At 11/12/08 07:07 AM, vagrant-fluke wrote:
that's why ska has progressed from skinhead music to listen to after beating up minorities, to the happy bouncy sound it is today
Ok, someone got the history of ska a bit wrong.
It started as Jamaican musicians interpreting American Jazz in their own way. It landed in Britain with caribian immigrants, who hung around with working class white kids, who got interested in Soul and Ska. At that time, Skinheads were just a working class youth subculture centred around a certain fashion, but it was mostly apolitical. During the 70's, however, the National Front (a facist organisation) started recruiting skinheads, and there was a division between the Spirit of '69 skins (later forming the core of SHARP, SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice) and the NF Skins. NF Skins wouldn't really listen to Ska anymore, they had their own music, mostly agressive white-supremacist punk, like Skrewdriver (that started as an apolitical band, but was abandoned by the more leftist members around when the singer got into the NF scene).
In the early 80's 2 Tone ska came from the punk subculture. 2 Tone was more political and sided with the leftists and anarchist, and the newly formed Rock Against Racism movement. 3rd Wave came a lot later, and is highly apolitical, and more party orientated, and mostly centered around the US.
Hope that enlightened you a bit.