"Every Little Memory Has A Song" (Nostalgia Tastes Like Chicken)

Summertime is when I get all sorts of nostalgic, and break out all of my 80s Hardcore shit. Why? Because those records - every last one of them - hold some memories that are buried underneath all this "Adult Responsibility" crap I have to deal with now. And most of those memories are of the "Get Your Grin On" variety, the kind of memories that cause a chain reaction inside of a cat like me that makes me want to start another band and rock the shit out of some skulls.

Thanks to the Magic & Glory of The Interwebs, all of those out-of-print records CAN be found - you just have to know how and where to look. I've found stuff I never in my life thought I would hear again. A lot of the bands I grew up on in those hazy 80s summers have reunited, touring the country much like they did back in the day, although the crowds now are much older, balder, and not as apt to go off into a slam-dancing feeding frenzy (which, when you really think about it, was part of the appeal of those shows back in the day - Total Release).

Fuck it, enough talk.

This is precisely what I'm riffing on right here:




Seriously, now - what band can top the Bad Brains? The intensity. The tenacity. The feral and visceral reaction. The chaos. You cannot resist them. The fury with which they attack their instruments has never been surpassed or even replicated. Masters of The Craft.

I'm pretty sure the only band that has ever come close to what The Bad Brains were capable of were The Cro-Mags, who I was blessed enough to see live when they toured with Motorhead and Megadeth(although, Megadeth played a very abbreviated and angst-ridden set, and were kicked off the tour that night) at an indoor soccer arena on the west side of Phoenix. They fucking leveled my punk ass. Hell, it's been over twenty years, and I still haven't seen a band that created as much energy and movement as these motherfuckers did. They did more than push air - they vaporized it.



Another band that knocks the wind out of me every time I throw on their album, is Swiz. They were a monster of a crew - Shawn Brown is probably the most underappreciated and unheralded vocalists/lyricists from this era of hardcore. Swiz was a DC/Arlington area band, made up of kids who used to skate and go to shows together. They wrote terse, staccato jams that blast right into your mind, with melodies you'd never think would stick, but they certainly do. Brown was the original vocalist for Dag Nasty - another band that stirs the Memory Pot.



And, seeing as how I've already touched on the DC area...

Minor Threat brings about a flood of halcyon memories for me - driving around on a Friday night in the middle a carload of Xavier girls(Phoenix's Catholic Prep Academy for girls, and my main source of teen action in the 80s), singing along to these massive anthems of Youthful Rebellion of The Highest Order. What could truly be more rebellious than a group of kids who disavowed alcohol, drugs, and casual sex? Obviously, I wasn't grabbing hold of that Straight Edge lifestyle/ethos* - but the band surely did kick out the jams, as evidenced by the clip below.



One of my funniest/oddest/warmest memories from that time period involves Minor Threat coupled with the use of "drugs." I was in a band called Grave Mistake, and we used to rehearse at my house, because my mother was awesome and supported me in whatever I wanted to do. We were a bunch of goofballs who wanted to be as punk as we possibly could, even though not one of us ever went hungry or wanted for much back in that era - hell, our drummer's father was the President of a growing national airline at the time.

We were rehearsing for some warehouse show that we somehow got on the bill for. It was like our third or fourth show, with our first being opening up for Social Distortion at a VFW Hall. We had a habit of picking a cover song and destroying it as our intro - even at house parties. We thought it was funny, and sometimes we would pick a song from one of the bands we were playing with/opening for - just to spite them. I had been huffing ether all day off of the bandana I kept in my back pocket(White Trash!), and our singer, Iraj, decided he wanted us to play "Straight Edge."

Let's just say that it ended up morphing into something totally different and retarded, with me falling all over myself and knocking over some amps. Iraj realized that we weren't going to be covering any Minor Threat anytime soon, and all was well with the world of Grave Mistake. Good times.

ANYWAYS...

One of the bands we really loved a lot was R.K.L.(Rich Kids on LSD) - these fuckers were retardedly adept on their given instruments. Their album, Rock And Roll Nightmare is still one of my favorite records of all time. We would always try and emulate what they were doing, but we were such fledglings that we couldn't pull off all of the nuances and intricacies of the shit they were playing. I never got a chance to see them live, which still bums me out to this day.



A band that I did get to see live was SNFU. These Canadian madmen came barreling through Phoenix in the summer before my senior year of high school, touring behind their If You Swear, You'll Catch No Fish album(if you don't have it, you should get it - trust me). I had only heard a couple of their songs before seeing them, and they completely blew me away. I'm not sure if there is any way to explain what makes them so special without explaining that their frontman, Mr. Chi Pig, has to easily be one of the most charismatic and dynamic cats to hit a stage. This dude was all over the place, making faces, jumping around, and looking like he was having the time of his fucking life.

And really?

Any band that can pull off a song about losing one's memory in the fashion shown below should be in heavy rotation on everyone's portable Jam Device.



I'll probably be posting more of this "Memory Lane" type of shit this summer, as every time my iPod lands on something that causes my heart to jump back in time, I feel an urge to spew about it.

You've been warned.

The Page Wants To Stay White

The first time I heard Jawbox, was when Maximum Rock 'n' Roll put out the "They Don't Get Paid, They Don't Get Laid, But Boy Do They Work Hard!" compilation(which was chock-full of amazing goodness that I'm sure I'll riff about at some point). Bullet Park was a great introduction to the sound of a band that would end up being one of the most under-rated and under-appreciated groups of the 1990s.


Immediately following their appearance on that compilation, Dischord Records released their full length debut, Grippe - an amazingly melodic record, full of lyrical self-flagellation and introspection.


I was an instant fan. This shit was right up my alley - smart, discordant yet melodic, challenging guitar parts, a rhythm section that pushed air - way beyond the rest of the post-hardcore stuff I was hearing at the time.


Fast forward to 1993, and the major labels were sniffing the blood on the floor in their post-Nirvana feeding frenzy. Jawbox had been touring nonstop, playing every nook and cranny of North America spreading their angular gospel. They ended up signing with Atlantic Records, to the dismay of the punk rock community - along with label(and tour) mates Shudder To Think.





Figuring they could do with an influx of cash, it seemed at the time to be the right move for Jawbox. The resulting album, For Your Own Special Sweetheart is their masterpiece.





Everything about this album just fucking smokes. The guitar sounds are wiry and clean, with just enough distortion tagged onto them to make every song abrasive. J Robbins' literature-laden lyrics still need a decoder ring(as others have often stated), but it's not too hard to realize the theme of the record is salvation - something that seems so fucking emo, but really is integral to all of us who love music with heart.





The album starts off with the roaring FF=66, and doesn't have a single track that will make you want to stop. They made videos for the singles Savory & Cooling Card, toured nonstop as usual, and probably inspired thousands of kids with guitars to read JG Ballard & William Carlos Williams. They went on to record one more album, and then disbanded. J Robbins is now a producer who has worked with a myriad of your favorite bands, and also played in Burning Airlines & Channels. I suggest you dig in to everything he's ever done - you'll thank me for it.






My favorite cuts: Chicago Piano, Breathe, Jackpot Plus!, Cruel Swing.