Encounters with elistist ska fans...?

Just wondered if anyone else had come across old school ska fans who don't consider anything made beyond 1985 'proper' ska. Usually skinheads and mods. I did some DJing in Bradford for some scooter clubs and all they wanted were the same 60s and 70s ska and two tone tracks played over and over again. I think I heard 54/46 Was My Number about three times that night. But then chatting to some skinheads there, they don't like 2tone and only listen to the 60s Trojan Music. When I chatted to Ranking Rodger from The Beat he said he thought the Americans didn't get the groove right which pissed me off because for one, I thought ska music is all about evolution and change because it's so simple but effective and also he's blatantly never heard The Slackers or The Pietasters or The Aggrolites for groove! Robin from Random Hand told me one gig there was a skinhead skanking to the ska bits and booing during the metal, losing the who concept of a fusion of genres.

Having said that...maybe what's worse is a modern ska-punk fan not knowing their roots...

I've never really had bad experiences with old skinheads, although I did have one strange encounter. He was interested in my views on racism and kept going on about this cover band he knows called the Chocolate Skasouls. He could have been an honest guy. I thought he was but then my friend said, "Do you not think that's a bit strange?" Chocolate Skasouls - Chocolate Arseholes

i've not had encounters with that kind of elititist as such but some people said my old ska band wasn't 'ska enough' cus we had some songs with no offbeat and didn't have brass

We get 'not ska enough' all the time, i guess it's happening with a lot of new bands who prefer to mix in punk/metal/hip hop whatever.

I'm not really into old school ska though. I think it's because the current crop of bands seem to have been raised on nu-metal more than 2tone. And i definitely would not have it any other way. I'm listening to papa roach right now.

phwoar, papa roach? bad times. i like a mix of everything but i'm definately more into the new mash-up breed of ska so that's what my band's are most likely to play. i find it's quite fun cus you can play punk nights, ska nights, general alternative nights and just about any type of night if you tailor your set to include the right songs

I think we tend to go down alright with the old skinhead types... I think we tend to put more emphasis on having a good time and a good dance then playing any certain mix of music. We were the first band to ever play Club Skank which is pretty much exclusively 2 tone and trojan, rocksteady, dancehall... it was one of the best gigs we've ever done. So i haven't really experienced ska elitist...

We have had punk elitists though, people who object to the samples and the rapping, the horns. People who come up and go "You need more heavy bits!"

I think we play to such a massive range of crowds, we're used to criticisms from all angles.

whilst random adding for the old band i added a random band i've never heard of. i then got a good few hundred words email from them talking utter shit about the 'post-modern era' and how insensitive it is the the consumer that they're reduced to a copy paste message in the add box and how we should fuck off for not being punk enough. checked out the band and they had no tracks and about 30 friends and 2 gigs. we played to random hand a week later to a decent crowd, due to random-adds on myspace, god-damn this post-modern era!

great thing is i had just finished my massive essay on music industry/history so they got a proper owning essay style. i'm sure they still suck too

Crusties

Summers wrote:I think it's because the current crop of bands seem to have been raised on nu-metal more than 2tone. And i definitely would not have it any other way. I'm listening to papa roach right now.

Same here. We were all in that nu-metal generation and it definitely shows. You should hear some of our new songs, bringing the nu-metal back And I have proper fond memories of that time - watching Deftones at Leeds Fest brought it back

It is a bit annoying but I guess it's just a hazard of being in a band - I think every genre has similar elitism and you just have to ignore it and keep doing what you do or enjoying what you enjoy. We tend to go down well with the crusty punk crowd, strangely enough.

The funniest one I think is people arguing about the difference between metal genres - apparently there is a difference between deathcore and metalcore. Even when someone tried to point this out to me with examples, they all sounded the same. At least with ska variations it's generally pretty easy to identify what you're listening to.

yeah i was gunna mention metal variations. i play in a metal band, i dunno what subsubsubsubgenre mix we are and id on't care, i like playing it! people have said stuff like 'why have they put a deaaathcore band (which apparently we aren't but i don't know) on a deathblackspeedmetal night?' pfft fools

isn't random hand's song play some ska pretty relevant to this thread?

I wish I could write my thoughts here but I just can't be arsed, I already failed to elaborate elsewhere on the net. Maybe later.

