the I*GENTS

Okay, so this one’s been out-of-date for a while, unfortunately… The story starts back in the day with a band of ska kids from Texas City called Secret Agent 8. I first saw ’em at the 2nd Annual Zippfest (can’t even remember what year that was, now), and even then I was impressed, but…well, I just thought they needed some time, y’know? And despite the crash-and-burn of most of the ska bands around town, when it seemed like every other promising ska band in town fell off the planet (Supermarket All-Stars, Half Loaded, etc.), SA8 kept on chugging for several years, growing beyond the standard ska-punk they started with into some really sophisticated, jazzy swing-ska. (And they dropped the suits, apparently, which was kind of a relief.)

Flash-forward to 2007, and Secret Agent 8 as we knew it is no more. A couple of the guys in the band, keys-man Ryan Scroggins and drummer Pat “Beans” Wheeler, headed off to join Los Skarnales for a while before that band imploded (and have since formed their own very, very cool ska band, Ryan Scroggins and the Trenchtown Texans), but bassist Adam Castaneda and guitarists Zack Cayton, and Kenny Dickman soldiered on. The three of ’em met up with Chris Kendrick, the original singer for local ska legends The Suspects (remember them?), and together they decided to drop the SA8 name and go with the I*GENTS, instead, as well as shift to a more rocksteady kind of sound. They recruited drummer Pat Kelly (ex-Half Loaded/Sound Patrol/etc., currently also in The Handsomes) & keyboardist Matt Silverman to play with ’em, and they’ve been cruising along nicely ever since.

At any rate, they’ve put out a few things in both incarnations of the band. As Secret Agent 8, they put out an excellent little full-length (the title of which escapes me, sorry…) and popped up on a couple of comps, notable Stub Daddy Recs’ Potluck and Pinche Flojo’s Texas Ska Volume 1; as the I*GENTS, they’ve got a new split EP out with The Stingers called Rude Roots — haven’t heard it yet, but I’m betting it’s good (oh, and you can currently only get it at shows, sorry)…