet a handful of ska-influenced bands
are flourishing on today's pop charts.
- [Narrator] The song Sell Out by Reel Big Fish
was all over the radio pokin' fun of themselves
for makin' money off the once underground DIY,
distribute-from-your-basement genre.
♪ Sell out ♪
♪ With me, oh yeah ♪
♪ Sell out ♪
♪ With me tonight ♪
♪ The record companies only give me lots of money ♪
♪ And everything's gonna be alright ♪
- What's funny about a song called Sell Out
being a big hit on the radio and MTV?
The record label had a good sense of humor.
Then it just became weird 'cause I'd be drivin' in the car,
listenin' to the radio, Sell Out would come on.
Be flippin' through TV channels.
Sell Out would be on MTV.
If you think I'm awkward now, imagine seein' that.
Weird.
But yeah, that was crazy.
That was like in movies where there's the montage
of they're playin' a small show,
then they get bigger and bigger.
They pan up the charts, goin' to number one.
Ticket sales.
There was like money in the background falling.
In the movies, it was like that.
- Who are you here to see? - Mighty Mighty Bosstones.
- Bosstones, baby!
Woo!
- The Mighty Mighty Bosstones finally had a gigantic hit.
- (mumbles) back.
Ladies and gentlemen, Let's Face It
is the new album from my next guest.
Please give a nice welcome to The Mighty Mighty Bosstones.
(audience cheering)
- Like whoa, the Bosstones on the radio?
This is awesome.
Is the radio starting to become awesome
or is it just the Bosstones are so awesome
that they couldn't say no anymore?
I think it might've been a little bit of both.
I don't know. (chuckles)
- They had been an underground success
for a long period of time and had put out lots of records
that a lotta the people I knew liked.
But then they really broke wide and had the MTV airplay.
It's just a whole different level.
- Every time a person that I get would come on,
I'd be like, "That's a good song.
"They deserve this."
Then Sell Out would come on, oh my god!
My band sucks.
- For us, it was just such a steady climb.
Even when we had the hit on the radio,
we felt like what took so long?
There was never really a moment
where we were like an overnight success.
Maybe to a lotta people we were
because of the hit song,
radio and being number one on MTV for a whole summer.
- Durin' that time when it was just startin' to hit,
that's when you really started realizing.
It was like whoa, shit.
- So much excitement, so many people come to shows
who never heard of this type of music before.
- Shows went from 100 people to all of a sudden
it was like 400 people.
It wasn't like the weird people who like music in school.
It was like everybody at school.
The cheerleaders, the jocks.
Everybody's comin' to these shows.
- It was crazy.
You'd arrive at the shows and people are there.
They're really happy to see you.
We were sellin' 100 CDs a night.
It was crazy.
It was mayhem.
Everything ska was movin' off the shelf.
- I don't know how many records they sold.
I don't care, don't know.
I'm sure I should have a gold record
I should be doing cocaine in my bathroom.
Who knows how many records they've sold, I don't know.
- Yeah, we got really famous.
You've heard of this Reel Big Fish.
This is what is called the gold record.
In the old days, people used to pay money for music.
If enough people paid money for your music,
you'd get one of these
to commemorate 1/2 million, a million, 10 million.
This is the lowest amount you can sell to get a thing.
- You had got exposed to a lotta people
that didn't hear your music on this TV show
or that movie or this video game.
- You had kids getting introduced to ska
by playing Tony Hawk video games.
- The video game came out, they gave us a copy.
I played it in the back of the bus
on tour every day, all day.
There was literally times where our tour manager had to say,
"Darrin, you're on stage in half an hour."
I'm like, "Yeah, cool."
"Darrin, you're on stage in 15 minutes."
"Yeah yeah yeah, cool."
"Darrin, you're on stage right now."
I'm like, "Fuck."
I paused the game, put it down.
The whole time I'm playin',
I'm thinkin' I gotta get back to that game.
Still to this day, I get people comin' up to me and saying,
"Because of that video game,
"Goldfinger and Superman introduced me to ska.
"Thank you.
"I didn't know these bands existed."
- No one at the time would really think a video game
would be that big of a marketing tool for a band.
Tony Hawk picks the song, decided to put it in there
and it changed the whole trajectory for our band.
Thank you, Tony Hawk.
- You're welcome.
