Get the Flash Player to see this player.

For about twenty years following its' first widespread notice in 1974, punk rock and the bands that made it were viewed by mainstream culture and media (network television, Top 40 radio, Hollywood movies) with equal amounts of disdain and mistrust at least, and flat-out disgust in some circles. The progression of public contempt for punk is easy to trace; the first wave of bands which sprang out of New York and London (including The Ramones, Television and Richard Hell among others on one hand, and The Clash, Sex Pistols and The Buzzcocks on the other) were met with unease. They didn't fit the decades-old template that had been set for rock stardom and so the public at large had no idea how to qualify them but, while slightly more unkempt and raw, there was still a recognizable rock n' roll aesthetic there so the bands were tolerated. That tolerance got tested as the sound and style proliferated to other centers and began to evolve though. Punk got a healthy dose of glamor when it spread to Los Angeles (see X, The Go-Gos, The Runaways, The Germs), and seemed to turn militant and aggressive when hardcore organized and willed its' own prosperity. That active desire to self-perpetuate and the aggressive tactics employed probably weren't as worrisome as some media coverage implied [see this laughable set of clips came from Quincy ME -ed] but, because it was born in Southern California, the L.A. machine didn't have to travel far for inspiration if it looked to hardcore for something to vilify and the guiding principle for any such media outlet is that one should never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Really, most of it is irrelevant now though; no matter how many syllogisms may have been upheld at the time, it didn't change the fact that the music was entrenched in the public consciousness against all adversity.

It's no kind of average mind that sees the imposing amount of negative public perception surrounding its' peer group and endeavors to play to it rather than fight doggedly against it, but that's exactly what NOFX has done since 'punk rock broke' though. While bands like Rancid, The Offspring and Green Day would later seek to feminize punk – to shave down the rough edges and make it a little more “family friendly” – a small group of bands including Guttermouth, Bad Religion and NOFX elected instead to observe the confrontational tenets of their forebears but continue refining them and add their own experiences and sensibilities, thus producing a new set of self-sustaining values in punk.

Such rationalization sounds neat and succinct, but it wasn't that simple. Realistically, Bad Religion already had a long-standing history in the punk community (their label released albums by both Guttermouth and NOFX for a while) and, in their case, it simply took some time and the right set of circumstances to get on the right stage for a mass audience. Conversely, Guttermouth never really changed when they jumped from their 'indie' to 'mainstream' statures but, because the subjects they addressed and their authoritative voice was so narrow ('everything is bullshit so take the piss out of it all' only goes so far before someone asks, “Well, you don't subscribe to this stuff, what do you believe in?”), they were doomed as soon as popular interest shifted. That left NOFX – the band that continues to have a tremendous amount to say as time passes and, even better, has seen their authoritative voice grow with time. Even more so than Bad Religion, NOFX has never fallen out of favor or fashion because they incorporate what's happening around them in the world into their music and they continually make small alterations to the structures of their songwriting to follow that focus. In addition, NOFX has always played the 'true punk' card to appeal to the kid in the pit, but that veneer has worn thin as years have passed and, for the right set of ears, it becomes apparent that singer “Fat” Mike Burkett wraps as much about himself into his band's music as he does commentary and criticism of social and political policies. To further thicken the plot and diffuse any serious overtones that might manifest in the songs, Burkett and the band add an all-encompassing wit and sense of character acting to the mix. Better still, that material gets an equal amount of play through the albums so it's never exactly certain whether the collective face of the band is straight or when it's made of rubber; there are times when the script gets flipped by the second so the concepts of truth, observation, commentary and satire lose all meaning and simply bleed together.

