Kalistan

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The Spencer Ska Rockets bring TradSka to the Airwaves
Encouraged by Sophistipop, Dana Ska band avoids Punk Rock
Sulari, Duchy of Suldanor
January 19, 5597


New Album from The Spencer Ska Rockets, Athosian Dance Party, on ARC

One would have to make some major leaps in your thinking to connect Luthorian-Kalistani soulful sophistipop musicians The Republic with the underground ska scene in Dana.  And yet, a new record that has just been released by ARC Records in Sulari has indeed done just that.  The band calls them The Spencer Ska Rockets, and the record is Athosian Dance Party.  The Dana-based septet in fact claims that they took a lot of inspiration from The Republic, and their excellent production values, that turned pop music into lush art.

"Dana has clearly been the center of the Kalistani ska scene for so long," said lead singer Nigel Keith, from Dana.  "Everyone who comes from Dana usually plays ska.  But they are more playing skapunk, and we really thought, you know, ska has such a rich history, both in Suldanor as a whole and much longer ago in Gaduridos.  It's doesn't have to be punk rock."

Mr. Keith said the band wanted to bring some of the R&B and Jazz elements back into the genre, and replace the faced pace and middle class bent that is typically associated with the Dana skapunk scene.  "Ska is working class music, you know," said Keith.  "Rude boys and skinheads, hanging out and getting to know each other.  Those are working class kids.  They don't live in the suburbs.  The clothes we wear out are nice clothes, they aren't ripped up clothes that say 'We don't care about how we look.'  And also, this is music for everyone:  so it should have elements of R&B, and call back to mento, rocksteady and even some calypso, you know from down in Gaduridos, and even maybe a little jazz.  All of these things influenced the sound, and so we wanted to try to get back to the roots."

The album Athosian Dance Party is an album of what some are calling TradSka:  The music relies mostly on analog instrumentation, and guitars feature less prominently than brass instruments like trumpets, trombones and saxophones.  Electric Organs make up the main rhythm instruments, and the tempo is much slower.  "Much more danceable," said Keith.  "This is music for kids to dance to and have fun with, and forget their troubles while drinking and having some fun."  A lot of the music is bass driven as well, and the singers are far more melodic than many of the Skapunk bands, though musicality was certainly a feature of a lot of the skapunk and Two Tone bands that came out of Dana and other scenes.

Also missing in the TradSka "scene" which consists of The Ska Rockets and a handful of other bands in Dana at the moment are the politics of Skapunk.  "We sing more about love.  I mean:  there is some class in there:  that is inherent when you have subcultures and that sort of thing.  But its not the primary feature.  We sing a lot about girls in our music, because that's what we are interested in.  Its like a lot of the guys in the scene make ladies kind of uncomfortable, because they are pretty aggressive.  We're more interested in getting the ladies to our parties, not scaring them away.  Because who wants to dance with a bunch of guys?"

The music certainly does progress the Dana Ska sound beyond where it has kind of been stuck since the days of Red Tone and bands that formed the scene initially.  "Several of us grew up with The Republic on the Radio" said Kieth.  "It really wasn't my kind of music, to be honest, but the thing that kept me listening, and I actually bought all six of their records, just because I really liked how they sounded, you know, the aesthetic of the music, like how they produced their music.  When we got into the studio, I wanted to make stuff that just sounded that well-made.  We wanted to make Sophistiska, way different than the snotty kind of music the punks make."

Keith added, "I want to say though, I don't have any problem with the punks in Dana.  Several members of the Ska Rockets were picked up from some other punk bands.  You might say, we're the ones that really wanted to play this kind of older kind of ska music that lets us show off our musical ability better, rather than doing what everyone else is doing.  There is a time for pogoing and moonstomping, and then there is a time for skankin and you know, just dancing."

The group does keep the two-tone aesthetic that earlier bands used.  "You know:  for some difference is important," said Keith.  "I think of some nations where there's people who are being erased because of who their parents are.  But, I think in our scene, in Kalistan, it's important that we just keep to the theme that all are invited.  Black, white, gay straight, man woman, whatever.  That's kind of what was always behind the two tone thing anyway.  It got associated with a specific kind of music, I think, but even that traditionally goes further back than say Red Tone.  We're all invited.  This is our scene, and in this scene, we can hang out, get to know one another, and not have to pretend that we're something else."

The band has already released their first single, a bass driven rocksteady jam called "Athosia", along with the LP, and the band is already working with notable dub producer Dave "Doctor M" Collins to produce a dub version of the record.  Athosian Dance Party already enjoys modest sales in Suldanor, and the deal with ARC, which is heavier on the distribution end, will now guarantee the band nation-wide exposure.  "At the end of the day," said Keith, "We put the record out, first to make money, but there's seven of us, you know, so it might pay a few months on our car notes.  More so we wanted to get the sound out there, to remind people that, you know, if you want to chill or if you want to party, don't sell ska short."

You can listen to the Single "Athosia" from The Spencer Ska Rockets' new LP Athosian Dance Party recorded at ARC studios in Sulari and now out across Kalistan and Ananto.

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxyRpILhj9A]

And check out the full album right here!

@LaModa