Local band resurrects Ska in Visalia

If you were to ask any millennial to find their "skanking" shoes, they would need to reach far back into their closet. Really far back. To the spot where they left their middle school Trapper Keeper, their favorite pair of ripped jeans, and those discarded cd's of "Now That's What I Call Music!" — back from when the series was still in the single digits.

That's because we now have to remind each other that "skanking" isn't a synonym for a sleazy person or a bad decision, it's what you do with your friends on a dance floor when the band on stage combines a walking bass line, rhythms on the upbeat, and a brass ensemble to create a sound that irresistibly compels you to bounce hap-hazardly, uncoordinatedly, even embarrassingly — you know, like a middle schooler.

For the Record, performing 8 p.m. Saturday, March 21 at The Cellar Door, is fully aware of that kind of unabashed middle school embarrassment.

"It was in the eighth grade, in fact," said Asa Waggoner, guitarist and vocalist of For the Record, "My best friend Sean and I had started working on music. Our first band was a horrible band called 'Lawn Chair.' Junior High stuff — don't ask. It was horrible, but it was fun."

When he found Ska-punk, he found the inspiration he needed to turn his music into something more than just a fun diversion.

"My friend's favorite band was Reel Big Fish, and when I gave them a listen it stuck like glue," he said. "We started trying to figure it out."

The history of ska

For those who didn't grow up listening to music in a time when a lot of it was delivered illegally through "Limewire," ska-punk laid closer along the lines to a revival of swing and jump blues music. In the late 1990s the genre manage to synthesize punk sensibilities of teen angst and stand-up-to-the-man attitude with developed instrumentation, clean vocals, and guitar distortion.

Among Reel Big Fish were notable ska-punk bands such as Less Than Jake, included on the soundtrack to the late '90s masterpiece "Good Burger," The Mighty Bosstones, from the soundtrack to "Clueless," and Save Ferris, featured in the 1999 film "10 Things I Hate About You."

There was one other ska band coming out of San Jose that was destined to make it big in the late '90s. A band that would be so hot among teens that they would be "Walkin' on the Sun."

That band was Smash Mouth, and although they predominantly ditched the ska-punk genre in lieu of more radio-friendly fair, it seems after all these years they will be getting back in touch with their roots with a performance in the Central Valley.

The Visalia-based ska-punk band For the Record will be opening for Smash Mouth 8 p.m. Saturday, April 18, at Fulton 55.

If you want to hear their early hits, you can always fetch your copy of "Now That's What I Call Music 3."

If all this news makes you nostalgic for freshman year of high school, you are not alone.

For those who reached adolescence in the early 2000s, ska-punk could be found literally everywhere. It had its own subgenre of Christian-Ska that was practically unanimously played in every youth group in the country.

Then it just… vanished.

"I noticed the scene when I was in high school," Waggoner said. "When we started, Visalia had that hardcore scene — hardcore mixed with ska. They have that in L.A. which is called ska-core, but we're not fans."

"First it went to the hardcore scene, and then it honestly died overnight."

Resurgence of ska

Although the light was stifled, it flared back to life for Waggoner in his sophomore year of college when For the Record was assembled.

"In the early days For the Record was just like any other band. We were trying to find what worked. When we first started I had never even written a song," he said.

He came upon a stroke of beginners luck with his first song "Hey Monday," an instant hit that is still requested by fans today.

Keeping the hits coming though quickly became a difficult task.

Ska requires a full fledged army of musicians capable of playing bass, brass, and guitar.

It's a tall order for any band to fill. Even Reel Big Fish — For the Record's biggest influence — has rotated through 23 different musicians since its inception, the only constant member being the lead guitar and vocalist Aaron Barrett.

"We couldn't find horn players to save our life," Waggoner said of his first few months of assembling For the Record.

In addition, the band wasn't immune to middle-school drama.

For instance, a trumpet player dating another band member's ex just wouldn't fly.

"One of the things I quickly discovered is that you're pretty much at any time playing musical personnel, or being a manager," he said. "I took some group communication classes and good lord has it helped."

Latest configuration

The band now consists of Asa Waggoner on guitar and vocals, Riley Reitzel on bass, Matt Lepper on drums, Niko East on trombone, Joseph Rocha on tenor sax, and Martin Saiza on trumpet.

The question remained whether the hard work would pay off.

"California in and of itself has a great ska scene. Up north it's great, down south it's great, but here there's nothing," he said of the Central Valley.

"I can honestly count all the ska bands on one hand — technically two hands because there's exactly six of them."

Saturday's concert will serve as a sort of gathering of troops for the ska cause.

Together with fellow local ska bands Out of Step and Iwanaga, For the Record will be representing half of the best ska bands in California's Central Valley in an effort to remind audiences what exactly it was about ska music that captivated them in the first place.

"People, even though they don't know what ska is, they're constantly reminded of it. It's in every Tony Hawk game. It's in the intro to America's Funniest Home Videos. It's in commercials," Waggoner said. "They get caught up in the sheer musicality of it."

It might not be playing on the radio, but as Reel Big Fish noted in one of their most popular songs, "Turn the Radio Off."

Ska is an experience. For many it may be an experience of nostalgia, but in person it's an experience that irresistibly encourages an audience to ditch their spot on the sidelines, put on their "skanking" shoes, and hop on the dance floor.

"If you're not dancing, you better be in a wheelchair or have a broken foot," Waggoner said.

Despite all the old fads that have died since the early 2000s (I'm looking at you, Tamagotchi pets), Ska is very much still alive. If you feel bad about thinking otherwise, you can always go home and write about it in your "LiveJournal."

Details: For the Record, Out of Step, and Iwanaga perform 8 p.m. Saturday at The Cellar Door, 101 W. Main St., Visalia. Tickets are $5. 21 and older.