Geeky SKAturday: "Ride This Wave" by MAYSON's PARTY

Happy weekend everyone!  Thanks for joining me on this Geeky SKAturday (or whenever you're reading), as I play around with new ska, time travel, and saving the multiverse.

After looking at Japan's Oi-SKALL Mates last week (in addition to Spain's Les Testarudes), I want to take the time today to listen to another ska squad from the Land of the Rising Sun.  MAYSON's PARTY are a fairly poppy ska-punk outfit who released a punchy album called GO at the end of January.  It's 11 songs in less than 24 minutes, so if it's up your alley, you can hear the whole thing in no time at all.

Image from here

Today's song is the album's seventh track, "Ride This Wave"...or as I should probably be stylizing it to stay consistent with the band, "RIDE THIS WAVE."  Here's the video!  (The exclamation point seemed justified.)

Pretty catchy stuff, no?

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Now...to make this into part of a universe where ska bands are made up of heroic agents keeping our timestream in proper order...let's talk about this song and time travel!  There are...oh, I guess three main reasons I keep thinking ska is the perfect genre to pair with time travel stories...

First, ska is essentially defined by its rhythm.  Across all subgenres, the main unifying detail is the upbeat (or offbeat) repetition on one or more instruments...usually guitar, but any number of other instruments, vocalizations, and nonvocal mouth sounds have been used to keep up that rhythm that makes you wanna...to dive into the stereotype...pick it up pick it up pick it up.  Additionally, some of the very best ska has incredible syncopation that you can really feel.  And I don't mean odd-number-of-beats-in-a-measure, prog/math rock geekery (although some of that is awesome too).  I'm thinking more along the lines of influential Skatalites drummer Lloyd Knibb, who had a way of drumming that never forces you out of the rhythm, but still somehow surprises with the beats he chose to emphasize.

So...yeah, ska is all about timing.

The second reason is that ska musicians have always been aware of and respectful of the history of their genre, perhaps more so than in any other type of music.  This goes all the way back to very early in the ska timeline, when songs were sometimes updated mento or calypso tunes.  And then, during the so-called ska revival of the late '70s and early '80s in the UK, many of most popular songs were just classics with dashes of pop, rock, and punk added in.  Not to mention the fact that many of the genre's Jamaican pioneers gained new waves of fans through this UK revival and the worldwide spread of the beat that followed it.

Finally...and I alluded to it in that last paragraph...ska is known for its waves.  The original Jamaican ska scene was the first wave.  The British 2 Tone movement kicked off what we know as the second wave.  And then...with exact origins probably differing widely depending upon who you ask for the history...the third wave brought an unbelievable variety of sounds into the genre from all around the world.  ChatGPT seems to think the United States was the epicenter, but viewing it that way really wouldn't be fair to all the other nations that have produced incredible ska from the '80s till now.  (I'm guessing ChatGPT may have been swayed by the internet writings of some Americentric ska fans.  Or, maybe ChatGPT just really digs Fishbone, Operation Ivy, and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones...)

Oh, and now maybe we're in the midst of a fourth wave...?  It seems reasonably likely that at some point in the future, the young bands gaining fans today will be referred to as the fourth wave.  YTBD, but sounds good to me.

Anyway, these waves seem like a pretty perfect metaphor for time travel.  (Obviously I'm pretty heavily influenced by superhero fiction, and -- in the Arrowverse anyway -- Rip Hunter's timeship is known as the Waverider...!)  So...I figure that's what the Agents of SKA are doing when they jump around a timeline...riding the waves of history, with an appreciation for what's come before and an ear for peculiarities of timing.

And today's song...it's "Ride This Wave."  That's where I started this whole thing, isn't it? ;)  Well...I guess at this point, I don't need to go into too much more detail as to why I chose it.  I actually meant to go more into other aspects of the setting today...maybe filling in some details for trumpet player Haruto Suzuki (who I met last week), or talking about character classes, or how Rude Magic might power a time travel vessel like the helm of a Spelljammer.  I think I'll just end with some perfect lyrics from today's song:

Right on time!!

Ride this wave!!

Ride on now!!

Hope to see you next week!