Bimble ; Who and what is ‘Skankaround Sound System ? From then on it seemed that if you wanna DJ you have to have a name or you can’t get spot’s. Then suddenly you have to go on stage, you’re announced and you get more money. Dab and I were really huge Ska lovers and we discovered that there were so many good tracks over the years with a skanking vibe in them. That we thought why don’t we just play all these tracks together and fuck it we’ll call ourselves the Skankaround Sounds System. It happened to be that when we did our first gig, one week later the Freestylers released their ‘Roughneck’ 12" so we really thought that we were on the right spot at the right time. It turned out that every body thought that we came up with the name after that but actually it was at the same time. So it was just that we were playing all kinds of music with skank influences and we call ourselves ‘ The Skankaround Sound system’ because you have to come up with a name otherwise you can’t get gigs. Simple as it is.
B; Tell me about the releases you’ve had out with 'Skankaround'.
B; And you’ve done some stuff with Headmix’s instrumentation haven’t you ?
B; So moving on, we’ve got your tune ‘Let Them Go’ on our ‘Twenty First Century Ska 2001’ compilation album. How did the ‘Top Cats’ ( London Ska Band ) sample come about on that ?
B; So he laid some stuff down and you worked on it from there?
B; Could you try and put into words the track ‘Let
Them Go’? For those that haven’t heard it ?
B; No it’s more pure but within a modern setting. So
why do you think that the Ska beat has not only endured since it’s early days
but also influenced so many different music styles? As to why it’s endured. Well it’s really accessible you know it’s easy music, you can relate to it. If contemporary music borrows a little bit of Ska a little bit of Reggae. Then it’s much easier to get it in the charts. There’s always reggae and Ska tricks in the charts, always.
B; Is Ska popular in Holland ?
B; What kind of stuff is covered on the radio and in the Magazines ?
B; Right, so are you into the American Ska Punk stuff ?
B; Can give us a couple of names ‘cause that’s something we haven’t really covered on the site ?
B; Oh yeah Rancid…
B; Are they’re any Ska bands in Holland ? There’s a band which are really good live they’re called ‘Lirahunt’ which means ‘Lazy Dog’ they sing in Dutch that’s a really good band. There’s a band called ‘Beef’ they just started out they have one album out and they’re really growing. There’s a band called ‘The Beatbusters’ which are pretty good and there’s a band called ‘Root Rich And The High Notes’. And of cause the English man Mark Foggo who lives in Holland and is still playing every now and then. He’s been there for over twenty years and he still going strong. So there’s quite a lot of Ska bands in Holland. There’s only one Ska band in Belgium called ‘The Dill Brothers’ and they’re cool as well. They mix Ska with Sucrose which is African music, which I think is a really odd combination, very rare and it really works. It’s like what the Afro Celts are doing with Celtic and African music they’re doing the same with Ska. If bands innovate with their music I think that’s always something you have to support especially when they do it good.
B; So could you give me an angle on it as far as what Dab uses ?
B; So to end then what’s the Skankaround’s mission or message ? Look at the floor and make sure people dance that’s what it’s all about. Instead of playing for instances a proper dancehall set and playing 90mins - 2hrs the same kind of riddim all the time. You know these people who play all the same music all the time. If you play Ska music and you play sixties Ska music only for hours and hours we think that’s boring. We’re pretty much bored with the same music all the time, after ten fifteen minutes or so it’s boring so you go off in different directions. And we see it working, nobody wants to listen to the same music all the time. Nobody has only reggae music in their home or only U2 records. You always have a variation, people like different kinds of stuff. You just come up with a sound that’s suitable for the moment. That’s why were called ‘Skankaround Sound System’ because basically we can Skankaround whatever type of music it happens to be.
Skankaround Sound System are featured on Twenty First Century Ska 2001
Interview : Bimble
John Skankaround ; It started out a couple of years ago with myself and Dab DJing with Alex as M.C. Before this Dab and I were DJing together for over 15 years. We went out mostly anonymous , playing all different styles. It came to a point when I had to DJ with the Chemical Brothers and Dave Clarke at a festival and they said "well it’s all right to DJ but you have to come up with a name", so I came up with the name ‘DJ Who Cares’.
J; We’ve released one single called ‘Skankaround’ by Skankaround Sound system and we have two compilation CD’s out called ‘Skank You’ and Skank You Two. We did some remixes as well but sometimes the remixes are not called ‘Skankaround Soundsystem’ but ‘Babylon Hooligans.
J; No, no we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna make a remix for their ‘Move Yourself’ 12". The idea is to release a 12" with of course the original on it Headmix : ‘Move Yourself’ and with remixes by Zion Train, Simon Emerson from the Afro Celt Sound system and us. But it’s not done yet and I think it’ll take about two or three months I’d have thought.
