Now Playing: 'Ground Control's NOFX discography mix Part 2'

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One of the constants in life is that there are always three points to any growth curve; over-simplified, there is a beginning, a middle and an end. The arc of NOFX' growth is a little more complicated than that though; there is a beginning of course – that's where the band came together, began writing and set the basic foundations for their sound, got jerked around by their first label (Mystic Records) and found a new home with Epitaph. That signing was a really good fit; while the start was rocky, NOFX began growing both artistically and in stature and the band's full-length records from Liberal Animation through White Trash, Two Heebs and A Bean reflected the band's promise and improvement. That might have been enough to get NOFX well and truly off the ground, but fate and taste suddenly turned to help as well. In the early Nineties, the rise of grunge made guitar-driven, punk-inspired rock a hot commodity in the mainstream so, after it flamed out with the death of Kurt Cobain, listeners began looking for more punk and found a clutch of great bands (including NOFX) hailing from southern California. It was perfect; while NOFX may have made it there of its' own accord, a bit of great songwriting, good timing and serendipity intervened...

This is Part Two of Ground Control's NOFX discography review. For Part One, click here , click here for Part Three and click here for Part Four.


Punk In Drublic
(Epitaph, 1994)
...And then everything just exploded. Things had been going well for punk through 1992 and '93 as bands like Green Day, The Offspring, Bad Religion, Rancid and NOFX all began taking significant creative strides and started drawing notice outside of SoCal but no one – no one – was expecting the avalanche of attention that the albums they released in 1994 would all receive. It all seemed to happen at once; suddenly punk bands were in the paper (for something other than their fans' acts of mischief), they were on TV, they were on the radio and they were on the covers of magazines. They were everywhere and the interest only increased each time another album was came out. Here's the timeline:


• Green Day's Dookie is released on February 1, 1994 and sells so well and so quickly that their label, Reprise, has to scramble to press more copies because stores can't keep them on shelves. The album receives a Diamond certification in 1999 – just five years after its' release.

• The Offspring's Smash is released on April 8, 1994. Bad Religion bassist Jay Bentley (who was working in the Epitaph warehouse at the time) remembers filling a seemingly unending stream of orders for Smash for two years solid following the album's release. Certified six-times Platinum by the RIAA.

• Rancid's Let's Go album is released on June 14, 1994 and goes on to be certified Gold by the RIAA.

• NOFX' Punk In Drublic is released on July 19, 1994 and is the band's first album to be certified Gold by the RIAA.

• Bad Religion releases its first album for Atlantic Records, Stranger Than Fiction, on September 6, 1994. It is their first (and only) record to be certified Gold by the RIAA.


Needless to say, it was a red letter year for punk rock, but what's even more impressive in NOFX' case  is that Punk In Drublic's success happened on a totally grassroots level. Conspicuously, while all of the records that those other bands released were on the charts somewhere, Punk In Drublic went Gold in both the US and Canada without entering the charts even once; it just sold and did it with little to no help (Gurewitz had put his company on the line to release and promote Smash, and the lion's share of their efforts were going into that) from anyone other than NoFX itself, and the touring that the band did.

Punk In Drublic wasn't the typical punk album of the time, either. It's important to note that, by the time the album hit in 1994, NOFX had already been playing together for ten years which (other than Bad Religion) made them both a little older and more experienced than the rest of the bands on the scene, and that fact shows in Punk In Drublic. While The Offspring and Green Day were still singing pretty simple songs about teenage kicks and tomfoolery (Green Day had masturbation and girl trouble through songs like “Longview,” “Basketcase” and “She,” The Offspring had gang- and gun-play as well as trouble with girls on “Come Out And Play,” “Bad Habit” and “Self Esteem” respectively), NOFX was already (for the most part) beyond that and, while still willfully juvenile at points, Punk In Drublic is a work of some pretty stupendous songwriting; dig below the poppy sheen of “The Cause,” for example, and listeners will find lines like:


That kind of sentiment throws a whole lot of distance between Punk In Drublic and Smash, Dookie and Let's Go and it's only one example on the record. Also unlike those other albums (which tended to be very plain-faced and upfront), Punk In Drublic plays to a couple of different audiences on a couple of different levels. While “The Brews” will make kids pogo 'til they're sore with its' crunchy guitars and talk of “screwin' chicks as long as we're home by Saturday mornin',” it's also a scathing satire of numbskull skinheads and boot boys and their intolerance of people with different religious backgrounds and minorities. A similar sort of dialogue runs through “Don't Call Me White” although it comes from a very different angle as Fat Mike rails against those who judge a book by its' cover (telling line: “Accept responsibility for what I've done, but not for who I am”), but enlarges the possibilities of it by playing the race card in the title lyric. The result is really, really funny and made all the better because not everyone will get the joke; in fact, if they don't get it, they'll likely be infuriated due to their own stupidity and the fact that they didn't get the joke. The album and the songs on it are actually pretty brilliant that way – especially when one considers that the most raucous songs are also the fluffiest (see “Punk Guy (Cause He Does Punk Things)” and “Jeff Wears Birkenstocks?”) and the combination of those two groups of songs acts as the security blanket which covers those moments when Fat Mike opens up and actually talks about himself; perfect examples are moments like the juvenile erotic play of “Lori Meyers” and “Fleas” – both of which are probably more personal and honest than any fan could imagine.

