Third-wave ska is a curiosity to me. My theory (and I'm sticking to it) is that a bunch of hangdog punk/hardcore musicians with nothing to lose turned to a glut of horn players being pumped out of high school bands across America to help them make some kind of distinctive new sound. Ska was the most natural output, though the brief swing revival of the late 1990's stemmed from this as well.
Spring Heeled Jack USA (the USA was added for this album to avoid confusion with a British electronica band I've never heard of and probably shared exactly zero fans with their American counterparts) rode the underground movement that burst into highly successful third wave ska in New England during the 1990's which brought bands like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones to the fore. By this time, the release of their second album, they were at the top of their game. If only they knew the whole scene would crash down on their heads just two years later, with the band folding shortly thereafter.
As early as 1997 the writing was on the wall. No Doubt, which erupted from the other side of third wave ska in California (and was rapidly divesting itself of any ska-like sound), was beaten down in the charts by some new British outfit called the Spice Girls. In 2000 Moon Ska Records went bust, and a number of bands promptly disintegrated or went dormant in the wake of that genre-killing event.
According to the encyclopedia anyone can edit, all/most of the band remained in music, though none of these new ventures reached the lofty heights of the third wave. Having been in college radio during the final years of its heyday, I can say that the music was a lot of fun when immersed in the times, but these days the whole movement seems pretty much washed up.
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