SwingDJs

My former life as a ska DJ has me thinking about playing music from my other collection, but I've been apprehensive about mixing ska at a swing dance. Recently I DJ'd in Raleigh and played Millie Small's "My Boy Lollipop," which went over extremely well, so I was wondering what, if any, ska you guys have played at dances. I hate to see dust collect on all my ska CDs...

I've always wanted to play "She Has a Girlfriend Now" by Reel Big Fish, but I never had. Not truly ska, but still...

A fellow ska DJ chiming in. I've considered spinning ska music at swing dances but haven't done so yet. The reason I am apprehensive is because by nature the feel of the ska rhthym is almost completely opposite to that of the swinging rhythm, making a straight-up ska tune quite difficult for swing dancing. If you listen to tracks by The Skatalites, this is quite obvious, and The Articles even called the music they play flip'd jazz. I would need to go through my collection on a song-by-song basis, listening for songs that "swing" more, often borrowing more from the earlier r'n'b, jazz, blues and boogie influences. The obviously starting place for me would be Jump With Joey, as they are the band that first turned me onto swinging rhythms, as they mix ska, swing and latin so well in their music.

Millie's "My Boy Lollipop" would probably work quite well as the rhythm section is leaning more towards a swinging rhythm than a ska one. You can still hear the ska guitar playing on the upbeat [this is the ska term for playing on the "and" of each beat], but the walking bass and drums keep things swinging.

I can't picture swinging to Reel Big Fish's "She's Got A Girlfriend Now". The rhythm is some cross between traditional ska and modern rock, but not quite that driving beat that many modern ska bands use that often makes their songs sound "swinging" - similar to the rhythm used by many neoswing bands. Not to mention the section near the end where the song just flat "rocks out".

I'll try to go through some of my music later when I have a chance and give some suggestions of ska songs I might consider playing for swing dancers.

Jesse

I like ska music. But please, for the love of God, keep ska out of swing dances

Paul has played "Goodbye" by Save Ferris. The tempo changes are interesting.

As a former ska fan, I refrain too.

But if I had to pick, I would play "On my radio" by Selecter, Or "She Sure Can Cook" by Skavoovie.

There's a number of fun tunes on the two-tone collection that might work.

What is up with Ska bads using SKA in their name?

The SKAtellites and SKAvoovie


is common? or am I just making shit up?

GemZombie wrote:I like ska music. But please, for the love of God, keep ska out of swing dances

I like ska also. But please, leave it out of swing. Never the twain shall meet.

By the way, a friend of mine told me that bananarama was once a ska band. I've not been able to confirm that. I was watching VH1 classic the other day and I saw Banarama with Fun Boy Three do a version of "Aint what you do...". Perfectly horrible.

JesseMiner wrote:
I can't picture swinging to Reel Big Fish's "She's Got A Girlfriend Now". The rhythm is some cross between traditional ska and modern rock, but not quite that driving beat that many modern ska bands use that often makes their songs sound "swinging" - similar to the rhythm used by many neoswing bands. Not to mention the section near the end where the song just flat "rocks out".

Yeah, I was thinking of playing more as a novelty/challenge song. It has some cool breaks in it that I think people could have fun with. Yeah, the rocking part would be kind of weird.

sonofvu wrote:

GemZombie wrote:I like ska music. But please, for the love of God, keep ska out of swing dances

I like ska also. But please, leave it out of swing. Never the twain shall meet.

By the way, a friend of mine told me that bananarama was once a ska band. I've not been able to confirm that. I was watching VH1 classic the other day and I saw Banarama with Fun Boy Three do a version of "Aint what you do...". Perfectly horrible.

George, Back in the Buffallo Billiards days (an old Austin venue for the non-Austin readers), Jonathan Van Matre used to play Reel Big Fish's version of Duran Duran's Hungry Like The Wolf.

But, neo swing was closer to the norm in those days.

Nathan

Just about everyone I know with an interest in early Jamaican music quickly went and got the great Tougher Than Tough compilation. The second song in is Laurel Aitken's "Boogie In My Bones". You could easily slip it into the mix and no one would notice. But then again it is not a distinctly Jamaican song though it has faint elements of what was to come. Mostly it sounds like a New Orleans tune straight from Cosimo Matassa's.

Anyway, on a related note, the liner notes mention (as does nearly every summary of Jamaican music) that the early Ska scene was heavily influenced by Southern USA music especially what they could hear over the radio coming out of New Orleans or Florida. So what I wonder is if there is music worth hunting down from the precursor era.

The Jamaican musicians were supposedly pretty great and a bunch of Jamaican transplants to London supposedly helped kicked off the whole Ronnie Scott's scene. Does anyone have a handle on what kind of Jazz scene they had in Jamaica? I've heard the names but I have no music. Anyone have any music by Dizzy Reece, Joe Harriott, Ernest Ranglin, Wizard Simmons, Eric Allandale?

BTW Coxsone Dodd just recently passed away.

Zev wrote: Anyway, on a related note, the liner notes mention (as does nearly every summary of Jamaican music) that the early Ska scene was heavily influenced by Southern USA music especially what they could hear over the radio coming out of New Orleans or Florida. So what I wonder is if there is music worth hunting down from the precursor era.

The influence of jazz on early ska is why I really started this thread, to see if anyone else had made the connection and found some danceable music. My ska knowledge is limited when it comes to Jamaican music, but what I understand is that radios in Jamaica could pick up broadcasts out of New Orleans, which exposed Jamaican musicians to jazz. Other influences I've heard of are the British military brass bands and traditional Jamaican music called mento. With this in mind, I thought there may be something worth finding in early ska recordings, as opposed to newer ska.

caab wrote:... and traditional Jamaican music called mento.

Traditional Jamaican music, the freshmaker!

Kyle wrote:or am I just making shit up?

Isn't that normally what happens?

this is a family board, lets leave the shit talking to the debol

move on