perfectl

History of SkA’N’DaaL music ensemble

2001 - The story begins:

Foundation of SkA'N'DaaL refers back to 2001 when two students upset with the scene in Hradec Králové (which was lifeless and excepting a few bands without any musical impulse - comparing to their home towns) started thinking about putting some noise. The incredible lack of drum-players in the city and the search for a bass took over one year. Surprisingly students of faculty of pharmacy have showed as a good source of musicians.

2002 - The foundation:

At the beginning of 2002 as a garage-band consisting of drums, bass, guitar and t-sax we started just jamming as it usually goes in the early times of the most of the groups. Step by step, working out a couple of "songs" we finally dared to show up in one student's club (Sauna) and we also found a singer, Lucy. Unfortunately, Lukas, the guitar-player went to Cardiff for 5 months to work out his diploma thesis followed by Ales (t-sax) going to Portugal who came back in March 03.

2003 - The development:

The activities of our group were frozen for that period and what more - Lucy leaves as well as new-comming trumpet-player. The times of crisis were over-come by just Lukas, Zbynek (drums) and Jozin (bass) who found a new singer (Pavlina) and a keyboard devil and professional zewl (= no one can make him work) Mazy. When Ales came back, we managed to perform quite a good gig, but again enthusiasm of the band was mortified by Zbynek's journey to Agentina. Searching for a substitute we revealed a brilliant percussion wizard, Vitek and his friend Peter, a sound technician. In July 03, we recorded our demo CD and had a holiday break.
Come back from holidays brought some terrific news. SkA'N'DaaL seems to be hopefully giving gigs, at least in neighbourhood of Hradec, we also recruited second sax (Monika) but the bass and drum players decided to leave the band in a short time after because of playing with another non-ska band. Hard times of re-seeking new players means new era of the band and also some kind of a new attitude.

2004 - The Birth of new SkA'N'DaaL:

Origin of the name SkA’N’DaaL is quite simple. We knew that we wanted to play music somehow influenced by SkA but we also wanted to make a little progress, a further step no matter if forward or aside. The idea was to keep ska on – translated to czech “ska and dál or daal“. Actually, there is one more explanation of origination of the band’s name. It derives from the two nicknames of the founders - Sumec, Krysa AND ALL which is very pretty similar to the first one.

X-mas 2003. The new rythmical basement of the group (Milan - drums and Dan – bass) brought in some of the new vitality, ideas for composing, re-organization of auditions and more responsibility. We worked hard on the repertoire and by the end of winter 2004 we managed to play first gigs. During this year we made lots of contacts, learned more about the czech ska scene, we got also some friends among ska-musicians from other towns. Despite of our musical inexperience and immaturity more and more people liked our sound and in the end of year, we finally counted 28 gigs in Czech Republic plus two in Poland with great friends of us (and very hard drinkers) Skampararas.

2005 – Music Ensemble:

In this year, the number of members rises up to 9, which seems to be more or less final nowadays. The new members (picked up on some party) were the keyboard player Wenca and Mirek - the trumpet player who filled the wind instruments section). That’s why we decided to add to the name of band “music ensemble”, which also reflects our aim to give a musical show with some slight flavour of performance. Another crucial event was decision to buy our own cars, because renting a vehicle was unbearably expensive. Thus being complete and ready we could fully focus to play with the only one intension... to play as much as we can, to get the missing experience and mainly, to get some chance to perform on the summer festivals.

Luckily, playing a lot in the spring, we met the right people and it was obvious that we will have the opportunity at least at some festivals. The first one was Zelenej Zákal (Kralupy) and then probably the biggest ska-punk fest Mighty Sounds (Tábor) which was despite of rainy weather really fine. And the biggest action of this summer was of course Open Air Music Festival Trutnov. Yeah, the perfect timing and loads of people made a wonderful experience. Finally we visited Rock on valník (Slaný), which was the last of the summer gigs. The year ends up with a stricking change of the bass player, but the newcomming Doctor Bass - Tomáš, fits in perfectly. Skandaal noise is turning into sound, at least sometimes.

2006 – Growing:

This period brings some new people, besides the bass change, Monika leaves (another love story) and we were (surprisingly) able to find a brand new talent, Jana (t-sax). The army co-operation results in meeting with Mr. Trumpet playa - from Tomko we learned a lot about accords and notes. Well, ok I`m kidding, but his professional attitude was very energizing. Our auditions now take place in the cinema (thanx army). The band is growing, not only in number but also in experience. Finishing the studies, we have to spend some time in work and we got the first parent among us, so we do not play so often, but we focus rather on rythm and arrangement . Recently, we are preparing some new songs, with crystalized sound much more similar to ska then before and during the autumn and the winter we will come to some new towns - still a number of places we've never been - and hopefully, we are trying to put together some money to record a proper CD. That's all for now, see you at shows! And - Respect!