Cauldron Review - Buck-O-Nine Show
I don’t know the original date this was published, but I think it was in ‘97 and it was cold outside (7 months out of the year in CLE).
I was suprised to see the URL in the article is still active.
Buck-O-Nine rocks the Euclid Tavern
Last Wednesday, the Euclid Tavern was swept up in the flow of the new ska revival when the San Diego band Buck-O-Nine performed. The half-capacity crowd was true Buck-O-Nine fans. They danced to the band’s more popular songs, and some even sang every lyric right along with the band.
The punk influenced band had one of everything necessary to be considered a ska band. The line-up consisted of a guitar, bass, drums, sax, trumpet, trombone, and a front man dedicated just to singing. The horn section, besides providing puctuation to the melody, was the epicenter for the aerobic work the dancers in the crowd got. The guitar, bass, and drums provided a steady foundation for the speaking-cadence style singing of front man Jon Pebsworth.
The band’s one hour set consisted of songs from their earliest album to the newest one. The young crowd either didn’t recognize, or didn’t care for, some of the covers the band threw in — including The Clash, Musical Youth, and especially Joe Jackson’s “I’m The Man.” The one song they did catch was from Operation Ivy, the band whose breakup gave the world two members of Rancid.
Though this band seems to have done their old school homework, the new wave of faux-ska has bittered the milk of any possibility they might have of gaining a main stream audience. Their sound gives props to the bands who came before them — you can hear a lot of influences, from The Specials, Madness, and The English Beat to Minor Threat, Circle Jerks, and The Ramones. Unfortunately, that seems to be about all the band is - a mishmash of other band’s styles. They don’t have anything new to offer.
If you like ska, and need something new to bop around with while doing the dishes, this is your band. Besides that, they’ll just be another band that is left on the sidelines, ignored by the hypnotized No Doubt bandwagoners.
Check out Buck-O-Nine’s website http://sdam.com/artists/buckonine/index.html