Ska Boom Interviews - Ken Partridge: Author of Hell of a Hat: The Rise of 90s Ska and Swing

Welcome to Ska Boom Interviews, which is the audio companion to my new book Ska Boom: An American Ska & Reggae Oral History now available through DiWulf Publishing.   Click here to order: http://www.diwulf.com/books  In this episode, I’m speaking with music journalist and author Ken Partridge, whose new book "Hell of a Hat: The Rise of 90s Ska and Swing" is now out and available. Ken is a writer and editor with bylines in leading music publications including Billboard, The AV Club, Pitchfork, The Atlantic, USA Today, The Village Voice, and Genius, where he works as a managing editor.  Hell of a Hat is the third American ska book to be released in 2021 – after Aaron Carnes book “In Defense of Ska and my book. This is a pretty extraordinary turn of events given that there had been a grand total of zero books about American ska previously.  Ken makes the case in his book that the relative economic prosperity and general optimism of the late '90s created the perfect environment for fast, danceable music that--with some notable exceptions--tended to avoid political commentary.I speak to Ken about his ska "lightning bolt" moment and how he became a music journalist working for the Hartford Courant right out of Boston University.  We also compare notes on our  book writing experiences, discuss the importance of Hot Topic in outfitting would be suburban ska fans and discuss the meteoric rise of swing in the 90s, its impact on 90s pop culture and the Zoot Suit Riots of the mid 40's.  Please note: The music clips included in this podcast fall under the “Fair Use Doctrine” as defined by Section 107 of the Copyright Act. The law allows for use of music clips for purposes of criticism, comment, and news reporting.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices