A group of musicians who honor the origins of ska and reggae are bringing their feel-good party jams to the Coachella Valley.
The Prizefighters, a rock outfit honing the sounds of ’60s Jamaican music, have been releasing groovin’, upbeat rock songs for more than a decade. Covering reggae, rocksteady and ska, the band combines horns, funky basslines, guitar upstrokes and movin’ drums to create an energetic musical soundscape. Tunes worth noting include “Kick the Can” and “Kashmir.”
The Minnesota band is making a special stop at Casuelas Cafe in Palm Desert on Monday, July 14. I recently spoke with band members Aaron Porter (guitar/vocals), Jordan Porter (bass/vocals) and Courtney Klos (sax/vocals) via Zoom.
“This is actually our first time heading out west,” Jordan said. “We’ve gone east before on a tour a couple times, and even done Europe, but we’ve never gone any further west than Nebraska. It’s a lot more of an undertaking than an East Coast tour from the middle of the country. It’s going to be our first time in California, and our first time in the Coachella Valley. We are really excited to get out and hit new places with lots of people who we’ve known for a long time, bands and fans out there alike.”
The Prizefighters’ tour trajectory is unusual, as the band is hitting dinner spots like Casuelas Cafe, and punk clubs like Alex’s Bar in Long Beach—with the same setlist.
“I think at the bottom of everything, while we play traditional ’60s Jamaican music, we still have the ethos of a punk band behind us, so we’ll play anywhere that’ll have us,” Jordan said. “One of the fun things on this tour is we’re getting to play a mix of venue styles. We’ve got some outdoor shows, some bigger club shows, a theater venue show—and we’re playing on the front porch of a coffee house in Modesto.”
Jordan said Crix Poland, of Yucca Valley ska dudes Warsaw Poland Bros., helped the band secure the Monday gig at Casuelas Cafe. Warsaw Poland Bros will open the show for The Prizefighters.
“Crix from Warsaw Poland Bros. was really hoping to get us booked here,” Porter said. “Considering the number of shows and number of places that Warsaw Poland Bros. have played at, I definitely trusted their gut on this one. I was like, ‘Hey, if you think it’s going to be a good time, I’ll play for people eating burritos.’”
Not many bands are able to play their brand of original music at both iconic venues and dinner spots—but it’s rare to find a band with as many groovy ska sounds as The Prizefighters.
“The music, I think, is really accessible,” Klos said. “lt’s ’60s Jamaican music; it’s dance music; it’s music that everybody can get into. We have ties to certain music scenes, whether it’s the punk scene or just ska bands in general, but we play fairs, festivals, street festivals, restaurants—whatever. People don’t need to know who we are. They don’t really even need to be plugged into a specific genre or scene. You can get down to this music very, very easily, and that’s what’s been really cool about playing in this band over these years. We do get a lot of really cool opportunities, because we’re not just pigeonholed into one single place or specific kind of show. We can play with just about everybody.”
Caribbean music from the ’60s is not familiar to everyone, yet the vibes and energy of the tunes make it easy to dance and appreciate the sounds. Aaron Porter explained how the band’s dedication to this historic sound came from starting at ska—and going backward.
“There is a history that is involved, hearkening back to a time when youth culture and subculture exploded following the second World War,” Aaron said. “I’m not trying to get too deep here, but two-tone (ska rock/ska revival) is really the start of ska culture from an outside-of-Jamaica perspective. A lot of people think about two-tone just being bands like The Specials and Madness and The Selecter, but that was an element. The other big element was going back and listening to stuff from the ’60s, because all those bands were covering ’60s early reggae, and stuff that was really big and popular among those British youth subcultures.”
Both ska historians and casual appreciators can take something away from a Prizefighters performance.
“The great part about this band is that we can take our love of ska from all eras, but we are focusing really on the roots of the music—the root sound of what ska and reggae were when they were forming—and then trying to play those sounds, because they are a lot different from the more modern takes on it,” Aaron said. “It’s been really fun to explore those playing techniques. There’s all sorts of stuff that we can learn from studying the ’60s roots of the music, and that’s the lifeblood of our inspiration.”
Aaron said The Prizefighters’ music includes numerous inspirations.
“We put some Latin rhythms, like Boogaloo or Bolero, or other Afro-Caribbean percussion things in the music,” he said. “That’s what a lot of the Jamaican bands were doing in the ’60s, because they were drawing from a pretty wide array of their influences and the music that was popular in the Caribbean at the time. That’s been such a springboard for musical discovery for me, and I think for everyone else in the band.”
The Prizefighters will perform at 6 p.m., Monday, July 14, at Casuelas Cafe, at 73703 Highway 111, in Palm Desert. Warsaw Poland Bros. will open the show. The show is free. For more information, visit the Facebook event page.
