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SURF ROOTS
*CLASSIC*
Now Featured:
SUBLIME, JACK JOHNSON, 311, LONG BEACH DUB ALLSTARS, SLIGHTLY STOOPID, PEPPER, DONAVON FRANKENREITER, BEN HARPER, THE ENGLISH BEAT, JASON MRAZ, COMMON SENSE, THE UNTOUCHABLES, FISHBONE, THE SAMPLES, OPM, MISHKA, TOO RUDE...
Spotlight: TOO RUDE
Too Rude’s roots are punk rock and reggae music. One word to describe it is…original. Not to be pigeonholed as just a reggae band or just a punk band, the hybrid equates to just great songs.
Located in Southern California’s South Bay, birthplace of such bands as Black Flag, Decendents, and Pennywise, Too Rude’s founding members Dogboy and Lazy Dread rank legendary status in the South Bay as Hermosa's first punk rockers to play reggae music and the first to mix the two with The Mighty Rhythm Trak. They were to the South Bay much like Sublime was to Long Beach on an underground level.
Missing punk rock to balance themselves musically, Dogboy and Lazy Dread started War Called Peace, a legendary South Bay Punk band as a side project to The Mighty Rhythm Trak. Dogboy also worked with the Kottonmouth Kings on their first three albums as a featured artists writing such hits as “Dog’s Life” and “On the Run” to name a few. During that time Dogboy recorded the first Too Rude CD (self titled) for Suburban Noize Records (Kottonmouth Kings label). Starting out as a solo project, the record reflected his roots in Rhythm Trak. The band consisted of a traditional Reggae line up, featuring a horn section and keyboards as well as guitar, bass and drums.
Currently Too Rude has recorded its second full length CD, “Reinvention”. Reinventing the line up as well, Dogboy and Lazy Dread added Flan on guitar, a highly respected LA studio musician and Dub mad scientist, and Fatal on guitar and vocals, founding member of the South Bay's first Ska-Core band, Out of Order. And Kike on drums, imported from Venezuela. Replacing the horns with distorted guitars and Dub, the line up is the perfect team to keep the Reggae vibes intact while allowing the band to flex their Punk roots as well.
Comparisons to The Clash and Bad Brains have been made but the most common compliment has been, “The band is real, down to Earth, no B.S., no games, they come to play. They’ve got their own thing going and it’s totally original.”
For more Too Rude check out: www.myspace.com/toorudemusic
Spotlight: MISHKA
Mishka spent most of his early life on a boat in the Caribbean, sailing from island to island with his seafaring parents and older sisters. A child of the islands, it was almost inevitable that he’d be drawn to Reggae, Rastafari, and the natural mystic that inhabits his music and his soul.
“The music I heard growing up from my parents, sisters and the places we visited gave me a lot of musical and cultural flexibility. Everything I’ve ever heard blends together in what I do. I’m a huge reggae fan but there’s folk, soul, rock and other elements in the music.”
Mishka’s international outlook is a product of his unique upbringing. “My parents met in Bermuda” Mishka explains. “They always had dreams of living at sea and my father built a boat for the family to live on. I moved onto the boat when I was three.”
“We sailed all over the Atlantic and Caribbean” Mishka recalls. “We visited Brazil, all the Caribbean islands, even made a cross-Atlantic trip to Portugal and England.” Mishka and his sisters were home schooled until they went to boarding school for their higher education. “Learning how to read maps and chart a course was my math and geography class, going ashore in different countries and talking to people about their culture was my history class, reading books on board was my literary education, picking up French and Portuguese in the ports we visited was my language school.”
The boat had a small battery run cassette player and Mishka heard the music his parents loved: The Beatles, Jimmy Cliff, Dylan and Jimmy Buffett who was sailing the same waters as his family in those days. “My sisters turned me on to the Police, Cars and Roxy Music, but when I heard Burning Spear, Culture, and Bob Marley, I got addicted to roots reggae.”
Mishka moved to London and his debut, the self-titled Mishka, became a Top 40 hit in England. “Give You All the Love” cracked the charts in Britain and Japan where it went Top 10. While he was making Mishka, Swedish producer Martin Terefe (KT Tunstall, James Morrison) was working in the studio next door. Terefe produced Mishka’s second album, 2005’s One Tree, a blend of electronica, folk and reggae. While on tour, Mishka met Darryl Thompson a long time guitarist for Sly & Robbie. They were working on Above the Bones when Matthew McConaughey showed up and signed Mishka to his new label j. k. livin.
Mishka’s varied musical interests are evident on Above the Bones but his vocals may be the most captivating element of the album. His striking tenor is mellow and intense with a bluesy quality that gives every word an aching intensity. It’s a timeless voice, the familiar sound of a friend you’ve always known but never met.
With an album that fully realizes his multifaceted musical vision, Mishka and his band will take to the road, sharing his positive vibrations and his global musical vision with fans old and new. Mishka's new album TALK ABOUT is out now!
Info from www.Mishka.com check the vibes!
Spotlight: SUBLIME
Formed in 1988 as a garage punk band, Sublime rose to fame in the mid-'90s on the back of the California punk explosion engendered by Green Day and the Offspring, though Sublime boosted their punk influences with heavy elements of reggae and ska. The band released only two albums during its first seven years, and finally found mainstream success with a self-titled release in 1996. It proved to be Sublime's last proper album, however, as lead singer Brad Nowell died in May 1996, just two months before the record's release.
The three Long Beach musicians who comprised Sublime -- vocalist/guitarist Nowell, bassist Eric Wilson, and drummer Bud Gaugh -- played their first gig on July 4, 1988, at a small Long Beach club (a show that sparked the infamous Peninsula Riot). The group began touring heavily while amassing an increasingly substantial following, especially among the surf/skate beach crowd. After four years of concentrating strictly on live shows, Sublime recorded their first album, 40 Oz. to Freedom, in 1992. The LP was released on Skunk Records -- a label formed by Nowell with Sublime manager Miguel -- and sold at local shows, but it really started to break when local radio station KROQ began playing the single "Date Rape" two years after its initial release.
Mostly due to that radio exposure, Sublime signed to MCA in time for 1994's Robbin' the Hood, which revealed an experimental ethic more in keeping with cut-and-paste dub than the well-tuned rage of the Cali punk revival. The album performed well at college radio and set the stage for the breakout success of their self-titled third album.
On May 25, 1996, however, Nowell was found in a San Francisco hotel room, dead of a heroin overdose. The band collapsed, but the eponymous Sublime was still slated for a July release. On the strength of the chart-topping alternative radio hit "What I Got," the album was certified gold by the end of 1996. "Santeria" and "Wrong Way" also enjoyed heavy airplay, and Sublime eventually sold more than five million copies, making it one of the most popular ska-punk albums in history. Such success spread to the band's earlier albums too, leading 40 Oz. to Freedom to double-platinum sales and Robbin' the Hood to gold certification.
As Sublime's legend lived on, Wilson and Gaugh formed a new band called Long Beach Dub Allstars, although the group failed to capture the mainstream accolades that Sublime had briefly enjoyed. There were also a number of posthumous Sublime releases, among them 1997's Second Hand Smoke, 1998's Stand by Your Van and Acoustic: Bradley Nowell & Friends, Greatest Hits in 1999, and Gold in 2005.
-John Bush, All Music Guide
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