Ska In My Pocket: How Starting a Ska Band Changed My Life - Part 2

 

I love band origin stories. In fact I love them so much that my book Ska Boom: An American Ska & Reggae Oral History is all about the origin stories of 18 bands that helped to create a uniquely American version of ska and reggae. As a former reporter -- if only for a few months -- I learned early on that you have to include multiple points of view for any story to be honest and factual and attempt to reflect the reality of a situation.  That is why an oral history appealed to me so much. An oral history is predicated on the notion that everyone who was part of an event or collective and/or creative experience of some kind share their unique perspective to get to some semblance of the truth. 

And so, it gives me great pleasure to share how my bandmate Kevin Shields experienced meeting Steve Parker and myself for the very first time and how those initial meetings actually led to us starting the band that would initially be called Panic! and ultimately become Bigger Thomas.

Kevin was the very first person to respond to the flyers I posted around New Brunswick, NJ advertising for people to join the band.  In those pre-Internet days of the late 80s, people actually looked at things posted on public bulletin boards.  Classified ads were another way to find potential bandmates, but I chose to go old school.  I felt a designed flyer -- and I'm using the word "designed" here very loosely -- would be faster and make more of an impact.  

So I put a few ska albums -- The Specials debut, The English Beat's "I Just Can't Stop It", the "Dance Craze" LP and a Skatalites comp in my backpack and brought them to the Rutgers student center where I Xeroxed the front and back covers for ten cents a page.  I then cut out phrases and logos I liked -- "Calling All Rude Boys And Girls" was particularly appealing as was The Beat Girl and Walt Jabsco-- and then typed up a few lines about what Steve and I were looking for -- essentially everything but bass and guitar -- and then laid it all out on another sheet a paper with tape.  I took that designed page to a local Kinkos and had 25 copies printed on bright blue and pink paper.  My thinking was that those colors would be more eye catchy than white. And I was proved right, because a blue one outside the infamous Court Tavern -- a rock and roll dive bar institution a few blocks from the Rutgers campus -- caught Kevin's eye.

Kevin was a son of New Jersey through and through.  Raised in Hillsborough near the infamous Johns-Manville asbestos plant, he was seven years older than Steve and I. He was the fourth of five brothers -- some of whom he played bass with in a hardcore band called Detention.  Detention made a name for themselves on the Jersey music scene of the early 80s playing with a who's who of American punk and hardcore bands including Suicidal Tendencies, Circle Jerks, Kraut and more. Detention were well known for their song "Dead Rock and Rollers" which was an early 80s college radio hit. Kevin called it "97 seconds of fucking genius."  Give the song a spin below:

Though he was the son of teachers, Kevin had decided to enlist in the Coast Guard just four days after graduating from high school in June 1976. He stayed in for four and a half years. He later regaled us with crazy stories about his time protecting the coastlines of our country and his experiences in basic training.  One memorable story was how his drill sergeant would scream "nut to but" at recruits lining up for the day's march. Kevin would often shout this at us as we were about to get ready to go on stage.  Another from his time manning a boat was "stab and steer" which he would say followed by "drive it like you hate it" when one of us would take over the wheel when the band was on the road.  It never failed to make us laugh. Kevin recalled that his experience in the military, "...turned me from a precocious, impulsive, immature teenager into a precocious, impulsive, immature young adult."  The other thing his experience in the military did was change his relationship with music forever because his time stationed on the New Jersey coastline put him close to New York in 1978-79 to witness firsthand the rise of punk and new wave. Later when he was stationed in northern California he experienced the rise of hardcore.  Needless to say, Kevin knew his way around a dive bar club.

It was clear that Kevin had done a lot more living than either Steve or I and though he hadn't been to college, he was one of the most well read and intelligent people I've met.  He chalked this up to reading the newspaper and raucous dinnertime conversations where he and his four rowdy brothers were quizzed on current events and literature by their parents. Kevin also had a very dry sense of humor that really kicked in after he had a few beers. Later on, once the band got going, Kevin was responsible for memorable one liners, often to either break the tension of an uncomfortable moment (every band needs a cut up) or to point out what a stupid idiot he thought someone in our band or another band was.  None of us were spared his sharp wit. I just chalked it up to him learning to survive life with four brothers and then serving in the military. Nothing escaped his observation and like the good punk rocker he was, nothing was sacred, except when we were performing which he took very seriously.

