Your local scene?

[Komrad Skank Hoe Jhean]

Im curious about other places and the scene.
Why?
Cause everytime I tell someone, that knows about ska, I live in Florida they go ballistic and are like "OMG you're so lucky! Such a tight scene down there! I bet where ever you go it's awsome with SKAAAA EVERYWHERE!!!!" and Im like.....complatly lost here lol.
Most local bands consist of heavy metal COB followers. And we actually recently had COB (Children of Bodum) down here.

You come to most schools and the main scenes are either new and prissy with pop-rock and alt. (usually for newer schools and build community areas) ----complete ghetto with 70-90% black in the projects (theres alot of areas that are old as shat) and listen to mostly newer rap------and then we have the middle, like my school that has alot of newer rap ghetto, and then the alt rock people (majority of every sub group that people think they are like jock, prep, geek, punk etc)---and then the largest group of people (usually go to lunch in like groups of 30-40 and have exstending friends in groups that are the same) and think thy are hardcore metal and think they are the coolest and do crap for attention and think everything they do is original. They are annoying smile alot of them act the same and you can always here them going on about all the cool cloths they have cause tahst their main concern besides haveing COBs, COFs and HIMS babies. (No, im not being judgemental...I've actually hung out with these people many times and im rather sick of them because not many of them are independant or have much common sence and refues to listen to anything unless it's labeled "metal or goth" so narrow minded....-__-).

And then there is the recent sub group I found.
The ska.
I was so happy when I met Erin last year and her band of Open minded people. Theres about 30 people I know that are either juniors, seniors or all ready grad that are from my school and know and like ska. And tehy all are kick a** people. They all hang with other groups of people too and are nice and awsome.
I have friends this year!!!! biggrin

Im assuming most schools are this way cause I talk to kids at shows and they say the same thing, besides the like hidden group of a handful of ska kids that also hang with other groups, ska is REALLY scattered. It's not a really bad thing...it's just sort of hard to find and can be annoying cuse I didn't get good friends that I didn't secretly hate till this year o__o and Im junior. Damn I suck.

So Im wondering what the scenes are like in other areas compared to the "wonderful unified" Tampa, Florida. : )

(Sorry if I seemed to attack the whole metal scene, but damn...everyone I meet in it is a b*****d lol).  

[Electric Uncle Akuma]

Heh, I've never heard of Florida being a unified Ska scene before.
Well, here in Michigan our Ska scene is pretty unified depending on where you are. In my town, I, along with three other kids, are Rudies. Which is bizarre because one of my friends is my only tight Rudie friend. The other two seem to hate me, for whatever reason. Around my town though, Grand Rapids for instance is really tight and unified amongst them. The Rudies are very prominent there, it's a nice place to go for a good time.

Though here, in my town, all the kids are very emo, or belong to a very distinct sort of emo. The ocasionaly punk tends to hate everyone in the town, and all the kids in the "scene" just pretend like Rudies don't exist. At all. It's pretty bizarre, and if the kids know about ska, they hate it for the horns which confuses the ******** out of me. Anyway, if you find Rudies around here we stick close. But otherwise we're scattered pretty scaresly around the state.  

[Noriko_Mimura]

The music scene around here is depressing. All the local bands are like... screamo. Or metal or something of that nature... But, no matter the genre, there is one constant: They are all bad. We have one ska band. That does all covers. They're surprisingly good, but it's a little tragic. My friend's older brother refers to them as The Ska Band. Ugh, and whatever show it is... All the people do is stand and stare at the band. Tsunami Bomb came to Fargo, and no one even moved for them. Well, there are mosh pits. Sort of. Attempted mosh pits. I try to steer clear of them, however. I'm not a mosher.

*sigh* Damned small-city sub-cultures.  

[Komrad Skank Hoe Jhean]

Screamo is...annoying...alot of the metal groupies listen to that stuff and call it metal. No idea. Made them more stuck up and annoying than last year.
Sometimes we will have a metal band play with like 3 or 4 ska/punk bands and most the people that show up are soly for the screamo metal and then they walk out and disrespect the ska/punk and be dicks to everyone, even when most the ska/punk people stay and mosh for the metal.They just try and have fun while most the metal scene kids are dicks, and some even go to the shows just to laugh at the people cause they think they're better.

Why do all the HxC kids refuse to wear camo? So that they can be scene.
ha ha ha...>___>;;
Yea, a show almost sucks when theres not circle pit or something going on and no one moves for the band.  

[Ivan The Somekinda-Punk]

Most of New Jersey is a buncha emo/screamo pussies. And "All My Friends Are Metalheads" couldn't be any more true. I have my punk friends, and my brother and I are fairly well known in the area for reasons we can't explain, but I mostly associate with the metalheads for some reason. The ska scene is spread thin. But get us all together and we're huge. But be warned, there is a difference between the south Jersey crowd and the north Jersey crowd. North Jersey rudies are cunts. Seriously, these kids couldn't form a ska pit if you outlined one on the ground. And I highly doubt unity is even in their vocab. -_-  

[Hobbes]

Ska needs to stay hidden, because it'll just be bastardized like every other genre that gains a bit of spot light.

Hell, it's already starting.  

