Here's what our resident Boston ska expert Jeff Bergstrom wrote in 2016 when Bim Skala Bim played a rare NYC show:
Bim Skala Bim were active from 1983 thorough 2002, but at the tail end of 2002 the band went on hiatus. They re-emerged in 2009 stronger than ever (and eventually brought back world-class trombonist Vinnie Nobile into the line-up) and since then they've been doing quite a bit of touring off and on. When Bim came into existence in 1983, ska was sort of splintering into two schools; on the one hand you had ska traditionalists who were keeping the Jamaican and Two Tone ska vibes alive, while on the other hand you had ska bands who were coming straight from the fertile punk scenes of the east and west coasts and creating a third wave of punkier ska. On one side you had pork pie hats and three piece suits, on the other you had mohawks and B.O.. But Bim stayed firmly rooted in a more niche element of ska that incorporated elements of reggae, calypso, and Latin sounds and although you could find me at ska core shows or Moon Records oriented traditionalist shows, I always made Bim a priority as their sound was just that unique and their musicianship that much better. And there was just something so Bostonian about how their physical appearance betrayed the type of music they'd dish out. For example, their bass player looked like he could have been in Deicide, their guitar player looked like he could have been in a grunge band, and the singer just looked like your average blue collar Joe.
The album is being released via the non profit music community project The Specialized Project. The band writes, "The Specialized Project acts as a fundraising portal for many charitable causes and projects. Since 2011 the core benefactor has been The Teenage Cancer Trust but they support a range of initiatives that support people in the areas of terminal illness and mental health."
Stream the album and watch a new video below...