I find modern punk and ska a lot more interesting, there seems to be a whole lot more thought put into both the music and the message. I know some people who love old punk, the stuff where it's defined by the years it came out in (which I don't claim to know), but it mostly feels empty and boring. Shit, I have a hard time listening all the way through one Ramones track let alone the 57 track anthology but I know people who swear by the Ramones as the greatest band ever.
Old ska generally sits with me better, I could listen to Toots for hours but it's still kinda samey. I mean sure I know all the old stuff laid the foundations of what's coming out these days but that doesn't mean it's better, it's probably gonna be worse. They had to invent shit old black and white tellies before the 50-odd inches of plasma screen we get these days but I wouldn't wanna watch the old ones would I?

Furious D wrote:Even when someone tried to point this out to me with examples, they all sounded the same. At least with ska variations it's generally pretty easy to identify what you're listening to.

you have to be familiar with the music to be familiar with the variances, all pigs look the same to me, but i'm sure a pig farmer can tell the difference between them quite easily.

And thats what metal fans are, pig farmers!

I think once again we can all agree that the Aggrolites are the best band hands down, regardless of everything else.

I love everything from Trojan reggae/traditional ska to 2 Tone to modern ska. I love pretty much anything ska related, Im not one of those who primarily listens to Desmond Dekker & Symarip nor am I one of those losers that think Reel Big Fish are the best thing sinced sliced bread, I listen to it all.

I wouldn't call these people 'elitist' just because they prefer a different era of ska, thats just what they prefer. At the end of the day, when you go to ska gigs, its all about unity, everybody is brought together for a love of proper music, wether they enjoy the newer stuff or not.

Wreckless Jake wrote:I wouldn't call these people 'elitist' just because they prefer a different era of ska, thats just what they prefer. At the end of the day, when you go to ska gigs, its all about unity, everybody is brought together for a love of proper music, wether they enjoy the newer stuff or not.

we're not talking about just prefering one style of ska here, we're talking the kinda people who will boo any other type of ska band that doesn't fit their stndard, like the guy who booed random hand at the metal bits but skanked at the ska bits or the people that said my band weren't ska enough. they're not exactly trying to unite everyone are they?

Bare (bear? no, bare) in mind that skinhead was kind of a mass youth culture movement...so maybe a lot of them thought of certain types of ska as being what they must like in order to belong...so its an insecurity thing.

or quite possibly, they liked the old sound but not the very different sounding two-tone stuff? i'm sure you don't like every punk band ever, do you only not like them because you're insecure?

it's not like you have to sign up to a genre and label yourself as a BFF.
If ska music started pushing towards a much poppier sound, some of you would enjoy it and go with it, some of you would claim that it isn't as good and continue to listen to the stuff you already do now. this isn't news, this is obvious!

I think the problem isnt what people like and don't like, but what they try to tell others to like and not like.

Thats where the elitist part comes in.

Less than jake fans might not be SB6 fans and thats cool. But if the Less Than Jake fans looked down on the SB6 fans and told them they were wrong and they should like Less Than Jake, thats a problem.

So if somebody comes up and tells a band that they should playing something else, thats a problem to.

Well it would be if anyone cared what people like that say.

Cap'n Lee wrote:or quite possibly, they liked the old sound but not the very different sounding two-tone stuff? i'm sure you don't like every punk band ever, do you only not like them because you're insecure?

it's not like you have to sign up to a genre and label yourself as a BFF.
If ska music started pushing towards a much poppier sound, some of you would enjoy it and go with it, some of you would claim that it isn't as good and continue to listen to the stuff you already do now. this isn't news, this is obvious!

No shit, but I was talking about the dickhead booing and stuff like that.

I prefer more traditionally sounding stuff myself on the whole.

That's not my point.

Cap'n Lee wrote:

Furious D wrote:Even when someone tried to point this out to me with examples, they all sounded the same. At least with ska variations it's generally pretty easy to identify what you're listening to.

you have to be familiar with the music to be familiar with the variances, all pigs look the same to me, but i'm sure a pig farmer can tell the difference between them quite easily

Perhaps - but if you really go and listen to some of these so-called variances, there really is very very little difference. It's not about being able to identify them, just being able to tell them apart from each other. Maybe the metal fan could tell the difference between them somehow, but the differences between the different variations of ska music is more like telling the difference between a pig and a horse.

And yes, 'Play Some Ska' is very relevant!

at college i was the only one in the class to get 100 percent on a metal genres test

If I were you, I'd put that on my CV. I'm not a fan of SB6 but I don't really like hip-hop. I like Random Hand but I also like metal.

I used to like Green Day but then they changed their style. I'll tell the people who listen to them now that they aren't punk anymore. That's not elitist is it, because they aren't actually punk anymore.

old green day - bloomin fun bass lines. didn't really like em anyway but some songs were good

new green day - mushy emo-pop shite