It's pop quiz time! Ska is:1) Originally from Jamaica.
2) What reggae would sound like if played twice as fast.
3) Currently the most popular non-Hawaiian music in Hawaii among people who like to dance at concerts.
Answer? All of the above.
Revered by purists as imaginative yet traditionalist, Hepcat plays the Groove with Buck O Nine on Saturday.
Hepcat takes over the Groove on Sunday for a ska fest.
Hepcat released its first full-length album, "Out of No-where," in 1993, roughly 35 years after ska percolated out Jamaica's ghettos. Adopted by the English record industry as "Bluebeat" in the early '60s, it was exported to America amid the hodgepodge of recycled American rock, R&B and blues that comprised the "British Invasion" of 1964. The first example of ska/bluebeat heard by many Americans was Millie Small's "My Boy Lollipop."
Ska resurfaced in England in the late-'70s as the soundtrack to the Two Tone movement, a reference to the scene's interracial nature and the black-and-white attire popularized by groups like the Specials. The English ska scene eventually devolved into violence as punks, neo-mods, skinheads and "rudies" all laid claim to it.
Ska is back. Helping power the third wave are California-based bands like Hepcat, Buck O Nine, the Dance Hall Crashers, Skank-
in' Pickle, the Voodoo Glow Skulls and the Boston-based Mighty Mighty BossTones. All have done extremely well in concert here.
"(Ska) appeals to a younger audience than 'alternative' bands. Kids here hear ska - current or old - and they like it, but they don't know what the true history of it is. They just like dancing to it," says one local observer who requested anonymity.
"When the Specials were here (1995) they actually had to explain to this one skinhead punk that racism or beating up Nirvana fans is not what ska is about. Many ska bands then and now are integrated (so) how can racism ever be part of ska?"
Buck O Nine bassist Scott "Ska T" Kennerly agrees.
"Violence? No way! Ska has historical definitions and it also has the definition of today: Fun, exciting, upbeat."
The San Diego-based band is one of the new breed of ska-punk hybrids that fit in equally well opening for the BossTones or Green Day; their newest release, "Water in My Head," includes a remake of "Miserlou" recorded with Agent Orange.
They'll be joined by Buck O Nine.
"You can play rock 'n' roll, heavy metal, punk, jazz or Latin and mix in ska and it wouldn't seem out of place. We're mixing punk and pop into ska as we go," he said.
The Voodoo Glow Skulls took the cross-cultural mix in another direction by recording a punk-ska album in Spanish. Mephiskapheles added a semi-satirical spin with its breakthrough LP, "God Bless Satan."
Radio Free Hawaii gets the credit for fueling the ska phenomenon by responding to requests for groups like Mephiskapheles. Virtually unknown outside New York, the band drew more than 1,200 fans when it played the Groove in March.
"We've been playing ska since Dance Hall Crashers and Hepcat back in 1992. It's built to where an average of five of our Top 10 (requested) songs are ska, and the songs that stay on the chart longest are all ska records," Radio Free's "Sheriff Norm" Winter said. "Right now the major labels are buying all the ska bands they can get their hands on so it will be about six months before you'll hear ska all over the other stations.
"The whole nation is realizing that ska is happening. When I started talking to (the) Gavan (Report) in 1993 they told me it had always been around. Ever since I talked with them it's been getting bigger and bigger."
In concert: Hepcat and Buck O Nine
When: 8:15 p.m. Sunday
Where: The Groove, 1130 N. Nimitz Highway
Cost: $16.50
Call: 947-CLUB (2582)