My brother Brad is currently spending a year-long retreat in Colorado as part of seminary. As a result, I have been sending him a bunch of snail-mail letters. This week, I’m honoring seven songs that remind me of him. My reflections will be in epistolary form, and I’ll actually print them out and mail them.…
My brother Brad is currently spending a year-long retreat in Colorado as part of seminary. As a result, I have been sending him a bunch of snail-mail letters. This week, I’m honoring seven songs that remind me of him. My reflections will be in epistolary form, and I’ll actually print them out and mail them.…
This is the third and final part of my Tomas Kalnoky/Streetllight Manifesto retrospective. Read part 1 here and part 2 here. After the release of Somewhere in the Between, Streetlight Manifesto’s incessant touring continued, as did their lofty promises. Within a year or two of the release of Somewhere in the Between, the Streetlight website announced a…
This is part 2 of my Tomas Kalnoky/Streetllight Manifesto retrospective. Read part 1 here. After BotAR broke up, Kalnoky got together a lineup that more resembled a traditional ska-punk band: trumpet, trombone, two saxes, guitar, bass, drums. This new band recorded an EP, signed a 5-album deal with Victory Records, and named themselves “Streetlight Manifesto.”…
Streetlight Manifesto is quite possibly my favorite band of all time. And they’re probably be my favorite musical artist — band or solo — of the past twenty five years. They’re responsible for my favorite concert ever and three of my favorite albums ever. I love love love them. And so I decided to…
This is part 1 of my Tomas Kalnoky/Streetlight Manifesto retrospective Streetlight Manifesto — in conjunction with Tomas Kalnoky’s various acts — is my favorte musical artist of the past quarter century. It was a steady uphill climb. Driven by Kalnoky’s unique and sublime songwriting, I’ve been a fan since he was a teenager writing for ska-punk…
Me and Will are huge Streetlight Manifesto fans, so for the third episode of the ETCast, we sat down to rank our ten favorite songs by each band. (We also opened the cast with a brief review of the new Me First and the Gimme Gimmes album). Download link (you may have to right click and…
This is part 5 of Will’s countdown of the top 100 ska-punk songs 60. Status – Rx Bandits The Rx Bandits started off as a mediocre ska band before becoming a much better alternative/hard rock band. Status, which is a song on their second album, is their strongest ska song, boasting a fantastic drum part,…
This is part 4 of Will’s countdown of the top 100 ska-punk songs 70. Stuck in the Middle – The Supervillains I had the privilege of seeing The Supervillains live when I was a sophomore in high school. I immediately liked them, but I didn’t really dig through their discography until just last year, when…
Reel Big Fish is my favorite product of the “third wave of ska” from the mid-1990s. Their brand of ska-punk features melodic, flashy tunes paired with lyrics often described as “sarcastic” and “bitter.” Their music could easily have degenerated into braindead party jams, but lead songwriter and frontman Aaron Barrett keeps it funny, emotionally grounded,…