skankin'

People, it is snowing AGAIN! And I don't mean snowing a flake or two, it's coming down! Not sure I moved to New Mexico...when does it ever snow this much here? I love it!

So about skankin', lest you worry, I have not become a pirate hooker (ha ha, that's for you Ron Burgundy fans), rather I am referring to the ever-fantastic ska show dancing. My brother took me to a ska show last week for my surprise Christmas present, and I thought I ought to report on it as I am on the quest for ska-world-domination. Ha, ok maybe not, but it was a super fun show, and if you don't know how to skank, here's why you should learn:
The opening act was a bank called Made in Bangladesh and they were a high-schoolish (maybe college) band that was "heinously out of tune" (so said my bro), but the good news is that despite a certain lack of skill in the intonation world, they were so obviously having fun on stage that you couldn't help but love them. After having gone to some shows this fall that featured pretty typical dressing-up-because-i'm-on-stage people (which I'm not criticizing...really), it was kind of refreshing to go to a show where the lead singer is wearing a t-shirt and khaki cargos and has his hair slicked back like mr. nerd. Ska shows definitely have a certain fashion expected (think bowler hats and lots of black and white checked stuff) but these kids totally ignored that. Besides dressing like normal people, these kids also danced all over the stage, and by danced I mean skanked it up. Most of you probably know my love for skankin, but let me just tell you how much I enjoyed seeing people on stage dance not in a weird jerky i'm-on-speed kind of way (which seems to be the typical style lately). So the second band was Danny Winn and the Earthlings, which is not usually one of my favorites, but they were such an enormous improvement in the playing-chords-with-notes-that-actually-go-together area...and they also turned out to be way better live than their recordings. They play a slower ska, which is hard to skank to, but that's ok, they were great. The last band was Giant Steps, a bunch of old guys who are teachers in various Albuquerque schools. They had a full horn section and were stinkin' sweet! Great beats, especially their reggae, great horns, great skankin, all around fantastic. I stayed up in the grown-up balcony because I didn't want to be pulverized downstairs (skankin is not the most gentle of dancing), so I had to be content with dancing in my little foot of space...not to worry though, I put on some old five iron and skanked all by my happy little self once I got home. That's maybe why I love ska so much - it just makes you wanna dance! And it's happy music, which is good, esp. in the midst of winter. Lately it seems that all I do is fight for joy, fight against being down and feeling sorry for myself and missing M, so it was nice to have an unanticipated night of straight up easy joy and dancing and laughter! And Ian (the bro) said it perfectly: "you know, the scene here is so great because the bands know they aren't gonna get rich or famous in albuquerque, they're just playing for the love." For the love people, for the love.

For the love, and a small fee, I'll teach you how to skank....Ha ha, just kidding, but really, you should learn because it's fun. And you can be a rhythmically challenged individual (like me) and still skank. Come on, you know you wanna!