Checkered Cast

We made it out of 2020 yall! We couldn't have survived this outrageous year if it weren't for you, our unity community, so thank you for the support. We are pumped to start season 2 of Checkered Cast with a bang by bringing you an interview with the organizers of The Supernova International Ska Festival, Tim & April Receveur (www.supernovaska.com). We talk to them about their background with ska music, how they got the insane idea to DIY an incredible music festival, and the challenges they have faced having to change up their plans due to the Covid curveball of 2020.

We are including some of Tim & Aprils music recommendations on this episode which features songs from; Alpheus, Buddah Council, Emily Capell, Half Past Two, The Loving Paupers, and more. Check them out on social media & make sure to like the Supernova Ska Festival Page on Facebook(. If you are not already part of the Supernova Ska Community Facebook group that Tara runs & are planning to attend the festival definitely go join the group. We also would appreciate if you hit the like button on the Checkered Cast Facebook page ( & follow us on Instagram (

Make sure to stay in touch with us through our social media, leave us some comments on instagram @checkeredcast, or drop us a line at our Anchor.fm & if you haven’t checked out our Thursday Ska Chat Happy Hour zoom (6pm-9pm EST) yet head over to Facebook where we post the link every week.

We are so pumped to put out another interview episode for our unity community! This week we are chatting with our first west coast guest, the dedicated badass behind SkaBox  (https://skaboxrox.com/) our ska soul sister Cassie! She is a rudegirl based out of California who started a monthly subscription box service dedicated entirely to the ska music scene! We had such a great time talking to Cassie getting a background on her experience with ska, the local community she is part of, and how she is spreading the love & support to musicians during a very crucial time. Check out the episode which features music from some of her local faves & bands she has worked with through the SkaBox. Follow them on social media, show your support by signing up for the SkaBox or gifting one to your ska show friend that you are missing hanging out with since it’s a great way to bond & connect with other ska fans as you will hear on this episode of Checkered Cast. (https://www.facebook.com/skaboxrox) (https://www.instagram.com/skaboxrox) This is our last interview episode of the year and we are beyond grateful for all of the support everyone has given to this rudegirl podcast thing we decided to do during the quarantine times of 2020. We are beyond humbled to have connected with so many incredible women in the ska scene and look forward to doing that again in 2021 hopefully with some opportunities to meetup in person as well! Stay safe everyone we hope you have an amazing holiday season and that 2021 brings us together again. Make sure to stay in touch with us through our social media, leave us some comments on instagram @checkeredcast, or drop us a line at our Anchor.fm & if you haven’t checked out our Thursday Ska Chat Happy Hour zoom (6pm-9pm EST) yet head over to Facebook where we post the link every week.

Back to the interviews on Checkered Cast, this one has been on our list from the start! Our guest on this weeks episode is Dunia Best-Sinnreich of the bands Agent 99, Brave New Girl, & Dubistry. She chats with the checkered cast ladies about the first time she heard Fishbone, her experiences in the 90s nyc ska scene, & some of the gigs she got to play. There was a lot of Slackers commentary & commiserating over how badly we all wish we could go to a live ska show again. But we are so happy to add to our #unitycommunity and we are so proud of how much work we have done on this platform to promote female musicians & highlight the diversity of the ska scene. We hope you all like the curating we have done so far & enjoy the music of these musicians. Make sure to show them your support by following them on social media, streaming their music, & buying their albums or merch. You can find Dunias projects at (https://instagram.com/dubyogini) & (https://instagram.com/dubistry) (https://instagram.com/dunia.and.aram) If you want us to do more interviews & have suggestions on who to talk to on the checkered cast; drop us a comment on Instagram (@checkeredcast) or leave us a voice message on our Anchor.fm with some suggestions of other badasses to add to our roster! If you haven’t checked out our Thursday Ska Chat Happy Hour zoom(6pm-9pm EST) yet head over to Facebook where we post the link every week. Make sure to like us on Facebook to get those updates & share this podcast with your friends so we can continue to use this platform to lift up unique voices in the unity community & build a better stronger scene for everyone!