So was anyone aware of just how against the grain Punk In Drublic really ran at the time of its' release? Some fans may have known (likely, those that had been around for a while had a clue) but, to the fifteen-year-old kid in the pit who weaseled his way into a show on a fake ID, it was just some of the best, most inflammatory shit he'd ever heard; stuff he liked and his parents hated, but couldn't exactly crucify because NOFX was straddling a line between the mainstream and counterculture steadily enough that no one could topple them. That balance has been holding up through NOFX' albums for years, but it had never resonated so well or struck a chord so popular as it did on Punk In Drublic.



Don't Call Me White 7”

(Epitaph, 1994)
It was a really good thing that Punk In Drublic came out when it did – in fact, there's precisely no chance that it could have hit so hard or worked out better for NoFX at any other time. The stars and bands had aligned just right so that, because punk was blowing up in SoCal like it was and NOFX had already paid its' dues through the scene and learned to play the game, they were in a far better position to mess with people and have it work out than other bands blowing up at the same time were. That knowledge and ability to play the angles to their own ends is what allowed NOFX to put out the Don't Call Me White 7-inch. The single is certainly a soft option release and remains so, but NoFX had the floor and thought it might be fun to take advantage of it. So they did, and it was.

 Unlike almost every other NOFX single or seven-inch, Don't Call Me White actually plays by the mainstream rules of release that were prevalent in its' day – sort of. In this case:


• Both sides of the Don't Call Me White 7” were album tracks from Punk In Drublic. Normally, something has always been previously unreleased on a NOFX single, or tracks get compiled from different sources for a pre-envisioned purpose.

• Neither of the songs on this single were ever serviced to radio as singles; the band released it (according to them) because they liked the artwork.

So is that all there is to it? NOFX released Don't Call Me White “because they could” and that seemed like as good a reason as any? It's possible – that would make the endeavor something of a farce – but, digging a little deeper, it becomes obvious that the commentary attached to these two songs might make them a little more valuable than the band would like to admit. 

While it is a little cartoon-y and farcical, the A-side of the single is actually a pretty cool, off-beat song for NOFX that takes the piss out of PC (that's 'politically correct,' not 'progressive conservative) in a totally ass-backwards way. In regards to the tenor and subject matter of “Don't Call Me White,” it's important to remember that the race card was still a pretty powerful one to play in 1994; the notorious L.A. riots and the sound bytes left by Rodney King were still on people's minds, and Suge Knight was beginning his take-over of Death Row Records. In that particular case, the gang violence so prevalent in south central L.A. was beginning to manifest in that label's business practices which made for fantastic headlines. Because of that, it seemed like notions of color were beginning to creep into everything once again so for NOFX to play off that as they do in “Don't Call Me White,” it just feels like a fantastic relief against the nonsense. Lines like, “I wasn't brought here, I was born/Circumcised, categorized, allegiance sworn” are the ones that take the forefront and are designed to get dubious grins, but the real barbs lie deeper – “Accept responsibility for what I've done/but not for who I am” is the straight-faced punchline that knocks the song into the 'essential listening' category and wins a prize for the educated answer to all-consuming PC that it is. It's probably the most unlikely social commentary tune in the history of popular song, but “Don't Call Me White” is on solid ground.

If it's possible, the B-side, “Punk Guy” sounds even fluffier but, again, it handily takes the piss out of a very visible group in the pop culture-of-the-moment. It goes without saying that “Punk Guy” is about the newbies in the pit at NOFX shows in '94 and the generally foolish things they were prone to doing, as well as the poseur bands prone to acting the same way while wearing their souls on their collective face. The lyric sheet reads like a harsh indictment as Burkett invokes all the classic punk images (GG Allin, Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, Ian MacAye, Colin Jerwood and David Spring) and plays them off as parody to make the point that the 'pop' in the scene is a joke and the only 'culture' punk should have is what grows in the dingy basements that bands crash in while on tour. Without coming right out and saying it, the inference here is that much of what was going on was just earnest posturing and there was nothing genuine about it; it was about as stupid as smoking while huffing gas.

That kind of criticism would have been deemed fightin' words in some of the 'super punk' circles that were so prevalent around the explosion of '94, but it goes over brilliantly for NOFX because there were more than enough kids who didn't get it and those who did were hooked because it was an ideal chance to crack jokes at all the Johnny-come-latelys. It was a bit of genius on NOFX' part because the band managed to pull the rug out from under just about everybody who was taking themselves too seriously in the mid-Nineties with just two tracks and they didn't just get away with it, they got revered for it. NOFX may have tried to trivialize what it did with the Don't Call Me White 7” and maybe they meant it – maybe they weren't aware of how the single could be taken – but, in hindsight, this single stands as proof that NOFX was the smartest of the “new breed” of punk bands breaking out in the mid-Nineties.       



