In a 2008 ESPN poll, Boston ranked 5th among viewers as “Title Town, USA.” By 2011, various publications were declaring Boston to be Title Town. What’s all this got to do with a ska show?
Currently in the middle of a string of sold out Boston shows, the veteran punk/ska band announces their followup to 2005’s “A Weakness For Spirits”
Paper + Plastick records released a punk and ska compilation featuring 100 songs and almost 5 hours of music
Local punk band Stray Bullets have teased three songs from their upcoming album and interview with Dying Scene
Rogue 617 and Middlesex Lounge in Cambridge will host a semi-acoustic evening with some of the best talent and musicianship in the Boston ska scene
The relatively dormant punk/ska band Have Nots released a single at the end of 2013 entitled “Heartland” on their bandcamp page. The announcement was made on their Facebook page noting a birthday dedication to lead singer Jon Cazutik’s father who would have been celebrating his 100th birthday. This heartfelt punk jam grabbed me immediately and fans of the band will appreciate it.
This compilation of New England punk bands contains some great Boston ska tracks; Proceeds goto benefit One Fund and the American Brain Tumor Association
We’re a bit late to the party here, but we’d be remissed not to mention the latest Big D and The Kids Table video for “Best of Them All.” The song is off their summer 2011 release For the Damned, the Dumb & The Delirious on SideOnedummy Records. I generally dug the record. It was very much in the vein of “How It Goes” or “Strictly Rude.” Dying Scene has a pretty thorough review. Midway into raising money for their new record on Kickstarter (much more on that later), Big D released this video as a reward/incentive to backers. Similarly, they released a pretty cool video for “Rotten” from the same record exclusively to backers and then made that public (though I couldn’t find it on YouTube or Vimeo).
Check the video below. Take a drink every time you recognize someone from the Have Nots. Cheers!
Boston punk act Stray Bullets have re-released their 2004 album, “The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune” on their own bandcamp. Originally released on Fork in Hand records, it’s hard to come by online (Interpunk is sold out and Amazon has a few copies for $80). I’d only heard of the band having read the bio of the Have Nots, but I finally got to see them when they opened up Skalapalooza this past October. They sounded just about like a proto-have-nots act (so, for fans of Rancid and Suicide Machines) and that was just fine with me.