Sorry for being so vague, but today I busted out a bunch of CD’s I haven’t heard in an long time… One of them was the Mighty Mighty Bosstones… it got me thinking… is there a name for that “ska” sound? I’d be more descriptive, but I dunno how to put it into words.
Most people call it “ska.”
I guess I should clarify… it’s not necessarily the horns or other stuff, mostly just the guitar/bass riffs.
Doesn’t ska say it all? My mind immediately gets that Specials/Madness/Bosstones groove at the mere mention of ska.
Do you mean that reggaesque emphasis on the off-beats? That’s what makes ska sound ska to me. I’d just call it a ska beat.
Have I say the word “ska” enough in this post? Its’ a fun word to say. Ska!
Reggae backbeat, at about double speed. Although the definitions of both reggae and ska were a bit different at their inceptions in Jamaica in the '60’s.
Perhaps “raggae backbeat” is a good name… thank you.
If you just say, “reggae backbeat,” people will imagine a sound like the Wailers at their apex. (And not the early Wailers, when they actually did ska.)
The important thing is how much more energetic it is.
Ska-talicious! (Make sure you use the long a sound if you adopt that one though.)
In ska (a musical genre near and dear to my heart), the guitar plays on the upbeats, so that steady “cha / cha / cha” is all quick, staccato, upstrokes. Since most popular music is in 4/4 time, you can tap your foot listening to any song and count 1-2-3-4. Depending on the tempo, you can actually count 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and, with the number on the downbeat and the “and” on the upbeat. The upstrokes of ska guitar simply play on the “and.”
Lip up fatty!
Yeah man!, Big Bad VooDoo Lou knows a thing or two about a thing or two.
I played in a ska-punk band for three years, back in college, and I miss it like crazy. Even though ska isn’t popular anymore like it was in the late '90s, all I need to do is hear that upstroke guitar and I’m happy again. It was the best time of my life, being in a band, being part of an honest-to-goodness music scene.
Ooh! He’s got skills too! Do you still play music in your spare time?
Ahh, ska.
looks through older CDs to find something suitable
skanks
That guitar hitting on the upstroke is called the skank, or skanking.
And now give it up for Fatty’s Big Chance.
I remember seeing several fairly inept ska bands as opening acts in the 90s whose personnel were made up of white middle-class college kids, and it seemed like they were one accordion away from being polka bands.
In my time in the ska scene, I never heard that, but I guess it might be a regional thing. We just called it “upstroke guitar.” Skanking usually refers to the type of dancing people do to ska music, which to the untrained eye looks like a combination of flailing limbs, running in place, and doing “the robot.”
Thanks for the additional replies… Now I have Skankin’ Pickle in… I haven’t heard this stuff since college. I used to see them live quite a bit at Cal Poly SLO… even met Mr Clean a few times.
Good times, good times.