In the end, the enduring twists so integral to NOFX' music and songwriting are the things that also refresh the band for each successive release: keen wit, intelligence and satire. The enormous amount of satire they use allows NOFX to take any theme and style they choose out for a spin any time they like and they can blow off any serious undertone they broach if it doesn't work or if Fat Mike gets bored with it. That history and profile leaves NOFX totally free; they have the leeway to live up to (or live down) any success they've ever enjoyed or totally abandon it at their whim knowing that those fans that get it will follow along because they expect nothing less and those that don't get it are free to leave, or hang around because they just want and love a good pogo punk song. It has to be an intoxicating position to be in; how many bands can say they've got that kind of freedom? Love them or hate them or love to hate them (and there are thousands of punks in each camp), you're going to hear them and re-evaluate your opinion with each successive release. You're not given much choice – the rules change every time and there is no instruction manual that explains where the satire begins and ends.


s/t EP
(Mystic, 1985)
Okay, so while it's not true so much anymore (after the punk renaissance of 1994, a lot of things changed – most notably the groundwork and basic structures that the genre has operated within since), there was a time when it was only by a work of incredible serendipity or luck that a punk band would emerge fully formed and sporting a sound that could translate to anyone outside of their local community and peers. Punk has always been a very young idiom (that is, it appeals to younger people that want to rebel against older codes and rules) and there is strength in numbers so, while kids want to pick up guitars and play, they don't want to stick too far out of the crowd.

Operating under that assumption, the embryonic incarnation of NOFX (listed on early album covers as No F-X, with Mike Burkett on bass and vocals, Eric Melvin on guitar and vocals and drummer Scott Sellers according to the liner notes of the Maximum RockNRoll compilation released by Mystic in 1992) that signed to and released their debut EP was perfectly normal and average; which is to say that it sounded like most everything else snaking its' way out of SoCal in the mid-1980s. With sped up guitars and consistently menacing vocals, NOFX bursts forth on their debut exhibiting a prototype form of shred that obviously has roots in both punk and hardcore and wears them proudly, but it's also incredibly nervous and earnestly trying to stake a claim in a community that also housed bands like The Germs, Bad Religion, Youth Brigade, The Descendents and The Vandals. In order to make that claim, No F-X presents those influences as being absolutely essential to the band's very existence; at the opening of “Live Your Life,” Burkett snarls and sneers out his best impression of Darby Crash while Eric Melvin grinds out hard and fast power chords like the miraculous progeny of Pat Smear and Billy Zoom left in the gutter for a few hours in front of a church instead of on the front steps of it to be found.

It's a dark and disarming sort of record and there's appetence to it that is unmistakable.

Of course, with such an intense emotional drive locked in place, it doesn't leave a lot of room for much else from a thematic standpoint. As was the case with The Germs, Black Flag and (to a lesser degree) X, there is no impression left that NOFX has much of an autonomous personality in this early going; in songs like “Six Pack Girls,” “Bang Gang” and “Hit It,” the plan is more to front the classic face of punk and uphold the slogans for acceptance than it is to present a unique, personal vision.

That said, could NOFX' self-titled EP be considered representative of what the band would become later in their careers? Not really – in fact, it succeeds at blending right in with everything else that was going on in SoCal's punk community at the time – but one has to remember that
No F-X is also the work of three eighteen-year-old kids, and everyone has to start somewhere.


So What If We're On Mystic? EP
(Mystic, 1986)
The difference that just one year can make in the evolution of a band is amazing when you stand back from it. After unleashing their self-titled debut EP in 1985, NOFX established itself as a hardcore and thrash-identified punk band but, because it was only their first run through (there were demos made prior to that point and two tracks from those originals – “Ant Attack” and “Thalidomide Child” –  have been heard, but not in their original forms) in a studio setting, the abundance of stray sparks flying off the songs and generally poor production values relegated that first EP to the status of simply being an object to (try and) sell at shows to kids hoping to support the group. It wasn't great but, because NOFX had little to no experience, it was almost expected that anything which came out would be utilitarian at best. The petulantly entitled So What If We're On Mystic? EP is a much improved presentation of the band's early faculties and even hints (if only a bit) at the promise of what might come later.

