I know you love ska, but are you hip to all of the various sub-genres associated with it?  Where does ska-punk end and psycho-ska begin?  What’s the difference between rocksteady and early-reggae?  Is ska-jazz really jazzier than trad ska?

The answers to these burning questions and more can be found in this episode of Ska’s The Limit, it a style clinic!  For the next two weeks you can find the episode archived over at KDHX.org

Artist / Song / Disk
The Carib Beats / J.J. Special / KingSize Ska
The Skatalites / Man in the Street / Hi-Bop Ska
The Skatalites / Sugar & Spice / Ska-Au-Go-Go
Clive And Naomi / Open The Door / Trojan Ska Box Set – Vol 1
Peter Tosh / Hoot Nanny Hoot / The Toughest
Madness / The Prince / One Step Beyond…
The Specials / (Dawning Of A) New Era / The Specials
Ruder Than You / The Bodysnatchers / The 2 Tone Collection – A Checkered Past
The Toasters / Talk Is Cheap / Skaboom!
Fishbone / Ma And Pa / Truth and Soul
Bim Skala Bim / Wise Up / How’s It Goin’?
Operation Ivy / Freeze Up / Operation Ivy
NOFX / Bob / White Trash ……
Leftover Crack / Crack City Rockers / Give ‘Em The Boot, Vol. 2
Ocean 11 / Solid As A Rock / The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
The Slackers / Have The Time / The Question
Radiation Kings / Murder / Early Years
MU330 / Fried Chicken / Chumps On Parade
Johnny Socko / Boraborinski Brothers / Mailorder is FUN!
One Eye Open / Paul Sharar / Hellaut
Mighty Mighty Bosstones / Drums And Chicken / Mashin’ Up The Nation: The Best Of American Ska
Mephiskapheles / El Dorado / Might-Ay White-Ay
Mealticket / Don’t Take This Lightly / 13 Apologies
Blue Meanies / Acceleration 5000 / Kiss Your Ass Goodbye
After Hours / Almost Like Being In Love (feat. Alex Desert) / The Trouble With Those Guys Is…
New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble / Teardrops From My Eyes / Low Blow
Jump With Joey / Move Your Body / Generations United, Volume 1
Theo Beckford / Easy Snappin’ / Easy Snappin’ (BB 15)
Laurel Aitken & The Boogie Cats / Boogie Rock / Looking Back: The Jamaican Charts Of 1958 And 1959
Lord Fly / Blu-Lu-Lup / Mento Madness
Count Lasher’s Calypso Quintet / Slide Mongoose / Boogu Yagga Gal
Alton Ellis / Rock Steady / Treasure Isle Collection
Errol Dunkley / Your Gonna Need Me / Rock Steadyin’
The Heptones / I Love You / The Heptones 22 Golden Hits
Desmond Dekker & The Aces / Israelites / Let’s Do Rocksteady: The Story of Rocksteady 1966-68
Toots and the Maytals / Sweet & Dandy / Sweet And Dandy
Jackie Mittoo / Our Thing / Our Thing

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KDHX asked me to put together my top albums of the year, so I thought I’d share them with you…

10. The Moon Invaders vs. The Caroloregians – Hot Blood In Cold Weather – It’s been a big year for both of these groups. This being the first of three records released by the two Belgian acts to the US in 2010, it’s also the best of the bunch.  Greasy, funky reggae instrumentals dominate the set list, while lo-fi, groovy shuffle and ska balance out the sound.  Lot’s of stand outs on this one!

9. Bobby Pins & The Saloon Soldiers – Dancing on The Moon – Like a working class version of The Pepper Pots, this female-fronted Dirty Reggae has all the smooth sexiness of the Pots without all that polish and heavy heaping of molten lead in riddim.  Dancing on The Moon can be a little inconsistent, but it’s an enticing introduction to this group.

8. Open Season – Louder – With a knack for harmonies and humor, Open Season has quickly become one of my favorite European ska/reggae acts.  This new record, Louder is a fantastic mix of Early Reggae, Rocksteady and Ska.  Hey Darling is worth the price alone.

7. Gramophone Allstars – Simbiosi – Jazzy Spanish Ska and Rocksteady bounce slowly and softly off this disc.  Cover tunes outweigh the original material, but the Allstars bring a fresh take to all the borrowed material.  The record can be a bit sleepy at times, but Love You Like a Woman the hottest track of the year!

6. Green Room Rockers – Green Room Rockers – This has been out for a few months now, but I still have yet to really scratch the surface of it.  It almost suffers from having too many strong tunes, and I haven’t quite found the hit yet.  The new record finds the group in prime shape and under the guidance of contemporary ska legend, Dave Hillyard.  Super strong R&B vocals and a crazy big organ sound, GRR rocks steady.

5. The Slackers – Great Rocksteady Swindle – This Swindle isn’t the paradigm-shifting genius that previous efforts like The Question and Wasted Days were, it’s not the experimental genre clash of their more recent Lost and Found and Self Medication.  What it is is The Slackers showing their extreme proficiency at playing nearly every sub-genre of ska, while adding a few extra tunes to the pile of my favorite Slack tracks.  You’ve got Straight-Up-Ska and Skinhead Reggae- and of course Rocksteady tunes abound, proving that after many years of experimenting, The Slackers know what they’re doing.

4. The Beatdown – The Beatdown – Aggressive Reggae is taken one step further into the modern era by this Montreal group, who’s rough Punk vocalist is not a contrast to but rather a fitting complement to the grimy, churning reggae under him.  Soul influences are all over the place, but not necessarily embodied and the ska tunes are few and far between-  Still in this day of Rasta wannabes and Trojan throwbacks it’s nice to hear something so rooted yet so forward.

