The Slackers.THE SLACKERS have been making timeless ska and reggae music for almost 15 years. Based out of New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. , the group has been described as Lee Perry's Upsetters filtered through Bob Dylan Noun 1. Bob Dylan - United States songwriter noted for his protest songs (born in 1941) Dylan ; a little smooth Americana over some easy skankin' vibes. They have a new album called Peculiar out on Hellcat Records Hellcat Records is a vanity record label based in Los Angeles, California. The label, an off-shoot of Epitaph Records, was started as a partnership between the owner of Epitaph, Brett Gurewitz from Bad Religion and Tim Armstrong of Rancid, the latter of which is generally and as soon as we heard it, we were hooked and grooving. We caught singer/ivory tickler A manual or automatic system for reminding users of scheduled events or tasks. It is used in PIMs, contact management systems and scheduling and calendar systems. Vic Ruggerio on the phone as he was waiting for a train back home. He filled us in on what's what.--Michael Coyle Can you summarize and give us the Cliff's Notes version of The Slackers backstory back·sto·ry n. 1. The experiences of a character or the circumstances of an event that occur before the action or narrative of a literary, cinematic, or dramatic work: ? We've been around for 12 or 13 years and we make real pure, simple ska and reggae music. It's not dancehall dance·hall n. 1. or dance hall A building or part of a building with facilities for dancing. 2. See ragga. dancehall Noun a style of dance-oriented reggae or what you hear on the radio. It's not the popular brand, it's its own little niche of music. Is there a particular name for that niche? It's really just ska or old reggae. It takes from the original reggae sounds, which were really influenced by American R&B, jazz, folk, and early rock styles. Tell us about the unique way The Slackers recorded Peculiar. We did it live, the rhythm section anyway. We were at this club in The Netherlands where we've played a few times and even cut live records, and we just thought we'd ask the sound guy to record the bass and drums. It's the best way to capture that live energy--I mean, it was really played live to a crowd who was dancing and feeling it. Sometimes you can't ever get that feeling in the studio. Five or ten years ago that wouldn't have even been able to happen because all the equipment we'd need to record would have been too heavy and big to take to Europe, but now we can record anywhere. Is the Dutch ska scene better than the US scene? I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. if it's better. The kids out there might have more access to original recordings because they're so close to England. Ska and reggae exploded over there in the '60s and that didn't happen here. So they have easier access. How about the rest of the record? We read that you got to play on some original Motown equipment. Yeah. A friend of ours runs a studio in LA where they have all the original equipment transferred over from Detroit. I got to play a keyboard, and who knows what songs were played on that keyboard. Back in the Motown days the studio was always there and different people would come in and use the equipment. You cover the Bob Dylan song "I Shall Be Released" on Peculiar. Are you Dylan fans and ska fans? We're fans of music. That song, well, that's a prison song; a song about a guy in jail when he shouldn't be. I think it kind of symbolizes a lot of what is going on in the world. Everybody is trapped. And no one is writing protest songs any more. Not even the punks. Somebody needs to say something so we put that and a few other of our own songs on there that just point things out and protest what is going on. We had covered this song and some other Dylan songs before, and we thought this one just fit with the mood of the record. Cool. Are any of you guys involved with the skate scene around New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of ? Not really. I used to always read Thrasher thrasher: see mimic thrush. thrasher Any of 17 species (family Mimidae) of New World songbirds that have a downcurved bill and are noted for noisily foraging on the ground in dense thickets and for loud, varied songs. and the skaters were open to music. We probably get some skaters at our shows. Lately we've been getting more punk kids and rockabilly kids who just want to come out and dance and have a good time. It's pretty cool though that Thrasher calls us up for an interview today because I'm about to meet up with my old punk band, Sick and Mad, and we were always hoping we could be in Thrasher. If someone digs The Slackers and wants to go back to the roots Back to the roots, also called Spurensuche, is a program by the Republic of Austria's well established exchange-programm. Whereby a group of 15 young Israelis, who have Austrian family roots, are invited to Austria and together with 15 young local Austrians do research about their , what do you recommend? Oh man, well there's this label Trojan that keeps putting out these great compilations and sets of original old ska and reggae. I'd definitely recommend anything on the Trojan label. Lee Perry. The Skatalites. |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion