Raise Your Jagers High!
The Toasters
by Dean “Got To Know When The Toasters Toast ‘Em” Bonzani
9.25(I know, I know).04
The mighty salmon fights its way upstream, exhausting itself in the raging torrent of the river as it heeds the urgent call to spawn. Regardless of the struggle, it forges on, so that its lineage will not fail.
Rob “Bucket” Hingley, founder and sole remaining original member of New York City’s The Toasters, is not unlike the mighty salmon.
The ska guitarist may or may not be heeding the urgent call to spawn, but he is most certainly fighting his way upstream, determined not to let the lineage of ska fail. The fickle winds of fortune have turned the market toward, then abruptly away from the music genre that began in Jamaica in 1962, and that he’s cherished and played for more than 23 years as leader of The Toasters. All the while, he has stayed true to his original vision, and weathered the many sea changes that the musician’s life brings. With twelve albums, scores of singles and EP’s, and over 4,000 live concert appearances under his belt, including appearances with The Specials, The English Beat and the Skatalites, Bucket has managed to claim the title for The Toasters of the longest continually running ska band in the world. That weren’t no easy thing.
Bucket began life in Africa, where he was exposed to his father’s excellent record collection and eclectic musical tastes. When the family moved to Plymouth, England, he picked up the ska bug when he heard Millie Small's “My Boy Lollipop.” Years later, when he moved to from London to the States to manage a comic book store, he sought out musicians to form a ska band, and to his amazement, found that no one knew how to play ska.
"It was a nightmare," he says. "I couldn't find anyone, so I started teaching people those beats. As the band progressed and we played out more and more, it became a magnet for guys, so a lot of people came out of the woodwork. First off, it was a little difficult teaching people to play on the off-beat." (Gilbert Garcia; “Two Tone Army.” www.zwire.com)
As frontman for The Toasters, Bucket has toughed it out for over two decades. He started Moon Ska Records early in the band’s career, so that his group and other ska acts could get distribution and recognition, but the downside was that many of the bands that he signed to his label simply used his efforts as a leg up, and left the label once they’d achieved a small measure of success. He’s since closed up shop at Moon Ska, and started his current label, Megalith Records, whose emphasis is on a broader selection of music, distributed at more affordable prices, cutting out the middle men. (The unofficial motto of the new label is “buy it, don’t burn it.”)
Now, in the market aftermath of what some music historians are calling the demise of ska’s “third wave,” The Toasters are setting off on a 50 city tour through the U.S. and Canada dubbed the Ska Brawl Tour. They’re being sponsored by Jagermeister Music, who appear at most shows giving away Jager swag, which is always a good thing.
Skanking salmon lovers will want to come jog in place to the sounds of ska’s longest running original band. Oi!
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The Toasters, with The Skanksters and New Blood Revival at The Orpheum Theater, Wed., Oct. 6th. Doors at 8:00 P.M., show starts at 9:00 P.M. Tix are $10. advance/ $12. day of show. All Mogollon tickets will be honored.
©2005 by Dean Bonzani, All Rights Reserved