Skatallica.
After getting Verve Pipe's "Freshman" and Train's "Drops of Jupiter" stuck in my head over the past two days, I decided I needed to bleed out the rash of loops that has plagued me lately. And the best way I know of to do that is to listen to Skatallica's debut, self-titled album.
Skatallica was not, as the name might suggest, a cover band that uses horns and downbeat to mutate (or mutilate) Metallica. Although Metallica is, to the best of my knowledge, from where Skatallica's name originated.
Don't get me wrong: Skatallica was a ska band, based out of Flemington, New Jersey and the surrounding municipalities that comprised the Hunterdon Central Regional High School district. The players numbered, I believe, seven. And were students at the aforementioned high school. They had several songs and played a few shows at a local "restaurant" called King Buffet. I attended most.
Skatallica cut one album. It was short (about 20 minutes) and had, roughly, eight songs. Including an authorized cover of Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl." And one about an Italian ice franchise setting up shop in town. It was well made, given its humble origins.
The thing is...this album has some very catchy tunes, after a fashion. Catchy enough to drown out other catchy songs that might dwell on your cerebral cortex for days. But not so catchy as to actually become lodged there themselves. Useful.
I searched for any reference to Skatallica elsewhere on the Internet, but could not find a trace that the band ever existed. Which means, well-meaning though I am, I cannot point you toward a purveyor of goods that would have a copy of the above-referenced album for sale. I suppose I could post the songs I have--I do have a copy of the album from those heady days before the turn of the millennium when ska was king--but I would imagine some kind of copyright infringement lawsuit would result. Not from the band members, mind you. They would almost certainly be more pleased at seeing their name in "print" than they would be litigious. Rather, I suspect Van Morrison's high-priced attorneys would haul me into court before I could hit "Publish Post." Maybe if you ask me nicely, I'll send you a taste...
Skatallica was not, as the name might suggest, a cover band that uses horns and downbeat to mutate (or mutilate) Metallica. Although Metallica is, to the best of my knowledge, from where Skatallica's name originated.
Don't get me wrong: Skatallica was a ska band, based out of Flemington, New Jersey and the surrounding municipalities that comprised the Hunterdon Central Regional High School district. The players numbered, I believe, seven. And were students at the aforementioned high school. They had several songs and played a few shows at a local "restaurant" called King Buffet. I attended most.
Skatallica cut one album. It was short (about 20 minutes) and had, roughly, eight songs. Including an authorized cover of Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl." And one about an Italian ice franchise setting up shop in town. It was well made, given its humble origins.
The thing is...this album has some very catchy tunes, after a fashion. Catchy enough to drown out other catchy songs that might dwell on your cerebral cortex for days. But not so catchy as to actually become lodged there themselves. Useful.
I searched for any reference to Skatallica elsewhere on the Internet, but could not find a trace that the band ever existed. Which means, well-meaning though I am, I cannot point you toward a purveyor of goods that would have a copy of the above-referenced album for sale. I suppose I could post the songs I have--I do have a copy of the album from those heady days before the turn of the millennium when ska was king--but I would imagine some kind of copyright infringement lawsuit would result. Not from the band members, mind you. They would almost certainly be more pleased at seeing their name in "print" than they would be litigious. Rather, I suspect Van Morrison's high-priced attorneys would haul me into court before I could hit "Publish Post." Maybe if you ask me nicely, I'll send you a taste...
5 Comments:
Don't make me haul your ass to court. Gertz will be a JD soon and she's hard ass litigious.
I think aaron has the rights to the songs but it's not like you'd be cheating anyone out of real money...unless he still has a big stack of cd's in his parent's basement, a very real possibility.
Just found this site very randomly and I am very amused. Must leave now or the hospital will violate me.
Love, Thumb
I don't think you want to haul my ass into court. I'll have a JD soon as well, and have been brushing up on my IP law to boot. Gertz may meet her match...
HAHAHA, I was bored and decided to google my old band and look what came up..... Yo, fuck that shit..... we sold out of Skatallica cds..... A while back. we got mistaken for reel big fish on napster (when it was free) for the brown eyed girl cover, so I changed all the album and band ID tag info to "Reel Big Fish" "7 inches" so they will live on forever. I am glad you guys are still doing well.....
Jake
The funny part of all this is, if you google 'skatallica', a bunch of 16 & 17 year olds' myspace accounts turn up. That would place them at about 6 years old when the cd was cut. Is the CD really that prolific, or do they want the notoriety of knowing obscure ska bands?
hope everyone is well.
-steve
yeah I foudn your brown eyed girl cover on gnutella p2p (via limewire) attributed to reel big fish. I foudn out it was skatallica through a lot of searching. Its really hard to find info about you guys on the internet. Cool to see you here.
Post a Comment
<< Home