When I first discovered punk, it wasn’t my thing. Then one day I saw my first ska show—and everything fit into place. Ska helped me understand punk. A few years later I was DJing on the community radio and spinning reggae songs in the punk nightclub. Then I left it all behind for Korea.

Coming here, I practically fell into the punk scene. I found everything I needed here—everything except ska. Around that time, the only ska band playing was Beach Valley, and they sucked more than Ashlee Simpson’s vacuum cleaner. The Skunk compilation I bought didn’t impress me either, with Brassman and the most godawful of godawful bands, Lazybone.

It was all ska-punk, which I’ve said is neither ska nor punk. Lacking the soulful groove of ska and the relevance of punk, I’ve never been able to enjoy any of it anywhere. Back in my hometown we called it frat-ska, because it appeals to university idiots who think it’s cool to pretend to be James Bond and then jump around on the dancefloor like retards on the moon. Ska-punk attracted the people we hated, and none of the big bands came from the underground like we did.

I was disappointed that there was no ska. There’s nothing wrong with Korea’s ska-punk bands—except Lazybone, who can choke on their own testicles—but I can’t bring myself to like any of them as much as I love the real ska sound. I will never respect their influences.

When Kingston Rudy Ska came about, I wasn’t optimistic. It even took a couple shows before I got into them, partly due to a weak response from the kids in Skunk.

What I needed was a band that understood the roots. And that’s what we got. A band that harkens back to ska’s roots—not in Korea, not in fucking California, all the way back to, well, Kingston.

This band is for you if you like the sound of the Skatalites. In every way possible, they reproduce the music of the Skatalites, although sometimes I wonder how familiar they are with the other bluebeat musicians. With a setlist filled with originals and covers, they’re worth going to see, but only if you like dancing.

One humourous note to me is the two Skatalites songs they cover—”Guns of Navarone,” which is usually the high point of their set, and “A Shot in the Dark.” Neither of which, ironically, are Skatalites originals, but movie soundtracks, as the early ska bands loved making music about their favourite movies. It kind of reminds me of all the Korean (and Japanese) bands I’ve heard cover the Clash classic “I Fought the Law,” without acknowledging the song belongs to Sonny Curtis.

The real low point for me is a reggae song from Bob Marley, “Three Little Birds.” I wish they’d dug back a little farther and found some of the Wailers’ original ska stuff, rather than relying on the hits, and one of the weaker ones at that.

Some songs come and go as the band goes through singers. Their original vocalist was from skate-punk band Half Brothers, an odd pair-up, but he left for the army. Since then, they’ve had a parade of new singers coming through. At the moment, it seems that the sax and trombone players are in charge of vocal duties. From what I’ve seen, they’re doing a decent job of it as well.

I do miss the organ player, who left the band so he could rejoin Crying Nut when the members were released from the army.

Eccentricities aside, this band will be the foundation of the Korean ska scene. There’s a good crowd of ska fans out there, and most of them are musicians. Our next step is to get a band that looks good on a bill alongside the Kingston Rudies.

It’s kind of a problem right now; every ska show has the same bands, but only one plays ska. Suck Stuff and Ghetto Bombs do their best to put together a ska set, and Number One Korean plays crowd-amusing ska punk, and there’s Dub Spain doing their Sublime rock thing and somehow passing it off as rocksteady. It’s not rocksteady; just listen to the rhythm.

How do we make Korea’s ska scene grow? Look what’s out there now, even in Malaysia and Japan. Ignore ska-punk. Ignore Sublime—I’m tired of hearing Sublime covers. They don’t even play ska half the time. Even push aside Bob Marley, if you can get that through your skull. Don’t let the big names eclipse you. We need Korean two-tone, Korean rocksteady, Korean skinhead reggae. By the way, dibs on that last one.

Kingston Rudy Ska are a revival band. Isn’t it about time to make Korean ska come alive?

I’ve heard that dub was the soundtrack to punk. Back in 1970s London, there were no punk records to play, so punk hangout the Roxy let Rastafarian DJ Don Letts spin his dub records. Punk came to maturity with that sound. Go back ten years earlier and meet the first skinheads, and they all listened to reggae. Today, the relationship between punks and Jamaican music is less clear, but it’s worth keeping alive.

Aggrolites (US skinhead reggae)
Chris Murray (Canadian acoustic ska)
Dr Ring Ding (German skinhead dancehall)
Laurel Aitken (UK skinhead ska)
Mad Bomber Society (Canadian third-wave ska)
Irie Beats (US traditional ska)
Mikey Dread (DJ punky reggae)
Trojan Records (original skinhead reggae label)
downloadable skinhead reggae
Scrapy (German skinhead ska)
Ska-D-Lite (Dutch roots ska)
The Slackers (Brooklyn soul)
Yebo (German ska/rocksteady/reggae)