Local Hawaiian Shirt Day to play with out-of-town rockers at Conundrum Wednesday night
New Jersey based band The Waffle Stompers is teaming up with local ska/pop punk outfit Hawaiian Shirt Day to play Conundrum Music Hall in West Columbia this Wednesday.
While The Waffle Stompers’ music — a unique blend of the reggae-based genre ska and rock ‘n’ roll — will be the main focus of the night, the show will also give concert-goers the chance to check out the members’ charitable interests. The band is hosting a toy drive during all of its November shows for the Living the Dream foundation, which collects toys and funds for terminally-ill children all over the country.
The band has seen some success with the drive so far, but is encouraging fans to continue getting involved through toy and monetary donations.
“We’ve gotten a lot of great reactions and verbal support, along with money donations from a bunch of kids,” drummer Adam Kisbauch said. “But we’d really like to see much more people actually going out and getting the toys to bring at the shows because that’s really what the drive is about.”
And the band is looking for many different types of toys.
“We need unwrapped, new toys, and it can be as simple as a bag of army men at the dollar store, as elaborate as Monopoly, or anything in between.” Kisbauch said. “Feel free to span ages too because there are some young adults as well.”
The toys will be given to children at the Orange County Children’s Hospital in California for Christmas.
The Waffle Stompers is touring on behalf of its upcoming EP “Words with Enemies,” which officially drops Dec. 20, but pre-orders will ship on or around Dec. 1. The first track of the album, “We’re in for a Long Night,” exemplifies the band’s self-described post-ska genre, a mix of different rock-based genres and ska.
“It’s a sound that takes the energy of all subgenres of rock ‘n’ roll, squeezes it into a ska band with six passionate musicians, then ignites it and lets it explode,” Kisbauch said.
Hawaiian Shirt Day is supporting their summer release, “Hates Everything,” which guitarist/vocalist Christian Saville describes as a “punk album with a smidgen of ska.”
The band is primarily focused on making music and having fun, and that energetic attitude is apparent in songs like “Johnson Hall Sucks” and “We’re Not Going to Olive Garden.”
Ska is definitely not one of the most popular genres in the Columbia music scene, but Saville said that isn’t the point for the guys in Hawaiian Shirt Day.
“Part of the reason that we play ska-punk is probably because there just isn’t much of it around here. We understand that it isn’t a genre of music that will appeal to a lot of people, but we don’t mind,” Saville said.
Conundrum’s doors open at 8 p.m. and admission is $5 over 21 and $7 for underage fans.