History of Ska

Its been awhile since "The History of Easter & April Fools", "The History of Goth Music", & "The History of Punk Music".. I feel your brains may be melting from inactivity so here is the newest lesson.. "The History of Ska"

Ska started out as nothing more then Reggae from back in the 1920's. Ska has been attributed to prohibiton due to guitarists getting the hiccups while playing causing ska-type riffs and ruining all the Jazz peoples fun.

Now, lets take a quick cliff-notes into Reggae to better understand where everything started.. Reggae was created by a man named Robert Marley. He felt that Jamaica was more then just bobsledding and booze-rumming and wanted to promote peace, love, and understanding to the rest of the world. It soon took off like a wildfire with such cover-bands as "The Wailers" & "Damien Marley".. Both bands sounded just like Robert and noone seemed to notice. Then sometime in the 20's Toots & Maytals' guitarist drank too much and started playing ska-riffs.. The next morning they formed the first ska band... The Specials! The rest was history..

Or so we thought. The Specials took the UK by storm, kicking such bands as the Sex Pistols in their bloody arses and turning hair-heads into the skin-heads we know today. This is where the term "Rude Boys" was coined from.. Originally ment to be an insult, but then turned into praise when Prince Buster, of Jamaica, decided to change gears man, just change gears..

The next big band to hit ska straight in the spine was The Madness. They dressed only in two colors at any one time which started the first record lable to accept Ska as a form of music, HellCat Records. This label soon after forming got Rancid and Ska was left without a home. This was a sad time and Ska wouldn't come back to the world for many years to come

During the time we know as the 1980's a group of upstarts formed an up-and-coming band from upper New York. They were the beginning of the Third Ska Revival. There was never a Second Revival, then again, there wasn't much of a first revival so whos to complain? Anyways, The Toasters brought with them up-ska-riffs, great songs, some bread, and of course, Ska! Durning this time, they helped form many of the ska bands we know and love today such as "Bim Skala Bim", "Aquabats", and "Hepcat" (who plays more Roots Reggae Ska, but thats another story) This was a plan called Operation: Ivy which almost was a complete wash for the Toasters, which they much dearly needed at the time. One day durning a meeting, a giant wave crashed on the northern Maine beach bearing "Fishbone" Fishbone was a UK band from Jamaica who played in the USA exclusivly. Closely behind them was another band "Reel Big Fish" who were actually known as "Me First and the Gimme Gimmes" but they got kicked out of their label for being selfish. The Last band to come crashing in was "The Slackers" whom decided that a fish type name wasn't their style, thus messing up the main point of this joke, but still helping to starts "Third Wave Ska"

Now-a-days Ska is played behind closed doors inside buildings as places where music is to be played. New and Newerish bands form everyday and instantly make it big due to Ska tiny tiny numbers. Some bands just seemingly form other bands just by proxy. New dancestyles also were being formed. In once incident in 1993 a man was listening to ska and bumped into a lady of the night, which in turn, she punched him in the stomach. He stumbled back kicking out his legs and jerking his arms around. He then hit another Women of questionable morals and she gave him a shove and he flailed foward. Back and form this man suffered, but passerbys stopped to watch the man. Suddenly, like typohiod, the movements caught on and everyone was doing it. The dance didn't get mainstream acclimation until in 1987 when the movie "Back to the beach" explained how to do it. Before this, most people just looked dumb and got beat up by punk kids in Pits. The dance name you might be asking? Well, It was originally called whorebumping, but then shorted to the more PC term, Skanking.

So there you have it, The history of Ska.