Metro Pulse/Gamut/Ska

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What:
Will Rock For Food Benefit for Second Harvest Food Bank

Who:
Perfect Orange, I Voted for Kodos, The Taj Motel Trio, Joey's Loss and Mr. Self-Reliant

When:
Friday, Nov. 14, 7 p.m.

Where:
ThInQ Tank

Cost:
$8 or 5 cans of food

Ska bands create an underground scene with a Knoxville hub

by Paige M. Travis

Ska was forefront in the public consciousness most recently in the mid- to late-'90s when the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, No Doubt and Sublime were the hottest bands on radio and MTV. While these bands had been around for several years, paying homage to the late '70s ska revival that mixed punk with lazy, Jamaican-reggae beats (and sometimes horn sections), perhaps alternative rock listeners in the post-grunge days were ready for pop music with attitude, fun songs with an edge.

Ben Altom wasn't yet a teenager during the third-wave ska revival, but his devotion to the genre has nothing to do with its mainstream popularity. Altom is the trombonist, trumpet player and mastermind behind Perfect Orange, a five-piece outfit that bills itself as Knoxville's only ska band. All graduates of Powell High School and its marching band, the young band members established themselves as Perfect Orange (after free-associating with a newspaper headline about the Vols' championship win and tossing in an allusion to the California county where several ska bands originate) in May 2002, but they've only been playing seriously since January.

Perfect Orange has played all-ages shows at the now-defunct Axis Skate Park and at Brickyard Blues, a restaurant/rock venue located right next to their alma mater. Last summer, Brickyard was the scene of many Perfect Orange shows that also introduced the crowd to out-of-town ska bands like I Voted for Kodos (IV4K) from Wisconsin and The Taj Motel Trio from Georgia. Altom, who is pursuing a major of his own creation—commercial music management—at UT, has tapped into a network of ska bands across the country, giving them a place to play in Knoxville and, in turn, places for Perfect Orange to play on their first tour in December.

"The whole key has been to make friends along the East Coast so we can go out and do a tour, so we have buddies to help us out along the way," Altom says. Such a network is even more necessary to the ska scene because the genre is "underground," he says; it has pockets of popularity, like in Washington, DC, but it's not dominating radio at the moment except in the shadows of pop-punk bands like Good Charlotte or Blink 182.

"When a ska band gets an e-mail from another ska band, they're so excited to hear that there are actually other ska bands out there that they do everything they can to help," says Rick Bisenius, who sings lead and plays trombone for IV4K.

The bands Altom has brought to Knoxville have created a small ska scene whose members are mostly under 21, and sometimes under 18. When so few of Knoxville's venues are open to kids who can't drink, Perfect Orange is challenged to find other spaces to perform; a recent show found them in a garage in suburban Farragut, playing for the homeowners and a slew of their teenage daughter's friends.

The Brickyard shows drew many fans from Powell. Their numbers peaked in April when 250 kids packed the restaurant space. Shows in the summer drew just over 100, and then tapered to 50 or 60 into August, before school started. The sustained success or ultimate failure of any music scene is something of a mystery, but Altom has his suspicions about why his ska shows brought out fans in such numbers.

"Part of it is that's the only thing going on," Altom says. "Another part of it is the kids really, really like the music, and it's something different that they're not going to hear often—definitely not on the radio."

Good Charlotte and Blink 182 have captured the attention of young audiences; their energetic sound is a good introduction to ska. Plus, a ska show is more exciting than yet another trip to the mall.

"A live ska show is a lot of fun because you have that pop punk thing with the horn section that's just crazy. We're out in the crowd, playing solos in the crowd. I mean, it's a lot of fun."

Taj Motel Trio and IV4K cater to the younger set.

"Most of the show we do are all-ages," says Ben Sanders, guitarist and vocalist for Taj. "Taj is about unity, and we don't like for anyone to be left out."