3. The Bullets – Sweet Misery – Don’t call it a side-project!  The Aggrolites’ organ virtuoso, Roger Rivas serves up a romantic, funky and soulful set of reggae tunes.  Whether they’re fronted by the ice-cold vocals of Malik Moore or Rivas’ East LA boogie organ, this disc ain’t The Aggrolites!

2. Maddie Ruthless & The Secret Affair – Hold The Phone – In a lot of ways, this was my favorite album of the year, and certainly the most anticipated.  Maddie took the Ska-Punk ruffians, Fatter Than Albert and tried to shoe horn them into a Rocksteady band.  Add to that Maddie’s penchant for tales of murder and ghouls, and the results are unlike anything you’ve ever heard.   Recorded live and in one take, this record burns up your speakers like flash paper, hot and fast.  Plus the price is right, it’s available for free at Community Records.

1. Ska Cubano – Mambo Ska – The name of the group and album, in conjunction, seem to say it all, but what Ska Cubano delivers on Mambo Ska is so much better than what you’d imagine.  Latin Ska and even Cuban Ska have been done before, and Cuban influences were a part of even the earliest ska tunes, but Ska Cubano’s sound is unique.  Despite this distinctive take on Ska, there’s something wholly authentic about it as well, almost in spite of it’s inherent kitsch.   It’s Ska- Ska- Ska- all the way through- and it’s completely fantastic!

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Here’s what happened on last night’s Ska’s The Limit…  The first hour was filled with high energy, contemporary ska and ska-punk from the likes of Common Rider, Vic Ruggiero, Big D and The Operators 780.  By contrast, hour two focused more on Rocksteady and neo-trad Ska, with a tiny tribute to Lyn Taitt followed by smooth sounds from Hepcat, Dr. Ring-Ding, Jackie Opel and many more.  I received a ton of positive phone calls, cheering me on- thanks everybody!

If you missed the show, you’ve got two weeks to stream the archive from KDHX.org

Hopeton Lewis feat Lynn Taitt – Take It Easy – 300% Dynamite – Soul Jazz – [If you're not familiar with Lyn Taitt (or even if you are) you might learn a lot about the man from his recent obit]

——– – ——– – ——– – ——–

Square Roots – Ground Zero – Pick It Up! – Beach Records – [Square Roots' MySpace page has a comprehensive history of the band with lots of old videos]

Common Rider – Classics of Love – Last Wave Rockers – Panic Button – [Ink 19 has a great interview with Jesse Michaels of Common Rider and Operation Ivy]

——– – ——– – ——– – ——–

Big D & The Kids Table – Wailing Pool – The Gypsy Hill LP – Fork In Hand – [Here's a vid of someone playing a video game to this very tune- weird]

Skandalous All-Stars – American Psychopath – Age Of Insects – Shanachie

——– – ——– – ——– – ——–

Skankin’ Pickle – My Hair – Green Album – Dill Records/Asian Man

The Clash – Long Time Jerk – Super Black Market Clash – Epic – [Here go one of dem dere ho'made youtubes of Long Time Jerk]

——– – ——– – ——– – ——–

Bedouin Soundclash – Immigrant Workforce – Sounding a Mosaic – Side One Dummy

Kid British – Part Time Job Shirt & Tie – It Was This Or Football – Mercury Records

——– – ——– – ——– – ——–

Vampire Weekend – M79 – Vampire Weekend – XL – [Here's the Vampire kids doing M79 inna live fashion]

The Valkyrians – Reggae Allnighter – The Beat of Our Street – Stupido*

Secret Cajun Band – Big House – Big House – Razor Boy Records+ – [SCB is still kickin' at least on MySpace, that is]

——– – ——– – ——– – ——–

The Pinstripes – Come On In – Midwest Soundclash – Dashiki Clout Records – [You can hear a lot of great GRR and Pinstripes songs at this dumb ska site]

The Operators 780 – Indecision – The Operators – Longshot Music – [PunkNews has got the 411 on the 780]

The Expos – Blackwater – Blackwater – Stomp

——– – ——– – ——– – ——–

Johnny Nash – Hold Me Tight – Greatest Hits – Black Tiger

Baba Brooks Band – Twilight Zone – Knockout Ska – Heartbeat

Desmond Dekker and The Aces – Intensified ’68 – Best Of – Trojan

——– – ——– – ——– – ——–

Hepcat – Rudies All Around – Right On Time – Hellcat

Jimmy Cliff – Harder They Come – Harder They Come OST – Island

——– – ——– – ——– – ——–

Toots and The Maytals – John James – Intensified! Original Ska 1962-66 – Mango

Dr. Ring-Ding and The Senior All-Stars – Save a Bread/Save a Toast – Dandymite – Moon Ska

——– – ——– – ——– – ——–

Jackie Opel – You’re Too Bad – Single – White

The Upsessions – Cool Ska Time – The New Heavyweight Champion – Moon Ska UK

——– – ——– – ——– – ——–

The Debonaires – Interrupted – Longshout! – Jump Up!

No 1 Station – You Wanna Get Busy With Me – Boss Beat – Rockers Revolt

——– – ——– – ——– – ——–

Ska Cubano – Big Bamboo – Ay Caramba! – Cumbancha

Desorden Publico – Monkey Ska – Estrellas De Caos – RADIO PIRATA

The Ratazanas – King Kong – Ouh La La – Grover

Kinky Coo Coo’s – Hooligans – Co Tonga Tonga – Liquidator

Key: Artist – Title – Album – +=Request *=New
[Notes]

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