AboutGrant Miner Expertise I can answer a broad range of questions on reggae music, its history, and the religious and social factors that have influenced its development in Jamaica and elsewhere. I also have a similarly broad knowledge base for old school Punk Rock (circa 1976-1982).
Experience A performing musician for 20 years, I have traveled extensively in Jamaica and England as well as the USA, always with an eye and an ear for music.
Publications In the early 80s I conducted interviews and wrote for numerous underground music magazines: Paranoia, Flipside, etc. More recently I have written about sports for Bartcop.com
Awards and Honors American Academy of Poetry Award (1984)
Expert: Grant Miner Date: 4/28/2004 Subject: ska to reggae throw to punk
Question hello you god like ppl u i need some help hear?
rite i am intrested as to the how ska evolved to todays skank dancing worthy punk bands i just need the gap from reggae to today and some of the major underground heros, and who inveted skanking in the first instance the erly est refenc i can find is in Bob's 'Livly Up Your Self' and that other one i fink it was 'Keep On Skanking' (not to shore on that ones name i can't get to my rcord collection to check rite now) so yes eny help would do? so in basic ska=Reggae=Bob+punk= 2tone+X+time=red bellons
i need to find x (allgebra is one of my stong points)
Answer Gillis, I'm not sure exactly what your question is, or that I could answer it if I knew. My knowledge of the history of skanking is rather limited. It started back in the 60s and was generally associated with Ska and Rock Steady. The dance has always been about minimalism. In the 80s, the "get flat" (skanking while while crouching progressively lower to the ground) was the thing to do. Nowadays, dancehall rules the massive, at least in Jamaica.
Punks co-opted skanking sometime around the late 70s, early 80s. It'd be nice and tidy to suggest that it made the leap from reggae to punk in the ghettos of Brixton, but I doubt it. I saw the Clash in Hammersmith Palais in 1980 and everybody pogo'd. I saw X at the Starwood in Los Angeles that same year and punks were skanking. That suggests that skanking made it's way to punk via the Ska revival of the early 80s, which probably had as great an impact in the US as England. Of course, as the music sped it up, skanking morphed into slamming/moshing. I don't think any assign any great meaning to this phenomenom, although that's probably due more to my ignorance of dance than anything else.