Ten Years Of Fuckin' Up DVD
(Fat Wreck Chords, 1994)
Years ago, when MTV was the celebrated, primary method of reaching everyone – both target demographics and not – NOFX couldn't get the time of day (any time of day) on camera. To their credit, the band did try to play by the rules initially, but MTV made it pretty clear that they wanted nothing to do with them or most any other punk band for that matter:


Needless to say, NOFX was pretty turned off of the idea of videos that they didn't have control over. Without that control and with MTV openly expressing their disdain for the band and most of their associates, it was unlikely that anyone would see them in the days before the widespread introduction of the internet so what would be the point? With that in mind, NOFX figured out the best way to regulate their video output: with a video cassette (and, later, DVDs). With a video/DVD release, NOFX could have the peace of mind that people who wanted to see it could see it and, even better, they could make it sort of celebratory and cross-promote it with the band's tenth anniversary.

The logic seemed sound so, on November 8, 1994, Ten Years Of F**kin' Up was released to record stores.

Looking back at it now – post-Jackass – the DVD is pretty funny. Crossing old, often self-shot video interviews, the music videos they already had [including the video shot for “Bob,” directed by Sam Bayer – who also did the video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” –ed] and live performance footage, Ten Years Of F**kin' Up treads all the way back to some of the band's earliest tours (some are dated 1987) and the chicanery that followed them. Here, fans find out just how much money the band didn't make in the early days as well as how little they cared that that they weren't making much money, and just how much fun they were having; crowds were small, but it was fun. In contrast, the video also a few songs from later releases (“Longest Line,” “Shower Days”) to show how the band had progressed from playing back yards to on-the-small-side-of-mid-sized venues. It gets a little funnier when viewers realize that some of the “performances” have been overdubbed with studio-recorded tracks, but somehow that makes it even better too; like an episode of Jackass, the video doesn't shoot to be particularly informative, it aims to entertain – and it does that.


I Heard They Suck Live!!
(Fat Wreck Chords, 1995)
Maybe because fans who saw Ten Years Of F**kin' Up recognized that some of the songs were presented with playback audio and started questioning how NOFX actually sounded live – or maybe just because it was time – NOFX followed the DVD with the release of a live album entitled I Heard They Suck Live!!.

In fact, there is no truth in advertising where I Heard They Suck Live!! is concerned. From the opening over-sped rip through “Linoleum,” NOFX shows just how solid – if not occasionally a little silly – they are as a live band and, from there, NOFX never even taps the brakes as they fly through a set that never misses a hit. Songs including “Moron Brothers,” “Punk Guy (Cause He Does Punk Things),” “Bob,” “Soul Doubt” and “Kill All The White Man” all shine in this slightly leaner, less produced context and the crowd dutifully eats it up, but the really surprising moments happen in the songs that were either far, far too produced in the studio, or those songs from the band's early career that get dusted off here.

While it would have been cool to hear the band try to do the big gang choruses on “The Brews” and “Moron Brothers,” there's no doubt that getting a sound as large as that would require even with the whole crowd singing would have been near impossible. NOFX makes up for it by throwing in little extras and variations on the material to spice it up instead and the real surprises come up in the older songs in the set; “Beer Bong” and “Six Pack Girls” both sound positively nimble here stacked against their studio counterparts and, in spite of the fact that NOFX likely had those songs played into the ground years before January 8 and 9, 1995 – when I Heard They Suck Live!! was recorded – the band is clearly still having fun with them so many years later as they belch and blast through them with nothing but laughs when they do screw up (which doesn't happen often) and no excuses either.

As live albums go, I Heard They Suck Live!! is pretty decent. As an advertisement for the shows and what fans can expect walking through the door, it's an accurate representation of NOFX and really captures the spirit of the band's shows as they were at the time. Fans who had never seen the band live but wondered about their strength in performance (particularly if the only frame of reference they had was Ten Years of F**kin' Up) would be sold on the strength of this album. The greatest shock the record could possibly hold is if it didn't boost ticket sales.


Leave It Alone  EP
(Epitaph, 1995)
Why would any band do some of the things that NOFX does? Why a band would voluntarily saturate a market as NOFX did with a series of releases featuring similar songs as they did shortly after the release of Punk In Drublic doesn't make sense on paper but, in truth, it actually makes very good business sense. The reasoning for it follows the rules of supply and demand; in this case, NOFX was riding high on a series of very well-received albums in the forms of Punk In Drublic, the Don't Call Me White 7” and I Heard They Suck Live!!, but the band was still leaving a couple of expectations short. Only one of those releases came out through Epitaph and the label wanted a bigger piece of the pie so, to make everybody happy, the Leave It Alone EP was born. With a new EP out, the material would be further exposed on a public that was already buying a tremendous amount of punk, and there was the chance that it could re-stimulate interest in the full-length albums. It wasn't what anyone would call a complicated business strategy, but it had always proven to be an effective one – so no one had anything to lose.

