When the world gets turned upside down, when loyalties realign, when everyone expects conformity: Don’t let the bastards grind you down. The Toasters, New York City’s seminal ska band, have lived by this maxim since their founding in 1981 by sole constant Robert “Bucket” Hingley – even if those words waited until 1997 to appear (in the classic bastardized Latin) on a Toasters album of the same name.
Formed in an older, grittier NYC, The Toasters lit the fuse on the American ska explosion — the U.S. crest of ska’s second, U.K.-bred wave, following the genre’s birth a generation earlier in Jamaica. At the center of it all was Bucket, a British expatriate working at the Forbidden Planet comic bookstore who simply missed the 2 Tone ska sounds of his homeland. With little scene to speak of, he did what any self-respecting rude boy would do—he started his own band and he hasn’t stopped, wave or no wave.
“Whether or not the mainstream media is paying attention to the genre is no real barometer about how well it’s doing,” Bucket tells PureHoney. “And this ‘wave’ theory of ska is just a nuisance because it’s just one wave that started in 1955, depending on who you listen to, right?”
The Toasters’ early days were pure DIY hustle. Unable to find a label interested in their supercollider of ska, punk, reggae and New Wave, Bucket founded Moon Ska Records in 1983. Moon Ska would go on to become the Toasters’ home and the epicenter of ska in the U.S., launching dozens of bands. The label folded in 2000 but The Toasters have racked up over 6,000 live shows as new recordings became distant images in the rearview.
Bucket sees more value in touring, the part he considers the most fun. “You have to be a little bit crazy, I suppose, but that works because I’m crazy as shit. I prefer to buy air tickets and go around the world and play shows,” he says. “That’s a much better delivery of the product right now.”
The Toasters, with Matamoska!, play 7pm Tuesday, May 6 at Respectable Street in West Palm Beach. thetoasters.band ~ Abel Folgar
