Yesterday, the second volume in the “What Do You Know About Ska Punk?” series was released. The expansive collection contains 170 songs, toppling volume 1 which was still pretty intense at 135 tracks, released just one year earlier.
We were excited to see a number of regional acts featured on the compilation. Here they are for your listening convenience in no particular order.
The Copacetics (RI) – “The Vulture,” an instrumental from their 2016 album “Ska-Royale”
Threat Level Burgundy (MA) – “1-Up!” from their 2017 album “The Longest Day
Zeme libre (ME) – “Scorned” off of 2017’s “War on the One” features a trombone solo that MUST be played by vinny Nobile of Pilfers and Bim Skala Bim.
The Hempsteadys (CT) – “Rudy Comes from the Streets (Live)” from 2017 live at Cafe Nine
Sweet babylon (MA) – “Superstar” from 2015 “Ideal Personality”
Please let us know if we missed any other New England bands featured on this comp! You also be pleased to know only 9 of the bands have names containing the word “ska” and only 8 names follow the format “Blank and the Blanks.” Not bad!
Other highlights include tracks from I Voted For Kodos, Monkey, Matamoska, and Warsaw who I haven’t heard from since I lived in Tucson 10 years ago. The truth is, there are lots of great songs scattered across this comp, I just haven’t gotten through all of them. Honestly, it’s a little overwhelming. This feels more like a playlist than a compilation, meant to be played on shuffle. I offer this unsolicited advice to the folks who did the hard work of corralling these bands: spread the tracks out across a full year. Instead of a single release of 170 songs, how about 12 monthly releases of about 14 songs each? It would give a little bit more attention to each batch of bands and I think it would be easier to for fans to digest.
I’m told that physical copies are available from the bands. How many CD did that take? It must be reminiscent of 90s-era boxed sets that contained 4+ cds and entire band catalogs. This collection is available exclusively via bandcamp and $10 gets you the downloads. That’s only a nickel a song! Did we mention there are a lot of songs on this?