by Bob Pomeroy

The singer stalks the stage like a man on a mission. The rhythm section locks onto a modified Motown groove. The horns jump in with a riff that would do the JB Horns proud. A pretty woman sways in front of a microphone, more than just back up but not quite center stage either. The singer tears into a lyric that sounds like it escaped from a Mekons song. The back up singer's voice cuts across adding sweetness and light to the lead's fire and brimstone. The Adjusters are taking their soulful ska revival to the people!

With the trendiness of Third Wave ska waning, it will take more than playing off beat rhythms to survive. The Adjusters are not content to run with standard ska formulas. The Adjusters look at the big picture. Their music looks to Jamaica for inspiration, but they also cast their eye to the rest of the Caribbean, Memphis, Motown and their home town of Chicago for inspirations. The Adjusters CDs, Politics of Style (Jump Up) and Before the Revolution (Moon Ska) document a band pushing the limits of a genre while getting in touch with the social consciousness that fired the best of Two Tone era ska. I spoke with Jason Packer to get the low down on the origins of the band and their agenda for America.

"The band has been around as a concept since the spring of 95," Jason began. "We didn't really get together until that fall. The people who started the band all lived in the same dorm at the University of Chicago. Our lead singer, Daraka Kenric, had an idea for forming a ska band. I was interested in doing a mod/pop band. We began playing around the University of Chicago with six people and just kept adding people as we went. We got up to 11 or 12 people including a percussionist, four horns and all the other stuff."

"The idea was always to have a band that was politically minded. The people who started the band were politically active on campus. Our political message has gained focus through our lead singer, who is involved with the Democratic Socialists of America. He's a very active member of that. That's not to say that the band's politics strictly follow the DSA line. There are a lot of people in the band and the political affiliations vary. I think it's safe to say that everyone in the band is on the liberal end of things. We try to have a message that everyone in the band can feel comfortable with."

The band's politics are on display on songs like "Our Town." The song's lyric about the collapsing economy of a small town mirrors Michael Moore's documentary Roger and Me. Jason acknowledges, "The message is pretty similar. It's pretty clear what the song is about. It's not particularly subtle. It's referencing a lot of small Midwestern towns around here. There are a lot of Flint's throughout the Midwest and not all have documentaries made about them."

"We try to do a lot of group writing and arranging," Jason continues. "Someone will come in with an idea for a chord progression and a type of song. It can be a time consuming and painful process, but some of our best work has come out of that. Our Town was like that. I came in with a chord progression I thought was nice and our trumpet player came up with a little melody and we went from there. Once we had the music written, Daraka came up with a lyric that worked."

A large part of the Adjusters sustained appeal comes from the fact that they look beyond the confines of Third Wave ska for their inspiration. Their reverence for their Jamaican antecedents is evident in the art work for Politics of Style, which features a mock yearbook form Michael Manley High. The band also earmark a portion of their royalties for economic development projects in that country. The original ska bands drew on a wide range of American and Caribbean styles. The Adjusters follow in that tradition by incorporating many other flavors in their music. "The fact that we incorporate a lot of soul is something we always tried to do," Jason explains. "At first we weren't very good at it. Soul was more foreign than ska when we started out. We've always tried to work the two genres together into one sound. We were looking at people like Toots Hibbert or something like that."

"Our first 7 inch came out on Rosa Luxembourg Records," Jason continues talking about the band's recording history. "It's pretty easy to see how we came to be affiliated there, Daraka runs the label. It was a three song seven inch that we recorded in a day. "Michael Manley" was on that as well as "Weatherman" and "Storm Warning."

The Politics of Style came out on the Chicago based, Jump Up label. "Chuck Wren (Jump Up's head honcho) is the man in Chicago. He has a radio show in Chicago and organizes a lot of shows in town. We recorded a song for American Skathic 4 for Jump Up. Things just naturally developed from there."

Before the Revolution recently came out on ska flagship Moon Ska NYC. "Moon have known about us for a long time" Jason continues. "We talked among the band about what we wanted and what they could offer and decided it was worth doing. We went into the studio with Victor Rice here in Chicago. John Langford of the Mekons did some work too. That will undoubtedly further our red skins association, not that that's a bad thing."

"They called me up and asked me to do a bit of mixing," Jon Langford commented later by e-mail. "They seemed like nice, politically committed, party-animals, so I said yes. They have a broader vision than most of the 7th generation kiddy ska. Quite soulful really." Langford mixed the Memphis Soul flavored instrumental "Special Prosecutor" that opens the new disc. It's fitting that Langford also mixed "Witness," a song about a year long strike in Decatur, Illinois. The workers stayed on strike for 16 months protesting unsafe working conditions, but ultimately lost the struggle. Langford also twisted nobs on the skinhead reggae love song "The Bad Man" and the swinging "Clare Short."

"The new record is even more eclectic than the first" Jason concludes. "We're do a couple of skinhead reggae songs and we've got more soul/funky songs too. We're even doing a Latin song called "Red Moon." It's not Latin ska but a straight Latin song where Jessica Basta and Joan Axthelm step up to lead vocals."

Before the Revolution takes the Adjusters another step forward. The disc mixes politics and romance, ska and soul and whatever else seems to fit. In the process, the Adjusters may be laying out the blueprint for ska to come. With the Third Wave receding, it will be band like the Adjusters who will carry on. The Adjusters know that the music flows from the soul. They have a message that goes beyond transcends trends and bucks pigeonholes. The Adjusters are survivors.