by Jake Swain ** My Personal Journey in Music
Throughout the course of this semester, I think that I have made it abundantly clear that I absolutely love the punk genre. However, it was actually a genre that tends to mingle with punk that led me to fully dive into the genre and truly discover it. Funnily enough, it was a genre that, in its purest form, sounds nothing like punk. Long story short, my love for the punk genre would have never come to be if I hadn’t first been listening to the noisy, upbeat, horn-infused genre that is ska.
So… It’s time for the important question. Just what the hell is ska? Ska is a genre that originated in 1950s Jamaica. Blending elements of Caribbean music with American Jazz and R&B. Eventually the genre moved to England where it really took off. Musically, ska is typically characterized by off-beat rhythms, walking bass lines, and an upbeat horn section. Ska is typically divided into three waves. First wave ska is the Jamaican origins in the late 1950s into the 1960s. The second wave was in the late 1970s in Britain and is also known as the 2 Tone revival. The third wave was from the 1980s to the 1990s when ska came from all over the world and was characterized by punk’s influence on the genre and the formation of ska-punk as its own genre. My experience with ska is primarily with music from the second and third waves.
As I’m sure is true of many people my age, a lot of my musical self-discovery came through “borrowing” from my parents’ CD collection. One of the albums that I distinctly remember “borrowing” was the 1997 album “Let’s Face It” by the Boston, Massachusetts ska-punk band The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. The song “The Impression That I Get” is still a song that I love and listen to regularly. The Bosstones became a regular rotation in my Walkman cd player alongside albums like “Tragic Kingdom” by No Doubt. Bands like No Doubt are standout examples of the power of ska in the modern world. The band’s popularity is a phenomenal example of the growing popularity of women in genre heavily dominated by men. It was also a great example of ska’s multiracial tendencies. Throughout its entire history, ska has been a genre of people of color. However, in its second wave it became incredibly popular in Britain, especially among white people. Despite that popularity among white folks, people of color were
never excluded from the genre. Bands like The Specials included people of color in prominent positions from the very beginning and never shied away from overtly political topics such as race. In fact, The Specials were a band that actively worked alongside organizations like Rock Against Racism and bands like The Clash to fight racism in England and the rest of the world. According to one member, anti-racism was an intrinsic part of The Specials and the band was created with the goal of fostering integration. The Specials would open for The Clash and share management with them.
London Calling, and I don’t wanna shout
As I entered middle school and high school age, iTunes and Pandora would eventually come into existence and change how people interact with music. iTunes would make it unbelievably easy to have your preexisting music library with you wherever you went. But, for me, Pandora really changed how I interacted with music. Pandora’s algorithmically driven radio model would introduce me to bands that I never would have discovered without it. Because second wave ska bands worked with early punk bands so often, the crossover was not difficult to see coming. It started with The Clash, a band that I have been very open about my love for. As I dug deeper into these bands to learn as much as I could, I discovered frontman Joe Strummer’s political beliefs. Strummer was a devout socialist and said “I believe in socialism because it seems more humanitarian, rather than every man for himself and ‘I’m alright jack’ and all those asshole businessmen with all the loot. I made up my mind from viewing society from that angle. That’s where I’m from and there’s where I’ve made my decisions from. That’s why I believe in socialism.”. The Clash’s dedication to anti-racism and rejection of the nihilism found in a lot of punk really resonated with me. The Clash were hopeful and, by 2012, that had been resonating with me long enough for me to participate in my first presidential election. I saw a lot of things that I liked in then candidate Barack Obama. I saw an attitude of hope for progress in the country and a willingness to push for a more humanitarian future. While it would be a considerable time before I would personally identify with socialism, I can see looking back that the messages spread by Strummer and The Clash planted the seeds for the future. Sure, sometimes a riot is necessary, but it’s only worth it if the cause is towards a future in which we can all have a seat at the table and a life worth living.
The Clash, while the earliest punk band that I was introduced to via Pandora, was not the only punk band that Pandora gave me via their online radio. As I delved deeper into newer ska bands, I started to enjoy what is known as ska-punk. This is the primary mode of operation in third-wave ska. The fusion of ska’s upbeat rhythms and horn lines blended with punk’s crunchy guitars and questioning of authority. I was heavily listening to bands like Reel Big Fish, Sublime, and Streetlight Manifesto. So, naturally, I added them to my Pandora lists. This means that I was also given bands like Against Me!, Rancid, Bad Religion, Dropkick Murphys, Rise Against, and Anti-Flag. Many of these bands, alongside The Clash, introduced me to left-leaning ideologies as I was getting into the age where I started thinking about politics.
Over the course of the years following the 2012 election I would continue listening to a lot of these bands regularly alongside continuing to listen to ska and further delving into metal. But the politics of the punk bands always continued to resonate with me on a personal level. Green Day and Rise Against were two of the first modern bands that had political messaging that stayed with me. Both bands, for me now, aren’t as far left-leaning as I would like, they still communicated messages that helped shape my worldview and form the leftist that I am today. More specifically, I remember hearing “State of the Union” by Rise Against for the first time. The song, released in 2004, vehemently criticizes the US government of the time and accuses them of leaving the people of the United States to drown on the sinking ship that is our country, a sentiment that it took me a long time to fully understand. The song is simultaneously about the USA’s foreign policy pertaining to the middle east. “Guilty is what our graves will read. No year, no family, we did nothing (nothing)! To stop the murder of people just like us.”. The band is stating that we the people are complicit in the actions of our elected officials. Effectively this is a call to action for people to stand up and fight the government to stop them from continuing to blindly murder people in the middle east who are, in many ways, just like us.
Music has had a profound influence on my life. From playing in the marching, concert, and jazz bands all through middle and high school to just sitting in my car listening to music, it can’t be underestimated just how powerful the medium is to me. But it took some reflection for me to realize that the music in my headphones as a teenager foundationally impacted who I am as a person and the causes that I’m willing to stand up for.
“And some day soon my friends, this ride will come to an end.
But we can’t just get in line again.”
-Streetlight Manifesto