Boasting cleaner, tighter and generally more solid songs than its' predecessor did, So What If We're On Mystic? marks a giant leap forward in terms of being easier to pick out individual songs and lyrics instead of the eight songs simply collapsing into a blur. Each is wound tight and there is exactly no bleed which helps the songs a lot, but there's also a clearer focus which helps them even more; songs like “On My Mind,” “Too Mixed Up” and “Shitting Bricks” explode out of the gates featuring a decent mix of vintage skate punk and/or lean hardcore that doesn't bludgeon listeners because they move too damned fast. In keeping with that approach, Fat Mike eases up on his Darby Crash-style growl a bit and tests the waters of melody (to best effect on “Shitting Bricks,” which sounds like a hybrid of The Germs and College-era Descendents) while – outside of “Drain Bamaged” and “Bob Turkee” (which are both a little too trashy for thrash) – the rest of the EP finds the band fine-tuning the possibilities that just a hair more experience opens up. The experience also pulls Burkett out of his shell a little; with a cleaner production and a little time here, the future “Fat” Mike begins to tear into the social and political bodies in nearest reach (check out the social commentary in “White Bread” and domestic appraisal in “Mom's Rule”), thus foreshadowing much of what the band's process would be in the early years; using punk as a base and cover, NOFX begins to obscure its' messages with the twin threats of operating within a popular medium and using that medium to implant their ideas in listeners without seeming like they're trying to cram anything down anyone's throat. As the band would get more experience behind them and refine the design, eventually they'd start playing to two groups of fans: for some (the not-so-smart), NOFX would just be another fun and silly punk band, but there would also be those fans that would get the joke and see the keen wit, satire and heated social and political arguments that the band had at heart. None of that is wildly apparent on So What If We're On Mystic, but the embryonic beginnings of NOFX as the 'smart enough to play dumb' band they'd later start germinating here.


The P.M.R.C. Can Suck On This
(Wassail Records, 1987; Fat Wreck Chords, 1990)
Not so surprisingly, after the So What If We're On Mystic EP came out, the bloom was well and truly off the rose between NOFX and their first label. It's easy to understand why really, Mystic was very good at talking a good and self-important game [see the lengthy dialogue from label owner Doug Moody that appears in the liner notes of Maximum RockNRoll which reads like an advertisement for the label more than it does about anything related to NOFX –ed], but weren't so great at delivering on anything. When the band and label parted ways, it must not have been particularly amicable (more on that later), but NOFX had no trouble picking up where it left off with Wassail Records and the release of The P.M.R.C. Suck On This in 1987.

In some respects, Suck On This is a bit of a step backward for NOFX as Burkett begins to growl like Darby Crash once again, but the subject matter swirling in the undercurrent and the ideas expressed are still moving forward and looking outward. To begin with, the title of the EP is very telling; for those not historically inclined, the P.M.R.C. (Parents Music Resource Center) was an American watchdog committee started by Tipper Gore and some other Washington wives who felt that pop music needed some cleaning up in 1985. The Center actually made it in front of Congress for a hearing but ultimately lost their argument when a team of artists including Frank Zappa, Dee Snider and John Denver spoke out against the provisions on pop that the P.M.R.C. had in mind. While they did lose, to throw the Washington wives a bone, the court did institute a warning system in conjunction with the RIAA; that's where the 'Parental Advisory: Explicit Content' stickers affixed to many albums spring from to this day.

Some musicians were angered by the decision to award the P.M.R.C. even the 'Parental Advisory' labels and, in listening to Suck On This, it's pretty evident that NOFX was one such group. Opening with a mangled interpretation of “Dueling Banjos” (re-christened “Dueling Retards” here), NOFX wastes no time in hinting that they have an axe to grind but removes all doubt as they crash into the deliberately inflammatory “On The Rag.” Blazing out their best, scuzziest and crabbiest form of thrashy hardcore, the band snaps listeners to attention for Mike Burkett (not yet “Fat” Mike) to accost in the most dismissive way he knows. Because no names get dropped or smeared in “On The Rag” or lyrics like “It's that time of the month/again you're bitchy/stop yelling at me/I know you've got to plug yourself up/But why take it out on me,” the song could as easily be about the Washington wives as it could be about a girlfriend's menstrual cycle and so, as was the case with So What If We're On Mystic?, the songs and lyrics on Suck On This act as their own kind of double entendre that will successfully annoy the hell out of anybody. The hits keep on coming as the wholly unintelligible “Punk Song” leaves its' meaning open to any wild imagination, “Shut Up Already” attempts to deflate all the key slogans (like “Meat Is Murder”) of the day and “A200 Club” discusses the discomfort that comes from a really mean case of crabs in the most graphic way possible. In each case, NOFX goes out of its' way to be as crass as possible and seems intent on performing the songs in a way that resembles a most unsightly sonic blemish ever committed to tape, but the kicker comes in the end when a half-rehearsed cover of “Johnny B. Goode” successfully takes a shot at both classic rock and Hollywood (at the time of the EP's release, Universal Pictures was still riding high on Back To The Future – the film responsible for breathing new life into the old chestnut) by turning in a deliberately half-cooked slap in the face. In that way, The P.M.R.C. Can Suck On This is a fantastic punk record done with the public perception of the genre in mind. It's done to deliberately piss people off, but it's a safe bet that there's also a grain of truth in it; even now, in keeping with the spirit of the EP, Fat Wreck Chords has never joined the RIAA, which means that none none of NOFX' albums through the label have borne the Parental Advisory label.


