In Defense of Ska April 2022 Newsletter
Hey everyone, sorry April’s newsletter is so late. I finally got to take a little road trip at the beginning of the month. My wife and I drove up to Washington, took a ferry to Victoria, Canada and then ate some poutine and then came home. Fun trip!
I’m a little in disbelief at the guests we managed to interview in April. We are broadening the ska conversation to unexpected corners of the universe. Even our Patreon bonus episode had a wild discussion with Duck from Joystick and Chris from Dissidente about their old band, Cryptorchid Chipmunk. So let’s begin
We started the month with an interview with Stefan Babcock of the band PUP. The group released a great, critically-revered album called THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND. The album got really impressive press and even charted on Billboard. And during the press circuit, Stefan came on the podcast to chat about his high school ska band Stop Drop N Skank and about the time Jer from Skatune Network won the “Free at Last” contest. I’m guessing ours was his favorite interview
The following week, we had probably the biggest guest yet: legendary comedian Margaret Cho! She wasn’t a random choice. She has been a ska and punk fan since the 80s. During the mid-90s, she became friends with Mike Park from Skankin’ Pickle and would dance at the side of the stage when she made it out to one of their shows. She wanted Skankin Pickle to record the theme song for her mid-90s sitcom. It didn’t work out, but Pickle still released the song on their album Sing Along With Skankin' Pickle.
On our third week, we finally got to chat with one of The Slackers. We hope to talk to more of the members. For this episode, we spoke with their drummer Ara Babajian, who also spent time in Leftover Crack and Agent 99. He’s a great guy. He gave us some great insight into the nuances of ska drumming, and he told us some wild Leftover Crack stories, like how he quit the band mid-set in the early 2000s.
Lastly, we spoke to ska-lover Brian Fallon, who has written some of the best rock n roll songs of the last few decades (with his band The Gaslight Anthem and as a solo artist). Brian talked about how much he loves Asian Man Records and The Slackers. After the recording was done, he also told us about his love for Catbite. During the interview, Adam pressured him hard to record a ska record. We wait and see if this will happen…
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Ska Now More Than Ever