Pick It Up!

October 12, 2018 12:15 PM

Reel Big Fish Release Track From First Album in Six Years Reel Big Fish are partnering with AP to premiere their track “You Can’t Have All Of Me.” As if that’s not exciting enough, they’re also revealing plans to release their first new album in six years, Life Sucks…Let’s Dance!, this winter. (Video for the first release, "You Can't Have All Of Me," is embedded therein. Also, tour dates. Enjoy.)
posted by NedKoppel (25 comments total)

on top of everything else this decade we have to deal with another forking ska revival.

we're in the bad place, aren't we. this is the bad place.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 12:36 PM on October 12, 2018 [12 favorites]

Ska isn't dead. It just smells funny.
posted by NedKoppel at 12:40 PM on October 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

I have to hand it to them, at the end of a 20-year ska Battle Royale campaign they’re the ones left standing
posted by Homeskillet Freshy Fresh at 12:42 PM on October 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

on top of everything else this decade we have to deal with another forking ska revival.

we're in the bad place, aren't we. this is the bad place.

I think it's a combination of the typical 15 year nostalgia cycle, and a general demand for more dorky feel-good media in our shitty shitty world. My mood falls into both categories, let's do this!
posted by Think_Long at 12:44 PM on October 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

That's a Reel Big Fish tune, alright.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:51 PM on October 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

on top of everything else this decade we have to deal with another forking ska revival.

we're in the bad place, aren't we. this is the bad place.

All the frozen yogurt you want.
posted by NedKoppel at 12:58 PM on October 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Another ska revival? Ska's been slowly simmering and back for years now. Hell, Less than Jake put out a new record last year. There even young bands now. DC's Kill Lincoln, for example, fccking rules.

I like this song! It's pleasant and has super singalong potential.

I'm sorry for all you who can't appreciate a little ska in their life.
posted by General Malaise at 1:06 PM on October 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

Oh, related: Mighty Mighty Bosstones also released their first record in seven years this summer.
posted by General Malaise at 1:11 PM on October 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

And in the meanwhile, Reel Big Fish's former trombonist, Dan Regan left the band and opened a brewery - Liberation Brewing. I know which of these appeals to me more. :) (Bonus, their bassist is wearing a Liberation shirt in the video)

Having said that - yes, please more peppy upbeat stuff right now, please.
posted by drewbage1847 at 1:37 PM on October 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

I kind of feel like once the things that punk and ska have been pushing back on for all of their OG times and revivals would go away THEN punk and ska can be retired. But we still have nazis and skinheads, so we still need punk and ska, even if it's revival #375 by now.

Also, I feel like RBF has gone kind of dadcore in this song.

DC's Kill Lincoln, for example, fccking rules .

I really enjoyed the odd juxtaposition of the happy sound of ska and the dancing with the snow. For some reason those two things seem very far apart to me.
posted by urbanlenny at 2:00 PM on October 12, 2018 [6 favorites]

As a ska fan what just turned 50, I don't mind "dad-core" too much.
posted by NedKoppel at 3:08 PM on October 12, 2018

“Dad-core” seems like a decent balance to RBF’s previous 10th-grade-core lyrics tbh

I mean their music is great but the lyrics make me want to stare dramatically at myself in the mirror
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:49 PM on October 12, 2018

If you think the new RBF song is dad-core (and, well, it kind of is), check out the new-ish Bosstones record. Listened to it all since mentioning it above for the first time, and I swear the whole thing is an old man sitting solo at a bar, nursing a whiskey and telling stories to a group of rapt 20s-year-olds.
posted by General Malaise at 3:59 PM on October 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Ska is cool. Mute the trumpet and rap the lyrics and you get Cake. Drop the lyrics and add a tuba and you get polka.

It's all good.
posted by zaixfeep at 4:47 PM on October 12, 2018 [5 favorites]

I enjoy Reel Big Fish and I don’t care who knows it.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:22 PM on October 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

I like Reel Big Fish and loved seeing them in BASE-ketball.
posted by bendy at 6:36 PM on October 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

I once briefly blacked out from dehydration at a Reel Big Fish show at First Street Entry in Minneapolis that was a benefit show for me.

I mean, not JUST me, but I was a subset of the people it was a benefit for. It was a canned food drive for people that had been evacuated from Grand Forks due to a flood, and I was staying in Minneapolis until we could go back.

Security wouldn't let me skip the line.
posted by flaterik at 7:07 PM on October 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

Note that I was dehydrated from dancing in a small hot room, not because of any other part of the circumstances.
posted by flaterik at 7:08 PM on October 12, 2018

I caught Reel Big Fish at Warped Tour a couple of years ago. It was mostly a younger crowd politely listening while biding time for the bands they really wanted to see. The lead singer decides to goof on the crowd by announcing that they would be playing their biggest hit and proceed to play a spot-on rendition of the Bosstones’ The Impression That I Get. Apparently, only the old-timers were in on the gag as the kids closest to me stopped dancing long enough to look at me guffawing like an idiot and wondering what I found so funny.
posted by dr_dank at 7:52 PM on October 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

Saw them play at Berkeley Square and never went to a ska show again.
posted by migurski at 8:18 PM on October 12, 2018

I like ska.
posted by ryanrs at 11:42 PM on October 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

I saw them about three years ago here in Japan. Kemuri was having their 20th anniversary show, with Less Than Jake, Reel Big Fish, and Skanking Pickle! Skanking Pickle was playing together for the first time in seven or eight years, and Kemuri had invited the three bands to Japan to say thanks for all their help and support over the years.

I was never all that into Reel Big Fish, and at (then) 40 years old, I used their set to catch my breath before being right up in the front row. Still, they played a pretty decent set, and were fun to watch live.

Ska is alive and skanking. It never went away, even if you're dead inside and unable to appreciate it.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:21 AM on October 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

That new RBF single would be excellent if it was it was 1981, the song was played twice as fast, played by a band with 5 less people in it, all the members in the band were 18 or younger, and most who were dealing with pretty serious drug problems. Something like this.


"You can't have all of me", shouldn't be in a major chord.
posted by alex_skazat at 5:54 PM on October 13, 2018

All respect to the MMBT.
posted by alex_skazat at 5:56 PM on October 13, 2018

on top of everything else this decade we have to deal with another forking ska revival.

And thank goodness for it! I could use some brainless fun these days, thankyouverymuch.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:16 AM on October 16, 2018 [3 favorites]