Not quite Rock, not quite Ska, not quite New Wave, but sort of all of those things at the same time. That’s the kind of noncommittal description you tend to hear after a Manganista show. 91X’s Tim Pyles has described the band as “San Diego’s answer to Oingo Boingo”, while the late great Beat Farmer, Buddy Blue, once said it sounded like the band had taken several blood transfusions from Aston Barrett and the drummer had four arms working at once.

Whatever it is that Manganista does, their chameleon-like approach to making music has kept them going for more than 15 years, playing Ska and Reggae shows with bands like The Aggrolites and Unsteady, 80’s revival shows with Flock of Seagulls and When in Rome, and local Rock shows at the Casbah and Belly Up Tavern. When asked in a recent interview about categorizing Manganista’s music, singer Matt Rhea said, “At a micro level, I constantly feel like we don’t really fit in anywhere, but when I take a step back and look at all of the things we’ve done over the years, it seems like not fitting in has actually allowed us to fit in everywhere.”

Manganista is currently playing shows around the southern California area and just released a new 7” on Escape Hatch Records featuring the songs Human Being and Angeline.