Liberal Animation
(Wassail, 1988; Epitaph; 1991)
How does one qualify the results of a charmed union? Really – how did it happen that NOFX made the creative jump it did between the releases of The P.M.R.C. Can Suck On This and Liberal Animation? To put none too fine a point on it, many of the songs on Liberal Animation are just new versions of songs that had been around for years (“A200 Club” and “Shut Up Already” first appeared on The P.M.R.C. Suck On This and “No Problems” was a song from the Mystic years – as well as an early single) yet there's no way to deny that the tone and performance of the songs on Liberal Animation are light years beyond any of the band's previous releases. How'd it happen? The smart money is on a sweet combination of stronger songwriting chops (on the new songs), a little bit of time to let the older songs ferment, and a great big dose of Brett Gurewitz in the production booth; between those three variables, Liberal Animation shines as NOFX' first truly notable achievement.

The time spent to let these songs season is evident in all of the revisited songs on Liberal Animation, but that's only part of the story here. Sure – “A200 Club” and “Shut Up Already” sound better than they had on previous releases, but time and experience will do that. With a greater amount of confidence that only comes from getting in front of more audiences, NOFX cuts loose and starts stretching beyond the conformist hardcore box they'd remained in for so long and starts incorporating some other, greater sounds. Guitarists Dave “Sal Lyva” Cassilas and Eric Melvin explode out in every imaginable direction at warp speed and dominate songs like “No Problems” (which opens with a country bleat before flying off the handle), “Beer Bong” (which almost falls over itself between tall cans cracking and band members belching), “Vegetarian Mumbo Jumbo” (which comes complete with eerily well-played coffeehouse guitars before flying in the face of salad days like a giant gob of phlegm) and “Here Comes The Neighborhood” (NOFX' first big anthem as well as the first anthem for skate punk), but it all doesn't just work because of the guitars, they're only the adrenaline that the rest of the band is running on. Burkett, now relying ever so slightly more on melody than he has before, tears into the punk poseur slogans and practices so prevalent at the time (the “Wear your leather jacket, but you won't eat meat” line from “Piece” calls out the double standards and flawed logic that some punks continue to uphold, even now) and, if anything, actually serves as a conscience for all the meat-headed (no pun intended) practices and fundamental flaws around the scene; some of which continue to endure. As well, songs like “Mr. Jones” (which has more leads in it than anyone would expect to hear in a punk song circa 1988), “Truck Stop Blues” and “Vegetarian Mumbo Jumbo” all seek to upend previously held hardcore conventions by throwing in acoustic guitars and other trappings of decidedly “un-punk” sounds and attitudes. It's not as though the band is seeking to pull away from punk, all of the stabs against convention here are just NOFX' way of needling purists; as if to show the outspoken that the surest way to get knocked down and cut to pieces is to get up on a pulpit and stand outspoken for something in the first place.

Ironically, the band's disapproval of “punk morals” a bold statement from NOFX in its' own right. While Liberal Animation isn't the single greatest album in the band's catalogue (not even close), it does set several precedents for NoFX that would continue to be upheld for years afterward and rightly so; here, the band begins its' practice of scribbling out good, unique commentary in a way quite unlike anyone else at the time. The preceding EPs were just the warm-up; Liberal Animation is where the band gets moving under its' own steam.


