11th May 2011: F:B:15: I Was A Teenage Punk

Today's Choose My Music was picked by a man known only to me as @Geek_Tone. His random selection was F:B:15 which has lead me to this selection.

Rancid - Rancid
Released: 1993
Purchase Link: Amazon

Now, for the sake of order and my own sanity, I should point out that there are two self titled Rancid albums - this is the original which was released in 1993.

I really do not think it is possible to underestimate the influence and affect Rancid had on me during my latter teenage years. Being born in the summer of 1979 I missed out on the original Punk scene by a considerable amount of years. Rancid were perhaps the first true alternative bands I got in to.

I was introduced to the Californian group by Mike Hartley, he was the guitarist of my 2nd band Arctic Space-Man. I had already got into the Pistols, Clash and various other original punk bands but he played me a tape with the track Ruby Soho on it (from their 3rd album ....And Out Comes The Wolves) and I was instantly hooked.

Sadly our band sounded nothing like Rancid, and it wasn't for another 5 years or so until I set up my very short lived punk band Chunk, but more about that later.

Rancid played a huge part in the resurgence of punk in the mid 1990s, along with Green Day and Offspring, yet unlike the other two bands, Rancid showed their true punk colours by releasing all their early albums on independent labels (Lookout, Epitaph and Hellcat, which is owned by singer/guitarist Tim Armstrong)

Armstrong and bass player Matt Freeman originally played together in cult underground band Operation Ivy. When they split up in 1989, Armstrong suffered with homelessness brought on through alcohol addiction. The story goes that Matt Freeman stumbled upon him one day and took him in to help him get clean - it was out of this act of friendship that Rancid was formed. Tim has credited this as saving his life.

This was the first of Rancid's 7 albums they have released to this point, all with virtually the same line up. For their 2nd release, 'Lets Go' a year later in 1994 they recruited Lars Fredrickson from UK Subs. The position was originally offered to Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day fame, who would often play live with the band during their formative years, but he turned down the offer to concentrate on breaking his own band.

Sadly, I have found myself over the years drifting away from Rancid. Their 2003 album Indestructible was panned by some of their fan base, not helped by them recruiting Kelly Osborne and members of Blink 182 to appear in the video for the single 'Fall Back Down'. Also Rancid decided to use Warner Brothers to distribute the album, they would only do so on the condition it had a parental advisory sticker on the front....for true hardcore punk fans this small detail is a big no no.

Even sadder still is upon the release of their 2009 album Let The Dominoes Fall, I actually found myself cringing at some it it during my first listen - and I haven't played it again since.

I am not sure if I have outgrown Rancid, or if they have outgrown me.

As for my punk band Chunk? Well we were always pretty bad - there exists on MiniDisc the only live recording of the group ever - which was a horrible gig in Newcastle Under Lyme (which we blagged the promoter saying we were a well established local band, when in truth we had never played a gig) - we were generally abused by a pissed up old man, who you can hear at one point in the recording asking us if we knew "any good ones". I guess the world wasn't ready for songs like "All My Friends Are Shit"....ahhhh...happy memories

19th April 2011. C:B:22

I have been thinking about music A LOT lately. This is perhaps due to the fact that not only am I volunteering on a very small, very local hospital radio station, but also because in light of the new job I should be starting soon, I will eventually be responsible for managing a record label and radio station of my own.

Oddly the Choose My Music selection this week has also given me some additional food for thought. But lets start from the beginning.

This weeks Choose My Music was picked by Charlie Greenwood (or @LottieDean on Twitter). The fact that she decided to choose my music and thus appear on this blog is, I am told, rather ironic considering she spent most of yesterday morning lamenting about pointless blogs. If there is a blog as pointless as this I would love to read it.

Anyway, Charlie kindly picked the random combination of C:B:22 - which lead me to.....

Fugazi - Steady Diet of Nothing


I must admit, I was a bit apprehensive when my finger counted across to CD number 22. It was a beautiful early spring morning and I was about to take a short drive to Derby - secretly I was hoping for something a little more 'summery', but thems are the breaks when you insist that your music habits will be dictated at random by strangers....but to be fair, once I got going down the A38 I am rather quite pleased and saw fit to crank up the volume.

I was a late comer to Fugazi, which is no surprise as I was 8 years old when they formed. I knew of their existence during my latter school days, mainly thanks to a brilliant drummer by the name of Kalvin (a few years later in 1999, we did eventually start a band which was very good - I still miss them to this day) . But it wasn't until perhaps my early 20's when I really started to take notice.

