The Slackers

Since The Holiday Show taping crashed and burned (barring a team of lawyers, engineers, medicine men, and robots joining Whatevski, it has to stay in the vault) we had to make up for it. So, we dispatched one of the finest live recordists in the Bay Area to capture The Slackers live on New Year's Eve. The band barely made it there, almost waylaid by the great 2010 East Coast Snowmageddon. But they made it. And we recorded it. And it's a great show seeing the band in rare form. And now, it's here at Whatevski.

THE SLACKERS
LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO, 12/31/2010

RECORDED BY DAVID DENNY / DAVIDDENNY.COM

PRODUCED, MIXED & MASTERED BY SIR ALAN REDPATH, ESQ.

COVER ART INSPIRED BY THE GRATEFUL DEAD, WHO WE BELIEVE ARE KINDRED TO THE SLACKERS

"The Slackers are part of an imaginary universe. It wasn't their fault, well not completely. The caterpillar told them not to eat the mushroom on the right. But they did and for 15 yrs now they've had to play Imaginary-Jamaican-Rock-and-Roll, and try to explain that to everyone who passes. One asks,"Are you a reggae band?...where are your dreadlocks then?" Another says,"YOU DONT SOUND LIKE PUNK-ROCK WITH HORNS AT ALL!!" One elderly gent says,"Why it sounds like a lot of music I used to like, but I don't think any of you boys look addicted to HEROIN!" Doomed to try and explain themselves to a world full of hungry club-promoters, style-police, genre-slaves and the generally confused, they wrote bio upon bio, hoping to snag someone...ANYONE!...who might understand...here is attempt #6,364..."

- Vic Ruggiero, The Slackers

The Slackers sound is Jamaican rock n roll. While they have been influenced, and even personally taught by Jamaican ska/reggae originators, like the Skatalites and the Upsetters (Original backing band for the Wailers), the band sees its music through an American lens. This band is equally appreciative of old blues, 60s soul, rock, and Rnb as it is of reggae, rocksteady, dub, and Ska. It is as if the Rolling Stones or the Yardbirds had grown up on Bob Marley as well as Muddy Waters. From their 1996 release, Better Late Than Never through to 2008 with Self Medication, the NYC-based band, the Slackers have established themselves as America's premiere interpreters and innovators of Jamaican music and a pretty good rock band to boot.

http://theslackers.com