Streetlight Manifesto is one of my favorite bands. They are a Ska band from New Brunswick, New Jersey. The band was formed in 2002. The band is mainly a Ska band, but they have influence from punk rock. The Ska scene has been around for a while now. It is actually said to have started in Jamaica in the the late 1950’s. It was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae music. In the early 1960’s, Ska was very dominant in Jamaica still, and Britain. Later, Ska became very popular with Skinheads. Music historians typically divide Ska into three waves. The original Jamaican scene is described as the first wave. The second wave would be the English Two tone Ska revival in the late 1970’s. The third wave and final wave of the music scene came about in the 1980’s, and rose to popularity in the United States in the 1990’s. I am not going to go too in depth about the first two waves of Ska, because honestly I don’t know too much about them. In the early 90’s bands influenced by the two tone Ska revival started forming in the US. The movement included bands such as The Uptones in Berkeley, California and The Toasters and Mighty Mighty Bosstones on the East Coast.
The west coast had many more influential bands than the east coast. Most of them were started around the area of Southern California. Some of the most popular bands were Sublime, Reel Big Fish, Rancid, Operation Ivy, and Goldfinger. By the late 90’s mainstream ska had been developed. The originators of Ska music hated this mainstream Ska though. Since a lot of these bands had influences from early punk rock, they were not trying to be on this mainstream kick. Ska punk is a music and fashion combined. Taking obvious influences from punk rock and not trying to fit in. Although they weren’t trying to be famous, a lot of these bands were phenomenally successful. The genre used a lot of brass instruments including trumpet, and trombone. The Ska band is a very unique genre of music that I personally love. Check it out!
