In Defense of Ska Ep 142: Jon Wurster (The Mountain Goats, Superchunk, Bob Mould, Psychotic Norman)

Jon Wurster played drums in Superchunk from the early 90s, but left the band earlier this year. He currently plays drums in The Mountain Goats and with Bob Mould. He also famously played the character Ronald Thomas Clontle on The Best Show with Tom Scharpling and declared that Madness invented ska!

And Jon certainly jokes around about ska a lot, but when he was a teenager, he really loved the 2 Tone ska bands like The Specials and English Beat. He was also a big fan of The Hooters during their early 80s ska phase. And more recently, Jon skanked and played tambourine on stage during the infamous Ska No Children incident. (Sad Snack opened for The Mountain Goats in San Francisco and played their ska cover of "No Children.")

We bring Jon on today to talk about ska. He tells us that he used to practice drums to the Dance Craze soundtrack. We talk about his connection to the band Dead Milkmen. (Amongst other things, he booked their first show!) We discuss his nickname Johnny Earthshoe and we talk about two key shows he attended with The Police. (The Specials and Rhoda Dakar were at one of them) 

He also tells us about missing his high school prom for The Meatmen, Ska band The Pressure Boys' connection to Superchunk, and we try to figure out the name of the ska artist that was featured on a DVD he owns (It turns out it was King Django) 

If you’d like to support us and listen to early access, ad-free episodes with bonus content, check out our Patreon! 

If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music. 

Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024. 

Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023. 

The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.