In Defense of Ska Ep 70: Blue Meanies (Billy Spunke, Sean Dolan)

In Defense of Ska

In the late '90s, someone asked Blink-182's Tom DeLonge if he wanted to go see The Blue Meanies perform. Both bands happened to be in Australia at the same time. His response: "Are they still scaring kids?" The answer was obviously yes, so Tom passed.

The Blue Meanies formed in 1989 in Carbondale, Illinois by Jay Vance, who would later start the avant-garde project Captured By Robots. The Blue Meanies started as a Fishbone-style party band, but when they relocated to Chicago a few years later, the group evolved into one of the most menacing bands in the 90s ska scene. And many kids were scared, especially when the Meanies opened for bands like Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake and Goldfinger.

On this episode, we dig deep into Blue Meanies' history and talk about their early years playing the famous Lost Cross House in Carbondale. We talk about a very special show at The Outhouse in Lawrence, Kansas, where they met MU330 and Skankin' Pickle. We also talk about Billy's couple year period after Kiss Your Ass Goodbye that he lived in New Orleans, the Full Throttle years, where they rehearsed in an abandoned grocery store in Chicago, the Ska Against Racism and Plea For Peace tours, their Post-Wave MCA album signing, and a song the band wrote for the Troma film Sucker.

Bill also talks about two big influences on him: Tom Waits and Nick Cave.

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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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