Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Columnist Spencer Patterson: There is no danger of burnout for Toasters

Most musicians yearn for downtime while on tour, a chance to see the sights, hang out with friends or simply catch up on sleep.

Not so for Rob "Bucket" Hingley.

The frontman for veteran ska band the Toasters has packed 49 shows into 48 days for his current U.S. tour. And he's done it quite intentionally.

"I think when you have days off you tend to lose your adrenaline rush, and tours are all about momentum," Hingley, 49, said in a phone interview during a tour stop in Vancouver, British Columbia on Tuesday.

"We like to keep busy. There's plenty of time to chill out when we're finished."

The Toasters touch down in Las Vegas on Monday for a 7 p.m. show at Jillian's, 450 Fremont St. Tickets are $10, with New Blood Revival, Warsaw, GDB and Deadball 38 scheduled to open.

Ska music has kept the British-born Hingley plenty busy since he founded his New York City ensemble back in 1981. The band's only original member, he has kept the Toasters together for 23 years, working more than 40 musicians in and out of the lineup.

In addition to touring and recording with the Toasters, he has run a pair of independent labels, the defunct Moon Ska Records and the recently launched Megalith Records, promoting his brand of music tirelessly.

"I refer to myself sometimes as the janitor of ska," he said. "To a certain extent I feel I've been cleaning up the mess that other people made in the ska party room."

Hingley was mainly referring to the ska explosion of the 1990s, when major labels latched onto the genre: an update on traditional Jamaican music, featuring rock instrumentation and horns.

Before long, the term "ska" was being applied to punk and party acts that had little in common with its Jamaican founders or early British revivalists such as the Specials and the English Beat.

"The music went in the wrong direction and the light got shone in the wrong place," Hingley said. "A lot of the harder-working bands -- like a lot of the old Jamaican guys still doing it -- had their hearts broken because they didn't really get any love from that."

Hingley scoffed at the notion that pop groups Smashmouth and Sugar Ray were even being labeled as ska outfits.

"Any pop band that had a horn or any kind of upbeat were being lumped in with us," Hingley said. "They basically stuck that label on some very monstrous acts."

Mainstream America's brief flirtation with ska having come and gone, however, Hingley sounded confident that while less visible, the music is actually on firmer footing.

"The dust has settled and we're starting to rebuild the wreckage into something a little bit more healthy," he said. "I think it's a tribute to the resilience of the music and the kids who love it that we're basically being able to recreate what we had before."

Hingley spotlighted several American ska acts, including Houston's Los Skarnales, Vancouver's Los Furios, Portland's Uprite Dub Orchestra, Boston's Westbound Train, New York City's the Bluebeats and the Hub City Stompers out of New Brunswick, N.J.

"(The genre) is pretty healthy right now," Hingley said. "There are a lot of rock-steady veteran bands and we're also going out and finding a lot of new young bands."

Hingley's Megalith label has adopted a business model that emphasizes direct sales over conventional distribution. Bands sell discs -- such as the Toasters' fine 2003 best-of collection, "In Retrospect" -- online and at shows.

And Hingley says the new plan is already allowing bands to keep a far greater percentage of their profits.

"We wanted to have the bands make more money than anybody else, so we've allowed the bands to be the record shops," Hingley said.

"And it's working. We may not sell as many records, but the way I figured it out, we have to sell about 9 percent of what we sold before to be in the same place financially."

Music notes

Black day: I'd planned on seeing the Pixies on Tuesday. Instead, the closest I came was hearing one of the band's best songs, "Where is My Mind?," at the end of the film "Fight Club" on a cable TV station.

The recently reunited Boston quartet were scheduled to play UNLV's Cox Pavilion that night, but canceled their Las Vegas show 12 days after tickets went on sale.

As if that wasn't a hard enough slap in the face to local fans of the influential alterna-rock band, the Pixies -- Frank Black, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago and David Lovering -- moved Tuesday's concert to that most rockin' of bergs, Salt Lake City. Ouch.

Slow ticket sales were reportedly to blame for the Vegas pullout, although a UNLV spokesperson disputed the notion that the venue wasn't on pace for a sellout.

Either way, the Pixies' management should have shown more foresight. Wouldn't a Friday or Saturday gig along the Strip have made a lot more sense than a mid-week show at Cox?

They also could have been a lot more patient. As one local booking agent recently reminded me, Las Vegas is famous for being a walk-up town, with a majority of tickets to even the most hyped events often purchased at the door.

Toss in the fact that all Pixies seats were general admission, and there was no real incentive to buy ahead.

There's still a chance the Pixies will hit Las Vegas on a future tour leg, perhaps playing the more appropriate Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel or House of Blues at Mandalay Bay.

But as much as I like the band's music, my gut tells me the foursome has gotten a bit carried away with the acclaim their 2004 renaissance has drawn.

Their publicist practically said as much last month: "With the Pixies, you've got seven minutes or you're out of there."

Norah, times two: Vocalist Norah Jones, darling of last year's Grammy Awards, returns to The Joint for a pair of 8 p.m. shows Monday and Tuesday.

In her August 2003 performance at the venue, Jones previewed material from a then-unreleased follow-up to 2002's chart-smashing "Come Away With Me."

That much-anticipated second effort, "Feels Like Home," hit shelves in February, holding down the top spot in Billboard 200 chart for its first two weeks.

Tickets are $60 for each night.

On sale

One-time Beach Boy Brian Wilson performs at the Railhead at Boulder Station on Oct. 30. Tickets are $30-$60 and go on sale at 9 a.m. Saturday at Station casinos, at the Galleria, Meadows and Boulevard malls, by phone at 547-5300 and at www.stationcasinos.com.

Staind stops at Green Valley Ranch's Whiskey Beach on Oct. 22. Tickets are $40 and go on sale at 9 a.m. Saturday at Station casinos, at the Galleria, Meadows and Boulevard malls, by phone at 547-5300 and at www.stationcasinos.com.

Megadeath plays The Joint on Oct. 24. Tickets are $22 and go on sale at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Hard Rock box office, at TicketMaster outlets, by phone at 474-4000 and at www.ticketmaster.com.

Marilyn Manson descends on the House of Blues on Oct. 27. Tickets are $40-$50 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday at the House of Blues box office and through TicketMaster.

Keith Urban performs at the House of Blues on Dec. 11 with opening act Katrina Elam. Tickets are $37-$57 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday through the House of Blues box office and TicketMaster.

The House of Blues hosts Joe Satriani on Dec. 29. Tickets are $25-$40 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday through the House of Blues box office and TicketMaster.

Tickets are on sale now for Bond's Nov. 20 show at the House of Blues. Tickets are $20-$27.

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