The Monday Morning Wakeup

Again, no coffee. Must have something a bit more high energy.

So, in the late 90s, America was in an interesting state. DotComs. The supremacy of Microsoft. The Subaru JSpec 22B could be imported, to the annoyance of Porsche owners. Musically, swing was back in.

And so was it's lonely cousin, Ska-Punk, ushering in what has been referred to as the "Third wave of Ska."

Ska Punk had it's roots set in the late 70s, with Bands like The Specials, and The Beat (which reformed in the late 90s to be "Special Beat"), and of course, Madness. However, in the 90s, Southern California had spawned quite a few notable ska bands (Operation Ivy and Fishbone being two of the more popular bands at the time) which also had roots in the Punk scene. Bands like No Doubt, Sublime, Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake started to grab mainstream attention.

Then the stage blew up with Save Ferris', Come on Eileen. A cover of a Dexy's Midnight Runners tune, Come on Eileen shot the obscure ska punk band into the national stage, garnered a lot of radio play, and opened the way for a lot of the bands above. Combined with No Doubt, ska punk was a formidable force of music on the airwaves.

Save Ferris released It Means Everything in 1997, which was their first full-length album. For a first album, it's pretty perfect. All songs stick to the genre, the production was tight and balanced, without any throwaway songs. While they had Come on Eileen on here (which was released previously on an EP), the best songs actually surrounded their hit tune, instead of following it. PitchforkMedia even gave it a 9.5 out of 10, which is pretty high praise for them.

Finally, the song. Superspy. The third song out of the block on the album. No official video was made of it, but thanks to YouTube, we have one. The video is cute, but the song is great. Catchy starting swing beat, the vocals of Monique Powell, and a horn section over them all. To be honest, there is nothing like a great horn section, and Save Ferris had one of the best.

A great song to wake up to on a Monday. Even if you had coffee.



I had the opportunity to see them in concert, and they rocked. Sadly, Save Ferris is no more (officially), but the music lives on. It's always good to catch a band like this, even if its just once.

Cya,
-om