S&M Airlines
(Epitaph, 1989)
It may never be clear how things come to get complicated in punk rock, but it certainly did for NOFX upon signing with Epitaph. On Liberal Animation, the band had found a reasonably solid high point in performance as songs they'd been playing for years suddenly got an extra shot of power and clarity from producer/Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz but, when presented with a brand new batch of untested tunes (thereby meaning there was no existing template on which to improve), Gurewitz took a stronger hand in the recording process. That might've been fine if Gurewitz had had a better idea of what to do with the band, but instead he defaults back to principles he knows and understands (those from Bad Religion) and tries to make them work for NOFX on S&M Airlines; or rather, he tries to get NOFX to operate within a distinctly 'Bad Religion' framework.

The results feel a little muddled and awkward from the very beginning of “Day To Daze.” From note one, the guitars supplied by Eric Melvin and new guitarist Steve Kidwiller sound uncharacteristically slick (very similar to Noodles Wasserman's work on The Offspring's Smash, actually) and fluid when stacked against the comparatively more pogo-ready material of Liberal Animation. The band doesn't sound one hundred percent sold on this new idea either (even in “Day To Daze” when Fat Mike tries to hit the punctuating title lyric, he sounds a little bemused, uncomfortable and just bored when he tries to ape Greg Graffin's regularly dry-eyed and emotionally flat-lined delivery), but they at least try to make it work for them. Songs including “Professional Crastination,” the title track and “You Drink, You Drive, You Spill” all have NOFX' familiar brand of humor in them, but tripping over foreign production devices and trying to punch through the slick sonic surfaces supplied by Gurewitz throws the band's timing off. With their timing disrupted, the gags lose their punch and the quick-but-epic methodology that Gurewitz perfected with Bad Religion doesn't mesh well with NOFX when he tries to apply it here. That isn't to say that the record is totally without its' merits – “Six Feet Under” is a decent, if uncharacteristically macabre, speedy skate punk song and “Drug Free America” drags The Who out to the half-pipe for some decent shredding while “Life O'Riley” revels in teenage sloth with an ironic edge – but because those tracks are so sporadically interspersed through the record's run-time, it almost leads listeners to believe that NOFX hit record and knocked a couple of numbers out quickly while Gurewitz was on lunch or something. Continuing in that image, after he'd return from lunch, Mr. Brett and Greg Graffin would grace some other songs with their own brand of custom back-up vocals, or just throw some very weak material like the needlessly extended “Vanilla Sex” or a Descendents knock-off like “Mean People Suck” on the record to fill time. Such moments are problematic to say the least, but both fans and the band can console themselves with S&M Airlines being part of a learning curve; which is to say that sometimes you have to learn what it is that you don't want in order to get the stuff you do.


Ribbed
(Epitaph, 1991)
After the S&M Airlines debacle, there was little question in anyone's mind that trying to make NOFX work like Bad Religion was fruitless. Mike Burkett simply did not have the same kind of voice of vocal mannerisms as Greg Graffin (he still doesn't) and, when it came time to record Ribbed, the band fought tooth and nail with Gurewitz to keep from making the same mistakes twice. Years later, singer “Fat” Mike Burkett would remember the fighting during the Ribbed sessions as being incredibly bitter; legend has it that Gurewitz quit the sessions twice, but they did come to an accord in the end.

With the benefit of hindsight, Ribbed plays like a NOFX record as influenced in part by Bad Religion and not the work of a band hobbled by an adulation for Bad Religion. To clarify, part of the problem with S&M Airlines was that Brett Gurewitz wasn't sure just what the band should sound like, so he defaulted into trying to make them sound like Bad Religion. It didn't work out too well (check out any of the dozen songs on the album for proof) but, this time, NOFX knew what they were walking into and so exerted some of their own will on the recording. In that move, a compromise was struck that saw everyone getting a little input on the fate of the recording.

