Checkerboard Slip-Ons

Last week I got the new Bouncing Souls record "The Gold Record." There's something about the summer that makes me want to hear lots of pop-punk. It's probably memories and nostalgia and all that. I had read something about their new one and decided to check it out. But...more about that later.

I was reading the liner notes to the album and saw that one of the songs was written by Joe Gittleman of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Then I looked into it further and found that the song is from Joe's more recent band, Avoid One Thing. So I had ska and pop and punk on the brain. And then I ran into Royce Nunley somewhere recently. Royce was a founding member and bass player from the Suicide Machines.

The gods spoke, and I listened. I pulled out my copy of "Destruction By Definition" from the Suicide Machines. The band's first record, a split with the Rudiments from back when they still went by the name Jack Kevorkian & the Suicide Machines was probably my first experience with modern local music. It was also my first exposure to ska-core (punk/hardcore). Soon after that I heard Operation Ivy and Skankin' Pickle and Against All Authority, and many others. This was probably all around '94 or '95.

Destruction by Definition was different. The production was rock-solid, everything was tight and well recorded. I listened to it constantly that summer.

But in time I got tired of ska. Okay, I didn't get tired of ska, I just got more interested in the origins of it and went more towards roots ska and dub and rocksteady. And my interests in more rock n' roll type things was steadily growing. Ska and pop-punk and all that stuff was temporarily left behind.

So I pulled DbD out again this morning. I've listened to it here and there in the past few years. It really is a good record. They re-recorded some of their earlier hits like "New Girl" and "Vans Song." They also did a cover of "I Don't Wanna Hear It" from Minor Threat.

Okay, that reminds me of why I was so suddenly put off from this band. They put out DbD in 1996, and at the time I was dating this girl who claimed that she was their original bass-player back when they were all going to Eastern Michigan University. I never believed it, but I told her did just to make her feel better.

We went down to St. Andrew's Hall that summer to see the Machines with The Vandals and Assorted Jellybeans. At some point, we were waiting outside in line to get in, and Jay Navarro (singer) walked by and she called out to him like she knew him and he ignored her - blatantly. So...I don't know about all that. Assorted Jellybeans only had one really good song, but they played it and that made me happy. I had never seen the Vandals before, but they put on one helluva show. Tops. The Machines came on, went through about five songs at triple-speed, and then came their cover of "I Don't Wanna Hear It." Before the song started, Jay told the crowd that if people started moshing, they weren't going to play. He just didn't want people to get hurt. I get it. We got it. Apparently the skinheads up front did NOT get it. Or care. They were barely halfway through the song before Jay stopped the band. He said something brief about how he warned us. Then they all walked off stage. We thought maybe it was a joke, and that they would come back. But they didn't come back. We drove an hour to get there, and they play six songs? That's it? Fuck 'em.

That's why I stopped listening to them. But then I picked up their later self-titled album. I can't find it right now, but it was pretty good power-pop. Any traces of ska were gone, and replaced by a Bob Mould/Replacements/Fags kinda sound. I wish I knew where it was...

I just checked a Wikipedia article for more recent info and found that the band officially broke up May 13th of this year. I know that Ryan (drummer) and Jay (singer) are continuing with their rock/metal band Left In Ruin, Danny will be touring with Against All Authority this summer, and it didn't say what Dan would be doing. And that article had a large quote from Ryan, and attributed it to their website, but that post is no longer there. No idea what's up with that.