It's really, really simple to see how this EP works. With both “Leave It Alone” and “Don't Call Me White” (which also had the added bonus of promoting its' own single at the time), Epitaph gives the nearly-year-old Punk In Drublic another shot in the arm while “Soul Doubt” gives a little interest and exposure to I Heard They Suck Live!! and Fat Wreck by extension, so everybody wins. Not only that, this EP gets a little added interest from those fans who already purchased both of the aforementioned full-lengths with the inclusion of the previously unreleased “Drugs Are Good” so, with all those corners covered, Leave It Alone is a solid advertisement.

As a sampling of wares and/or inexpensive way for prospective listeners to check out NOFX, Leave It Alone isn't a bad effort. With both “Don't Call Me White” and “Leave It Alone,” listeners get a really good taste of NOFX' punk side complete with singalong choruses, and “Soul Doubt” promises to put more meat in the seats at shows by plugging the band's live album. The clincher from a sales standpoint on the Leave It Alone EP is the unreleased track though; “Drugs Are Good” handily illustrates that, in NOFX' case, it isn't just the tripe that gets left on the cutting room floor. While the guitar and bass lines are on the bulky side (and that may be foreshadowing for Heavy Petting Zoo), it's a solid and satisfying NOFX song that doesn't bottom out and might cause some listeners to wonder how it got left off of all the band's full-length albums.

For those reasons, the Leave It Alone EP ably accomplishes its' proposed function; the songs are strong enough and leave enough to the imagination to pique interest in the uninitiated potential listener base. Such language may offend some readers (“Punk rock as a business model? No way – and not NOFX, never them.”), and maybe this proposed reasoning was never the intent of the Leave It Alone EP – but it makes the best sense and, with the HOFX 7” coming out on its' heels from Fat Wreck and also featuring “Drugs Are Good” in addition to another unreleased tune (“We Ain't Shit”), the lines that connect the dots get a little stronger.


Heavy Petting Zoo/Eating Lamb
(Epitaph, 1996)
Through the duration of the “Alternative Rock Revolution” (which really started to pick up steam in late 1990 and ran through 1994 before waning and petering out completely in the middle of 1998) critics had been trying desperately to figure out how they could slot NOFX into that movement with limited (at best) success. It's easy to understand why the fit wasn't exactly flush – NOFX is a punk band and so did not include any of the generic cliches that typified alt-rock or grunge (there were no “loud chorus/soft verse” dynamics or overtly personal lyric sheets) in their songs. Because of that, drawing any sort of comparison to The Pixies, Pearl Jam, Nirvana or any of the rest was pointless; the twain simply did not meet and fans (as well as the the band) laughed regularly at the mainstream's efforts to argue the point.

Whether those attempts eventually got to the band may never be made public domain but, ironically, as soon as grunge-mania began to fade, NoFX released Heavy Petting Zoo; the only record in the band's catalogue that could make a case for NOFX cutting it as an alternative rock band. For Heavy Petting Zoo (and its' vinyl counterpart, Eating Lamb – more on that later), while there are many of the earmarks inherent to NOFX' sound since as far back as Liberal Animation present, the band also opens up a variety of possibilities for themselves by expanding the scope of their songwriting and including more sounds than just the melodic hardcore/skate punk/ska amalgam they had been cultivating typically allowed. There was some alt- in there, but it was in an embryonic form at that and for flavor only.

To make everyone comfortable walking in through the front door, NOFX takes it easy and opens Heavy Petting Zoo with “Hobophobic (Scared Of Bums)” – a pretty cut, dry and static tune that could have been recorded for any of the band's albums dating back as far as Ribbed – and works the band's by-now-perfected skate-punk-and-sarcasm formula to excellent effect, even if it doesn't break any new ground.

“Hobophobic” is the kind of song every fan expects of NOFX (heavy bass line, skittering and speedy guitar parts, subversive plays on words) and plays out as easily as any of the band's potential hits. While pretty basic by the band's standard, it's incredibly gratifying to hear; there's nothing hard to like about it, and it's only after that when the band really begins to tweak and alter its' style.

Beginning with “Philthy Phil Philanthropist,” NOFX utilizes the spins that other bands had put on pink on their own songs (“Philthy...” sounds like a Green Day song both in the way it's produced and performed – with a more pogo-ready bass line and more constantly rhythmic guitar parts) to reasonably good effect when one considers the possibility that such uncharacteristic moves might qualify both as commentary on the new breed of punk band getting noticed (Rancid, Green Day, Less Than Jake, Mighty Mighty Bosstones) as well as the public's consumption of them. That statement isn't meant to imply that the song is dominated by some misplaced pints of sour grapes, just that there's a slightly more humorless vibe to it and that sets the tone for the rest of the record; it borders on cynical criticism.