The resulting record is a decided improvement over its' predecessor and the difference registers immediately as “Green Corn” kicks the record open. This time, the speed and obvious affection for vintage hardcore (more comparable to the New Alliance crew than the SST crowd though; more melodic than flat-out angry) returns as the tempos pick up again. The band has a significantly lighter spring in its' step as it goes along here and it works very well. In this case, the compromise that the band and producer reached is that the gang back-up vocals return, but this time they're handled more by guitarist Eric Melvin than by Greg Graffin and Brett Gurewitz which sound a little better and more unique. After the laden farce that S&M Airlines turned out to be, the first bow shot of Ribbed is a very welcome and refreshing return to a more playful brand of melodic hardcore.

It's also a much more confident and better-performed brand of playful melodic hardcore. Somehow, while the band was still working out its' sound and fine-tuning it on Liberal Animation before S&M Airlines went horribly awry, they also managed to perfect the art of both the lyrical and instrumental hook with songs like “Here Comes The Neighborhood” and have just unloaded a surprising number of them here. Even better, each of the vocal hooks is both infectious and anthemic (check out “The Moron Brothers,” which features a killer skate-punk guitar figure combined with vocal harmonies that sound like The Statler Brothers on PCP) or, when that won't suit, Burkett switches over to missives that have the double-threat of being both snotty and smart (check out “Food, Sex & Ewe”), or just plain acts of juvenile provocation (“New Boobs”) like every high school teacher's worst nightmare: a kid with a bad attitude and serious hatred of authority, but who is also smart enough to never get caught. The idea isn't flawless – there are moments (like the social criticism and dismissal of celebrity culture in “El Lay”) when the gag gets lost in the band's own rhetoric – but NOFX still usually gets redeemed by a memorable and/or petulant vibe that's still appealing and will have all those problem children humming along.

In a perfect world, those aforementioned reasons alone would be enough to get NoFX some notice but, realistically, there were more factors at work in the underground. At around the same time, Operation Ivy was also beginning to build a significant head of steam in the East Bay area, while grunge would be a global concern within months, and that would all be instrumental in helping to bring the interest in punk into focus. With all of that knowledge available in hindsight, NOFX was absolutely instrumental in helping to wipe the proliferation of hair metal bands and pop tarts off the Top 40 Charts for a while and get guitar-dominated rock back to the top of the heap. Granted, no one could have possibly known that at the time of Ribbed's release and the truth is that they'd make far, far more popular albums but, in hindsight, NoFX is really beginning to hit its' stride here.


Maximum RockNRoll
(Mystic, 1992)
If ever proof might have been required that there is greed and opportunism creeping in virtually every corner of the music industry (even some of the less professional quadrants), it can be proven quickly, easily and definitively with the existence of Maximum RockNRoll. Following the release of Ribbed and its' subsequent sales of ten thousand copies (it'd be called small potatoes now, but West Coast punk was still in its' pre-explosion years then – comparatively, Bad Religion was a bigger band, and they only averaged sales of about 20,000 copies per release), Mystic Records president Doug Moody saw an opportunity to make a quick buck so he compiled all of the material that NOFX had recorded on his time and released it as a full-length album. Even regarding such an action as an unethical move is an understatement and it's made all the more unsavory by the fact that the label didn't get the band's permission to release the material and turned the liner notes into an extended advertisement extolling the virtues of Mystic (yes, the irony is palpable). The upside to such backdoor shenanigans is that the cleaner, re-mastered(ish) presentation of the songs gives completists a better idea of what NOFX was doing in its' early career, collects it all in the name of economy and even throws a few still-harder-to-find artifacts in for good measure.

Like so many other skate punk and melodic hardcore albums released in the Eighties (a.k.a. before either term was blanched to make it suitable for alternative rock radio), the material on Maximum RockNRoll falls on the lighter, campier side of both genres but is still fun in an 'it could be worse' sort of way. In the first half of the record, tracks including “Live Your Life,” “Bang Gang,” “Cops And Donuts” and a cover of Sabbath's “Iron Man” wouldn't have been considered cute by the standards of their time, but they certainly come off that way now. In many cases, the tracks remain a touch light on content (particularly by NOFX' standards) but aren't painfully unlistenable; as first tries go, there have been worse made.