- You get mileage out of the weirdest things that you did.
There's people now that have come to the shows
because they realized that the band
in the Good Burger movie is us.
♪ I'm a dude ♪
♪ He's a dude ♪
♪ She's a dude ♪
♪ We're all dudes, hey ♪
♪ I'm a dude ♪
- Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger.
Can I take your order?
♪ Less Than Jake ♪
- Why is their band blowing up and not us?
Must be something the label is doing.
No, you don't understand the dynamic.
They're in the right place at the right time.
Some bands got lucky and zoomed up to the next stratosphere
through whatever combination of events.
Some bands, they should've done different.
But that's just the nature of the beast.
- There were a lotta bands on the radio
that were ska, but not that many.
The ones that didn't make it,
there's a lot of sour grapes and bad jealousy.
Screw them, they're sellouts. (gags)
I think what the fans do, you have your precious scene
of your friends that you go to all these shows
and they're your bands.
Then suddenly every asshole at school
that you hate is listening to 'em too.
I get it.
I know how it feels to be on both sides.
- Everybody suddenly had these splitting ideas.
Some thought No Doubt did it, we should get it.
Other wanted to kinda back away from the spotlight.
- Listening to No Doubt or the Bosstones,
it's like radio pop rock.
Yes they fall under the umbrella of ska,
but they're just two different things.
If anything, I thought what's good for the goose
is good for the gander.
People will hear the word ska, they'll be more open to it.
I thought it was good over all,
but it was also like
you're doin' something completely different.
We're riding a Moped and you're drivin' a Cadillac.
- Checkers equals ska.
Race cars too?
It was like unity and races adding black and white together.
That's why the black and white checkers
kinda became a thing of ska.
A symbol.
- Actually, that wasn't so overt as to say
here's a symbol of racial unity.
It was some tape that Jerry Dammers had on his scooter,
but still today we can embrace the symbolism.
- Ska for me has always been a thing
that no matter what the subject matter in the song is,
it's a very uplifting experience.
- You can sit there and say it's happy, fun music.
But to be honest with you,
it was really important socially how it started.
Then we fucked it up here in America.
- There is a philosophy that comes with ska.
Well it's for two-tone
and that was the unification of mankind.
Black folks, white folks and hues in between
came together around an idea,
an idea that had a definite political root.
- Political overtones of ska were lost in the '90s.
- Especially the ska we're talking about,
that we morphed it into.
You're talkin' about suburban kids being goofy,
having a release; completely different.
- They made it this silly party music.
But historically, ska was very cortical.
- It's the most important part to me of the music.
I think in the '90s it wasn't as clear of a message
as I would like it to have been,
but Mike Park was doing it very well and The Bosstones were.
There definitely people that were promoting that
as a big part of their message.
- Unity, togetherness, getting each other's back.
Inclusiveness, racial harmony.
These were big things.
- 1998, I put together the Ska Against Racism tour.
That was in direct response to my feeling
that ska was being looked at as this corny sound
or music or movement.
It was like let's put some politics back into ska.
More than anything, we just wanted the word against racism
on a marquee and people talkin' about it.
- A very famous singer one time said,
"I can't change the world,
"but I can change the world around me."
What that means is each one of you guys up front,
all the way in the back and everyone over here,
we gotta start being non-hatred against other peoples.
- Ska equates to unity to me.
That's what I loved about it
'cause you had black, white, Mexican, Asian.
We were all in one room.
We were all there for one reason and that was to skank.
Nobody was against anyone for that moment in time.
Even to this day, you see that in the scene
where everyone's comin' together
no matter what race, color or creed.
I'll tell you, music needs more of that.
Music needs more of that.
This world needs more of that.
- [Narrator] Many ska bands never signed big contracts.
They did however enjoy some pretty decent rotation
from college radio or independent stations.
Shows, those were always a sellout in a good way.
Hepcat, Buck-O-Nine, The Pietasters, The Suicide Machines,
The Toasters, The Slackers, (mumbles)
all headlined cross-country shows
that were filled to capacity.
American ska in the 1990s was a million miles
from its Jamaican roots, but it still sounded good.
It still brought many fans to explore the origins.
Ska in all forms experienced popularity.
Some for the first time.
Some for the first time in 40 years.
Ska made itself a trend.
