The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day: SKApril!

Rude City Riot, "25 Years" from the Rude City Riot E.P. (The Last Angry Man)

Skammentary: Crime & punishment loom large in ska, the term "rude boy" itself being 1950s Jamaican slang for "violent, discontented youth," since appropriated (misappropriated?) by ska kids in all places. "25 Years" is in the grand tradition of ska, a plea for those violent, discontented youths not to make a decision that could end another's life & permanent alter the course of their own.

Montag, 18. April

The Pietasters, "Night Before" from Oolooloo (The Last Angry Man)

Skammentary: Most love in ska, like that "Night Before," is love gone wrong.

"I think I love you even more than I did the night before,
The night before we met…

"I think I love you even more than I did the night before,
The night before you left…"

The Pietasters are the unlikeliest of SKApril all-stars, because I have only one of their albums in my music library. Oolooloo is surely the album to have contributed the most songs to SKApril, on both an absolute & a proportional basis. Every year, I think "This is the year The Pietasters" won't be part of SKApril, but every year their songs speak to my rude boy soul, saying quite the opposite.