When I was in the early days of writing Ska Boom, I reached out to Kevin for his memories about the start of the band.  They are pure, unadulterated Kevin:

Bigger Thomas had its’ beginnings in the fall of 1968, when I began to take trumpet lessons at Sunnymead School, in Hillsborough, New Jersey. 

Twenty years later I was sitting in my living room with one of my housemates, smoking a Lucky Strike Green the size of Wyoming and watching the “Reggae Sunsplash” festival on TV. I was really enjoying the music- upbeat, rhythmic, fun! Inspired, I turned to him and said “You know, I really ought to break out my trumpet.” He said “You should”. 

Literally a few nights later I stumbled (see: “walked”) out of the Court Tavern downtown when my eye was caught by a flyer posted on the bulletin board outside the bar. Checkerboard margin, black on Kinko’s blue, 2 Tone styling. “Wanted: musicians for original music band. Need drums, keyboard, vocals, TRUMPET”. 

Being recently band-less for the first time in six years and bored, I took down the phone number given. Finding the number the next day, I gave a call. Me: “I saw your flyer outside the Court. Whadda you guys lookin’ to do?” Voice: “My friend and I have been writing a lot. Ska, mostly, reggae, pop-rock, worldbeat stuff. What instrument do you play?” Me: “Trumpet”. Voice: “Really!”. 

When Kevin called I was shocked.  Not in a bad sort of way, but more at how quickly my hopeful entreaty to the larger universe to start a band --albeit New Brunswick -- had actually connected with another living person. I had yearned to be in a band for so long that the reality of it actually happening was almost too much for me to bear. I know now that I was looking for a surrogate family and for a band of brothers, but back then, before years of therapy, I only knew I felt compelled to complete this particular mission to play music.  It was a mission I had devised and harbored for nearly five years since seeing the English Beat and Madness live during the summer of 1983.  And so, sight unseen, I quickly invited Kevin over to my apartment to meet Steve and I.  My roommate Jim Cooper was there as well to serve as as witness to what unfolded. 

Steve and I had played with Jim in our earlier college band and I had met Jim in my dorm during my first week at Rutgers in September 1983.  We hit it off and often went together for dinner in the dining hall or record shopping after class or on weekends.  We also hung out a lot in his room with his two music loving roommates, smoked weed and listened to albums.  Jim was a big fan of The Police, XTC, R.E.M and all other 80s new wave and rock but had a special place in his heart for The Beatles. Jim hailed from Marlton, a suburb just across the city line from Camden, on the Jersey side of the Delaware River.  And unlike my experience with people from that part of South Jersey, who in my limited experience generally loved classic rock like The Who or Zeppelin, terrible 80s metal and had frightening mullet haircuts, Jim was the complete opposite.  He was a bit of a loner and was studying Biology with hopes of getting work in a hospital or lab after graduation. We became fast friends when we discovered we had both been to a huge new wave show at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia in August 1983 featuring The Police, Joan Jett, Madness and R.E.M.

Jim was a quiet and unassuming guy with a huge appetite for new music and books about music. He spent hours perusing pop music history books at book stores and was partial to listening to albums loudly on his stereo headphones while lying on the floor in the dark. Jim was a self taught drummer and guitarist.  A lefty like his hero Paul McCartney, he sometimes played his guitar upside down so the strings were lined up correctly. We had further bonded over our shared struggles of self-taught musicianship and did our best to learn songs together from records.  When I graduated from Rutgers, I asked Jim if he wanted to find a cheap apartment to share and he had agreed. 

Steve and I had asked Jim to join our new ska band, but he was initially non-committal in a very Jim sort of way. It usually took time for Jim to warm up to anything new or different  But, he did say he would sit in on any meetings we had with anyone who came by the apartment and so on the appointed afternoon that Kevin stopped by, Jim was there, quietly taking it all in.  

When Kevin arrived I was caught off guard.  Unlike Steve, Jim and I, who were reserved and quiet, Kevin was loud and quick with witty observations and biting comments.  Kevin initially struck me as a young Rodney Dangerfield, if Rodney had previously been in the Coast Guard and then  a semi-successful hardcore band followed by a rock-a-billy band. Kevin arrived sporting a Stray Cats-style pompadour, a battered trumpet case and an eight pack of 8 ounce mini Budweisers.  He called them nips.  As someone who didn't drink, I was amused by the idea of nips.  They seemed like beers made for toddlers. Needless to say, I had never met anyone like Kevin.  And I'm pretty sure he had never met anyone like the three of us either.