With that sort of tone set, what follows can only be called a very mixed batch of songs. NOFX tries out some different ideas and sounds with a different effect each time which makes it difficult to get a bead on the record; “Hot Dog In A Hallway” comes closest to a standard-issue alt-rock song (like something by Local H maybe) with its' spiraling and milquetoast menacing guitar figure while “Release The Hostages” plays out a decent hybrid of alt-rock themes (“Seems like everybody's got/something I have not/a reason not to die”) and some prime skate punk and melodic hardcore chops to dazzling effect. At the same time, “Liza” makes her return here with palm-muted verses and caustic choruses to give an “at least” alt-rock impression (with Hefe's trumpet in there, the song sounds a bit like Cake on steroids, but still would have functioned better as a straight punk song) and that's fine, but even better is “Freedom Like A Shopping Cart” – where Fat Mike successfully cross-wires punk rock kicks and social politics (check out lines like, “Kick back, no tense/You got a bag of grub it cost you about fifty cents/no fear, no fuckin' feats/Malt liquor tastes much better on the streets”) to phenomenal result. There are a couple of more questionable moments in this run-time (the grind of “What's The Matter With Kids Today?” sounds like a reject from The Fastbacks' Sub Pop days in all the wrong ways) but they don't command the same amount of attention that the good songs here do – so they don't detract from the album much, it's all just a matter of perspective on what a listener would expect from NOFX and the difference between that expectation and what's actually here.

With that statement made, how does Heavy Petting Zoo stack up against Punk In Drublic, White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean and The Longest Line EP? The answer to that will be as divided among fans as it was with the band (on the release of Heavy Petting Zoo, Fat Mike has been quoted as saying, “I thought it [Heavy Petting Zoo] was the coolest record when we finished it, but a few months later I wasn't so sure. Some of those songs are kinda weird. I like the cover a lot though. I think it sold well in Belgium.”). Pound for pound, the songs are an able follow-up to the band's previous triumphs because when the songs are good, they're great. Those few that aren't so strong are only slightly less so, and if we were giving out numeric values/ratings for the albums, Heavy Petting Zoo would only merit one increment less than White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean; improvements could be made, but it's still pretty fuckin' good.

In addition to all the sonic changes NOFX had imposed on themselves for Heavy Petting Zoo, the album also bears the distinction of having a bit of self-serving novelty about it. While NOFX was no stranger to vinyl releases (all of NOFX' releases to this point had been issued on CD, cassette, and vinyl LP or 7-inch), the 12” release of Heavy Petting Zoo is a bit different from previous releases. The LP edition features different cover art by Mark de Salvo, who also did the work for the standard release, and a different title that better suits the new art; it's called Eating Lamb. While sort of cool, given that the artwork is the only difference (it has been contended that some of the mixes on the LP version of the album are different from those on the CD and cassette but, if they are different, it's pretty difficult to tell) between the releases of Heavy Petting Zoo and Eating Lamb is that artwork, it feels a bit like a calculated nudge from the band to turn new punks onto the beloved vinyl format and get some new attention thrown at it. It probably worked at the time (it is pretty cool artwork) and is the perfect sort of document to capitalize on super-fans but, realistically, it you've heard one, you've heard both and the purchase of one or the other is entirely dependent on personal taste.


Fuck The Kids EP
(Fat Wreck Chords, 1996)
After Heavy Petting Zoo came out, the public perception of NOFX was in very real danger of changing. Since Punk In Drublic, the band had been drawing an increasing number of new fans with each successive release and, especially after the very different turn they took with Heavy Petting Zoo, it seemed like the best imaginable time to get back to basics, and Fuck The Kids was precisely that – in more ways than one.

Fuck The Kids was NOFX' first proper EP since The Longest Line in 1992 but, to be perfectly honest, the band hadn't done an honest-to-goodness punk rock EP since 1987's The P.M.R.C. Can Suck On This. The difference between LPs, singles and EPs has always been the number of songs per release of course, but the punk rock EP has always been a different sort of bird too; the length of the songs (or, more specifically, bands play faster to get a greater number of songs in with a shorter time constraint), the format on which the material is released and the overall presentation have always been the keys, and NOFX clearly took that to heart when it came time to make Fuck The Kids.

Cramming thirteen tracks into nine minutes and fifty-five seconds on two sides of seven-inch vinyl, Fuck The Kids is a direct descendant of the original SST and New Alliance bands like Black Flag, The Minutemen and The Descendents; the songs are short, short on filler (like solos, bridges or any frills at all), blunt, urgent and very confrontational. From the beginning and by the numbers, NOFX coyly tips its' hat to The Descendents (“Fuck The Kids” and “Fuck The Kids II” total about five seconds-worth of run-time, much like the title track and “No, All” did on The Descendents' All album) before using strong, vintage strains of melodic hardcore to take the piss out of both the punk purists that were very vocal about a regimented framework for how punk should conduct itself and (now departed Maximum Rock and Roll founder) Tim Yohannan on “I'm Telling Tim” before flipping the coin and wishing for the old days when the single greatest threat to punk and the butt of every joke (as well as being responsible for some of the best punk images in the Eighties) was Ronald Reagan in “Reagan Sucks.”

