Culture
Talking Percussion, Punk Rock, and Everyday Life With Slightly Stoopid’s Ryan Moran
By: Emily Votaw
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Every music critic worth their salt knows that punk rock music has deep roots in reggae. Starting in 1976 the legendary Don Letts served as the house DJ at The Roxy (the U.K.’s answer to CBGB’s, exclusively featuring punk rock bands,) playing various reggae cuts in between band’s sets. Some notable punk rock luminaries took notice, (perhaps the easiest of which to point out might be Joe Strummer of The Clash,) and before long reggae was bred deeply into the UK counterculture, incarnating in acts such as Madness, UB40, The Specials, and many others.
It makes a lot of sense that in 2018, none other than founding member of UB40 Ali Campbell, appears on San Diego-based Slightly Stoopid’s ninth studio album, Everyday Life, Everyday People. Emblematic of the cross-pollination of ’80s California punk rock and hardcore with the ska and ocean air of the west coast, as well as a certain type of stoner, slacker culture, Slightly Stoopid is not unlike a millennial incarnation of the many things that outfits like UB40 stood for in their early days. After all, it should be remembered that UB40’s name comes from the form issued to people in the ’80s seeking unemployment benefits from the UK government’s Department of Employment: the Unemployment Benefit form 40.
Campbell isn’t the only guest on the record, which also features Yellowman, G-Love, and others, but it’s a correlation that this music geek can’t help but make.
As for Slightly Stoopid, the band is currently on their School’s Out For Summer 2018 tour, as well as on the verge of the July 13, 2018 release of the aforementioned ninth full-length via their own Stoopid Records. The band has been cranking out easily digestible pop-infused reggae for a good 23 years, and according to WOUB’s Emily Votaw’s interview with longtime drummer Ryan Moran (Rym0) embedded above, it doesn’t sound like they will stop representing the goof-infused awe of everyday life anytime soon.