"I think that we make an effort to only play all-ages shows more than any other band we know," says Bisenius. "The Will Rock For Food show in Knoxville will be only the second 18-and-over show in the four-year history of our band.... We've also managed to play only five 21-and-over shows... This has created a lot of difficulties for our band, but has also proved to be very rewarding." IV4K booked its own national tour and sought out places open to younger fans—veterans halls, teen centers and all-ages clubs. "The reward was a series of shows with very energetic and enthusiastic crowds. High school and college students tend to put more of themselves into a live performance," Bisenius says.

Meeting some resistance within your music scene seems to be par for the course with ska bands. Altom recollects with humor a gig Perfect Orange played in Birmingham, Ala., at a venue he fondly describes as "a hole with a P.A. in it. And it smelled funky." The club owner swore that PO would fit into the bill—which they ended up sharing with four hardcore bands. "We're getting dirty looks from all these mohawked, pierced, hardcore kids that have been to Hot Topic one too many times. It was just bad. We played our set to about 15 kids inside while the rest were outside making fun of us. It was great."

Altom and Co. lost about $80 making the trip, but they wrote the gig off as a practice with a bonus road trip. The business of being in a band isn't about making the big bucks—it's about loving what you do. And the people who play ska feel passionately about the genre, even if it's not widely recognized. Altom says he still encounters people who don't know what "ska" is.

Ska developed in the '60s as the popular music of Jamaica, blending the country's traditional folk tunes with Caribbean calypso, American R&B and plenty of other ingredients. The main elements were a jazz horn section (trumpet, trombone and sax) and the driving rhythm emphasized in R&B. Although ska lost its appeal in its native country to a half-speed version called rocksteady (which developed into reggae), the high-energy style was adopted by British punk rockers in the late '70s, early '80s, who mixed into their own fast beats and political statements. Bands like the Specials, Madness and English Beat were wildly popular in the U.K. These bands, who made some inroads into U.S. audiences, mostly existed as cult figures and influences for the third wave of ska revival led by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and No Doubt.

As is the case in all music genres, what constitutes ska isn't pure, and it's always changing, adapting to the times. Altom puts Perfect Orange's sound on the ska-punk side of things, but they give themselves space to develop. He's particularly excited about the four new songs they wrote in September that will appear on a disc they plan to record next February.

"We're more of a hybrid of everything," he says. "We're trying to find our own sound, but we're not just playing pop punk with horns, and we're not just playing ska. It's really its own mix of everything."

Bisenius agrees that IV4K fits into the ska category, but there's no mold that dictates the genre's sound.

"The songs on our first album definitely fit right into the third-wave ska category. However, on our second album, as with our newer material, we've made an effort to expand our music by adding influences from the broader punk/ska/hardcore/emo genre. We've added more keyboards and moog. We've also started writing more songs that don't rely on the traditional 'ska guitar' up-beats."

While a fourth-generation ska revival would bring more horn players into the rock scene and boost the careers of ska bands like Perfect Orange, IV4K and Taj Motel Trio, none of these bands seems to be holding its collective breath. For now, they fit into their individual scenes and keep connected to the national ska network.

"If you're attempting to get all over the radio and on MTV, ska has as good of a chance of getting you there as jug-band music," Bisenius says. "If we were going to start a band simply with the goal of getting famous, we would have started an emo band or a synth-rock band. Our goal as a ska band has always been to play well-written, entertaining songs and show off that horns can rock just as hard as any distorted guitar."

Although so many bands get together and call it quits before they've been together a year and a half, Perfect Orange is a young band with years ahead of them. Several members just began playing their instruments since Perfect Orange's birth. Zac Johnson picked up the guitar during his and Altom's freshman year at UT. He also took singing lessons from a friend who is an opera major. Out of necessity, baritone sax player Ryan Lambert became a drummer, and his skills have impressed drum students who can't believe he's only been playing 18 months.

Altom sees the arc of his band's growth—from an early show at which they feared being booed off the stage to the December tour that will include DC, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York and New Jersey. They plan to record a studio CD to follow up their Extra Pulp, a mixed-bag of studio tracks, live cuts and even two acoustic numbers. Call it ska unplugged.

Not yet 21, Altom is serious about music. He has the future planned out, including his band's ultimate success.

"Perfect Orange is going to make it. That's going to happen. Everything else is backup right now."