So I go downtown to meet The Voice and his buddy. I got my pompadour skyin’, trumpet case in one hand, eight-pack of Bud nips in the other. I am, after all, a rock’n’roll star. The Voice: Marc Wasserman, bass guitar, songwriter. His buddy: Steve Parker, guitarist, vocalist, songwriter. 

I see these two penniless college grads and all I can think about is the shotgun scene from “Easy Rider”: “Hey, Roy, look at them ginks!” Now I’m introduced to penniless college grad Number Three, one Jim Cooper. Round-rim glasses, mop of blond hair, slap a uniform on the fucker and he could have been in Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.”Jim plays drums but he’s just gonna be temporary”. 

Notes are played, songs taught, ideas exchanged, nippers drunk by me. We are sufficiently encouraged that they invite me back a few days later.

After pleasantries were exchanged, Steve and I played our songs on a small boombox and Steve shouted out the notes and changes to Kevin  while we bashed through the songs.  Kevin did his best to play along on his trumpet but it was clear he was quite rusty.  As we went through the songs, we asked Jim to push the button on a small Casio keyboard that had drum pre-sets on it so we would have some sort of beat to keep us in time.  Our first rehearsal was the sound of Steve and I playing our guitar and bass along to a Gene Vincent rock and roll drum sample with Kevin bleating along nascent versions of what would later become horn parts to our songs.  Though I'm sure we all had a case of mutual culture shock after 90 minutes of rehearsing together, we were sufficiently inspired enough to agree to all met again a few days later when we would be joined by a new face -- Roger Apollon Jr!

Stay tuned for How Starting a Ska Band Changed My Life - Part 3!

Ska In My Pocket: How Starting a Ska Band Changed My Life - Part 1

Happy New Year! 2023 marks the 35th anniversary of the founding of Bigger Thomas -- the very first ska band from New Jersey.  I intentionally did not include the story of my own band in my book Ska Boom: An American Ska & Reggae Oral History. I felt uncomfortable telling my own story and instead focused on the bands I felt needed to have their stories told. But now, in honor of this important milestone, I'm going to tell my band's origin story across several posts here on my blog.

It still seems odd to me that the Garden State, which has been home to some of the greatest and most diverse bands and musicians in the history of popular music -- Sinatra, Monk, The Four Seasons, Springsteen, Fugees -- didn't have a dedicated ska band until I helped to start one in the late 80s. Its even more curious that our rag tag group of seven musical misfits culled from a poster I put up around New Brunswick, NJ would be the band to do it. But we did and it changed my life. 

When I reflect back on how we started and what we accomplished in three short years, it boggles my mind. We quickly went from being a local New Brunswick band to playing and performing with a who's who of ska and reggae bands: Special Beat ( a super group featuring members of The Specials and English Beat), The Selecter, The Skatalites, Bad Manners, De La Soul, The Alarm, Jimmy Cliff, The Skatalites, Burning Spear, Boogie Down Productions and nearly every key American ska band of the 80's and early 90s. 

How did I end up being in the first ska band from New Jersey? The simple answer is that ska and 2 Tone music in particular had been a defining hallmark of my high school and college years. I loved it so much that I willed myself to try and learn the bass so I could be in a ska band. And though I could barely play the bass, I did the best I could. As it turned out, my timing for wanting to play ska was impeccable. In 1986, I had discovered a thriving ska scene in New York which was just a train ride away from New Brunswick. I shared what that first experience was like in the introduction to my my book:

I was paging through the concert listings in the back of the Village Voice and I discovered that there were ska bands playing in New York City! And, shortly thereafter, after, I was watching The Toasters, Beat Brigade, Second Step, The Boilers, and A-Kings all playing a uniquely New York version of ska music. Except these were American kids (well, except for that one British guy fronting The Toasters) singing in New York accents about what was happening on the streets of Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn. It looked like ska. It sounded like ska and, most importantly, it had the same intensity as the 2-Tone bands I revered. It was LIVE and it was LOUD! And what was really inspiring was that the clubs were packed with kids my age. They wore pork pie hats. They wore Doc Martens and Creepers and they were adorned with band patches heralding my new heroes: The Specials and The Beat and The Selecter. I had found my tribe. I picked up a copy of The Toasters first EP Recriminations, and The Boilers Flotsam cassette tape at Bleeker Bob’s in Manhattan, and then found my way to a copy of NY Beat: Hit & Run; a compilation featuring all the NYC ska bands I was seeing live. This was real and it was authentic and it was life changing.