All of this is beautifully succinct but, for those who remember punk in its' salad days around 1984, it's also very refreshing. Particularly on the A-side of Fuck The Kids, the brevity and in-out-and-done delivery here plays like the antidote to the comparatively indulgent shlock coming out of the last remaining powers in alt-rock like Space Hog, Stone Temple Pilots, Oasis, Matchbox 20 and Creed. There's no pomp and no ceremony, just good punk rock.

The flip-side gets deeper and more faithfully into the old school and, amazingly, some of it even plays like essential, revivalist listening. Had it been released in the mid-Eighties, “Murder The Government” would have been the melodic hardcore song that defined the SoCal scene but, even released as it was in '96, Fat Mike's lyrics (which include lines like, “I wanna see the constitution burn/Wanna watch the White House overturn/Wanna watch some blue blood bleed (fucking) red”) sound like some potent calls for a revolution.

“Murder The Government” marks a decidedly aggressive turn that could easily roll the EP into a totally different arena – until NOFX kneecaps its' own play with the Bad Religion-baiting “Stranger Than Fishin'” and re-establishes the band's lighter equilibrium.

The second side of the EP never breaks stride or the speed established by Side A and manages to be the greater reward as songs like the aforementioned “Murder The Government” and “Stranger Than Fishin',” as well as “Please Stop Fucking My Mom” and “Always Hate Hippies” (which should be an anthem and calling card for every street punk the world over) all take a gleefully malicious stance that sounds great and is very engaging but always gets resolved into a state of sublime fun because the 'glee' wins out over the 'malicious' undertones every time and will bring a knowing smile to every listener's face at the close of every song. In the end, any fan who thought NOFX might be changing after the comparatively heavy (in bulk, if not in sound) Heavy Petting Zoo would be thrilled to see any such possibility dispelled with Fuck The Kids; it is NOFX' first great mid-period EP.


So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes
(Epitaph, 1997)
...And then Mike Burkett, Eric Melvin, El Hefe and Erik Sandin blew the doors off of punk rock all over again. Those who had been paying attention to NOFX and its' movements for a while may, in hindsight, have been able to say that they knew a record like So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes was on the horizon, but that doesn't mean it didn't make everybody do a double take. From the opening buzz-saw salvo of “It's My Job To Keep Punk Rock Elite,” NOFX took a look at both hardcore and skate punk (both of which are musics known for their speed) and then takes off running; moving so fast that everyone else might have appeared to be standing flat-foot.

That isn't an overstatement. To put none too fine a point on it, those listening to So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes on vinyl will curse out of reflex as “It's My Job...” starts, and check the speed setting on their record players. It can't be helped; it's just that fast.

That speed is constant too. On So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes (which is both a reference to Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and to fans' perennial habit of throwing shoes that were lost in the pit on stage during the band's shows) even the passably ska-ish moments like the intro to “Murder The Government” and  “180 Degrees” get played at double time and leave the impression on listeners that someone must have parked a truckload of speed in front of the studio where the band was recording and told them to help themselves. Of course, that kind of 'damn the torpedoes' delivery will instantly get a listener's adrenaline up but it isn't for nothing;  So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes also happens to be the best record NOFX has released since Punk In Drublic.

One might think that employing so much added tempo would force NOFX to jettison a lot of the other not-typically-associated-with-punk sounds that the band had amassed and utilized over time, but they manage to include each of those extra touchings surprisingly well in songs like “All Outta Angst” and even add a few new and cool touched to songs like “I'm Telling Tim” and “Murder The Government” – both rescued from the Fuck The Kids EP – which both feature more refined guitar heroics courtesy of El Hefe, and honed to a diamond-hard edge with mirror-bright polish.

