Ska-toberfest Music Festival

As part of the 2023 Oktoberfest celebration at Alamo Beer Co, this day is dedicated to our local ska bands that routinely light up the night with their danceable rhythms and catchy sing-alongs.

4pm - Young Costello - Forming in March of 2012, Young Costello has sound rooted in ska, reggae and punk, this seven-piece ensemble clearly has good things in store. With extremely diverse musical backgrounds respective to each member, YC has a way of designing intricate song structures, while still managing to incorporate the tastefulness that embodies reggae and ska music.

6pm - Rat King Cole - Rat King Cole is a ska-jazz fusion band hailing from San Antonio, Texas. The band originally formed in 2013 when a group of friends with a shared passion for music decided to start jamming together. Since then, Rat King Cole has become a staple in the San Antonio music scene, playing shows at local bars, clubs, and festivals. The band's unique sound is a blend of upbeat ska rhythms and smooth jazz melodies, with a touch of reggae and funk thrown in for good measure. Their energetic live shows are known for getting crowds up and dancing, with catchy hooks and infectious grooves that keep audiences coming back for more. With influences ranging from traditional ska and jazz greats like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, to ska, funk and reggae acts like The New York Ska/Jazz Ensemble, Fishbone and Bob Marley, Rat King Cole brings a fresh and innovative approach to the genre. With their infectious energy and creative spirit, they are sure to keep audiences moving and grooving for years to come.

8pm - Spies Like Us - For almost 30 years, Spies Like Us has been pumping the infectious sounds of ska to the masses. Raised in San Antonio, they are nine friends who have poured their hearts and souls into the music they love. Spies Like Us has gained a reputation for their energizing shows, fun lyrics, and catchy horn lines. They have toured extensively throughout Texas and played with some of the major pioneers of the ska movement, including The Skatalites, The Specials, The English Beat, The Toasters, Bad Manners, and so many others.

Ska is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat. It was developed in Jamaica in the 1960s when Stranger Cole, Prince Buster, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems to play American rhythm and blues and then began recording their own songs. In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods.

Music historians typically divide the history of ska into three periods: the original Jamaican scene of the 1960s; the 2 Tone ska revival of the late 1970s in Britain, which fused Jamaican ska rhythms and melodies with the faster tempos and harder edge of punk rock forming ska-punk; and third wave ska, which involved bands from a wide range of countries around the world, in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Alamo Beer Company, 202 Lamar Street, San Antonio, United States