"Z"s Dead, Baby

Band: Zebrahead

Country: USA

Notable Album: Phoenix

Favourite Song: Mike Dexter Is A God/Role Model/Asshole

I'm going to start off with the music section, and then all the ooey-gooey lovey-dovey stuff down at the bottom.  This is going to be great.  Oh yeah, there's also a special surprise near the end of this post!  GO READ IT.


So today's band is Zebrahead!  Many people will be like WHAT NO WAY ZEBRAHEAD ISN'T SKA OR SKA-PUNK and I tend to agree with you.  They're really cool though, an interesting mix of pop-punk and rap-core - but they did have a couple ska-punk tracks on Phoenix, which is why I chose them for today.  Also, there are like 3 bands IN THE WORLD that start with the letter "Z" and none of them are ska bands. So bear with me, I did my best.  Zebrahead have been around for a while, and they most recently released an album called Panty Raid, which is a full cover album of female pop songs.  Their rapper, Ali, rapped for Reel Big Fish's cover of Unity on their live DVD, and they've toured with bands like Less Than Jake, Green Day (back when they were cool), and Goldfinger.


Phoenix was released in 2008, and was Zebrahead's last full-length before Panty Raid.  It's a mix of pop-punk, rap-core, and even has several ska-punk tracks (which is AWESOME)!  I think it's my favourite Zebrahead record, but I'm sort of going through them in reverse-chronological order.  Only time will tell what the verdict is for the other albums, but at the moment this is a great CD.  They sort of remind me of Limp-Bizkit-Meets-Reel-Big-Fish-Meets-Some-Other-Pop-Punk-Band and that is totally fine with me.  Unfortunately, I have no good stories to tell about my life and this album yet, but those will come eventually.  These guys are great, buy the album here and support them if you can.


Mike Dexter is a really fun skanking track.  It comes as a surprise after a slew of punk and rap songs, but it's definitely a welcome surprise.  This is what I like about pop-punk bands - since they pretty much automatically get great recording deals, the ska they record sounds impeccable.  Also, the pop-punk genre has a very limited chord set, and this works great when writing ska.  Almost every time, you get a great-sounding, catchy and dance-y song that they'll be embarrassed about recording but that doesn't matter.  Mike Dexter is just that - a simple, well-recorded track (with some added keys just for good measure) that's just a ton of fun to listen to.


OK!  That's it for Mitchell's Ska Blog.  It's been one crazy year - starting, then stopping.  Then starting again.  Then finishing.  I suppose that's how it goes for everyone's first time.  Writing a blog, I mean.  DON'T BE SO OFFENDED, THAT'S NOT MY FIRST DIRTY JOKE ON HERE.


It feels good in a weird way to finally be done this.  I know I wasted a lot of time in the middle, but this still feels like an accomplishment. I told myself that I'd only move on to something new if I had the dedication to finish this blog and I think I've achieved that.  It feels cool that I actually could (sort of) find a band for each letter of the alphabet - it was a lot harder than I thought it would be.  I was able to listen to albums I hadn't heard in a long time, and it reminds me why I love this music in the first place.  I've never really analyzed or thought about music in this way before (or at least, I've never talked about it like this), and it's been a challenge to describe exactly what I like about particular bands or songs.  It's usually a feeling that can't be put into words, but I did my best and this is what showed up.  Ska is a genre that gets a lot of ridicule, and lots of it deserves that.  But I think each of these bands deserves the credit they got - they are what makes the world of ska diverse, unique, and always interesting.  Each of these bands brings something of their own to the proverbial ska table, and they each deserve equal recognition.


I hope everyone had as much fun reading these posts as I had writing them, and that year in the middle?  Let's just forget about that and all stay friends.  This is not the end of my internet presence, however!  I have been working like a secret agent these past few days, setting up my brand new website over on WordPress AND IT'S LIVE NOW!  It's going to contain all the stuff I like to talk about - music, movies, concerts, photography, and (of course) myself.  I'll be moving these posts (well, at least the 2011 ones) over there so if you missed any, you can check there or here to read up on ska bands.  Or go back to the beginning and read them all over again!  Watch my literary skills progress from silly to articulate-silly.  It's quite gripping.


But if you want, you can just head over to my brand new blog here!


Anyways, that's all for the Ska Blog.  Thanks to everyone who read this bad boy, and thanks to the bands who re-tweeted when I wrote posts about them.  This was a ton of fun, I really hope you enjoyed yourselves.  James is being rude so I'm going to go beat him up.