In Defense of Ska December 2021 Newsletter

It’s been an exciting month. We upgraded our podcast hosting site, we launched a Patreon (You can sign up here), and we chatted with the great Ted Leo. But that’s all from this past week. Let’s talk about December. We had 5 amazing episodes, most of them had multiple guests. (A big sorry to our editor Cool Chris!) Hope you had a chance to give them a listen. If not, now is the perfect time to catch up.

Adam has brought up the punk-horror film Uncle Peckerhead during a few interviews. The first time was way back in April 2021 when we interviewed Slapstick. Apparently, they weren’t aware that the director created an entire scene out of their song “There’s a Metalhead in the Parking Lot.” Finally, we chatted with Uncle Peckerhead’s creative team: Matthew John Lawrence (director) and Jeff Riddle (Actor/composer). We got to the bottom of how they made a surreal horror film that managed to depict the punk touring life so accurately.

I’ve been wanting to chat with Mustard Plug for a while because I needed to know how they managed to score an opening slot for the great Weird Al Yankovic back in 1991. That turned into an incredible three-act story that had me riveted. There was even a surprise turn of events, where they also opened for Green Day that same year. And as you likely guessed, a food fight was involved. During the rest of our interview with Dave Kirchgessner (singer) and Colin Clive (guitar), we walked through their 30-year career. The band has done interesting things in the 90s, 2000s, and 2010s.

Buck-O-Nine has come up in several interviews. It was always from other bands talking about touring with them. I predicted some great road stories from the band, and I was absolutely correct. For this interview, we brought on Jon Pebsworth (vocals), Jonas Kleiner (guitar), and Tony Curry (trumpet). Make sure you listen to the end when they talk about touring with Primus and enduring their unrelenting, jeering crowds, and then hopping on the road with Smash Mouth. They clashed hard with those guys. The stories were so funny, I fell out of my chair laughing.

Adam and I have been talking about interviewing UK ska-punk bands for a while. This month, we did our first: Sonic Boom Six. We chatted with Adam’s old friends Barney Boom (Bass/vocals) and Laila K (Vocals). My favorite part of the interview is when Laila K—one and a half hours into the interview—realizes that the Adam talking to her is the Adam she knew from back in the day. Classic! The band came armed with great stories and a lot of interesting perspectives on ska’s legacy from their point of view.

We closed out 2021 with our craziest interview: Pabst Blue Ribbon. All through 2021, I’ve watched Pabst tweet about ska, bringing up Asian Man Records and MU330, and even promoting newer bands like Catbite and Kill Lincoln. I was intrigued. The big reveal during our Pabst interview was that their social media manager, Corey Smale, used to play in the late 90s/early 2000s St Louis ska band Disrupted. And apparently, Asian Man Records’ emphasis on mail order had a big impact on how he approached marketing.

Thanks for listening to In Defense of Ska. Please like and subscribe on whichever podcast platform you prefer. If you like what we’re doing, you can support us by subscribing to our Patreon! You’ll get bonus content and access to our exclusive IDOS Discord!