Ska Music

I want to talk about a kind of music I love and enjoy having a concert of it. It's called ska. I know everybody I brought to a ska gig enjoys this music which is made to dance and have fun. That's why I want to make you discover this music I particulary love.
Ska music is a very rhythmed kind of music and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae music. It comes from Jamaïca and has its first steps at the beginning of the 1960's with some pioneer bands or singers as Toots and the Maytals, Laurel Aitken, Mr Symarip and many others.
All of these artists are (or were) sponsorized by the label Trojan Records, which is the most known label of ska, rocksteady and reggae bands. During the 1960's, ska music is remplaced by the rocksteady which is caracterised by a slower rhythm. Then, at the end of the 1960's, a new kind of music was born, known as reagge music. In England, this music attracted a young working class movement, skinheads, who enjoy dancing at special clubs on the reggae rhythm. Skinheads like ska, rocksteady and soul too and this movement wasn't a racist one at the beginning, as most of the people think (if you have questions on this movement, tell me them, as I belong to this movement). But, at the end of the 1970's, reggae music is less and less popular.

At the beginning of the 1980's, a new wave of ska music appeared, especially in the United Kingdom. The instruments play a more important role than the voice, as you could hear in rocksteady and reggae music, and rhythm is accelerated too. This new kind of ska still influences many nowadays bands as the Toasters of New York City (to toast in a musically speaking is to make a kind of mix and add effects on voices and instruments), the Busters, a german band, the Specials and Bad Manners, as English bands, and the Run and Upten as French bands. Generally, the cost of a ska concert is never more than 10€ and there are many gigs given by the last two bands I mentionned.
I give you the website of Upten : http://www.myspace.com/uptenlegroupe
I hope you will enjoy listening ska music and I hope I will see you during a ska concert.