NoFX

Black Taffy, “Corridors”

Do current generations still get excited by the pops and noise of old shitty vinyl? For me, it has an emotional connotation because it evokes the way I played music as a kid. It’s a nostalgic sound, and so I have an affection for it as a consequence. I’m not alone there, in my generation. And, of course, it evokes the classic sounds of hip-hop, which is also a tremendously positive association. With the resurgence of vinyl, is it now an attractive sound again? Just to certain folks? Or is it just annoying? I guess I could ask my kids. They’ll probably only make fun of me a little and then claim they don’t even understand the question.

NoFX, “Please Play This Song on the Radio”

I did, in fact, play this song on the radio, which is the sort of thing you can do when you’re holding down the 3 AM-7 AM slot on a Tuesday for a grand total of, like, four listeners. Safe harbor, baby! Anyway, 17yo Josh thought this was a hilarious bit, and absolutely worthy of inflicting on the poor bastards cramming for their thermodynamics final and were just hoping for something to keep themselves awake. I hope hearing the word “shithead” on the radio gave them just a little bit of a jolt.

DJ Q-Bert, “Two”

This is a track from Demolition Pumpkin Squeeze Musik, where Q-Bert pretty much goes out of his mind. Some of the finest turntable work around, I highly recommend this whole record.

Atmosphere, “Yesterday”

Goddamn, I’m a sucker for a loop built on a piano riff. Here, “Love Finds Its Own Way” by Gladys Knight & the Pips is the source, and the resulting beat is a thing of wonder. I just can’t get enough of this.

NoFX, “I Wanna Be Your Baby”

A misfire from this record, I just really don’t want to hear Fat Mike singing this, you know?

Unsteady, “Breaking Up”

A real treat! Unsteady put up a handful of unreleased tracks onto the web in 2001 or so, and I managed to grab them and hang onto them for forever. They never released a followup to their masterful Double or Nothing, so these four tracks are the only things we have. More than I think anybody else in the third wave, they’re the band that I wanted to hear more from. Alas.

Chuck D, “Mistachuck”

Chuck D put out one solo album, Autobiography of Mistachuck, which really very much fits in alongside the mid-90s Public Enemy stuff, neither notably better or worse than the main band’s stuff from that time. It has the same issue as those records, which is that it’s kind of let down by not enough editing, but there’s plenty of hard hitting stuff on here, such as this track.

NoFX, “Dinosaurs Will Die”

By the time they reached 2000’s Pump Up The Valuum, it was clear that NoFX were dedicated to never evolving for any reason. Which just makes them writing a song about the impending destruction of the music industry for, uh, not evolving just that much funnier. At any rate, this is where I got off the train with NoFX, I figured I had more than enough music from them.

NoFX, “Six Pack Girls”

Another track from the bootleg Maximum Rocknroll, which wasn’t authorized by the band and contains a bunch of pretty poor quality stuff. Not great!

Claw Hammer, “Uncontrollable Urge”

This is such a good song, goddamn. Claw Hammer really nails it, too. Uh, not a lot else to say here, really.

The Ocean, “Pleistocene”

I’ve meditated on pretension here before, so I’ll spare you all that guff again. But just for a moment, please admire the hubris involved in naming your album Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic. It’s a really good album, though, so whatever.

NoFX, “The Longest Line”

This is from a 1992 EP, also called The Longest Line, so from the White Trash, Two Heebs, and A Bean era. This is basically my favorite era of NoFX, probably due to how old I was at this time. There’s no real reason for anybody to really care about this EP though.

The Slackers, “Stereo On”

This is from an EP also, the 2013 release My Bed Is A Boat. Unlike the NoFX EP, though, I can heartily recommend this. It’s not so much that it’s notably better than any other Slackers, but that basically everything they’ve released is good.

They Might Be Giants, “Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head”

While the first TMBG album certainly sounds primitive compared to where they’d end up, there are still plenty of their hallmarks present even with this early song. They were capable of writing catchy tunes from the beginning, they had the clever lyrics, and the charm was certianly present. The first album has too many incidents of wackiness, too many throwaways to be really great, but there are some fine tunes on it.

Pinkwash, “Gumdrop”

Legitimately don’t remember picking this up. Apparently this is a band out of Philly, and this is their only record.

[listening]

Not bad! I can see why I picked this up! It’s shame I’m getting dumber and more forgetful.

Farside, “I Hope You’re Unhappy”

This is probably the most likely Farside song to get big, a straightforward power-pop song about longing, one almost designed to get MTV play. I have no idea if it did so, because even by 1999 I was thoroughly unplugged from the zeitgiest. It’s a pretty good tune, though.