Syracuse Ska Forum

I'm watching Conan O'Brien and I could swear that Max Weinberg and the band just played ska on the outro for the commercial break. I could almost place the song, but not quite. Most of time, I know when they do ska its usually 2-tone.

And who plays the underbed music on that Discover commercial? I keep hearing it and I can't place it at all ...

the next wave is coming around. lol.

No more waves.

Music is music.

waves is another way of saying the next "big thing" is coming around.

I'm one of those who doesn't believe in "wave theory". It never made sense to me and it still doesn't. I'll re-post an interesting essay about this from another messageboard ...

Thank you. I hate labeling music. In the words of the Sex Pistols, "we're not punk, we're the Sex Pistols." Or at least I think they said something like that...

the daily show's theme song is ska.

As much bitching as you hear about "genres are stupid", they still persist. To throw them out means the only way you can answer, "What does band X sound like?" is hand them a CD.

...

I'm seriously burned out on the term "ska-rock". We need to come up with a better term, because it's so bloody vague.

the thing about the "waves" to me is that each represents when a particular sub-genre within ska got somewhat popular.

i think a lot of people think of the waves as let's say that during the "third wave" all that was around was ska-punk which is obviously not true. it's just that ska punk got really popular.

ska may be getting big again, and therefore it may be another wave of it being semi-popular.

right now, i don't really see what sub-genre would spur it though. maybe it'll all just get big. it'd be nice to see some of the bands we've been listening to forever finally see some money.

I'd encourage you to develop this line of reasoning under the new thread on waves of ska. Anyone thats been around ska for more than a year has strong opinions about this stuff.


No argument there.

But this is a longstanding problem not unique to ska. What does "indie" really mean? Does "emo" really explain anything anymore? How about "modern rock"? Th expression "new wave" was once a catch-all for music that just didn't fit categories (and that just didn't seem "punk").

When I first started promoting ska, we used "3rd wave" as a catch-all for anything that couldn't be described any other way. That's how all the new ska bands got the label. There really was never a "3rd wave sound". Likewise, when I got serious about promoting ska in 2000, we were using "ska-punk" as a generic label for bands that weren't trad. That's really about all it meant. At least now we're differentiating between bands that mix ska and rock (ska-rock) and ska and punk (ska-punk).

But I really dislike how I struggle to label a ska band's sound and then they decide whatever pathetic label I gave them must be the best fit. I'm not a musician, nor do I have any serious musical training. I'm arguably one of the least qualified people to be labelling bands.

good call... 2nd commercial break i think in fact

uhh because it's got horns???

Only thing I can find is "The show's theme music is "Dog on Fire" by Bob Mould, performed by They Might Be Giants."

No, it does sound like a solid ska song to me. Beat and all.

i use it for all genres, not just ska. i dont think it's labeling music. I'm talking in the sense that this might be the 4th time ska will become popular. The same with pop punk, in the early 90's with green day, then in the late 90's with blink 182 and good charlotte. waves arent just used for ska.