The ’90s was a decade breaded by the droning angst of grunge and an over-testosteroned sound we knew as “rap/metal”. In the middle of the decade’s pendulum was a swing known as “third wave ska”. Music that was as infectious as it was short-lived. Pick It Up!: A new documentary, Pick It Up!: Ska In The 90’s, puts a spotlight on a movement of music that deserves recognition for its underrecognized impact on music and culture today.
Directed by Taylor Morden, Pick It Up!: Ska In The 90’s is the story of a brief period in the mid-1990s where bands such as Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake, and The Mighty Mighty Boss Tones were all over the airwaves of stations such as KROQ in Los Angeles. Narrated by the ska/punk scene’s icon, Tim Armstrong (Rancid, Operation Ivy, Transplants), viewers get an overview of ska music as a whole. From its roots in Jamaica all the way through bands currently topping the charts like The Interrupters.
Music documentaries as a genre are growing thanks to the advent of crowdfunding and streaming services. With the bubble growing, good documentaries are becoming buried under the volume available. Pick It Up! plays to the strength of Ska. The upbeat rhythm and the characters these bands themselves are. John from Goldfinger, Chris from Less Than Jake, even a maskless MC Bat Commander are just a few of the musicians who reminisce about a time when ska was everywhere.
While the documentary isn’t from any particular point of view or tell a true narrative. It does make sure to touch on the subculture that visualized ska. We get the answers to questions such as why most of the bands were pretty well dressed for sweaty musicians? The origins of the guy who just danced on stage in The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. What the real significance of the checkerboard pattern was to the music?
Its near 2hr run time is a bit bloated. There’s soo much subject matter Pick It Up! touches but it doesn’t always spend the right amount of time on some things while being long in the tooth in others. In particular, the animation sequence narrated by the origin of ska in Jamaica could have been a bit leaner. The time spent on other pieces such as Operation Ivy could have been a bit more fleshed out. No band has influenced music as a whole with such little time more than Op Ivy and they could easily have their own documentary. One of the other pieces that seemed missing was Reel Big Fish’s part in Matt Parker and Trey Stone’s Baseketball film.
While Pick It Up! is definitely worth…picking up. It could have accomplished its goal even if had been edited tighter. But it still leaves you with the feel every documentary about music should. Music today is taken for granted. What these documentaries do when they’re well done is tell the struggles of what it takes even finding bands that weren’t pushed by mainstream media. Pick It Up! paints a portrait of a generation that was tired of music that wasn’t fun and spun a true alternative that ushered in a continuing wave of music still loved around the world.
