2nd Annual Ska Fest set to invade HUB

Area ska fans will be dancing to their hearts' content this Valentine's Day weekend.

The 2nd Annual Penn State Ska Fest opens its doors at 6 p.m. today and 5 p.m. Saturday in the HUB Ballroom. The show is free for all University students with ID cards, and $4 for others.

Fifteen bands will perform at the show. Playing tonight are, in order, Hitmen for Hire, Edna's Goldfish, The B-3s, The Skoidats, Ruder Than You, Skinnerbox and MU330.

Continuing tomorrow night are The Antix, The Stingy Brims, 2,000 Flushes, Animal Chin, The Articles, SeeSpot, Telegraph and The Scofflaws. The show begins 30 minutes after the doors open.

Jeremy Myers (senior-telecommunications) co-organized the event with University Concert Committee Chair Dana Nale. Myers contacted and booked all of the bands while Nale handled the contracting. The Ska Fest is sponsored by the University Park Allocation Committee, UCC, WKPS-FM (90.7) and HUB Late Night.

"Last year (the Ska Fest) was the largest event of its kind," Myers said. Last year's festival attracted more than 2,600 people in two days, he said, adding that many were from out of town.

"I hope to top 3,000 this year," Myers said. "Ska is even more popular this year than last year."

A testament to the growing popularity of ska in the area is the amount of ska CDs sold in the past few years.

Emily Lynch (freshman-business), an employee of Disc Go Round, 228 W. College Ave., said used ska discs sell fast.

"People don't get sick of it," Lynch said. "We don't get much 'real' ska in the store because no one wants to sell it."

Mainstream ska CDs, from bands such as Reel Big Fish and Sublime, come into the store often, Lynch said, adding that the store also buys many compilation albums.

One CD, by The Scofflaws, proved itself to be rare when it appeared in the store once this year. The CD was bought by the store and sold to someone else in the same day, Lynch said.

The Scofflaws represent just one of the many different styles of playing, from traditional to modern, that Ska Fest fans will hear this weekend.

"The Articles are a jazz band, while MU330 and Ruder Than You are ska rock," Myers said. "And the B-3s are more 2-Tone."

Ska originated in Jamaica during the early 1960s. R&B, swing and early rock n' roll from the United States combined with jazz and indigenous Jamaican and Caribbean music, such as calypso and mento, to give birth to ska. The earliest ska performers included The Skatalites, Desmond Dekker and a young Bob Marley. From there, ska transformed into rocksteady and reggae.

In the '70s, ska migrated to England, adding a faster beat and an anti-racist message called 2-Tone. The 2-Tone style embraced the gangster image of James Bond, and the suit and tie look is still favored among many ska bands today. Some British 2-Tone bands include The Specials, Madness and The Selecter.

By the mid-'80s ska music finally hit America, where it steadily grew and mutated into the household names of today, such as The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Some of the first American ska bands were Fishbone, The Untouchables and The Toasters, whose lead singer Rob "Bucket" Hingley founded the first major ska record label in the country, Moon Ska NYC.

As the music changed, so did the dance. With a lot of bass and a variety of brass instruments, ska is dance music. Originally, "to do the ska" meant to move with rhythm in a calypso-like fashion. Then, there was a rocksteady dance. The '90s term for ska dancing is skanking.

"Nineties ska is an amalgamation of ska and pop," Myers said, referring to newer forms of ska, such as ska-core and ska punk. "Most mainstream ska bands have a reggae influence, but are not strict ska bands."

Myers is a member of the band 2,000 Flushes and the co-founder of his own record label, Jump Start Records. Despite ska music's growing popularity, State College has not hosted nearly as many ska shows as last year, Myers said.