The best songs here remain those from So What If We're On Mystic? although there are some tracks from the band's random singles released around the same time that are marginally valuable. As it turns out, the So What If We're On Mystic? material wasn't just a shot in the dark. As songs including “Cops And Donuts,” “No Problems,” “Beast Within” and “Ant Attack” (which, according to Fat Mike, is one of the first two songs ever written by NOFX) prove that, even before the band bid farewell to Mystic, they were improving; the song structures aren't so soft, loose or garbled here. When one keeps in mind that all of these songs were written, recorded and originally released in 1986 (when the band members were all about eighteen years old), it starts to get impressive that, while it would change and get better than this, there are some flecks of promise in these early cuts. The good thing about Doug Moody's abhorrent ethics is that listeners are able to catch a really early and uncertain glimpse of a great band on Maximum RockNRoll.


The Longest Line
(Fat Wreck Chords, 1992)
Just as things were beginning to start coming together with Ribbed and a greater number of people were starting to pay attention to the band, things started changing both in and around NOFX; some of those changes were positive, but some of them were also potentially very negative. On the positive side, Ribbed sold ten thousand copies fairly quickly (which still meant that the band made exactly no royalties, but it was the band's best-selling release by far to that point) and, obviously, a greater number of people were starting to take notice of the band. That increased notice inspired Fat Mike to reboot Fat Wreck Chords as an outlet to develop talent and release records that the band liked and, with Epitaph's blessing, NOFX also released singles, select EPs and videos on their own through Fat Wreck while still putting out full-length albums on Epitaph.

All of these exciting developments were tempered by guitarist Steve Kidwiller's departure from NoFX. It was really unfortunate timing because the band's career was starting to pick up some momentum (Fat Mike remembers when, in 1991, each band member made $8000 for the year from the band, and he was considering going to real estate school, having just graduated from SF State University) and now they needed to find a new guitarist.

Who they found was Aaron “El Hefe” Abeyta – and the band's fortunes changed forever. As Burkett recalls:

As a sort of dry run to see how things would work out with Abeyta, NOFX wrote and recorded the The Longest Line EP and there's no denying that the difference is staggering. The band sounds enormous on The Longest Line; in just five tracks (13:51 minutes in total) NOFX presents a definitive document of their mature sound and sets itself apart completely from all of the other SoCal punk bands (including Green Day – who had just released Kerplunk! – and and The Offspring, who would put out Ignition before the year was out) that were also beginning to really make some noise at the time.

From the opening build of “The Death Of John Smith” (after a bit of self-deprecating humor), NOFX sounds bigger and more imposing with its' now-hammered-flat blend of pop-punk and melodic hardcore, but the glitter and punctuation on the song is all Hefe as the guitarist puts pop, hard rock and punk together to make a sound that would forever be instantly recognizable, almost universally appealing and is a readymade adrenaline rush. That guitar really does have something in it for everyone; the recurring riff that drives “The Death Of John Smith” is equal parts hardcore and hard rock but, because it is also so tight and succinct, it can hook a pop audience too – it really is the best of all possible worlds. In addition, Fat Mike's increasingly melodic vocals make socially biting lines like “So I'll keep working for the benefits/And I'll keep drinking/I'll keep believing in my life” seem that much more critical; the song is, in a word, ideal in that it crosses the boundaries of genre with impunity but does not do so at the expense of a consistent sound.

The band doesn't back down or seem to exhaust itself after that first assault either. Immediately following “The Ballad Of John Smith,” NOFX shifts gears into something that borders on pop-punk for the EP's title track and successfully encapsulates a sense of both boredom and resignation that would become pretty commonplace on rock radio airwaves for the next few years, but made all the more memorable by Mike Burkett's increasingly expressive vocal take; when he hits that all-too-perfect “At the end of the longest line/That's where I will always be” line in the chorus, listeners won't know whether they should identify with it, or just keep dancing, but they know they're going to do one or the other. On the title track as well as on “Stranded” too, NOFX proves that they've finally figured out how to make those giant Bad Religion-esque back-up vocals that Brett Gurewitz was trying to cram down their throat work for them to a fantastic effect that would likely have audiences echoing them when the band played the song live. Finally, El Hefe has his first chance to shine as he steps to the mic and closes out the EP with a fantastic (and fantastically exaggerated for both comic and satirical purposes) slab of mock ska on “Kill All The White Man.” Of course, Burkett chimes in for a slightly dislocated but no less hooky 'bring it on home' refrain to close the song, but it takes nothing away from Hefe's performance. In that – as well as the combined strength of the other four songs on the EP – NOFX illustrates that all of the pieces are in place now, and this is only the first taste of great things to come.

