Dave Hillyard has been quite a slacker lately, literally.
Hillyard is the saxophone player for the New York City-based ska band, The Slackers. The band performs its trademark sound at 10:30 tonight at Mac’s Bar, 2700 E. Michigan Ave. in Lansing.
The band, off Too Hep Records, manages to fuse rocksteady, dub and reggae rhythms, mixing them with mambo, bossa nova, the boogaloo, 1960s garage rock and occasional doses of punk attitude.
Hillyard said the band’s current minitour of the Midwest has been groovy.
“It’s just a nice little jaunt to the Midwest and we haven’t been snowed on, so we can’t complain,” he said. “We play about 120 gigs a year, and we play all over.”
Studio art sophomore Josh Kermiet, a DJ at WDBM (88.9-FM), played an integral role in getting The Slackers to come to Lansing instead of Detroit, as the band had planned.
“In terms of ska music, they are probably the best band out there right now and we play them a lot on our show,” he said. “They are really fun to see and with the ska scene now in decline, they are one of the few bands still doing it right.”
Kermiet and public policy and economics sophomore Chris Compeau host “The Two-Tone Beat” on the Impact, which features ska music.
“I talked to Dave Hillyard, and he said they don’t play very well in Detroit,” Kermiet said. “They played two or three times in the past couple years, and he said their shows haven’t gone very well; the crowd just wasn’t into it.”
Hillyard said Kermiet convinced the band to come to Lansing with ease.
“We talked about doing Detroit and we ran into these guys,” Hillyard said. “They convinced us to play Lansing and they were very persuasive.”
Compeau said the band seemed enthusiastic to play at Mac’s.
“These guys are really open to playing small clubs,” he said. “They seemed pretty enthusiastic about getting up here.”
Hillyard said the band has a lot of diverse influences, although it is mainly rooted in Jamaican rhythms.
“We like the Skatallites and Burning Spear, but we’re also heavy into The Rolling Stones and The Beatles,” he said.
Kermiet has seen the band live before and was very impressed.
“They’re all over the place,” he said. “They write a lot of good hooks and are good songwriters; their songs aren’t really jams or anything like that.”
Hillyard said the band is participatory at its shows.
“People come up on stage and honk and squeal,” he said. “Our singers shout and scream; we’re like an old-school road band.”
The Slackers are promoting their latest album, “Live at Ernesto’s,” which was recorded in Sittard, Netherlands. Hillyard said the band is planning on releasing a new studio album in February.
Heavy Step and local band James in Flames will open the show. Doors open at 9 p.m. and the show starts at 10:30. Cover is $5.