With all of those renovations done here, listeners could very easily and understandably miss the fact that So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes marks a significant change and growth in the songwriting faculties of “Fat” Mike Burkett. While Fat Mike's lyrics had always been possessed of a unique personality all their own (perhaps more than most listeners might think – according to the singer, songs including “She's Gone,” “Linoleum,” “Lori Meyers” and “Stranded” are all based on true life experiences, events and people – whether listeners can believe it or not), amid the talk of punk (“It's My Job To Keep Punk Rock Elite,” “I'm Telling Tim,” “All His Suits Are Torn”) and politics (“Murder The Government,” “Dad's Bad News”) and left almost unnoticed in the blur that some of the songs become, are hidden bits of genuine and very well-articulated emotion. Don't think so? Sure – the standard-issue, 'punk rock songs about girls' poke up briefly here (“Monosyllabic Girl”), but more interesting in that regard is the last chance romance of “Falling In Love,” and more personal are songs like “The Desperation's Gone” (which wonders about the future of punk rock) and “Quart In Session,” where Burkett addresses his own alcoholism (particularly on the road) and the loss of motivation that seems to come with sobriety for him. Each of these angles to punk rock songwriting remain largely unused by anyone else, but Burkett makes it sound so easy here; perhaps because he has already set the stage with larger-than-life images and characters so listeners will take anything with a grain of salt, or perhaps because he figures listeners will miss them because the songs are moving so quickly, Burkett gets away with tossing some pretty knee-buckling candor at listeners knowing that he likely won't have to answer for it. In this case, he's right too; in the years since the singer began opening up his lyric sheets to include more overtly personal fare, few listeners have really picked up on those connotations and real life remembrances embedded in Burkett's words. In that regard, So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes represents the first chink in Mike Burkett's incredibly maintained armor; he's beginning to allow his listeners to relate with him rather than just be entertained by him. The clues about the singer's true intent and the genuine messages in his songs would only get larger and more overt from here as he'd get more comfortable, but these first instances on So Long And Thanks For All The Shoes feel incredible because they are the first true epiphanies into the personal character of Mike Burkett that have been easy to pick up on.


Louise And Liza 7”
(Fat Wreck Chords, 1999)
After sixteen years together and regularly issuing new releases, NOFX had written hundreds of songs and developed plenty of characters, but the two most enduring of all those “faces” have definitely been Liza and Louise. The duo first appeared in 1992 both on White Trash, Two Heebs and A Bean and then on their own single the same year, but their story has continued to reappear intermittently on following releases and the characters have never quite fallen from the memories of fans. Why? At least part of it has to do with the band and their fans' sophomoric love of lesbians. From a writing standpoint, the subject of same sex relationships remains taboo in pop and the punk values in NOFX compel the band to continually press that button and indulge in a little sacred cow tipping every once in a while, so the characters have endured; with their exploits getting a hair more graphic every time they reappear.

The duo has certainly proven to be captivating but, for this one seven-inch, they take center stage and sole spotlight as NOFX proceeds to tell the individual stories of “Louise” and “Liza.”

Those that picked up a copy of Heavy Petting Zoo had already heard “Liza” before it appeared on this single, but the story of sadomasochism and submission continues in bright, dripping Technicolor here as the band delivers the “news” (or new track, “Louise”) first before giving listeners get the previously-released back-story on the single's flip-side.

Listening to the contrast and difference seven years makes now, it becomes surprisingly apparent how much Mike Burkett's songwriting chops have improved as illustrated by these two songs. While both are written to shock as they go out of their way to ensure that they get as graphic as they can (“Louise” opens with the lines, “She's gotta walk with a silicone cock/Sticking in her ass and one in her cunt”), as Burkett rifles off his off-color missives, it quickly starts to show that his rhyming is becoming both more complicated and accomplished. Anyone who has ever tried to write on a bathroom wall knows that rhyming the female anatomy is no easy feat, but Burkett does it easily here without resorting to anything so trite as uttering “Mulva” or “Delores” to make the lines work. In fact, some of the stanzas in “Louise” at right on the border of gutter poetry. Check out lines like:

It's not quite Shakespeare, but not as soft as the talk of fisting that rhymed its' way through “Liza And Louise” on White Trash, Two Heebs and A Bean either and, when Burkett manages to work a five-dollar phrase like “The purgatorial touch of Louise” into the end of the song, he launches himself up onto a whole other level of songwriting accomplishment that makes “Liza,” while a good song in its' own right, seem a little utilitarian.

It sounds bizarre to say it now (keep in mind, this was still 1999 – when Green Day was still “Hitchin' A Ride” and playing “King For A Day” while The Offspring were still singing about girls having undefined issues, and the band itself was pretty for some white guys and Bad Religion was still stuck in a less than substantial Atlantic purgatory, so what NOFX was doing was pretty advanced by comparison.

As would become evident only a couple of months after this release, NOFX had other, more ambitious irons in the fire too.


The Decline
(Fat Wreck Chords, 1999)
William S. Burroughs once said that “Paranoia is just knowing the truth,” but how does one qualify the foreshadowing a record might be capable of as it observes an erosion of values and morale regarding what events might actually be on the horizon? Does a band cheer, vindicated, when they discover they were right? Or do they weep and apologize when they discover they were more right than they ever feared they could be?

Ask NOFX – they know how lousy it can feel to be right.

Back in 1999 – under the Clinton administration, which meant things in the U.S. were weird but not fucked up just yet – Mike Burkett and NOFX began to observe a general depreciation of the quality of life in the state of the union. Clinton wasn't a horrible president per se, but he did sign off on some pretty poor policies and didn't make great decisions consistently while in office and the members of NOFX noticed. They started writing about what they saw without knowing how correct and insightful what they were writing would be later – but not much later.

