The Supervillains 
Wed. Aug. 13
8 p.m.
$10, $8/adv.
Music Farm
32 Ann St.
(843) 853-3276
www.musicfarm.com
www.thesupervillains.net
“Punch Drunk Dub” from the album Grow Yer Own
Audio File
It’s a common complaint that all ska songs sound the same, but the genre carries other negative associations as well. “Nowadays, when you say ‘ska,’ you think of some dorky fat kid with braces,” says Dom Maresco, drummer and vocalist for the Orlando-based quintet The Supervillains.
For this reason, the band tries to dodge the “s-word,” relying on varied tempos and an aesthetic all its own to separate itself from the 2-Tone crowd. “Beaches,” from 2006’s Grow Yer Own, uses the band’s horn section as a flourish within the song’s otherwise pop-centric structure; Jamaican influence serves only to put a spring in the song’s step. But on other songs, such as the self-explanatory, mid-tempo “Maryjane and Jägermeister,” a much more obvious dub influence comes out in the rhythmic patterns and vocal inflections. The Supervillains, clearly, are hard to pigeonhole.
Maresco suggests, “If you want a ska band, get a ska band. If you want a reggae band, get a reggae band. If you want The Supervillains, then get the fuckin’ Supervillains.”
Their resistance to settle into a rut comes from the band’s unwillingness to serve the desires of anybody but themselves. “If I were to go up there and stir a bowl of oatmeal for 15 minutes, then that’s what I’m gonna do,” says Maresco. “I wanna go play music and rock out and enjoy myself, and everybody in the band is the exact same way.” The hope is for an audience to enjoy The Supervillains on their own terms, giving the band the freedom to maintain its own standards — musically, and otherwise.
Much like their forbearers in Sublime, The Supervillains are known as much for their marijuana consumption as their music. “I’d have to definitely say we’re connoisseurs,” says Maresco. When fans offer to share their stash, it’s the job of the band’s tour manager to make sure the pot is up to snuff; the ‘villains won’t deal with subpar greenery.
And they won’t deal with the negativity associated with what they see as a misguided definition of the genre that gives the band its roots. “The old-school ’50s and ’60s ska. That is the fuckin’ shit,” says Maresco, adding, “That came before reggae, and a lot of people don’t know that history … they don’t realize that Bob Marley was playing ska way before he was playing ‘Stir It Up’ and shit.”
Things sometimes get lost in history. The soulful dance music born in Jamaica from artists like Desmond Dekker was carried into the UK in the ’70s and ’80s with bands like The Specials and The English Beat adding the sounds of punk and British pop to the upbeat rhythms. It was much later that ska came stateside, blowing up briefly in the ’90s when Sublime, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and others topped the alt-rock charts. But no matter the geography, or the era, ska always was and always will be party music for The Supervillains.
“I think when people go see ska they should be subjected to a party,” Maresco says. “It’s not a place to fucking sit down and drink coffee. It’s a place to go drink a beer and find a chick and rub up against her — or a dude, if that’s your thing.”
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