I was surprised, yesterday, when I was contacted by Cadence St. John, an “erotic, print and fetish model,” asking for a link exchange.  St. John’s site, OiTomBoy.com (NSFW) is her blog covering her carreer in Alt Porn and modeling in general. Here’s a bit from her description:

…I am a skinhead girl and being in this subculture you here a lot of shit and stereotypes that just suck. Skinhead girls are supposedly all fat, butch and ugly, or so the stereotype suggests. I don’t believe this and I want to change that. You can be tough, able to care of yourself  and still be a beautiful, sexual individual. That is what this site is about and giving something that you don’t see a lot of- a skingirl proud of her sexuality and not afraid to show it.

I realized quickly that I shouldn’t be surprised that she contacted me at all- this skingirl loves Ska:

To this day Ska is my favorite music. It’s how I came in the company of Skinheads when I was a young teen. Ska can be amazingly happy or majorly depressing but it always got to my emotions. I have a tattoo around my belly button “Celebrate the Bullet” it’s a song by The Selecter. Pauline Black has the most amazing, soulful voice. I could not get over that song for a long time. “Fu Man chu” by Desmond Dekker, “One Cup of Coffee” by Bob Marley (before the reggae), all are just amazing songs. I love this genre of music.

Cadence fights racial and extreemist stereotypes that are often applied to Skinheads while also using fetish and sub culture in a non-exploitive fashion.  You can check out OiTomBoy here NSFW.

Comments (8) Feb 26 2009

I’m a few days late posting these, and many of you may have already caught these on Dancin Mood, since the artist beat me to it. Ansis Purins is the fellow in question- Former/current member of Skavoovie and The Epitones, Purins is also a talented designer and comic book artist.

From talking with Dan Neely about Mento music- to the discussion on Album Art on Dancin Mood- to getting word of an impending Skavoovie reunion- I’ve been bumping into Epitones all over the place, lately. Once I started connecting the dots, I got my hands on some very cool illustrations from Purins- and he’s totally down with me showing them off.

You can find more art from Ansis at Here
And more on the Skavoovie reunion Here
aaand more on Dan Neely’s ethnomusicology work Here

A comic of Ska Deprecation

Purins work for the Ska Brewery

Comments (1) Feb 20 2009

If you’ll remember back a few weeks, to the post Marco Werman submitted to SBB- it was essentially his collection of notes from his trip to Jamaica.  It seems those notes have bore more fruit than just a few segments on the radio.

PBS has just released his segment featuring Studio One, Alpha Boys School, and Kingston life in general.  A few familiar faces pop up along the way.  Werman knows to evoke the name of Bob Marley early on, but he quickly opens the story up to cover many more musicians.

Great job, Marco!

FRONTLINE World – Jamaica: The Alpha Boys

Related Posts:

Guest Blogger, Marco Werman: Notes From a Sound System

Ska Online: The World Loves JA Music

Comments (0) Feb 10 2009

For my second contribution here, I wanted to talk about the recording process and get into more of the technical aspect of record production. It quickly became clear to me that a prior installment will be necessary: we really must talk next about Pre-Production and what that entails. This is the stage where, with planning, you will keep your record from going over budget and past due.

I am known as a producer of the practical type – My first production basically fell to me because I was the only member of the Scofflaws with studio experience. When it came time for us to make our first CD, I was the one who found the engineer (Bob Stander) who in turn helped me to find a studio, choose the tape, schedule the sessions – all because no one else had ever gone about it. And the main objective was to get from start to finish with our budget of about $5000. In that sense I was a producer in the old use of the term, the liaison between the technical and musical teams. I took charge of scheduling and rehearsing the band in sections, made sure the engineer knew what was wanted, made sure the musicians knew what was possible.

Rob “Bucket” Hingley was satisfied with the result, and hired me to produce “Ooolooloo” for the Pietasters. Up to this point, Moon Ska NYC had only accepted finished projects for release, but was ready to invest directly in this record. Again, the main objective was to keep the production within budget, I was not hired to impart some kind of artistic vision. To this day, my main contribution to record-making is more practical than anything else. It’s in that spirit that I hope people find this chapter useful!

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Comments (5) Feb 05 2009