Hello everyone! Hope your holiday(s) are going well, being fun and safe! We are snowed in here in Oklahoma! Truly a "white Christmas" this year. In celebration of this wonderful time and the ringing in of a new year that looks to be even more productive and promising than any of our years past, from now (Dec. 25th) through January 31st 2010, all Megalith Records CD Releases are on sale for $6.00 ! No limit in how many you can buy, get some for your friends and family or pick up some of our new releases or past releases you have yet to get around to buying. http://www.megalithrecords.com/store/ All prices are automatic and will automatically go back up to regular price at the end of January. So be sure to get them now, spend that holiday cash wisely this year to help boost the ska economy :)

Also in store, we have the long sought after and rare Toasters Christma-ska album going in to digital release right now! We have taken all the Toasters tracks off the 1997 Japanese only released Christmas album and have revamped the artwork to reflect this being a Toasters only album now. It's been 13 years since it's original release as an import only title. Now you all have a chance to download these awesome holiday tunes. We will be posting links when it becomes available.

In the new year, we have Carlos Dingo, The Authentics, a new RiceRokit, Buford O'Sullivan and The Toasters 2Tone Army and many more! Also look for a new line of Megalith Records Vinyl releases coming down the pipe! Some brand new releases in vinyl ONLY format and some of our best selling classic titles, hitting vinyl for the first time ever. Also, we have teamed up with the great Stephen Shafer (Duff Guide) to bring to you a new N.Y. Beat album! This will be the 3rd in the series, and will showcase today's current and best N.Y. (and surrounding) based ska bands. This will be our first vinyl release of the new year, along with some bonus digital only tracks to boot! 

So have a happy and safe new year and we look forward to treating you all with more ska for years to come!

The Megalith Records Crew!

 The brand spankin' new Royal City Riot album "Coast To Coast" is available to buy in our online store right now! The band just had their cd release show a few weeks ago, if you don't live near them or failed to pick a copy up at the show, here's your chance to redeem yourself! It will soon be available for sale through other online shops and for digital downloading as well.

It's great to see a continuation of great ska music coming out of New York. Not just "new" bands, but bands that are a few years old and have made past that early hump of hard times and personnel changes and have kept on working hard and rose above to come back with an ever more solid, tighter and musically forward moving sophomore effort! This is 'Royal City Riot' with their newest release and their first for Megalith Records, "Coast To Coast". 

We were very excited to hear the new material and even more excited about the finished product. These are some great songs, straight out of the shoot on the first track, the band explodes in your ears with high energy soul music fully filled with ska roots. Solid horns and a steady organ rhythm backbeat. The sound is like dirty polish! The band has taken some turtle wax and shined up their sound but they used an old dirty rag found on the car garage floor and managed to make things dirtier than before! (that's a compliment by the way;) ). Although some might compare Jesse's vocal to the like's of the Slackers or The Stingers but he is by no means a copy cat, but very much deserving much credit for his own unique tone and twinge that I find a refreshing mix of New Yorker swagger with pop overtones.

The album has a nice solid 12 tracks that showcase the bands versatile stylings and depth of musical knowledge. Going from rocking soul to early rock 'n' roll, a bit of rocksteady and awesome open air ska grooves. I'm really enjoying the way a lot of newer bands are bringing in a mix of classic genres and mixing them into their own versions of ska. I think it shows that these 2000 era based bands are much more in tune with the roots of American rock 'n' roll and Jamaican influences than some of the bands that have come and gone in the past two decades. If you are already a fan of modern bands like The Pinstripes, The Dendrites, The Pepper Pots and Deal's Gone Bad, and classic bands like The Skatalites, Chuck Berry and Otis Redding, then you're are already a fan of Royal City Riot, you just don't know it yet!

"Earlier this year, when Nico sent Freddy's recordings to me, I was having a "dry spell" - I had written only one tune in over a year. Mixing this record in the studio, I really enjoyed how the musical form and harmony have to bend to the will of the melody, rather than the other way around. I feel this is what sets his music apart from a lot of music on the scene these days, and I find it personally inspiring. My dry spell is over, I'm writing music again. Thank you, Freddy!" - Victor Rice

Freddy Loco released "TABA" in his home country and we imported some copies and got it going into the digital distro stream a few years ago. I thought the band was good and had a unique style, but hadn't quite honed in on what exactly they wanted to achieve. When Freddy sent me some rough tracks from "Satellites" I knew he had spent the last 2 years perfecting his trade! The new tunes were super tight and a fresh take on the "traditional ska" element that many bands have been encompassing in this new era of ska music. But it wasn't cookie cutter, it had it's own bits and pieces that made it "Loco" and really showed off Freddy's roots and heritage. I've always thought European bands understood ska better than most American bands, especially in the traditional vein.

Then when Freddy said he was working with Victor Rice, I was completely on board with releasing it before I had even heard the rest of the album. I knew that Victor's mixing / producing style would compliment Freddy's sound perfectly. It was a match waiting to happen. The end result is an awesome cohesive musical dub reggae ting'ed ska journey from beginning to end. We are proud to put out this new record and have efforts in place to bring the band to the United States this fall for our Megalith Records Ska Splash showcase events in NYC, with some additional shows in the upper East Coast area. So be sure to be on the look out for that.

If you have enjoyed our Victor Rice, Babylove And The Van Dangos, Mr. T-Bone and Pannonia Allstar Ska Orchestra releases, you will LOVE this album!

http://www.megalithrecords.com/store/product_info.php/products_id/401

It will be available at CD Baby and Interpunk very soon as well as our physical distribution chain going out to retail stores!

Saturday, 10/3 @ 7:00 pm "Megalith Ska Splash" featuring: HUB CITY STOMPERS (NJ) VOID UNION (MA) CHANNEL ONE (TX) THE STRESS (RI) THE HARD TIMES (NYC) @ Knitting Factory 361 Metropolitan Ave Brooklyn, NY 11211 $15 All Ages to enter / 21 to drink

Got a "random" audio player running on the right side bottom now. Still needs some tweaking, but it will allow you to sample some Megalith treats while you read. It refreshes every time you change a page, so...But the Toasters, PepperPots, Dendrites and Channel One are in there right now. I will be adding more soon!