Subtle Bluntness

“Hey Ron, are you ever going to post something for Feel Good Friday that isn’t ska?”

No, and fuck you for asking, dicktard.  Ska is the best music for feeling good that has ever been invented.  It’s the musical equivalent of Prozac.

Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Pandora.  The other day I turned it to Reel Big Fish radio and was instantly subsumed by a mess of delicious late 90’s third-wave ska.  It was like flashbacks to high school all over again. Then I realized in a few weeks I’ll be at my 10-year high school reunion and suddenly wanted to hurl myself at the closest speeding train.

I read an article the other day mentioning that Facebook/MySpace/social networking sites might be ruining the high school reunion business because you don’t actually have to make any special effort to keep in touch with everyone you used to know.  However, it does take a special effort to avoid the people from high school you have no desire to ever see again (and, wouldn’t you know it, they’re the ones who are the first to bomb you with friend requests).  Mayhaps my generation will be the last generation to which the high school reunion is a noteworthy event.

Honestly?  I don’t want to go to this fucking thing.  At all.  I had like four friends in high school, and I’m not sure if any of them are actually going to be there.  It’s one of those things I feel like I have to do because society tells me I have to, and that if I don’t go then I might regret it despite the fact it costs way too much and I didn’t like most/all of those people in the first place.  But here I am, tickets ordered, no dress clothes or anyone to go with, scheduled to attend an event I’m not thrilled about and forced to give up my birthday weekend for it.

Too late now.  I paid for it; I may as well go.

I only have two pieces of religious music in my record collection, and both pieces are in the same CD sleeve.  They’re even the same genre, but they could not be farther apart religiously.  One’s a Christian ska band, and the other is the only Satanic ska band in music history (unless there’s something about the Maytalls Toots is keeping to himself).  Amusingly, I bought them both at the same place on the same day (a Hastings that was going out of business).

Mephiskapheles is one of the finest bands I’ve ever heard.  Musically, they are tighter than a duck’s asshole in a wind storm.  This is one of the few bands that I can say, without a doubt, can play the hell out of their instruments.  Normally in a ska band there’s a weak link somewhere, but not in these guys.  As a Christian friend of mine told me once, “I wish these guys weren’t Satanists, because they’re the best (third wave) ska band out there from a musician standpoint.”

As for Five Iron Frenzy, I bought their album solely for “Oh Canada” but it turned out to be a really sweet, catchy nugget of peppy ska goodness mixed with the occasional song vaguely hinting about Jesus.  I think if they hadn’t been religious, they would’ve ended up being like a Less Than Jake type of culty favorite.  As it is, they broke up a few years ago, but have the cutest sax player I’ve ever seen in the form of Leanor “Jeff the Girl” Ortega.  I saw them at the Warped Tour in Hotlanta in 2001 or 2002 and was very impressed.  I like that they don’t overtly preach, either.

I don’t mind mixing religion and music (though I usually think it makes music worse and cheapens religion), just don’t bombard me with prayers from the stage (regardless of who or what you’re praying to).  Still, I had to balance out my ska for Jesus with my skatanism.