The Toasters

As far as musical trends that peaked in the '90s are concerned, ska might be just ahead of big beat and the swing revival in the Stuff People Can't Believe They Liked category -- which does make it that much more oddly admirable that the Toasters are still doing their thing. It helps that the New York-based band was helmed by a British ex-pat, singer/guitarist Rob "Bucket" Hingley, and actually formed when the 2-Tone-dominated second wave of ska was still fresh. 1987's watershed Skaboom! subsequently set the pace for America's eventual absorption of the genre, and did so with a keen sense of playfulness and an enthusiasm for modernizing its roots. But in the ensuing years, the Toasters smartly avoided the goonish aggro-punk their latter-day contemporaries used in favor of an expansion of the classic, tightly-arranged and brassy celebration of the genre's original Jamaican and second-gen British incarnations. If ever there's a fourth wave of ska, expect these guys to be the great elder statesmen of that phase, too. With Sajak, Rocksteady Breakfast, Panel of Experts. 18+ (Photo by aka Twitch)
Thu., Oct. 22, 8 p.m., 2009