In Defense of Ska Ep 40: David McWane (Big D and the Kids Table)

In Defense of Ska

By now, most of us know that ska wasn’t dead in the 2000s. But it was uncool. Really uncool. Bands were fleeing from the scene, and describing their sound as “Rock with horns”—anything other than “ska.” But the scene continued, fueled by the passion of dedicated fans. During this weird time, one group that did quite well was Boston’s Big D and The Kids Table, who even managed to chart on the Billboard Top Heatseekers with their excellent 2007 album Strictly Rude.

Big D formed in ’96 but didn’t release their first album, Good Luck, until 1999, which was right when ska was freefalling from mainstream culture. The group persevered during the ska-wasteland era and remains popular to this day. They are releasing their latest record, Do Your Art, on October 22nd on Side One Dummy Records. It’s their first collection of original tunes in years. We brought lead singer David McWane on to the show to talk about the album and their legacy as a not-quite-90s ska band going on two decades now.

We covered a lot of ground, including two of their best-known cover tunes: The Specials’ “Little B***h” and Propagandhi’s “Ska Sucks.” We discuss how the group drove across the country to play a show for Mike Park, in hopes that he’d sign them to Asian Man Records. (Which he did!) And we spend a fair amount of time dissecting their Strictly Rude record. We even find out about the group’s unlikely relationship with Japanese noise rock band Melt Banana. Dave also tells us a very compelling story about surviving cancer. Fortunately for him, he caught it early and is doing great.

If you’d like to support us and listen to early access, ad-free episodes with bonus content, check out our Patreon!

If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music.

Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024.

Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023.

The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.

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