“Stunted,” the first song from Ghost Tones’ latest release Live at the Cellar, starts with a long flourish from an electric guitar, a horn winding its way through it. Then the drummer settles in on a pounding rhythm that, without any other instruments playing, could be a few different genres. Maybe it’s a pop song. Maybe it’s punk. Then someone in the band counts off a measure — one, two, three, four — and the sound, especially from the guitar, chopping out offbeats, becomes unmistakable. It’s ska. And ska of the third-wave variety at that.
A brief history: Ska originated in Jamaica in the 1950s and 1960s, combining jazz, R&B, and Caribbean rhythms to make a new kind of music. In Jamaica, it became the progenitor to reggae, launching the careers of — among many others — Bob Marley and the Wailers, who were teenage heartthrob ska musicians before they became global superstars. Ska was largely left behind in Jamaica, but experienced a revival in the United Kingdom (the second wave) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The third wave came in the United States. Pioneered by bands like Fishbone in the mid-1980s, who infused the already hybrid genre with elements of punk and metal, the genre gradually spread in popularity until reaching something of an apex in the mid-1990s. In Connecticut and elsewhere, third-wave ska was the butter on the bread of the live music scene. It was a steady part of the program at Fernando Pinto’s Tune Inn and its associated record label, Elevator Music. Bands like JC Superska, The Snappers, Johnny Too Bad and The Strikeouts got strong regional followings, while Spring Heeled Jack went national.
Then, as happens to most musical genres, it gave way to new popular forms, from emo to post-rock to the indie rock revival of the early 2000s. Yet echoes of the heyday of third-wave ska still reverberate around the Elm City. Rick Omonte, formerly of Spring Heeled Jack, now plays bass in Mountain Movers and brings international acts to the Elm City as promoter DJ Shaki. Ask jazz trumpeter Nick Di Maria about third-wave ska, or recording engineer Greg DiCrosta, who now works at Firehouse 12. Ask many about it who were teens (third-wave ska and all-ages shows went hand in hand) or early 20-somethings in the 1990s, and see what their response might be.
Even more intriguing, however, is that the past few years appear to produced two new third-wave ska bands. The Simulators (formerly the Shady Street All-Stars), composed of several veterans of New Haven’s music scene — Julian Wahlberg on guitar and vocals, Kevin MacKenzie on guitar and vocals, Cody Freedom on tenor sax, Frederic Anthony on drums, and Sean Koravo on bass — released a handful of songs at the end of 2020, then recently resurfaced. With sharp, driving rhythms, punchy horn lines, and crisp vocals, the Simulators show that their band name is an exercise in modesty; they sound an awful lot like the real deal.
Meanwhile, Live from the Cellar is in fact a follow-up to a studio release by Ghost Tones called Strange Terrain, which finds the nine-piece band — Brian Zapor on vocals, Davey Havoc and Craig Mills on guitars, Jacob Raccuia on bass, Christine Sabol on organ, CJ Dioguardi on drums and other percussion, Mike Tyskiewicz on saxophone, Matt Coulter on trumpet, and James Yu on trombone — ably steering their way through a set of third-wave ska, with some more spaced-out dub thrown in for good measure at the end. Both Ghost Tones releases are on Midnight Wolf Records, which brands itself as focusing on DIY alternative and ska. Drummer Dioguardi appears to be the common thread on the Midnight Wolf releases, which include a straight-up dub record called Selfless Spirits and Selfless Saviors.
Whether Midnight Wolf Records and the Simulators constitute the beginnings of a resurgence of ska — a fourth wave? — is impossible to say. But to those who still find themselves ready to jump up at the sound, even this ripple will do.
Both Ghost Tones and The Simulators can be found on Bandcamp.