[Electric Uncle Akuma]

Hobbes

Ska needs to stay hidden, because it'll just be bastardized like every other genre that gains a bit of spot light.

Hell, it's already starting.

Strongly agreed.
I don't think I could stand a water-downed version.
Let alone the scene kids that would come from it.  

[Duskalts]

I swear, if MTV screws up Ska.... I'll going to their headquarters and burn
them to the ground! scream (I mean, I was going to do that anyway...but that's besides the point.) It broke my heart when the Mighty Mighty BossTones music video played. (Long ago..Though it was a good song.)

gonk My school contains a small amount of people who listen to some Ska and an even smaller portion of that indulge themselves in it... The people who I found out like Ska are total a** wholes! There's a couple who are really nice but I can't bring myself to talk to them, so I hang out with most of my gothy friends... But even though we have the greatest time doing everything you can imagine, anytime Ska is brought up they go and start bashing it....I have no problem with them not liking it, but it's annoying when they say 'Ska Sucks' any chance they get.

For christmas I just want a person who I can take to any Ska show and they won't complain every 3 minutes!  

[Mr. Fascist]

We have our "punks" (spiked belts, converse, band ts, a guy with a mohawk), "gangstars" (rich suberbia kids trying to look cool with clothes 10 sizes too big), and emo's....It's creepy with the emo kids. I can't tell the guys from the girls. Blah! There's like four people I know who also love ska, but that is the basis of our population. Most of the ska kids won't say it because they want to appeal to the punk group. *shrug* At least it helps Operation Ivy and Suicide Machines.  

[Leveller]

Hobbes

Ska needs to stay hidden, because it'll just be bastardized like every other genre that gains a bit of spot light.

Hell, it's already starting.

hell it started in the 60's with desmond, skatalites and company, playing their music on clubs and wanted to become famous and rich!
and the same with 2-tone bands, they didn't wanna be hidden...and they wasn't...ska ain't supposed to be hidden, it's supposed to be played at your night clubs for everyone to listen to!
except for ska-punk, that could stay hidden in a dark closet....serious? it killed and ruined ska music....but that's just my opinion.

It dosen't have to be necessary played on MTV, but if I turned on MTV or my Radio I rather hear a ska song then Hip-Hop...but again this is just my opinion...  

[Duskalts]

Leveller

It dosen't have to be necessary played on MTV, but if I turned on MTV or my Radio I rather hear a ska song then Hip-Hop...but again this is just my opinion...

It's not how popular it gets... It's more or less how the incoming 'new lovers of Ska' will affect the genre! I love witnessing those rare moments when Ska reveals itself on the surface, I squeal with glee, then start jumping up and down wordlessly,pointing at the item-sound-etc. But if it becomes a new media icon... Well, it'll run it's course and if some of the bands we all know and love decide Ska's out.... crying

It might also have a chance to flourish and become the next best thing!

It's special from all the other genre's because it isn't massively known to everyone. Some people don't even know what it is. I hate not having to share Ska with anyone at my school, but I think that it's better than having every single kid there wearing suits and trying to out-skank each other during lunch...
I wouldn't mind that many suits in one area ( heart )... But I would kinda miss being one of the few at school who know about it and love it to death...  

[AnonymousJoe]

we have no ska scene. only a hardcore scene and punk scene which are basically interrelated, im part of it but we only have like 5 bands that are ska while we have like 50 that are punk or hardcore but avoid this scene is possible, ******** squad and thug squad and FSU suck  

[Noriko_Mimura]

Didn't ska already have its fifteen minutes of mainstream fame?  

[409 in your coffee]

Our ska scene in Northeastern PA is prettly good.

Well at anytime other than winter. If you travel abour 20 minutes to this tiny cafe you can see such names as:

- Big D and the Kids Table
- Slightly Askew
- The Toasters
- The Plantet Smashers

And we had Streetlight Manifesto, Voodoo Glowskulls in my home town at an under 21 night at a club. It was ******** great. (Ska is dead 2 or 3 I don't recall)

Other than that it is heavy metal, usually sucks, and alternative rock which isn't so bad.

I know what you mean about the groups at school, there are people you see in school that you have seen a numerous times at a shows and you just feel a bond between you from the music you share intrest in. It's good stuff, I love how people walk up to me and ask what the significance of the streetlight patch is on the hood of my hoodie, or the toasters patch on my back. They have no clue.

I think it is nice that it's mostly underground, otherwise everyone would love it and it wouldn't feel so special.

We do have John Mayer type of bands that all the preppy people go to. (The ones that get drunk rather than high)

Tis funny here it is
Jocks = lets get really drunk and make signs for our meaningless football games and box.

Ska people = Smoke up and listen to some really good music.

It's an easy choice.

(The one guy from The Toasters came down after his set and had a chatted with all the kids that were left at the show. We asked him questions like where he was influenced, and he told us to listen to the Skatalites, which are great.)  

[Leveller]

I could ad this to, for the one interested, the swedish ska-scene is pretty darn good, with some real good domestic bands and every now and then some foreign bands come over and play to!
so, any one interested in swedish ska, add me on msn or yahoo and I'll send some after the holidays (will be home after 5/1)...