Ok so we took a sort of different spin for this weeks episode of Checkered Cast, we decided to do an all music recap of the episodes we have aired thus far. A big part of this platform is giving another avenue to promote & highlight bands in the unity community that represent diversity & showcase amazing unique talents in our ska scene. The music featured in this episode is by: the scotch bonnets, the dendrites, the sensibles, younger than neil, hub city stompers, bowcat, deals gone bad, bim skala bim, & westbound train. If you like this mix up in the checkered cast format drop us a comment on Instagram (@checkeredcast) or leave us a voice message on our Anchor.fm with some suggestions of other badasses to add to our roster! If you haven’t checked out our Thursday Ska Chat Happy Hour zoom(6pm-9pm EST) yet head over to Facebook where we post the link every week. Make sure to like us on Facebook to get those updates & share this podcast with your friends so we can continue to use this platform to lift up unique voices in the unity community & build a better stronger scene for everyone!

Welcome back to another episode of Checkered Cast, we have an interview for you featuring Bess Dougherty, a ska loving beer brewing badass feminist from Denver Colarado. She was the head brewer at The Grateful Gnome & prior to worked at Wynkoop Brewing Co. Tara & Christine chat with her about beer culture, tailgating as a beer rep at Warped Tour, her time brewing beer with the guys of Reel Big Fish, & the story of how she got to talk about home brewing with President Barack Obama. We ask Bess about her favorite bands & how she got into ska music as well. This is a great interview with an iconic rude girl & we wanted to show our support to someone working in an industry hit very hard by the economic impact of the covid shutdown so tune in & pour yourself a glass. If you like this mix up in the checkered cast interview lineup drop us a comment on Instagram (@checkeredcast) or leave us a voice message on Anchor.fm with some suggestions of other badasses to add to our roster! If you haven’t checked out our Thursday Ska Chat Happy Hour zoom(6pm-9pm EST) yet head over to Facebook where we post the link every week. Make sure to like us on Facebook to get those updates & share this podcast with your friends so we can continue to use this platform to lift up unique voices in the unity community & build a better stronger scene for everyone!

Here’s our first bonus episode! We are keeping it strictly music focused on this edition of Checkered Cast. Starting off with a review of the new Bowcat (https://www.facebook.com/BowCatSka) 7” Dangerously Close then a recap of the new album from Catbite (https://www.facebook.com/catbiteband) on Bad Time Records called Omnigone. There’s a new segment called “Pick It Up” (pickitup pickitup) where Tara & Christine assign each other a surprise album to review, Tara gets to speak on the album from Deal’s Gone Bad called Heartbreaks & Shadows and Christine does a review of Lost In Transition by Ellwood. Let us know if you enjoy this episode format & want to hear us speak about more music we are listening to currently. Send us a DM on instagram or go to our anchor.fm to leave feedback that we can share on the next episode. Also we want to extend an invitation to join the Thursday Ska Chat happy hour zoom, it's from 6pm-9pm est every week & you can find the link on our Facebook page, make sure to like us there & share with your friends so we can continue to build up the unity community! As always a big thank you to The Scotch Bonnets for our intro music Ruder Than You.

This is another episode of Checkered Cast featuring just Tara & Christine chatting with each other about ska musicians they both support but also other genres of music they enjoy that are Ska-jacent. We talk about Tara's interest in Jam bands & Funk music as well as Christine's obsession with all things Daptone & UK, then we both gush on about our mutual love for The Slackers. There will be a spotify/youtube playlist to accompany this episode full of all of the assorted adjacent to ska bands that we both give shout outs to. We also want to give a big thanks to The Sensibles (https://www.facebook.com/TheSensiblesSka)(https://thesensiblesska.bandcamp.com) for providing us with music to feature on this episode. Also we want to extend an invitation to join the Thursday Ska Chat happy hour zoom, it's from 6pm-9pm est every week & you can find the link on our Facebook page, make sure to like us there & share with your friends so we can continue to build up the unity community!

On this episode of Checkered Cast we have another epic interview in store for you!

We had a chat with Jenny Whiskey from Hub City Stompers & Rude Boy George.

She shares how she got into ska music, how she started playing Sax & about her teacher being in Streetlight Manifesto, she also talks about going off the cuff sitting in with other bands, being asked to join Catch 22 and we get to hear some of her Tour-ror stories! This is a great interview with one of the most fabulous ladies of Ska & we are honored to have her as our guest. We are also really excited to hear about her idea for a collaboration project with some other Rudegirls so tune in to get the details. Check out her music & her bands here:

(http://www.hubcitystompers.net/) (https://rudeboygeorge.com/) pick up the new ep by Rude Boy George, Lies & Alibis (https://rudeboygeorge.bandcamp.com/album/lies-and-alibis-ep)