While some people had long hope for that one ska song
to break and pave the way for others,
some said it would be the nail in a coffin
or better yet, a time bomb.
- The over-saturation of ska punk happened.
We watched it happen.
We watched it just go (vocalizes).
- Then everybody with a horn decides to form a band.
People are like
what is this?
We went from havin' 20 bands to havin' 1,000 bands.
That's the way I saw it happen.
- We played with bands that popped up like a week ago.
- Almost too many shows or too many bands.
I do think some of that started happening.
- We play these small towns, especially in the Midwest.
There would be every night on tour was like a ska festival
where there'd be six or seven local ska bands opening up.
- You just suffer through it.
- Everyone's playing so fast and high energy
that you kinda wear out the audience
before the headliner even comes on.
- Some bands are bloody awful. (laughs)
Marching bands like brass players couldn't play so well.
They put like six ska bands on a night.
I'd get ska'd out.
I went back to my hotel room
and listened to some Johnny Cash. (laughs)
- That's fine 'cause there's a lotta
bad music in every genre.
But for some reason, people really zeroed in
on the bad ska music when it was happening.
- Major labels were in some ways
making ska almost a parody of itself.
- Anytime you do that, it just destroys it
so that underground base is gone.
People are like I don't wanna be part of this anymore.
- [Narrator] By the time the new millennium approached,
ska was already on its way out.
Ska bubble had burst.
- Oh boy, what happened?
If we only knew,
we could make a documentary about it. (chuckles)
- I don't know.
I don't know.
It really got dorky.
- They made it look like a flash in a pan.
Ska band, we're wacky and then done.
- The way it exploded is the way it died.
It was like one day it was all there, then it was gone.
- Shows went from being thousands back to being hundreds.
- All of a sudden nu metal was cool.
It was like Deftones, Limp Bizkit.
Ska is not cool.
Like '99 was like (vocalizes),
nobody went to ska shows.
- This is terrible 'cause here's the pendulum swing.
It's like aah, then wee.
Now it's back to (vocalizes) in a different way.
- What typically happens when something gets really popular
is the record companies come in,
they pick a couple of the bands
and those are the bands that get all the glory.
- They were sellin' the humor, the fun
to party, to have a good time.
That's how they sold ska.
They didn't show it as they would've put a rock band.
C'mon when they market a rock band like U2,
these dudes have great lyrics, great sounds.
Then you'll have someone else that could be funny.
You could have that.
You could have everything,
but they only showed one side of ska which was letdown.
- Some of that stuff was a little disappointing to me
'cause it was like this is like a frat party gone wild
or whatever and it's like no it's not.
It's not frat party.
This is fuckin' ska show.
This ain't none of that.
- The approach to ska music in the '90s
was like that game you play at parties
where you tie a blindfold on somebody.
You give 'em a pin, they gotta pin the tail on the donkey.
Where d'you think ska music is on the donkey?
Where are these record execs
with pinning the ska tail?
It was nowhere in the correct place,
so we had all these pretty lame pop bands
being labeled established and they really weren't at all.
♪ All around the world statues crumbled for me ♪
- Then it sort of got blurry.
There were bands that you didn't really know
if they were ska or what they were.
They were just a big band with horns.
- Then there was a brief 10 seconds of swing.
♪ Zoot Suit Riot ♪
♪ Riot ♪
- Then they became emo.
The music industry was geared towards churring up
these new trends every few years.
- Few years later, people aren't buying ska music like that.
Not only that, people aren't buying music.
Oh Napster, people are stealing music.
No one's gonna buy your records anymore.
You're gonna have to tour a lot
if you wanna keep doing this.
It was a bittersweet moment.
But I think realistically, the concept was adapt or die.
- Hello, friends!
- It's silly and sexy sells,
but silly can also sell if you package it right.
My thought was if we could get a TV show
and do a kid's show, we could still play music.
We can still tour.
We can still do basically essentially what we're doing,
but we just have to make a TV show during the day.
- I was watching TV with my daughter
and still thinking about the Aquabat Show.
What if we just did something a little younger?
Something for my family like packaging cool music,
good art, visuals and stuff we like
into something for younger kids.
That's where Yo Gabba Gabba! came out of.
- After it peaked and it went back down,
once again we're like we're the weirdos that play ska.
It felt like puttin' on comfy pair of shoes
when it got not popular again for us.
