The Ska Vengers at The Blue Frog, Delhi

SKA/ska–noun: a modern style of Jamaican popular music, which emerged in the 1950s as a blend of African-Jamaican folk music, calypso, and American jazz and rhythm and blues, notable for its fast shuffling, scratch like tempo and jazzlike horn riffs with a heavy accent on the offbeat.

The Ska Vengers is a new Delhi based band who blend ‘ska’ rhythms with elements of dub, punk, jazz and rap to come up with a form of music that is refreshingly different, energetic and highly danceable.

Keys man, Stefan Kaye rounded up a few of his musician friends to form the band in the fall of 2009. The band was put together since there was a lack of energetic, harder edged dance based live music in India.

All members are highly experienced performers in their own right. Nikhil, Stefan and Tony also play in both post rock/disco group mperor Minge and theatrical jazz outfit The Jass B’stards . They are regular performers on India’s first touring cabaret show ‘The Stiff Kittens’ Medicine Show’. Samara is also an actor and equally well-known as a TV presenter on NDTV Good Times. Delhi Sultanate has garnered much praise for his highly skilled, socially conscious rap with drum ‘n’ bass team BASSFoundation and also his own project Word, Sound, Power. Raghav is also known as selecta with DJ collective ‘Reggae Rajahs’. Various members have either won or been nominated for Jack Daniels Rock Awards ikeyboards, bass, drums and vocals categories for their work with the band.

The Ska Vengers play very much for the moment as carefully worked out structures are at times elongated and receive dub treatment and Delhi Sultanate’s unique and highly rhythmic patois provides a suitable foil to Samara’s full throttle vocal delivery. They add their unique take on songs from reggae and soul legends such as Lee Scratch Perry, Betty Harris, Marcia Griffiths and when reworking classics from the likes of Velvet Underground, The Clash and even RD Burman. However it is their own highly dance oriented originals which are getting plaudits from critics and feet moving with fans.

9.30 pm – Flexi K
10.15 pm – Shakey Rays
10.50 pm – Video Screening ‘Badda’
11.00 pm – The Ska Vengers
12.20 pm – Bass Foundation Roots