Anyway, this is my first review and it's probably going to be the hardest to write because, um, I forgot how to write in a normal voice. But, this is just for fun and it's not like anybody except Dan will judge it, though he's one of the harsher judges I know.
Fuck chronological order; I just grabbed the first tape I could find. Our first victim is a tape that, based on two minutes of research I just did, appears to have been given to me in the second half of 1997, and it's titled "Ever Get That 'Chased by Nazis' Feeling?". There's some radio bits on here ("I'm not going to play Pink Floyd, and I don't care if you have 600 people at your party.") that appear to be from the punk show that Dan used to listen to late nights on WONC (North Central College, Illinois) which means that this would have been made after Dan and our folks moved from Green Cove Springs, FL to the Naperville, IL area. Aw. Anyway, I looked it up and I think this is the MySpace page for that show: http://www.myspace.com/allagesr
Dan had an adorable practice of giving his mixtapes catalog numbers on his record label, Bombs Away Records. I'm sure this was useful for keeping track of who he gave what to: I'll have to make him explain, or I'll just wait til I think I'm done reviewing these and he'll explain in a hurt voice that I left out Bombs Away releases # 021, 042, 044, etc. This release is BOMB008.
This is very much deep into Dan's ska-punk days. (Track list below.) This period of Dan's musical taste is actually pretty meaningful for me, as I was going into my second year of true indie snob immersion at WVFS and I like to think that Dan kept me "punk honest" since our station didn't really play much punk (cos we were too cool) and there's a lot of stuff from his mixes that caught me and kept me into pop-punk. (Ska, though, kind of a loss.) Of course, it wouldn't be too long before Dan's mixes would get very metallic.
I'll start with what rules hard, on that note: pop-punk megahits. "I Met Her at the Rat" (Queers), "Scarred by Love" (Nobodys feat. Joe Queer), a solid tune from Screeching Weasel off of My Brain Hurts (which makes up for the other three included SW tunes which are, um, subpar). Anyway, I realize I'm plowing through the first half of my thirties and I'm supposed to be over this kind of thing but in this weird way my musical tastes have been "devolving" towards some punky stuff like the Copyrights (a band Dan actually turned me on to), and I'm glad I had my brother feeding this stuff to me when people kept gagging me with Polvo.
There's a good chunk of Rancid tunes on here (from that little post-"Wolves," pre-"Life Won't Wait" era, I think mostly from comps), and several cuts off of the first Hellcat Records "Give 'Em the Boot" sampler. I don't know how to review Rancid songs - they're so brutally earnest that it sort of sucks the fun out of them, but hey, my brother might have ended up a very different person had I not bought him "Let's Go" for his 13th birthday. (I take credit. That's right.)
A couple of embarrassments: Cherry Poppin' Daddies? C'mon, bro - I hope that isn't sitting on the same shelf with all those Kylesa discs these days. How was this stuff popular, and how did it cross into ska and then into punk? It's godawful and silly but it seems like somebody must have been getting laid. Ick. Also, according to Wikipedia, they're recording a new record! Gah! Unfortunately, there's also some fun songs that are ruined by the fact that they were probably used in zany teen movie chase scenes around this time; the Pietasters' "Out All Night" is a good example of this. The Blue Meanies' "Yelling in My Ear" is like a ska Mr. Bungle song. I fucking hate Mr. Bungle.
Awesome surprise that I forgot about: The Skatalites' "You're Wondering Now" feat. Doreen Shaeffer - this sounds so clean and wonderful, just golden. I didn't take the time to listen to much roots ska/reggae until several years after this but it's nice to hear something that retains that roots feel with a bit of restrained modern polish to it.
An early hint of Dan's Chicago Punker Future rears its head as 88 Fingers Louie gets represented here with "I Hate Myself." Also, I don't know enough about Chixdiggit (though I often catch myself singing "O-H-I-O") but "20 Times" is a tight power pop tune.
It's been awhile since I listened to a mixtape of any sort and I'd forgotten how fun and/or frustrating it was to make the goddamn things, and I'm reminded by the inclusion of 19. Boris the Sprinkler's "Side 2" (a jokey little bit about how you should pretend to flip the CD over). There was a time when I could look at how much tape was left on the spool and tell you how much time was actually left. D'oh. Always nice to hear the Reverend Norb's voice, though.
(Hey, I was at this show! 1999 Cedarfest in Minneapolis - http://members.tripod.com
Overall, this is a solid punk mix that reminds me of how I used to tell Dan, "I liked the punk stuff but could do without the ska bullshit." Stupid bad ska made me ignore real roots reggae for years out of spite. . . I might have been more fun in college if I hadn't been so closed-minded. Ah well. At some point in the future I was be telling Dan, "I like the punk stuff but could do without all the metal bullshit."
The Bouncing Souls ate all the Chicken in a Biskit! Which coincides with my college-era obsession with those things.
"Ever Get That 'Chased by Nazis' Feeling?"
Track list:
Side A
1. Rancid - The Harder They Come (live)
2. The Vindictives - Rocks in My Head
3. Dropkick Murphys - Boys on the Docks
4. Rocket from the Crypt - Don't Darlene
5. Showoff - Bulley
6. The Cherry Poppin' Daddies - Shake Your Lovemaker
7. The Queers - I Met Her at the Rat
8. Skankin' Pickle - I Missed the Bus (live)
9. MU330 - Stuff
10. Screeching Weasel - Love
11. The Bouncing Souls - Say Anything
12. No Empathy - Oi Across America (live)
13. Mustard Plug - Beer (Song)
14. Union 13 - Roots Radicals
15. Boris the Sprinkler - Girls Like You
16. The Goops - Vulgar Appetites
17. The Mr. T. Experience - Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend
18. Nobodys - D.U.M.B.-er
19. Boris the Sprinkler - SIde 2
Side B.
1. The Bouncing Souls - East Coast! Fuck You!
2. F.O.C. - Northside Out
3. Gotohells - I Wanna Be a Ramone
4. The Skatalites - You're Wondering Now
5. Screeching Weasel - Experience the Ozzfish
5. The Pietasters - Out All Night
7. The Blue Meanies - Yellin' in My Ear
8.Showoff - Marilyn Hanson
9. Skankin' Pickle - I'm in Love with a Girl Named Spike
10. Rancid - Just a Feeling
11. Rancid - Someone's Gonna Die
12. Goldfinger - I Need to Know
13. Three Days - Jet Boy, Jet Girl
14. Screeching Weasel - I Wanna Be With You Tonight
15. NOFX - Murder the Government
16. Nobodys w/ Joe Queer - Scarred by Love
17. The Pietasters - Freak Show
18. 88 Fingers Louie - I Hate Myself
19. Chixdiggit - 20 Times
20. Showoff - Gone
21. The Bouncing Souls - Shark Attack
22. Screeching Weasel - Runaway
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