- I think at one point, there's definitely
a backlash against the movement.
- If you were in a ska band, you had to be a little tough
because everyone thought you were the weak kid on the block.
We would go to these places where hardcore bands
are playing or screamo or emo,
whatever genre's flowin' through.
You have to stand up there
and be like I'm in a ska band and I'm gonna play.
- The great thing about ska is with punk rock
there's always gonna be a subculture
in a scene for what we do.
- But a lotta bands at the time
were puttin' out their second record or whatever
and kinda brushin' the horns aside,
droppin' 'em altogether saying no, we're rock with horns
or no, we're a rock band.
Whatever.
- There were a lotta ska bands
that would kinda reconfigure things
to become an emo band or whatever.
It was a really strange time.
- I don't know that I can fault somebody for that
if they played in a band called Skankilicious
'til you dropped, then the next year
decided they weren't into that anymore.
There was a time where there was no choice.
You had to turn your back on ska
because the superficial construct of ska
was so commercialized and overblown.
Every Food Network song was a ska, Reel Big Fish copy.
Every Target commercial was a bouncy,
another Reel Big Fish copy.
When it becomes the mainstream sell bullshit
with no consciousness of a subgenre
that people felt real ownership of,
I don't blame anybody at that time
for turning their back to it.
Because you weren't playing ska anymore,
you were playing Food Network music.
- I'ma tell you what's crazy, dude.
America creates all this good music,
then they forget about it.
Then the surrounding countries pick it up
in its rawest, most richest form and keep it.
(Jose speaking foreign language)
(Tsuyoshi speaking foreign language)
- I never would've thought my music,
they'd listen to it in Venezuela or they listen to it.
How did they get it?
That I would say is a benefit of the technology
and the internationality of the music.
- Other countries I felt a lotta times
kind of appreciated the music a little bit more.
I think they appreciated like horns being in music.
(Enrique speaking foreign language)
(Tsuyoshi speaking foreign language)
(Jesus speaking foreign language)
- I never dreamt we would go any further than getting
onto some decent opening slots in Orange County,
much less getting to go.
We went to Tasmania.
You ever heard of someone who went to Tasmania?
I went to Tasmania.
- Our first time in Japan,
this crowd is sitting on the floor.
All just sittin' on the floor Indian style before the show.
I was thinkin' to myself, this is gonna fuckin' suck.
They sit down at shows here.
Showtime comes and we walk up on stage.
The whole thing, boom.
Everybody jumps to their feet,
just (vocalizes) right up to the barricade of the stage
and are just into it fuckin' from the beginning.
Then I go to start to sing the first line
and they all know the words, like every word.
I was so floored that luckily they were singing
'cause I got fuckin' choked up.
I was like (inhales).
It was the most amazing feeling I've ever had
'cause you're halfway around the world.
People are just fuckin' losin' their minds.
From that point, it was just like
we're never gonna stop doing this.
This is so awesome that that was it.
- It was the sound that was so big,
that of course it was the sound that was out of fashion
as soon as it crashed.
It's kind of the sound that needed to vanish for a while
for people to appreciate that it's been gone.
It's funny that in the time period that it kinda vanished.
In many ways Anglo-American scene,
you saw the Latin American scene run with it
in a way that I could've never imagined.
- In 2007 was when we had our first festival in LA.
We had close to 3,000 kids.
- It's this whole generation that grew up loving ska music
and especially bands like Voodoo Glow Skulls.
- It's so big sometimes,
a lotta the kids are even too young.
They're like who are these old dudes?
People that are 16 years old that might not know,
it's like why are my dads up on stage?
- Some of these bands only sing in English
and they hardly know English, but they're singing in English
because the ska punk in the States
has influenced them in that way.
(Horacio speaking foreign language)
- This underground ska scene in the Latino community
is just amazing.
You see the mosh pits out there.
It's a lotta kids and they're dressed up.
It makes me feel like this music has not died.
It's not goin' anywhere.
- Let's go interview some of the kids, the youth of today.
- When you're young and you start a band,
you don't really think where's this road taking me?
How long am I gonna be in this band?
Then 20 years later you think,
wow this has affected my whole life.
I pretty much painted myself into a corner.
What am I doing?
You keep playing in the band because that's all you have
or you get a job workin' at the taco shop, who knows?
