A Perfect Mess

I have felt for a year or so like I was in a music drought in our scene. It's not that there wasn't anything happening, it's just that there wasn't anything exciting happening. Don't get me wrong. There have been some great releases and incredible shows, but it's been kinda ho-hum for a little while. I took a couple years off from the podcast and the blog while I recovered from illness, got married, and had my daughter. Maybe it was me who was ho-hum, but I feel like I am slowly reanimating when I hear music like what I am about to throw at you. Now, I'm a Jersey Girl and a Yankee fan, so as hard as it is for me to throw love North, I have to say again and again that Boston kicks us down some amazing music. I will ALWAYS give love to Boston for music. (I hear the food up there is pretty amazing too...) They do not disappoint. Enter The Pomps. These Boston cats have a great fusion of reggae, pop, trusty old new wave, and just groove. I was told to ca...

I married a jam guy. This ska/reggae/rocksteady enthusiast married a jam guy. It's not news. We have been married a few years. We bonded over a shared love of Bad Religion and Irish coffees several years ago and the rest is history. He is a bass player and a Dead Head. Our musical tastes are both very eclectic and while they overlap in many places, we never had a really prominently shared adoration for a band that made us both go looking for shows and hotels in other cities to see them at. Well, until now.  I have had a good time taking him on Slackers booze cruises and Pietasters shows over the last few years. I have enjoyed showing him my world and my terrible dancing. His love is in the jam scene. I have gone to see him play and equally enjoyed watching the crowds at these colorful festivals and listening to the incredible musicianship I have gotten the chance to see. The people are wonderful and welcoming, but I didn't feel that pulling in my heart the way I do at th...

I can't remember where I was when I first heard the Slackers. I do know I was about 17. A misfit, never really fitting in sort of teenager from North Jersey. It was the mid 90's, and the song was Watch This on a compilation. It kicked me right in the head. From that point on, I was hooked in for good. There was something about the steady groove of the music and the upbeat drag of the vocal that stuck with me and has not let me go since. I had never really listened to anything like this. I had never really heard horns used that way or a bass line like that. This was music that spoke to me somewhere on the inside, in a place I was not able to describe, with a voice I was not really able to find the words for. Now, here I am, a 37 year old mother of two with a full time job, a blog, and a bad ska addiction. I'm still a misfit who never really fit in, living in North Jersey. Only now I have found an entire community of people just like me (and there are a lot of us) who ...

Dancing and drinking and ska bands...OH MY! I recently had the pleasure of taking part in a fascinating Facebook debate on whether or not we are in or on the verge of a Fourth Wave of Ska. There were some more than qualified folks from great bands, folks from around the scene, and all around the country who weighed in on their opinions. What does a new "Wave" actually entail? There were comments about required innovation and fresh style. There were references made to The Aquabats show and the appearance on Yo Gabba Gabba by the Aggrolites. The fact that The Slackers never stopped making great music and touring around the world since the last "wave" hit. Discussions that maybe this resurgence of great shows the last three years or so is simply the swell before the wave. For all we know, the next great scene shifting sound could be in a basement right now... It was also mentioned that it could be coming simply due to the fact that there are heirloom tours again....

I have had few more emotionally and physically complicated years than this one in my life. It was a steady road of giant potholes and speed bumps taking me from emergency rooms to specialists and tests while putting my mental well being and my very nerves through paper shredders. Somewhere between a broken heart and a major health scare, I found my voice again in the embrace of the welcoming arms of an old friend. The ska scene. And the many devoted people in it. This was the year my radio show moved to a new home. My format swap was finally complete. No longer was I commuting to a studio in the next state...but simply my kitchen. The control was mine, and my intentions were finally realized and completed...while I am still ironing out the kinks (and learning all the software). My blog gained it's major following with a lot of help and support from the very artists who inspired it in the first place. It's one thing to be able to freely write about the people that move...

I will admit it. My only knowledge of Texas was what I learned from Urban Cowboy (...I'm slightly obsessed with it) and that the Houston airport smelled like popcorn last time I went through there on my way to San Antonio. I'm not proud. But it seems in Texas, there was also the Bandulus. I was a late Bandulus bloomer. My partner in ska crimes and documentary filming, Randy from Ska Crazy, did an interview with me on his show after we started working on our filming plans. He opened that particular show with the song Ska, Reggae, and Soul by the Bandulus, and that was the first time I had ever heard it. I don't know what it was that hit me the hardest. I am a sucker for vocals, so that was a major factor...but the song itself is just a perfect descriptive of exactly what it talks about. I immediately told Randy I wanted this to be my theme song. I needed some guy to follow me around with a boombox playing this song for the rest of my life. That was it. I was hooked. I fr...

I am so excited about this, I could just spit. The amazing, highly influential, and always delightful King Django will be taking to the road with The Heavy Beat's Matt MacLeod and The Snails for The Version City Tour! It's a total mind-blowing mash-up of talent and from the snippets I hear around about the rehearsals, we are all in for a good damn time. A Perfect Mess is freaking ELATED to be a sponsor of the tour, and I can't wait to get out to see it all go down. The tour is gearing up to kick off in less than two weeks, officially on December 15th in New London, CT. It will run through the balance of 2012 and then through most of January before finishing up in Harrisburg, PA on January 20th. I plan to be there. With bells on. Here is the official press release with a listing of dates and cities...if you don't get out to see this, I don't know what to do with you: V ersion City Tour to Bring New York Ska to the Rest of the East Coast New Brunswick,...