In Defense of "Pirate's Life" and Other Stuff.

First, the track listing for "Current Resident," which was included originally but somehow did not post after I made some formatting changes. I'm struggling with the formatting on this sucka.

Side A
1. Harry Slash and the Slashtones – Extreme Theme
2. Heavenly – P.U.N.K. Girl
3. Superchunk – Down the Hall
4. Poole – Mary Shakes Her Hair
5. Quasi – The Skeleton
6. Mötörhead – Tear Ya’ Down
7. Handsome Boy Modeling School Feat. Brand Nubian – Once Again (Here To Kick One For You)
8. Echo and the Bunnymen – Do It Clean
9. The Promise Ring – B is For Bethlehem
10. Busy Toby – Me, My Drums, and You
11. Sebadoh – Weird
12. The Lilys – Who Is Moving
13. The Weirdos – Fallout
14. Belle and Sebastian – Dirty Dream Number Two
15. The Jesus and Mary Chain – My Little Underground
16. Idlewild – Everyone Says You’re Fragile

Side B
1. Small Factory – The Last Time That We Talkes
2. Unrest – Makeout Club
3. Green Day – Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?
4. The Karl Hendricks Trio – A Letter From the Coach
5. The Rolling Stones – Rocks Off
6. Talulah Gosh – The Girl With the Strawberry Hair
7. The Magnetic Fields – The Sun Goes Down and the World Goes Dancing
8. The Revelers – Detroit Bridge (Summertime)
9. The Rondelles – I Melt With You
10. The Lemonheads Feat. Belinda Carlisle – I’ll Do It Anyway
11. Holly and The Italians – Tell That Girl To Shut Up
12. The Gravediggaz – Pit Of Snakes
13. Sloan – All By Ourselves
14. Heavenly – Space Manatee
15. The Magnetic Fields – Punk Love

Second: Fuck twee.net and their retconning. We legitimately stole that election.

Third: I'm in total agreement on the issue with transitions, CD-Rs, and now MP3 CDs. The Gravediggaz-to-Sloan movement is mix tape genius; Maybe the best in Tom's history.

And in a final pre-defense note, between "Hope Is Important" (which I don't own) and "The Remote Part" (which I do) was "100 Broken Windows." "Remote" has the two best songs Idlewild ever did, but as a whole kinda sucks. "Windows" is much more consistent and I can actually listen to it front to back.

As for "Pirate's Life," I'm surprised Tom has such a good opinion of it. I don't want to judge my 18 year-old self too harshly since it was kind of an awkward era for me musically¹, but it looks like a few hits surrounded by too much filler. Outside of "In Pursuit," "Classics of Love," and "Next In Line," even the great bands on here aren't represented by what I would consider an essential track. "French Guy?" Really? That's what I felt was a good enough RFTC song that it NEEDED to be on here? I guess I would consider "These Two Boots of Mine" to be "essential" Bruisers, but that might imply that such a thing exists.²

I have a theory about The Parasites: there is no person on this planet who considers The Parasites their favorite band. No one. For years I've been trying to think of another band who had some level of national attention in a national scene that I can say the same thing about. I haven't been able to think of any. "Fool For You" is a very, very good pop song (maybe essential Parasites), but I don't believe it ever turned anyone into a Parasites fanatic. They were the ultimate pop-punk also-rans of the '90's scene. They even released one of those Ramones cover albums that were all the rage, but since more premiere bands³ got the chance first, they ended up doing "It's Alive." In other words, they got to do a live set of the Ramones' greatest hits. Here, Parasites, have your pop-punk consolation prize.⁴

This all ties in with Tom's Lillingtons comments. "Death By Television" is next to "Leave Home" and "My Brain Hurts" as the absolute of the genre. And it really is difficult to explain why any one of the songs on that album could turn me into a Lillingtons freak but the Parasites' best song will never convince me they're worth much of my time. It's that intangible urgency that's level beyond the 3 chords and snotty vocals.

Tom is also completely fucking wrong about Teenage Bottlerocket and later Lillingtons albums. "The Too Late Show" is only a half-step below "DBT" and light-years above any Bottlerocket stuff.⁵ I think I was smitten by Bottlerocket live the first time because it was probably the first punk show I had been to in a year or more. It also helped that it was a small but extremely excited crowd. When I saw them 6 months later, they had somehow taken the crown as the biggest pop-punk band in the world. The Copyrights were actually being booed (despite being wayyyy better) before Bottlerocket took the stage and proceeded to bore the shit out of me. Leaving before their set was done, I told my buddy Whoot that our experience that night had to be similar to those Weasel fans who were so pumped to see The Riverdales the first time and having to deal with the disappointment that ensued.

¹ I was still grasping for new punk, and bands like the Arrivals and Lillingtons showed up. But overall, I guess I was trying to "grow" and find something new. Based on the tracks here, this was dead-center between my Screeching Weasel-worship and my RFTC-worship. (I still worship both.) Oddly enough, the Lillingtons and Vindictives put out my two fave albums around this time.

² The Bruisers broke up when Dropkick stole Al Barr, their lead singer. Dropkick stopped being good at that time and managed to break up a band that I kinda liked a lot at the time. Side note: despite his Boston-tough-punk attitude, Al Barr is about 5' tall and I'm pretty sure our 12 year-old niece Claire could take him in a fight. And as long as we're talking punk and the surprising body-types of lead singers, Ben Weasel is fucking ripped. Or at least he was the last time I saw him live about 7 years ago.

³ Like Boris The Sprinkler.

⁴ Yes, I own this. I played it once after buying around '99-ish and have only bothered to go through it once more since.

⁵ Exception: "Stupid Games" off of "Total." Maybe Cody's finest song... Jesus Christ do I know a lot about pop-punk. Thanks, Tom.