But when you start a band,
you don't think about those things.
You're just doing it for some reason.
If it's for the money or it's to meet chicks
or for the fame, that stuff it's always fleeting.
But if it's for something deeper
like you really love having fun or making people happy
or you really love the music,
I think that's what keeps people doing things that they do.
That's why we keep doin' the Aquabats.
We love it.
We love playing music.
We love making people happy, making kids dance
and knowing that we're spoiling it for all the other bands.
Kids are comin' to see us play.
My first band was Aquabats and they did this.
Then this monster came out, these balloons.
Then I went and saw that other band
and they played their songs.
- When they dropped off,
everybody said this is the end.
But The Slackers kept playing, Pietasters kept playing
and the Toasters kept playing.
Fishbone kept playing.
There were younger bands who were coming up,
playing and carrying the torch.
There's some of the best ska bands
I've ever heard that are playing right now.
- It's always gonna be the craze or no craze,
but the craze was good. (chuckles)
It was a good time.
- When you go to a ska show you're like,
wow I want all of this; this is amazing.
When you're a kid who doesn't know anything
and you don't have any judgements,
I get misty-eyed thinkin' about it
because you're 14, 15 years old
and it's a place of acceptance.
I guarantee you there's kids that go to ska shows today
are like I want all of this just like I do.
- We could do an interview and one of the standard questions
is what's your secret?
How do you do it?
How are you still doin' so well?
How do you keep those crowds comin' to the shows?
Well try to play the songs they like.
What's wrong with that?
- We wanna be an active band and continue making songs.
It's fun, but we also know we have this catalog behind us
that we wouldn't have to record another song ever.
We have enough songs that people have memories attached to
that we could go play, so it's a good position to be in.
They say nostalgia referrin' to myself all the time
'cause bring it on.
To me it's an awesome word, but some people will be like,
I wanna be the current band.
Well, good luck.
- Being Reel Big Fish, there's the ska thing
that happened in the '90s, but there's also
now it's a nostalgia for '90s music.
Since we were on the radio and stuff in the '90s,
there's people that like I love '90s music.
I love Britney Spears, Limp Bizkit,
Sugar Ray, Reel Big Fish, Nirvana and Right Said Fred.
Backstreet Boys, Hanson and Marilyn Manson.
'90s music, you know?
- I think right now because the pull of the '90s explosion,
that tide is pulled back so far
that young listeners 16 and 17
don't really even know what it was.
It's in the history books.
When ska hits again this next time,
for them it's gonna be the first time.
- A new band could come out right now
and they wouldn't like eww you're a ska band.
It's like oh cool, what kinda music is this?
Can you tell me about it?
You guys are awesome.
- [Narrator] Ska's more popular than ever
in countries like Mexico, Japan and all over Europe.
In America, ska still has fiercely loyal following.
Now more than ever, the world'll be a better place
with just a little more ska.
(lively ska music)
- If you would've asked me about three years ago
what the future of ska was, I would say
the future of ska is all of us getting out our old CDs,
showing our kids and dancing in the living room
about the good old days.
That's what I would've thought
because I thought those days were over.
But I think it has moved past TJ Maxx commercials
and being played in department stores.
I think that people are gonna start picking up horns again.
- There's like so much darkness
in the world and so many problems.
We need a place to be able to go
and feel like I felt when I was 17,
goin' to Reel Big Fish shows and just being okay.
We felt like everything was gonna be okay in the world.
Woo! (screams)
♪ All my friends get 'em altogether ♪
♪ I was gonna go and start a band ♪
- Ska never went away. - It never went away.
- It just dips in and out of the mainstream.
- Yeah for us,
we started a ska band in 2011.
If we're gonna make music, why can't it be somethin'
that is somethin' that feels like home?
Ti's never been about tryin' to get on the radio
or anything, it's just about--
- What feels right to us. - Yeah.
♪ I'm a match ♪
♪ She kerosene ♪
♪ You know she gon' burn down everything ♪
♪ She's an arsonist in her past life ♪
♪ And I've been burned for the last time ♪
- That circles back to havin' a place to go.
Somethin' you can listen to that makes you feel less alone.
- Yup.
- For me, the whole thing was about finding community
and a place to belong.
Living in Southern California,
you don't realize how fortunate you are
to have as much at your disposal.
When you go to small little towns
and you play some crazy little community center
that holds 25 kids, they're in this little small town
and nobody brings these disenfranchised youth anything
'cause they're the weird kid in town.
They see them come, dance and feel uninhibited.
I don't know, that's beautiful
'cause that was the real takeaway
from the entire ska music experience for me.
It's like I got to make a difference.
Fuck money, fuck fame.
Make a difference.
None of that shit fuckin' matters
if it doesn't connect to something human.
(lively ska music)
♪ All I have to do ♪
(muffled lyrics)
♪ Baby don't you sign that paper tonight she said ♪
♪ But I can't work in fast food all my life ♪
- The end.
(chuckles) Credits roll.
("This Gigantic Robot Kills" by MC Lars)
♪ Billy built a robot in his parents' garage ♪
♪ Because he had a list of problems ♪
♪ That he needed to solve ♪
♪ He said I'm sick of the Hills ♪
♪ Laguna Beach is fake and whack ♪
♪ Let's party like it's '96 and bring the horn section back ♪
♪ Back before Gwen Stefani started rappin' with Pharrell ♪
♪ Gas cost 1.15 and Goldfinger could sell ♪
♪ When reality TV wasn't scripted or contrived ♪
♪ The brass was phat and bumpin' ♪
♪ And the beats were all played live ♪
♪ See Billy was obsessed with third wave ska ♪
♪ The Mighty Bosstones, Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake ♪
♪ He'd seen 'em all ♪
♪ He longed for a time when even Bill Clinton played the sax ♪
♪ On the White House lawn ♪
♪ And kids wore shades and checkered slacks ♪
♪ So Billy sits back in the class and laughs ♪
♪ Put a notebook on his lap 'cause he plans a task ♪
♪ To make a giant robot ♪
♪ How's that ♪
♪ And bring the real Orange County back ♪
♪ This gigantic robot kills ♪
♪ He's gonna come down the block ♪
♪ He's gonna fire at will ♪
♪ He's got a cannon on his shoulder ♪
♪ And a laser in his hand ♪
♪ He's gonna win the day for Billy ♪
♪ Make the city understand ♪
♪ The robot was completed and it opened up its eyes ♪
♪ Weighing 700 pounds and standing eight foot five ♪
♪ With his black coat, white shoes ♪
♪ Black hat set to attack ♪
♪ The robot headed to the hills ♪
♪ To give those spoiled kids a smack ♪
♪ Christoph Leary got knocked flat ♪
♪ As Billy bumped the Aquabats ♪
♪ He ripped out Mischa Barton's spine ♪
♪ To crank Save Ferris and Sublime ♪
♪ He burnt down Heidi Montag's home ♪
♪ To blast the OC Supertones ♪
♪ His scream was smashing LC's head ♪
♪ Ska is not dead ♪
♪ This gigantic robot kills ♪
♪ He's gonna come down the block ♪
♪ He's gonna fire at will ♪
♪ He's blastin' bullets from his elbows ♪
♪ Shootin' missiles from his eyes ♪
♪ He's gonna win the day for Billy ♪
♪ Take the OC by surprise ♪
♪ He'll make you do the Macarena as you rock your Tamagachi ♪
♪ With your Newton down in Woodstock ♪
♪ Playing Sega la-di-da-di ♪
♪ He brought the '90s back and then he freed Tibet ♪
♪ If you can't find his jam on Napster ♪
♪ Then the warehouse sells cassettes ♪
♪ Old school ♪
♪ Gigantic ♪
♪ He was ♪
♪ Gigantic ♪
♪ This robot ♪
♪ Gigantic ♪
♪ So very ♪
♪ Gigantic ♪
♪ Ska robot ♪
♪ This gigantic robot kills ♪
♪ He's gonna come down the block ♪
♪ He's gonna fire at will ♪
♪ He's got a cannon on his shoulder and a laser in his hand ♪
♪ He's gonna win the day for Billy ♪
♪ Make the city understand ♪
♪ This gigantic robot kills ♪
♪ He's gonna come down the block ♪
♪ He's gonna fire at will ♪
♪ He's blastin' bullets from his elbows ♪
♪ Shootin' missiles from his eyes ♪
♪ He's gonna win the day for Billy ♪
♪ Take the whole world by surprise ♪
- [Robot] Ska is not dead