Between 1986 and 1988 -- inspired by that show at CBGB -- I did my best to learn how to play the bass. I wasn't pretty but I did an apprenticeship in another band formed with college friends -- including original Bigger Thomas drummer Jim Cooper and guitarist Steve Parker -- where the process of writing songs and rehearsing helped me to better understand where the notes on the fretboard were and how to play them. This college band played a mix of new wave, pop rock and rock and roll.  It was fun but I kept pushing to play ska with the support of Jim and Steve -- and when the band ended, we were finally ready to start a ska-only band. 

1988 was a turning point for me for a lot of reasons. At 23 I was a bit lost about what I wanted to do with my life. I had graduated from Rutgers University a year earlier and had done quite well in school but was at a loss about how I could turn a B.A. in Political Science into a real job. My girlfriend at the time was career oriented and though she supported my vague ideas about playing music or starting a band, she also was worried about my future or more accurately our future now that we were college graduates. She had turned an internship at Merck -- just up the road from New Brunswick in Rahway -- into a full fledged job at graduation. She got up every morning at 6 am, put on a suit and commuted to work.  It was a shock to my system just watching her do it.  I wasn't sure I could do it.

In contrast, I worked a series of minimum wage jobs before unexpectedly getting a 3-day a week, part-time job to join the New Brunswick Home News as a real estate reporter in early 1988. Like learning the bass, learning to be a reporter in a newsroom was hard. I was surrounded by reporters who had been trained and knew how to conduct interviews quickly and then knock out copy for stories that needed minimal editing. I quickly realized that the album reviews I had written for the Rutgers college newspaper hadn't prepared me for the task at hand. Working Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I was expected to pick a story topic, interview people for the story and submit it for editing before it was published in the Business section of the Friday paper.  I barely pulled it off.  And after four months of trial and error I was unceremoniously relieved of my duties by a senior editor.  Seeing my byline each Friday had been a real rush, but the pressure to turn around a story was more than I could handle.  I was also clearly out of my league. 

After being let go from the Home News, I was finally ready to start a band. Steve and I got together regularly that spring and early summer.  He loved ska and reggae and we had bonded over that. On first glance, Steve was not someone you would expect to be a guitar god.  He was skinny, unassuming and quiet.  But beneath his veneer was one of most talented musicians I've ever met.  And despite looking like the 99 pound weakling in those Charles Atlas ads in the back of comic books, Steve had an anti-authority streak a mile wide.  That anger had caused him to miss graduating from high school because he flat out refused to go to gym class.  He just wouldn't go because there were kids in his gym class who bullied him. And despite being pressured by his teachers and school administrators he held his ground. In addition to bonding over music, we also shared less than satisfactory high school experiences -- I had also been bullied  in high school-- that we funneled into the angry protest songs we were writing. 

Steve had turned his small suburban New Jersey bedroom into a recording studio.  He still lived at home, but his parents encouraged our music making.  His father had been a notable studio musician in the 60s playing on a number of AM radio hits so the apple hadn't fallen far from the tree. Steve had several guitars and basses -- including his father's Gibson Les Paul -- a small drum kit and a TASCAM 4-track.  I would bring him rudimentary bass lines and lyrics for songs and he would disappear for a few days and then play me fully realized songs he had fleshed out and recorded.  I was amazed by what he has created.  He was able to take my aspirational ideas and turn them into real songs.  More importantly, Steve respected my ideas and saw value in them and in me.  After several months of woodshedding together that spring and summer, we had close to ten songs.  We both agreed it was time to find other people to play them with us.

And so, I created the flyer you see above using Xeroxed bits and bobs from albums I loved to advertise for ska musicians. I stapled and pasted them up all over the Rutgers University campus, on campus busses and outside music venues and bars.  And then I waited.  And not two days later, I got calls from trumpet player Kevin Shields and singer Roger Apollon Jr. 

Stay tuned for How Starting a Ska Band Changed My Life - Part 2!

