Category: Press

Lions and Tigers and Bots

News items, links, and bears! Brooklyn Vegan ran a lovely preview of Street Party, last week.  The album is now on all the fancy streaming services, linked to from here. The CD is available by mail order directly from me, have at it here.  What else?  It’s exciting to get this into the world, finally!  Lyric sheets and track credits are in the individual Bandcamp song pages, such as this one.  Please enjoy, and feel free to share any ol’ which way!  Thanks <3

Photo by Thomas White (on some drums he played on this very album!)

Long Live Ska – Aaron Carnes catches up with the UpTones

Somehow I neglected to add this article here when it ran a year or so ago. The author, Aaron Carnes, is currently finishing up a book about how ska music evolved after the Two-Tone era, in the US and Mexico and beyond. Aaron told me a little about the impact of the movie Dance Craze, after I had shared with him what a huge influence it was on the early UpTones. Not surprisingly, it turns out Dance Craze was also a key piece to many of the other bands whom Aaron interviewed, and there’s a whole backstory to how the movie flopped in the UK and almost never saw release in the US. I look forward to reading more about all that! Meanwhile, adding this East Bay Express article to the “Press” section here on my Interbloggy. Time to update the things. All of the things.


Pink Section Cover Story on The Uptones by Joel Selvin

When SF Chronicle pop music critic Joel Selvin interviewed Paul Jackson, Moose Lethridge and myself for his article about The Uptones’ reformation in the 2000’s, we had no idea it would be part of a cover story in the Sunday Datebook. Shortly after the release of our Skankin’ Foolz Unite! CD, there it was next to the morning coffee and we were gobsmacked. Pat Johnson took the cover photo and Katy Raddatz got some fun color action shots of the band in rehearsal in West Oakland. You can read the saga in SFGate. Thanks Joel, and thanks everyone who has enjoyed this long, strange, ska trip with us.

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Aidin Vaziri profiles Matt Jaffe in SF Chronicle

Here’s a nice little write-up from Aidin Vaziri about Matt Jaffe & The Distractions in the SF Chronicle. It’s a local paper so I picked up a paper copy for my wall of course! I love Matt’s songs, and it was really great fun playing guitar with the his band the Distractions, on their latest recordings. See these guys on tour if you get the chance, they’re phenomenal!

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Nate Seltenrich’s East Bay Express Story on Skanking Fools Dance Contest

The headline says it all:
At the Uptones’ Skanking Fools Dance Contest, Ska Reigns Supreme

When the Uptones finally appear after 11 p.m., the energy in the room seems to peak. “Y’all ready to skank? ‘Cause that’s what we’re here for,” announces guitarist Musashi “Moose” Lethridge. …Again the dance floor is abuzz with energetic young skankers, a flurry of flailing limbs and bobbing bodies.”

Read the whole story at East Bay Express.

Thanks Nate, and thanks everyone who skanked it up at our shows.

The Fashion Slaves at de Young Museum after-party

One of my favorite gigs with The Fashion Slaves was at de Young Museum, as part of the finale for their Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition in 2012. Aidin Vaziri interviewed our lead singer Emily Jayne and wrote a preview for the event, which ran in the San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate:

The Fashion Slaves at de Young Museum after-party

Thanks Aidin, and thanks de Young for including us in this unique and fabulous occasion!