Ska is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat. It was developed in Jamaica in the 1960s when Stranger Cole, Prince Buster, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems to play American rhythm and blues and then began recording their own songs. In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods and with many skinheads.
Timothy Ross Armstrong is an American Grammy Award-winning musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, filmmaker, music video director, and actor. Known for his distinctive hoarse and soulful voice, he is the singer/guitarist for the punk rock band Rancid and hip hop/punk rock supergroup Transplants. Prior to forming Rancid, Armstrong was in the ska punk band Operation Ivy.
The Selecter are a 2 Tone ska revival band from Coventry, England, formed in mid-1979.
The Beat are a band founded in Birmingham, England, in 1978. Their music fuses Latin, ska, pop, soul, reggae and punk rock.
"Comfortably Numb" is a song on Pink Floyd's eleventh album, The Wall (1979). It was released as a single in 1980 with "Hey You" as the B-side. The music was composed by guitarist David Gilmour, and lyrics were written by bassist Roger Waters.
Ska-P is a Spanish ska punk band formed in 1994 in Vallecas, a district of Madrid, by a group of friends from Madrid, Navarre and Euskadi
Streetlight Manifesto is an American ska punk band from New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States, formed in 2002. They released their first album, Everything Goes Numb, which was distributed by Victory Records, on August 26, 2003. The band headlined and sold out their first concert at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey on December 9, 2003. Several of Streetlight Manifesto's members were well known in the New Jersey third wave ska community for their roles in past ska punk bands from that area, primarily Kalnoky's Catch 22 and fellow New Jersey band One Cool Guy.
The Insyderz were an American Christian ska-punk band from Detroit, Michigan. They formed in 1996 and disbanded in 2005. The band reformed in 2009, but have not been actively playing shows in the last few years. The Insyderz are one of the "big three" bands which represented the Christian ska scene, alongside the Supertones and Five Iron Frenzy.
The Orange County Supertones were a Christian ska band from Orange County, California. The band was signed to Tooth & Nail Records and its imprint, BEC Recordings, before becoming an independent band. The band temporarily disbanded in 2005, though reunited in 2010 to resume touring and recording before permanently disbanding in 2017. The OC Supertones were one of the first widely successful Christian ska bands.
Athena is a rock/ska band from Istanbul, Turkey, founded by twin brothers Hakan Özoğuz and Gökhan Özoğuz in 1987. They have released 8 albums and featured as the Turkish entry to the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "For Real", finishing fourth.
Catch 22 is an American ska punk band from East Brunswick Township, New Jersey. The band was formed in 1996 by guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Tomas Kalnoky, who left the band in 1998 and later formed Streetlight Manifesto.
Founding members still in the band are vocalist/saxophonist Ryan Eldred, trumpeter Kevin Gunther and drummer Chris Greer. While largely inactive since 2012, the band announced a spate of shows in 2015.
Suburban Legends are an American ska punk band that formed in Huntington Beach, California, in 1998 and later based themselves in nearby Santa Ana. After building a fanbase in the Orange County ska scene through their numerous regular performances at the Disneyland Resort, a series of lineup changes in 2005 introduced elements of funk and disco into the group's style.
The Planet Smashers are a Canadian ska punk band from Montreal. Since their formation in 1993, they have been a staple of the Montreal music scene. During the third wave of ska, they performed nationally and later internationally, with tours in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Founding member Matt Collyer helped establish Stomp Records in 1994, which featured many ska and ska punk bands, including Montreal's The Kingpins, The Flatliners, The Know How, and Bedouin Soundclash. Their music has been used in the Japanese flash series Catman, Canadian show Radio Free Roscoe, and MTV's Undergrads. Lyrics by The Planet Smashers often deal with topics such as love, partying and good times, and sometimes use tongue-in-cheek innuendo.
Link 80 was an American punk rock/ska punk band from San Francisco's East Bay, United States.
Victor "Vic" Ruggiero, is a musician, songwriter and producer from New York City who has played in reggae, blues, ska and rocksteady bands since the early 1990s, including The Slackers, Stubborn All-Stars, SKAndalous All Stars, Crazy Baldhead and The Silencers. He has also performed with punk rock band Rancid, both live and in the studio. He has released four solo acoustic albums and continues to tour and record worldwide. Ruggiero is known primarily as a singer and organist, although he also plays piano, bass, banjo, cigar box guitar, guitar, harmonica and percussion.
Deal's Gone Bad is a band from Chicago, Illinois. Their sound mixes reggae, rocksteady, and ska music with American soul. They have been together since 1994, with numerous lineup changes over the years. The current incarnation has been mostly stable since 2003. The band hews to a more traditional ska-reggae sound while many others working in the genre morphed into a more punk variety.
The Skatalites are a ska band from Jamaica. They played initially between 1963 and 1965, and recorded many of their best known songs in the period, including "Guns of Navarone." They also played on records by Prince Buster and backed many other Jamaican artists who recorded during that period, including Bob Marley & The Wailers, on their first single Simmer Down. They reformed in 1983 and have played together ever since.
Distemper is a Russian ska punk band from Moscow that was founded in 1989 and is also successful outside of Russia.
The Rocksteady 7 or "David Hillyard & the Rocksteady Seven", is an American Ska and Jazz band from New York, New York that formed in 1992. Since the early 1990s the group has consisted of tenor saxophonist and band leader Dave Hillyard as well as percussionist Larry McDonald. In live performances, they are supported by a rotating cast of musicians, including drummer Eddie Ocampo and Dave Wake on keys among others.
BeNuts are a German ska band from Munich.
