nothin Ska “Will Bury Us All” | New Haven Independent

Ska Will Bury Us All”

BRIAN SLATTERY PHOTOS

The Dialtones

This is a good Wednesday night. It could even be a good Thursday night,” said Alex Giguere of The Beatdown, surveying the crowd. Then he and his band tore into another number, and the night was on.

The Beatdown were the visiting band in an evening of ska at Cafe Nine that saw locals meeting visitors, generations mingling, and compliments passed all around.

Ska has come a long way from its 1950s Jamaican roots. On the island, rocksteady and reggae grew from it. But ska also proliferated on its own, criss-crossing the world, changing, and cross-pollinating with other musical genres. Five decades and several generations and hybrids later, it’s still going strong.

So the Windsor-based Excitement Gang—Shane Alsop on vocals and guitar, Peter Kwiecinski on bass, Joe Neffleton on keys, and Tom Fey on drums — took the stage with energy and reverence, delivering a jumping set of originals interspersed with amiable, self-deprecating humor and shoutouts to the crowd. They dedicated their cover of Junco Partner” to the Dialtones, who would appear later. And Kwiecinski singled out an agile man with a gray ponytail flowing out from under a checked hat, dancing in front of the stage. When you’re out there, that’s how we know we’re doing it right.”

That’s how you knew The Beatdown was doing it right, too, when they had everyone on their feet within the first four bars of their first song. A four-piece from Montreal composed of Giguere on vocals, guitar, and harmonica, Pascal Lessieur on bass, Jovan Savoie on guitar, and Nicolas Fizzano on drums, The Beatdown, with their particular infusion of punk and surf rock into ska and reggae, laid down a hard-edged sound very reminiscent of the Aggrolites. But they’re their own thing, too, infusing their stuff — and a hopping cover of Get Ready” — with gritty soul.

New Haven’s own Dialtones finished up the evening with an energy level that suddenly made it feel more like Friday. The Dialtones are a big band, with Pete-Ha Superska on lead vocals, Wayne Dangler backing him up, Julianne of the North on trumpet, Will Vulture on keyboards, Ronnie Radiation on guitar, Sir John on bass, and Mike Palooch on drums (though this evening a man introduced as Kevin ably filled in on the sticks). As the monikers suggest, they’re a bit of a New Haven supergroup; band members hail from JC Superska, the Danglers, the Vultures, the Hulls, Sex and Death USA, and the 420 Blackbirds.

Sometimes supergroups aren’t. But the Dialtones were, giving it their all across a raging set that started with the Specials’ Gangsters” and ended in the flurry of tight beats and barely organized chaos that is what ska is all about. Where The Excitement Gang played with freshness and the Beatdown with the coiled intensity that comes from playing relentlessly on the road, the Dialtones played with the expansive generosity that happens when people who have been playing music for a while play really well together. And it was all ska.

What can I say?” a blogger said about ska once. Ska is undying. SKA WILL BURY US ALL.” That’s as true in New Haven as anywhere, and thank God for that.

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