An Umbrella Bed Headline Without Ska Puns

Eva Washburn used to be the only French horn player in ska. "But now there's another one," she says--a guy in the Wisconsin ska-thrash band Hired Geeks. "I guess I'm what happens when somebody who loves the Suburbs, Walt Mink, and the Clash just keeps playing French horn because this is the instrument she was playing when she was nine." Umbrella Bed, her band of ten years, is what happens when a Two Tone-style ska band sticks around. The group, which performs two cd-release shows for One Small Skank for Man (Mad Butcher Records) this weekend, still plays to frenetic crowds in Europe and here. Umbrella Bed are also godparent to a Twin Cities scene that, for a while, seemed to disappear around them....

Two years ago, fan Aaron Porter joined on guitar and helped launch MNSka.com, a web site and message board that connects a couple dozen groups that play the brass music originated in '60s Jamaica. The Skastronauts and the GYLBOTS ("Get Your Lazy Butt Off the Sofa," in which Porter plays drums) are among a growing number of "third-wave" bands moshing up the all-ages scene. (Hear more on Radio K's "Rude Radio" every Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to noon, 770 AM.)

"The crowds are definitely getting younger," says Washburn. "But your audience has to get younger for a band to keep a crowd."

Umbrella Bed celebrates the release of their fourth album, One Small Skank for Man (on Germany's Mad Butcher Records) with two shows this weekend: Friday, Noveber 4 at the Uptown Bar (612.823.4719) with Leroy Smokes (late ID show), and Saturday at the Triple Rock (612.333.7399) with SHSK and Chicken Poodle Soup (early all-ages show).