Last Saturday I performed at the Salon de Ska, an event with Ska music that takes place at School Live Bar Tokyo every two months.

In case you are not familiar with Ska: it is a predecessor of Reggae that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s. It is based on the same typical offbeat as Reggae, but is usually played faster. In the late 1970s, a Ska revival took place in England, with bands like The Specials, The Selecter or The Beat injecting the raw energy of Punk Rock into Ska.

These bands usually consisted of white and black members and had a strong anti-racist message. The main label of that Ska revival, which became commercially very successful, was even called Two-Tone and used black and white as its main colours.

I was a big fan of those bands and saw several of them live when I was 16. I still like Ska, so when I started writing more songs last year, two of them were of that genre. I performed Geeks at my first gig in Tokyo in November 2024. Ace Kyio, the founder and organiser of the Salon de Ska, somehow found out about this and invited me to perform at his event.

Ace is also the singer and guitarist of the band Beatbahnhof. As Bahnhof is the German word for train station, I first thought it was a German band, when I saw the name on the flyer. But Ace likes all things German, Beatbahnhof even performed in Germany.

I had no idea how popular Ska is in Japan! Four bands played at the Salon the Ska and they are all really good! The Japanese have a real talent for copying things and improving on them, be it cars, whisky or ska music.

I played my two only Ska songs Geeks and Jump into the Light (not released yet, it was finished a few days before my gig), as well as Human Action, a mix of Reggae and Rock. As I could not bring my band with me, I sang live to a pre-recorded backing track. The audience really liked it, so they asked for an encore. I played my new song Ikigai, which has nothing to do with Ska or Reggae, but a lot with Japan, as Ikigai is the Japanese concept of a happy, fulfilled life.

The climax of the evening: Ace asked my to join Beatbahnhof to sing the legendary Ska tune Monkey Man, covered by The Specials and Amy Winehouse. What an outburst of energy – the audience went crazy!

Thank you, Ace, for inviting me and for the amazing event! Playing in Tokyo was great fun, and I am looking forward to my next show here!