It's worth mentioning that, for the most part, as they worked on the project that would become The Decline and it snowballed and grew, there weren't a whole lot of of precedents set in punk for a form of opera or extended song cycle; Hüsker Dü and Mike Watt had done concept albums before and The Refused had released The Shape Of Punk To Come, but there was no such thing as a politically motivated song cycle or concept album. In effect, NOFX ended up beating Green Day to American Idiot's punch, but that can only be said now in hindsight; after the dust of the Bush administration would settle years later, it's possible to see that clearly; and American Idiot looks a little Situationist stacked against The Decline. Now, it's possible to say that NOFX had their fingers on something with The Decline that they couldn't have exactly known – but they still managed to articulate it beautifully.

From the single-track behemoth's opening warm-up, listeners know they're not going to get the average, run-of-the-mill NOFX record in The Decline because, as Mike Burkett's bass issues a worrisome undertone and Erik Sandin's cymbals cause adrenaline to rise in their speedy sixteenth note taps, it feels like NOFX might have something to say and whatever it's going to be will be more confrontational than listeners would normally expect from the band.

Then, when everything pauses for a second and Burkett asks, “Where are all the stupid people from?” in a very disgusted phrasing, the singer removes any doubt that The Decline will be confrontational. With listeners' interest piqued and attention grabbed, NOFX immediately starts challenging people and rattling cages as verses like, “Add the Bill Of Rights/subtract the wrongs/memorize and sing/six star-spangled songs,” and, “Is anybody learning from the past?/we're living in United Stagnation” flat-out kick anyone paying attention out of their comfort zones and upend the boxes for what they expect NOFX to be. Mike Burkett has never sounded so incisive, articulate or angry as he does here and so lets much of his bravado drop; while there are a few plays on words, the jokes are kept at a minimum to follow along with the urgent tone of the song. In keeping with that urgency too, “The Decline” takes some larger forms out for a spin and they work well here; the backup vocals, for example, are stronger are stronger here than they've ever been on any previous NOFX record and they insert themselves into this run-time to drive key plot points home, like the chorus would have done in a Greek tragedy centuries ago. That set of structures  and its' use here would be remarkable in its' own right, but the band goes still further as domestic wrongs and violence get addressed in the first person (“They told me to shoot straight. Don't pull/the trigger, squeeze. That will ensure/a kill. A kill is what you want”) and sticks its' own bleak and biting commentary in at the end, each time (“To kill is why we breed”).

That brand of biting commentary doesn't end there though, as the band broaches and baits religion, right wing groups like the NRA, political interest groups and the financial agenda that they hold and the violence perpetrated by each (scan “I wish I had a shilling for every senseless killing/I'd buy a government. America's for sale and/you can get a good deal on it and make a healthy/profit, or maybe tear it apart. You can start with the/assumption that a million people are smarter than one”) and, because it's all present in America, the song stretches to upwards of twenty minutes in order to cover the whole landscape – from sea to shining sea.

While there's no doubt that The Decline could have been broken down into at least three or four separate songs, that it holds together like it does here is pretty incredible in its' own right. While every other punk band that has attempted a conceptually-centered album has happily embraced the inclusion of production tricks (Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade and Green Day's American Idiot are great examples of that) and extra instrumentation for extra bombast, other than some additional trombone parts and a couple of back-up vocals supplied by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes' singer Spike Slawson, The Decline was entirely performed by NOFX and makes as great an impact as any of those enormously-bankrolled endeavors. The Decline succeeds in presenting NOFX' view and opinion of events as well as the effects that the band observed at the time and does so in a presentation that is both ambitious and thought-provoking. While there's no way that the band could have known it at the time, not only would things get worse as the political climate turned (and was won by the) South, this foreshadowing would be actualized in the very near future but, rather than say, “I told you so,” NOFX simply let it drop. Why? Because, according to Fat Mike, the band has made its' point and trying to take The Decline on the road to show it to people on a nightly basis would have been difficult because making the EP was exhausting. “Nightmare! Recording this fuck was a total nightmare. Writing it was a total nightmare. I'm glad we did it but I wouldn't do it again. We went back to the studio three different times and added stuff and remixed and remastered four times. It ain't no rock opera like The Song Remains the Same or nothing. We got the idea from Subhumans, not Rush. Why an eighteen-minute song? Just to do something different. We've done enough short songs, time for a long one. Anyway, my advice, never try this song at home.”

...And they almost never have, except on very rare occasions. Once on Warped Tour (which is tight for timing anyway) the band performed The Decline in its' entirety. According to both Fat Mike (and substantiated by Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman), as inclement weather was setting in on one particular date of the Warped Tour and NOFX was on stage, Lyman asked the band to cut their set short. The band agreed and told the assembled crowd right then that they had just one more song – and then they played The Decline.

Further Reading:
This is Part Two of Ground Control's NOFX discography review. For Part One, click here , click here for Part Three and click here for Part Four.

Albums:
Most of NOFX' albums, singles, EPs and DVDs remain in print. Buy them here at Fat Wreck's website .