In the six years since popular culture took a quick look at the faintly memorable Reel Big Fish, the U.S. ska scene has kept a faint pulse in the underground music culture. Since RBF's 1996 and 1997 peak, using "Sell Out" from the Turn the Radio Off album as its flagship, ska has retreated from the mainstream.
Ironically, "Sell Out" sold out, and fad-crazed teens turned on their radios to hear Turn the Radio Off. But those days are over, as they don't sell out anymore and kids have turned off their radios.
Here in Arizona, however, ska and reggae bands thrive as a small cornerstone of underground music. Enter Warsaw Poland Bros. Together since the early 1990's, these hopelessly talented bar musicians from Tucson, Ariz. have consumed audiences with amorous lyrics, memorizing horn licks and insatiable drum beats. And their show Saturday at the Modified Arts proved it once again.
The forefront of the three- to six-member band (it varies from show to show), are the Poland brothers. Aaron (Double A) and Chris (Crix) Poland, brothers with notably similar voices, eat up the stage with vocals that explore the spaces between notes - just like slide trombones. Their voices, seemingly constructed for reggae performances, climb up and down several octaves and jive with fluent offbeat guitar picking. Often harmonized in major third chords, the Poland brothers have a delectable habit of hissing "S" sounds into the microphone. Every plural word is a joy for the ear. Moreover, they have never failed to swoon me since I first saw them at Skrappys in Tucson back in 1999.
While the show was somewhat routine for Warsaw, the band had a skeletal lineup. As a former trombone slinger, my judgment of ska bands focuses on the competence of a band's horns. The staples of Warsaw's horn section were absent Saturday, and they lost a point with me because of it.
Monkeybone, the band's phenomenal trombone player, and Drago, the versatile trumpeter, disappointed me when they didn't show up. Worse, Warsaw's substituting trumpet player was subpar. Between cracking his high notes, sloppy key technique and not knowing essential horn lines, several of Warsaw's pronounced songs were gutted. I was just glad he defaulted to the rock organ.
The trouble started before the band started playing. An inebriated Aaron Poland talked to me before the show. It was 9:55 p.m. and Warsaw was supposed to be on stage. I asked Aaron if Monkeybone or Drago were coming. The shiny-eyed Poland brother froze a second to think and then grabbed a glowing cell phone from a groupie, speed-dialing Monkeybone and Drago. Sadly, both declined to perform that night.
But that's miracle of Warsaw. The band slaps together a lineup minutes before a show and always acts surprised if either horn player actually shows. Further, like average rockstars, the members don't need sobriety on their side to entertain the audience with must-dance tunes.
Subtracting the horn players, Warsaw held its own. Standing or sitting, nobody could keep still. Serving as a counterpart to the trying-too-hard-to-look-cool ska bands before them, Warsaw dished out the most danceable music - slow enough for comfortable hip gyration and fast enough to dispel boredom.
Beyond any doubt, the Poland brothers proved that the Modified could suit reggae bands just as well as the more typical esoteric indie-rock shows. While the audience missed the brass virtuosos, it was a fresh change to see a ska/reggae band that didn't look like a battleship. Lewd lyrics, beer and a small army of hipster groupies showed that Warsaw knows it's just too cool to make it big.
And while popular culture may not revive it again, ska will always be there, basking in the dim lights of underground music like the surreal colors of the Modified's stage lights.
Chris Kark is a reporter for the Web Devil. Reach him at christopher.kark@asu.edu.