Looking at the CD cover, inlay and sleeve notes (as is my love - hence why digital downloads are a struggle for me) I registered that the album was recorded in 1991,which got me thinking. If I had heard this album at 11 or 12 years old, as I would have been at the time, would I have liked it?

I am guessing the answer is likely to be NO for many reasons. First, I wouldn't have "got it" as it were. Social / Political punk was not really my thing at that age and to be honest, I have no idea how I would have even heard anything from this album in the early 90's - I can't imagine Simon Mayo cranking out Dear Justice Letter on his Monday morning breakfast show.

As much as I love the body of work produced by Fugazi, I am rather grateful that I didn't hear them until later in my life as I feel many of us music obsessives will reach a point where we stop just liking music and move on to actual appreciation. Not solely enjoying a song because it is there, but listening to the intricate details, the clever rhythm changes, a self serving bass line which doesn't just hit root notes, instruments being dropped in when you least expect them and so on.

As sad as you may think it is, I love listening to music and letting my brain pick out the individual parts which make up the whole and just appreciating the entire ensemble - this explains why The Beach Boys 'Pet Sounds' album is my all time favourite and perhaps why people who do not listen to music in this way do not see it as anything special. I enjoy listening to Fugazi in this way to.

I suppose I should point out for fear of pompousness, that I know I am not the only one who does this...heck, producers get paid by the bucket load for a similar, but even more proficient, listening style.

Speaking of producers. Looking at the history of this album, Fugazi wanted to employ the producer of their first album (Ted Nicely) to work on this release with them. Oddly, Nicely has gone from producing awesome records to being a Chef  so the band landed up doing it themselves.

To be fair, there isn't too much to say about this album. You ether love Fugazi or your don't. They have a very set sound, a very distinguishable style. I sometimes find it hard to distinguish from one album to the other. I suppose if this is a band someone would want to get into then I would suggest starting at the beginning with 'Repeater' or at the end with 'The Argument' and work your way back.

Prior to writing this post, I rightly assumed it would be difficult to find some tracks off this album to post here. So I am sticking on whatever I can find.

Fugazi - Waiting Room - Fugazi by SoundKreep
Fugazi - Merchandise by Rudimentor

10th April 2011 G:B:16

Back to usual business after setting up my Audiophiles page and participating in the brilliant Masterpieces website. I figured after a couple of weeks break it was time to get back on with Choose My Music.

As always please try and share this site when are where you can. Thanks to you guys this site continues to grow and I have got in contact with some great musical obsessive types. I'd like to keep that going. So if you would be kind enough to let people know about this site then I would be most grateful.

So Choose My Music today was selected by Jeanette Leech who, amongst other things, is a published author with the book 'Seasons They Change: The Story of Acid & Psychedelic Folk'. You can follow her on twitter here

Jeanette chose the combination G:B:14 which lead me to...

The Stranglers - The Collection

Ahhh the last day of school. What a happy time, spending the last few hours with the people you have hung out with for the last 5 years. Taking the opportunity to say thanks to the Teachers who have helped you develop and grow.

Not for me.....

On the last day of school I found myself sitting in the same room as my good friend Jamie Baker.

"Have you heard who's in Birmingham at lunchtime?" he asked me. "The Stranglers are doing an in-store at HMV. Want to go?"

Birmingham was about a 40 minute direct train ride and we figured that we could hang out at school and walk out just after morning break and be there in plenty of time. And this is exactly what we did. 

It was a rather odd decision to take to be honest. I was never really a Stranglers fan. They were always lumped in with Punk music but never quite fit into what my own personal definition of punk was. To be honest, that hasn't really changed over the years.

Of course The Stranglers we met was not the original line up with Paul Roberts replacing Hugh Cornwell on vocals and I think it was fair to say that the 1990's were not a kind period for the band.

I remember distinctly Jamie and I spent the ensuing train journey home sniggering about how fat 'Jet Black' was and why a man of his age would still be signing autographs using his pseudonym - oddly it is still a topic of discussion whenever we speak 18 years later.

This is a rather unusual collection released by EMI in 1997. It contains music from 1978 through to 1982 so it misses Peaches and Something Better Change while Nice N Sleazy is a notable omission which fits into the time period. For reason I cannot understand the sleeve notes for the CD spends more time talking about the songs that are missing from this hodge podge collection as opposed to the ones that made it on to the album. 

You may be asking yourself why I even own this album. Well the truth is that my Dad turned up with it at my house sometime in 2001. I didn't ask for it and I don't think I have ever even discussed The Stranglers with him - he just said he bought it for me. It has rarely been played since.

I guess the one redeeming feature is that the album does contain the rather excellent cover of 'Walk On By' - but considering that track is first, the rest of the CD is a bit of a hard slog.