The funny thing about this EP (and this is probably a testament to the quality of the material too) is that it has never exactly faded and can still really connect with people in one way or another. Twelve years after The Longest Line's release, for example, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) placed a ban on “Kill All The White Man” after CJKR–FM (Power 97 in Winnipeg, Manitoba) broadcast the song on the radio. Twelve years after the EP's release, and it can still affect people so potently? If anything says a record is a classic, it's that.


White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean
(Epitaph, 1992)
Almost as soon as The Longest Line came out, NOFX had to have known they were onto something. Positive reviews and controversy poured in from many sectors (the vinyl had to be re-pressed several times over, and then went to CD, questions flew as people wondered if the EP's title was a reference to cocaine, and more) and the band got a surprising amount of attention for just five songs, so something had to be up. Judging by the album that followed The Longest Line just seven months after the EP's release, the band was wondering if the blunt approach might be the way to find out so, on November 5, 1992, White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean hit record store shelves. According to the mythology behind the album, the title was originally to be "White Trash, Two Kikes And A Spic" but, when guitarist Eric Melvin's mom heard about it, she raised Cane and so it was changed.

All of that (the titles, that is) probably sounds confrontational to someone reading and, to a limited degree, it should; on White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean, NoFX play harder and faster than they ever had to that point, and were more lyrically blunt and provocative than ever before. “Soul Doubt” gets the ball rolling right away as El Hefe and Eric Melvin seem to dare each other to play faster. For fans, that's cool – but the effect it has on Mike Burkett's voice is astounding. Fat Mike obviously feels the rhythm being set up and tries to match it which causes his voice to go up a couple of semitones from the exertion required and the added volume prompts it to fray a bit from the work rather than punk convention. This is, simply said, more real than the band has ever allowed itself to be in studio confines before (it wasn't so uncommon live) and the results of that abandon have to be heard to get the sense of it; words only do a passing justice when trying to explain the difference between White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean and everything that preceded it.

Burkett might sound a bit petulant and confrontational on “Soul Doubt,” but he only proceeds to refine that aspect of his voice  and lyrics from there on out; he never backs down emotionally from there. Songs like the sort-of-ska singalong “Bob,” the wildly overdriven, over-sped “The Bag” and the wildly caustic “Please Play This Song On The Radio” (which may have gotten a couple of DJs suspended if they did) all find Burkett deliberately playing the provocateur card anytime he can and actually pulling it off pretty well; any offense the singer may intend is for the fans' benefit and to make them giggle a little but, because it happens so regularly, no one would take it seriously were the band only doing that. The songs that compliment and contrast the well-humored ones aren't humorless, they simply take a different tack and play the hell out of it. The gold, in that regard, rests in the sort-of-jazzy and Hefe-sung “Straight Edge” and “Liza & Louise” which takes the piss out of both lesbians and the semantic dancing around them that was happening in '92. In both of those cases, the band's satire is far more overt which acts as a relief for the straight and speedy punk numbers and also lets listeners laugh out loud once in a while – and that, in turn, lets them laugh everywhere else too, without feeling guilty.

So, once again on White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean, NOFX continues to build their tradition of further fine-tuning both their musical and satirical chops. So many albums in, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that their little fan base wouldn't be little for much longer – particularly with guitar rock regaining some of the ground it lost in the Eighties and much of what was breaking seemed to have at least a little punk in it – but no one could have guessed it would be coming as soon and as quickly as it did.


Liza & Louise
(Fat Wreck Chords, 1992)
Some moments need no follow-up no matter how long or short they are; they are simply their own and when they begin and end is perfectly sufficient. Those moments are rare – usually somebody's left wanting something more in the end – but that's not so with NOFX' Liza & