What got you into ska?

[Spin]

So i was wondering how did all you peoples get intoduced into this loverly little scene. What was the appeal of ska?

[Eoin]

i play bass guitar in a jazz band at my school so i naturally like all of that, but what really got me into it was when i was about 5 years old i heard a song called gay rude boys unite. it wasnt the version with lyrics that leftover crack sang, i thought it was the coolest song in the world even though i had only heard it once. i sorta searched for that song again for a long time, not like really that hard, but about 11 years later i came by it again and i was into the whole crack rock steady scene since then and wondered what a rude boy was. i looked it up and i thought it was the coolest thing and ive been striving to be one ever since. it reminded me of that movie Swing Kids where all those guys scream "swing hiel!" at the end. i liked the dancing in that movie but the music was alright. it also gave me a lot of respect for jewish people... lol, but yea the skanking stuck and soon i just looked up other bands. i wasnt really into reel big fish and big d and the kids table that much though.. i like streetlight, but their not my favorite band.

i really like latin ska right now, bands like niño zombi, evil empire, and whatever else i can find. i still like the crack rock steady scene a whole lot. bands like atrocity solution, the stupid stupid henchmen, the no service project, daycare swindlers, indk, etc. but i do like regular ska bands like the toasters, the porkers, the specials, the selecter, and stuff. in fact i started a ska band recently and its goin well so far

[Hazel]

Great story!! Wish anyone from my area knew about/liked ska...

[Ska hooligan]

u like that story im writing a script about it. check out my post on the forum.

p.s. thanks

[ska1234]

Ahh, back in the good old nervous days of tagging along with friends to shows. I remember seeing a punk at a random venue, all the unity and kids dancing. Loved the up beat of the music, as well as the intensity. I danced along and loved it, and went to any show considered "ska" every weekend.
Still expanding my ska listening, I was stuck on 3rd wave type stuff. Reel big fish, streetlight manifesto, catch 22, skankin pickle, mustard plug, the usual stuff..
It was then, browsing my internet sites that I found the mighty mighty bosstones. I have grown to listen and love this band as my favorite ever since.
Now I'm kinda mostly into 1st wave, 2-tone era, and 2 tone revival, as well as the bosstones.
I'm adicted to ska, I love it, its my life. hurrah

[Droo]

For me it was through a friend who had just discovered the genre. He sent me an ASOB song one day, which I didn't listen to for several weeks, but when I finally listened to it I was absolutely floored. Best music I'd ever heard at the time. Then I found out that, by some twist of fate, my city was home to Ska Weekend, the self-styled "Biggest ska concert in the country", which I promptly hit up, and I've been hooked ever since.

[Hazel]

je parle un petit peu de francais. bienvenue a Ska Summit B-)

[lalabooobs]

i found out ska by some warped tour comp. it had the bosstones on it and i loved it. then one day my brother brought home a slow gherkin cd and i stole it cause he ended up not liking it and i loved it. played it day and night. then i bought a few ska cds here and there like reel big fish but wasnt hugely into till i bought a specials cd. i had never even heard of them but i saw they had checkers on there cd cover and got home turn the lights off and turned the cd on. the intro from gangsters just blew me away and was in love. and then i bought a toasters cd. played it all the time. now i got tons of cds that i have collected over the years. too sad that bands always always skip dallas. im lucky if i get 3 concerts a year. english beat comes here often but that is it. and there is like 4 or 5 local ska bands and they all play emo ska. i have driven to austin several times though just to see stingers atx (check them out).

[Alan A. A.]

I officially got into it through an online friend, who sent me some no doubt songs, and I loved the early stuff and didn't like to older stuff. I decided to do some research and found RBF, Sublime, Goldfinger, The Specials. I then went onto CD Baby and found Suburban Legends, and the rest is history.

I also found out that a lot my favorite rock songs are usually ska tunes. Especially whenever my friends would play Tony Hawk when I was young, I found out that my favorite songs were the ska songs.

Now I'm really into the scene. I'm always going to the shows and I'm trying to get a ska band together as we speak. I play bass and the first song I ever learned was Different People by No Doubt.

[Miss Upsetter]

I grew up on a cul-de-sac in mesa, az. The street I lived on didn't have many houses, nor traffic. You could sit in the street for hours and no one would drive through. It was quiet. All us neighborhood kids would hang out on our porches, eventually congregating on someone's front porch. our moms didn't let us inside (cause we were "lettin' the damn AC blow out the door!"), so we had to either stay inside all day, or outside. No matter how miserable it was, we'd all go outside. In 1989, the oldest kid in my neighborhood was about 11 years older than I was. I was 4, he was 15. I looked up to him like no other, as he was the first person I ever saw skateboard and rebel against the mainstream. I thought he was AMAZING. He'd always play ska. I guess he was just then able to get some 2-Tone tapes and his family in socal would send him demos and whatnot from bands in the area.

I was a very frightfully shy child. However, one day, I finally got the nerve to ask him what this music was. I can remember it clear as a bell...I pointed at the boom box, and just said "what's that??" He glared up at me like I was freaking retarded under the 1" stingy brim of his hat, and basically coughed, "SKA". I ran off. I was so embarrassed. This later dissolved when I was invited to go to a skankin' pickle show, but my mother refused. I was so sad. However, my neighbor bought me some pickled flavor gum in a pickle container from them. I felt so damn cool! (exactly how cool can a 4 year old feel?)

so...ska...what's SKA? does it stand for something? is it a label? It didn't quite compute.

That was just the start of it. The neighborhood culture stayed the same for years, ska was mixed in among the paula abdul, the mc hammer, beastie boys, green day, madonna, vanilla ice, meatloaf, new kids on the block...I'd say in about fourth grade, I really started to get it. I got that it was it's own specific genre. I just thought that only a few bands had that sound, and didn't fully grasp the grand scale of what ska really was.

That's when, as they say, it all went downhill...my major "AHA!" moment.

I started heavily getting into the ska scene around 6th-7th grade. At that time in the valley, there were shows almost every night of the week. In junior high, I managed to meet the only two kids at my school who loved ska. We were inseparable for the rest of our school days. We saw hundreds of shows. We looked up to the local 20-something rude boys who rode beat up vespas and vintage suits. I idolized them.

Now, here I am..20 something years old, just like them. I honestly cannot picture how my life would not be without ska or jamaican music, as it runs through every faucet of my life. I hope nothing ever changes, and I hope each generation has a story like mine to tell!

Moral of the story - be a bad influence to young children!

[skarumptious]

I met this pretty cool guy (your typical teenage ska boy) at a friend's party.
We both hated the heavy, tuneless urban music that was being played, and we naturally got into a discussion about what types of music we preferred.
I was like, "WTF is ska", and he was aghast. He offered me an earbud of Streetlight and it was like being hit by a truck (in a good way).
I went home and downloaded a bunch of albums and haven't looked back since.
I've never heard anything that has made me want to dance as much as ska has before - it's peeled me off my wallflower wall and got me out on the floor.