The Penniless Loafers Take Centerstage on a Killer Ska Triplebill at Otto’s Tonight
We are overdue for another ska revival. And it looks like it’s happening.
By the time the fast one-drop got popular in the US, it was already retro. And then it got corporatized, and watered down. And as the years went by and the diehards who played the oldschool stuff got old, the crowds that used to pack the Tribeca-era Knitting Factory trickled down into little bars like Don Pedro’s and Spike Hill and then finally Otto’s. If you’re a diehard who might be interested in seeing the glorious past and promising future of slinky formerly Jamaican sounds in New York, that’s where you can find a triplebill tonight, April 14 which has both.
At 8 PM there’s Barbicide, a more punk-oriented spinoff of 90s legends Mephiskapheles. The 9 PM act is the Penniless Loafers, who are what No Doubt would have been if they’d been good. Third-wave ska trombone legend Buford O’Sullivan, who has played with everybody starting with the Skatalites, headlines with his band the Roosters. A show this good ten years ago would have set you back at least twenty bucks. Tonight, it’s a pass-the-hat situation. Make of that what you will.
The Penniless Loafers represent the future on this bill. They have horns, and keys, but as much of a classic powerpop influence as oldschool ska and punk. In a style almost completely dominated by dudes, their all-female frontline sets them apart. Their latest album Living the Plan B – streaming at Bandcamp – came out while this city was still under Cuomo’s nightmare lockdown and deserves to be better known.
The opening track, Milo, is probably the only ska song ever written about a cat: it’s got jangly guitars, and sleek roller-rink organ, and brass, and an unexpected, irresistible halfspeed reggae breakdown. It says a lot about the band’s sense of humor.
Track two, New Face is a rocksteady song, like a beefier version of the Big Takeover. The band’s frontline – Veronica Gonzalez, Lynsey Vanderberg and Casey Walker – join soul-infused harmonies in Moving Along, a catchy reggae-janglerock mashup with icy chorus-box guitar, bright horns and bandleader Tim Firth’s layers of organ.
The horns take centerstage in Sneaky Little Thoughts, a more brooding reggae tune, the band picking it up suddenly with a sizzling Noah Axelrod guitar solo. Hearts of Pyrite, a shimmery, upbeat but bittersweet tune with gospel-tinged call-and-response vocals, is one of the album’s strongest cuts.
They switch to a blazing mashup of dark fuzztone surf rock over a 60s go-go beat in M.I.A. and then go back to rocksteady with I Spy (a cynical original, not the Pulp anthem).
The band really take the songs to the next level as the album winds up. Day and Night is a smolderingly successful detour into towering, angst-fueled vintage noir soul territory. The band return to moody reggae in One for the Stars and then range from delicate Lynchian pop to a venomous kiss-off anthem in This is Getting Heavy. There’s also a gorgeous bonus track, Lost Love where they slowly make their way up from a wounded noir nocturne to rocksteady.