Ska Boom: An American Ska & Reggae Podcast

Greetings! I hope you are all well. Though I don't post here often -- writing my forthcoming book "Ska Boom: An American Ska & Reggae Oral History" which will be published by DiWulf Publishing in 2021 has taken up much of my time the last 3 years -- I wanted to share a new project related to the book and this blog. 

This blog and all the time and research I invested into it for several years was a real labor of love. But that work and the American ska history I uncovered along the way was instrumental in helping create the blueprint for my book. 

As the book goes into production -- layout and design -- I've started an audio companion in the form of a podcast that features stories about the bands featured in the book as well as interviews with American ska and reggae musicians and influencers featured in the book. 

As the book comes closer to a publication date, I'll be sure to post more details and information here. In the meantime, for your listening pleasure, here are the first 16 episodes of the podcast. 

 Happy holidays and may 2021 bring better things for all of us!

New Heavensbee Album "We Mean Business" Released

After nearly 2 years of writing and recording, I'm excited to finally share a pre-order link for the new Heavensbee album "We Mean Business" which will be released Monday 1/27/20!  It's taken a  minute to finish because I have also been hard at work on writing Ska Boom : An Oral History About The Birth Of American Ska. 

"We Mean Business" started as a conversation. Roger Apollon and I have been making music together for a long time but we wanted to try something different. The goal was to write and record an album of ska and reggae music that reflected our shared love and appreciation for 2-Tone and what it stood for (The Specials, The Selecter, The Beat) but that would also would expand on that approach and incorporate new sounds with new voices to create something more modern. We also wanted to collaborate with singers and musicians we love and respect. And so, over nearly two years starting in 2018 we pulled together this fantastically diverse mix of incredibly talented people -- Carolyn "Honeychild" Coleman (The 1865), Dunia Best (Dubistry), Olivier Rhee (The Boilers), Robert Tierney (The NY Citizens), Jenny Whiskey (Hub City Stompers, Rude Boy George), Matt Wixson, Ruben Rios, Anthony "Juggla" Minervino (The Rudie Crew), Pamela Anderson Buckley (Rude Boy George) and Rob Gainfort (The Steadys) -- who helped to craft and create these songs about the darker side of modern life in 21st century America.

Below is a link to a Bandcamp player where you can purchase the album and also stream the first song.  I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed working on it! 

Ranking Roger Is Your Selecter -- The Music That Made Him The Cool Entertainer!

I've just finished reading Ranking Roger's incredibly entertaining memoir "I Just Can't Stop It: My Life In The Beat" which he co-wrote with Daniel Rachel.  Sadly the book was released after Roger passed away earlier this year at the age of 56.  In all honesty, it took me a bit of time to finally pick up the book and read it.  Roger's death really hit me hard and the book sat on my desk for some time before I was ready to give it a read.  Once I felt ready to pick the book up, I'm so glad I did.  The pages are infused with Roger's energy, vitality and personality which help soften the blow of his premature passing.

Roger's story is truly cinematic in scope and as I read I had to keep reminding myself that he was just a 16 year old Birmingham punk when he joined the band in 1979 and that just a few years later his band's songs were all over the radio and were on tour with the cream of the crop of 80's music including all the 2-Tone bands, The Clash, The Police, XTC, U2, Talking Heads, The Pretenders, REM and more.

What comes through loud and clear is how much music meant to Roger as both a fan and a singer. He was a true music fan and had incredibly eclectic taste that ran the gamut from punk to rock to reggae.  In fact, the parts of the book I enjoyed the most were the stories and anecdotes he shared about songs, band's and musicians that influenced him.  To that end, I've shared several examples of music that Roger calls out in the book.

Early in the book, Roger note's that the record that first inspired him to become an MC and take up toasting was African Dub All-Mighty Chapter 3 by Joe Gibbs and The Professionals -- a classic dub reggae album  -- which was released in 1978 when Roger was 15 years old.



As a slightly obsessive fan of The Beat, I've always been on the lookout for rare or unreleased music by the band.  Some songs -- like their cover of Cole Porter's "Night and Day" and "It Makes Me Rock" have made their way online via bootlegs.  That said, I was happily surprised to learn from the book that The Beat actually recorded two slices of catchy, 2-Tone era ska/reggae pop -- "The Okay Song" and "Mole In A Hole" with Lenny Henry (a comic and cast member of the UK kid's TV show TISWAS and late night TV show O.T.T) which were released in 1981. Turns out John Peel played the songs a few times on his show! Check out the "Okay Song" below.