J; What happened was I got a tape from the top cats at some point and it was great stuff a bit like all old type Ska band with a bit of rocksteady influences in there as well. I don’t know how it went I either gave them a gig or we saw them at a festival, I can’t remember but it turned out that the singer ‘Natty Bo’ is a DJ as well, he’s a Ska DJ We were DJing at the same club one night and we talked a lot about this project ‘ Skankaround’ and it turned out that he did something with Dab in the studio. That’s how it happens you meet each other and you think wow it’s a good idea to come up with a remix or use some samples. That the way it always goes I reckon.
J; Yeah we thought he was really good especially
his band and he thought apparently that we did quite a nice Job as well ?
J; Phew err !! It’s got this
kind of vague Latin feel to it. The thing is Dab is the studio guy and we
both DJ. I’m more in the co - producer side and connecting people. I connected
Natty ( Top Cats ) and Dab. Then he’s does his thing. With ‘The Wizard’ It’s
really I tell him what to do but here it’s more like he does what he does.
It’s not the break - beat type of track at all.
J; The same goes for reggae you know. Reggae and Ska are both music types which whenever there’s is a new music style, it always borrows or steals some elements from Reggae and Ska to make it accessible for the masses. I know there is a lot of people who won’t agree me but I think so. But when it comes to real reggae or Ska there’s never any record company interest, there’s never any media exposure. It’s a weird contradiction.
J; No not specifically although we do have this Dutch band, they sing also in Dutch. They broke up in about 1984 and they just did a reunion tour. Well actually it was 14 gigs in 8000 capacity venues which were all sold out. But strangely enough, everybody knows that it’s Ska, the even say it but it doesn’t mean that " hey if this band are so big, so huge. Why don’t we support other Ska bands". That’s not the way it is. I think if you got down to the hard-core Ska audience in Holland, punters who buy tickets for gigs I think its somewhere between one & two thousand people. If you play to a crowd of 10,000 people 7,000 will like it but really one & two thousand is basically it. It’s not on the radio of course. It’s never covered in any of the magazines but it’s definitely there.
J; It’s the same as here I think. Just the ordinary regular bullshit. Also the techno thing and the very intelligent experimental - electronic kind of stuff like ‘Autechre’, a little bit of metal crossover ‘New metal’ they call it. But it’s not reggae and not Ska of course, it’s not cool music.
B; So on the Skankaround tip I’ve noticed that there’s quite a rich variety of sounds within your music.
J; Well yeah, what we do is we go into a club, see what it’s like. Then it can be more Jungle - break - beat type of set where every track has an angle with Reggae M.C’s samples or whatever. It can be a really puristic Ska audience suppose that we are playing with the Skatalites we can the old time Ska but we can also DJ with the Dancehall guys like Mr Vegas and Bounty Killer or stuff like that. We can do the dancehall thing and we can also do the Ska Punk rock thing like The Sublime, Rancid, Real Big Fish and all those bands. The American sound right. So we are just interested in all these different styles.
J; Yeah Yeah I’m really into it.
J; I just gave you a few.
J; Yeah well Rancid but of course they’re not doing Ska any more because… It’s so funny cause a couple of Years ago if you made a Ska Punk rock track it was immediately featured on the radio now it’s not cool any more to do Ska, so nobody plays Ska any more. So it’s kinda weird actually. But Real Big Fish they’re huge over here. They sold out this place ( The Concorde, Brighton ) They’ve sold out bigger places in London, They’re really cool. The Sublime although the guy is dead Bret Novel but they sold 4 million copy’s in the U.S alone. Can you imagine 4 million Ska / Punk records and apparently nobody knows them over here. They were the best, the absolute best. But there’s a lot of crap bands going on most them are just playing Ska as a gimmick you know "let’s do some um um giddup giddup". There’s a few really good ones like The Hepcats and The slackers they’re more traditional bands of course but there’s a few good Ska bands in America for sure.
J; Well the band which is really big right now and they’re really breaking into other territories as well are called ‘The Postmen’ They’re a kind of Reggae hip hop band but they do have some Ska feeling there which is all right.
B; So when you’re doing you’re own tracks then. How are they formed ? What are the tools that you’re using? Is there a lot live instrumentation ?
J; Like I said Skankaround is in the studio and it’s actually not so much my project, I’ve got nothing to do with it.
J; Dab try’s to find ‘Dab’ sounds which are unheard. Which is always difficult but he’s not making Dub tracks he’s making the dub sounds then he’s try’s to make it dance floor friendly, he’s aiming for the dance - floor.
J; Mission or message err.. From a DJ point of view don’t think that you’re a star cause it’s the music that works it’s not you that’s one. Let people dance don’t try to educate them. Even if you try to bring Ska - Jungle - break - beat - hip - hop - dancehall all in one set it may sound a bit like " oh look at us we can cover all these areas". We only do that for the change in music so that it’s not the same all the time.