In Defense of Ska Ep 71: Bruce Lee Band (Mike Park, Jeff Rosenstock)

In Defense of Ska

During Skankin' Pickle's run, Mike Park had so many songs, he tapped Less Than Jake to record an album with him. He called it The Bruce Lee Band. This record was released in 1995. A decade later, The Bruce Lee Band returned with Beautiful World, this time backed by RX Bandits.

But then, nearly a decade later, The Bruce Lee Band became a solid group with Mike Park, Jeff Rosenstock, Dan Potthast and Kevin Higuchi (Though Mike Huguenor was involved in the two 2014 records). They've put out several releases. Last year they released the excellent EP Division in the Heartland. And on May 27th, they will release their full-length, One Step Forward. Two Steps Back--incredible, passionate and at times angry ska-punk.

On today's episode, we talk with two members of The Bruce Lee Band: Mike Park and Jeff Rosenstock. We discuss the two's origin story--Jeff's old band Arrogant Sons of Bitches tried to play at an event Mike threw at the Oakland A's parking lot, but Mike said no. We talk about the role Chris Candy played in the two becoming friends. And we talk about the mid-to-late-2000s era at Asian Man Records, where Mike had a vibrant selection of amazing punk bands like Bomb The Music Industry, AJJ, Lemuria and Shinobu.

We also discuss how drummer Kevin Higuchi went from San Jose bar band drummer to joining The Bruce Lee Band and Jeff Rosenstock's band, Mike Park smoking weed with Alkaline Trio, and the infamous Skankin' Pickle reunion shows in Japan. And of course, we dig deep into The Bruce Lee Band's excellent catalog.

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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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