One of the most interesting musical revelations in the book is that The Beat covered a version of The Grammacks 1974 French language cadence-lypso record "Soleil Trop Chaud" on the incredibly eclectic "Whappen" album released in 1981. Roger's parents were from the French-speaking island of St. Lucia, and though he did not speak French, he did his best to emulate St. Lucian patois on the track.



Roger writes about how The Beat and The Clash played many shows together and how he befriended Joe Strummer and Mick Jones.  In September 1981, The Clash and The Beat played a legendary seven-night residency at the Theatre Mogador in Paris. This was the post-Sandinista!, pre-Combat Rock, version of the band – the one that was obsessed with dub reggae, funk, hip-hop and Latin America. Strummer and Jones admired Roger so much that they invited him to sit in with them each night to toast along on their versions of Junior Murvin's "Police & Thieves" and Willie Williams' "Armagideon Time."

The friendships forged during these shows extended long after the tour ended. So when it came time for The Clash to record a new album in 1981-82, Jones contacted Ranking Roger and invited him to come toast on a few tracks. In case you didn't know, The Clash's iconic album "Combat Rock" was originally planned as a double album with the working title "Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg." Jones had mixed the first version by himself without input from his band mates. His mix featured Ranking Roger on a version of "Rock The Casbah" and "Red Angel Dragnet" that was never released. In my opinion, the song is far superior to the final album version produced by Glyn Johns. Though neither of Roger's contributions made the final version of "Combat Rock," it cemented a friendship between Jones and  Roger who later joined Big Audio Dynamite.

Ska Boom Podcast: Skavoovee Tour of 1993 Brings Ska To America

I’m writing an oral history about the birth of American ska and reggae called Ska Boom: An Oral History About The Birth of American Ska & Reggae that will be published by DiWulf Publishing later this year or in early 2020. I've created this podcast to document the book writing process and in this podcast I’m telling the story of the 1993 Skavoovee tour of the U.S. featuring the Skatalites, Special Beat, the Selecter and the Toasters which had much to do with expanding the popularity of ska across the U.S. The podcast includes interviews with vocalist Coolie Ranx of the Toasters/Pilfers, Randy "Now" Ellis of City Gardens fame, who was the Skavoovie tour manager and Special Beat keyboardist Sean Flowerdew.

My New Podcast Ska Boom Podcast - First Two Episodes Now Available

I'm busy working on "Ska Boom! An Oral History About The Birth Of American Ska & Reggae" and I'm about halfway through the book writing process. One year in, I've finished drafting the first 10 chapters and have 10 more to research and write. While I've posted updates to Facebook, I decided it would be more interesting to create a podcast that includes interview snippets and songs from some of the musicians and bands I've written about.

In the very first episode I've included anecdotes and stories from book chapters on The Shakers from Berkeley, CA who were the very first American reggae band that were signed to Elektra/Asylum Records by David Geffen; The Untouchables who helped popularize ska in Los Angeles and were later signed to Stiff Records in the U.K. and The Boxboys who can be called one of the very first American ska bands, forming at UCLA and building a ska at the renowned O.N. Klub in the late 70s and early 80s.



In the second episode, I reflect on the fact that it's been 37 years since The Specials have recorded new music with Terry Hall! The band release their new album "Encore" on Friday February 1st and I can't wait to hear it. If the two songs the band have released so far, "Vote For Me," and "Ten Commandments" are any indication, then we all have a lot to look forward to! To that end, I'm sharing a new podcast episode that's based on soundbites from interviews I've done for the book that focus on The Specials and the impact their first self-titled album released in 1979 had on young Americans who were later inspired to start or join American ska bands. In this episode I share clips of interviews with Howard Paar, a young Englishman who found himself in LA in 1979 and upon hearing the band's first single "Gangsters" decided to open what became the ON Klub that kicked-off a ska revolution in LA. Next focus of clips from musicians from the New York City ska scene - - Constant Bernard of Second Step, Jeff "King Django" Baker of The Boilers and later Skinnerbox and Brendan Tween of Mephiskapheles, who share the very diverse and yet similar ways that The Specials impacted them.