Rabbits & Foxes

Here’s a little-known fact about myself.  I was sort of a big fan of Ska music when I was in high school, all the way through my college years.  I lost touch with the music genre somewhere towards the end of college up until about 4 years ago.  In my younger years, I was a HUGE fan of the band Save Ferris.  I even snuck out once, during my senior year of high school, to watch Save Ferris perform at the music hall in The City. At the time, they performed with Goldfinger & pre-fame Incubus.  I don’t really know why, but I’ve never really shared this bit of information publicly before.  I guess it just never came up in conversation.

Back in those days, I liked to listen to a variety of music, but I was really influenced by a close school friend who introduced me to this music.  Some of the bands I liked listening to were: Reel Big Fish, The Aquabats, Dance Hall Crashers, Buck-O-Nine, Goldfinger, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, & the pre-Reggae/Pop version of No Doubt (just to name a few).  It took me a while to jump back into this genre of music, but I really fell in love with this type of music once I discovered Japanese Ska music.  A few years ago, by chance, I discovered a really cool Ska band from Japan called オレスカバンド(a.k.a. Ore Ska Band).  They are an all-girl group from Sakai, Japan, & their signature instrument is the bright pink trombone that band member ハヤミ (Hayami) plays.  That got me interested in learning about the Ska music scene in Japan, which led me to another awesome band called Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra consisting of veteran band members who have been around for many, many years.

After jumping back into this music scene, I am really excited to share some music & videos!  This Thursday has been a really “blah” kind of day, so I thought I’d cheer it up with some rockin’ music!!  Here are a few examples of the bands I’ve been listening to lately:

TOKYO SKA PARADISE ORCHESTRA – 流れゆく世界の中で feat.MONGOL.800 (a.k.a. Nagare Yuku Sekai no Naka de feat. MONGOL.800)

TOKYO SKA PARADISE ORCHESTRA – 閃光 feat. 10-FEET (a.k.a. Senko feat. 10-FEET)

ORE SKA BAND – 爪先 (a.k.a. Tsumasaki)

Now, here are some other similar bands that I’ve also been following lately…

CRAZY KEN BAND & 野宮真貴 (Nomiya Maki) & M-FLO – COSMIC NIGHT RUN

BLACK BOTTOM BRASS BAND (BBBB) & BOY-KEN & M-FLO – 宇宙のウオウオ(a.k.a. Uchuu no Uo Uo)