Ska just isn’t what it used to be. In the genre’s salad days of the 1960s, it was associated with luminous names such as Toots & the Maytals and The Wailers, who used a fresh and upbeat dancehall aesthetic to energize Jamaica, the sound’s birthplace.
Within a decade or two, English bands like The Clash and The Specials were using Ska for protest songs, refining the style with an edge of social commentary.
Today, after the third wave of ska soared into the American mainstream in the 1990s, it’s more likely to be identified with bland Punk Rock mixed with some horns.
This shift is especially pertinent to Tomas Kalnoky, lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of Streetlight Manifesto whose horn-heavy sound is not quite Ska, yet not quite something else.
The band plays Bogart’s with Reel Big Fish and Tip the Van at 7:30 p.m.
Read more about Streetlight Manifesto here.
This article appears in Jan 7-13, 2009.