Rocksteady Freddie

Ska is something that I have heard before, though have not had a lot of experience with, myself. I know a few songs just from overhearing it at Warped Tour and that my cousin's boyfriend is in a local long island Ska band called O.B.S.

My initial impression is that it sounds kind of Punk-y with horns and saxes thrown in there to add this kind of upbeat, dance-y kind of effect and I think it is rather pleasing to the ears. I did a little bit of research into Ska itself though, and found out that the origins are not anywhere near what I thought it would be. Jamaican.

Wikipedia said: Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. It is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the upbeat

This makes a lot of sense to me after listening to the YouTube video that Alex Katz sent out to everyone of Rocksteady Freddie playing a show at the Knitting Factory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkOWB3UkkLk

It didn't sound all that Punk-y like I was used to, which I found out was a subgenre called Skapunk. I learned about this genre when I was young playing the old Tony Hawk video games which had this song: on it. I guess I had just not been exposed to what Ska in it's original form was.

As for research about Freddie Reiter I found that, the band that Luke said he had been in, The Toasters were one of the first American Ska bands of the third wave and could be one of the longest running ska bands with records from 1985 to 2007, which is pretty amazing. He was a sax player for them which was kinda cool to hear since I'm exposed to Sax everyday with my brother playing it all of the time.

His name is also on at least 15 Ska albums (found by looking up his name in something that listed discographies.) Which is pretty amazing.

I'm actually really looking forward to this workshop. I think this is something necessary for me to move forward on my bass guitar skills, and not only that, but the experiences that I have had playing with a band in STAC probably have been some of the most helpful things. I've played two different songs so far, but, with this, since it's lasting a few weeks maybe not only can we get a song or two out of this and advance our skills but maybe to just have a band to play with after this workshop. The STAC Live and STAC Night band have been for a performance but maybe with GET THERE! we can do more than one show. Maybe even play the Rock Show. Who knows? Sounds fun to me.