The Dingees

You can't see with the picture shrunk down this much, but the headlines on the wall behind them read: "Terror!" "Gov't Consiracy" "Evil Robots Will Makes Slaves of Us All!" "Did NASA Probe Find an Airplane on Mars?" and "Global Scorching".

The Dingees are a Reggae / Punk Rock / Ska band from Long Beach, California. They were initially formed in 1996 as a side project of The OC Supertones (and traded band members with the 'Tones more than a few times), but soon grew into a distinct identity. Unlike nearly all of their 3rd wave ska contemporaries, they played Clash-inspired Genre Roulette rather than Mix and Match Musical Genres: their repertoire included punk songs, and reggae songs, and ska songs (but mostly punk songs), yet but precious little ska-punk or punk-reggae or what have you.

They recorded three albums in this schizophrenic manner for Tooth & Nail Records. Afterwards, they disappeared into the southern California underground music scene. In 2006, they put up a page on Myspace to let the outside world know that they still existed, and that they were working on a new album.

Four years later, The Rebel Soul Sound System was released (for free), and it was... different. Punk, ska, and reggae were still present, but this time they were mashed into a thick stew (with reggae predominating), and for the first time the Dingees added ragga jungle, hip-hop, sound collages, extensive sampling, and thoroughly grimy production to the mix.

The lyrics were the same as they always were: rallying cries for global unity and the overthrow of the establishment, songs of alienation from modern society, celebrations of street culture, and ruminations on God and the Biblical apocalypse.

Roster

Current

• Matt "Pegleg" Roberts: vocals, guitar, keys, sax
• Matt "Bean" Hernandez: bass
• Dave Chevalier: sax, keys, guitar, vocals (left just before the first album, then returned just after)
• Aaron Landers: guitar, keys (joined before Sundown to Midnight)
• Scott C. Rodgers: drums (joined before The Crucial Conspiracy)

Former

• Tony Terusa: Drums
• Jon Bon: Trombone
• Jeff Holmes: Guitar
• Ethan Luck: Drums

All of these guys departed prior to the first album, with the exception of Ethan, who departed soon after the first album.

Discography

• Armageddon Massive (1998)
• Sundown to Midnight (1999)
• The Crucial Conspiracy (2001)
• The Rebel Soul Sound System (2010, free, here)

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The Dingees provides examples of the following tropes:

• Adults Are Useless: "Conspiracy Against the Youth".

It's a big conspiracy!
They hate youth and they hate me!

• Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: The Crucial Conspiracy, natch.
• The End of the World as We Know It: A common theme in the lyrics.
• Epic Rocking: "Smoke Signals, a nine-minute reggae-funk jam.
• Genre Roulette: Their first three albums.
• Hidden Track: Armageddon Massive has a dub remix of "Could be Worse" at the end. The Crucial Conspiracy has "Conspiracy Against the Youth" hidden in the middle of the album.
• Indecipherable Lyrics: On their forays into hardcore--"Ronnie Raygun", "Conspiracy Against the Youth", and "Capital Imperial".
• Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly: The Rebel Soul Sound System.
• Not Christian Rock: Reportedly, the members themselves couldn't agree if they were a Christian band or not.
• Sampling: All over the place in Rebel Soul Sound System. For example, "Who Stole the Soul in Rock N Roll" combines samples from SpongeBob SquarePants, The Beatles, and Public Enemy, and somehow makes them all fit seamlessly.
• Slogan Yelling Megaphone Guy: In the "Street vs State" sound collage.
• Song Style Shift: "Blackout!", "Smoke Signals".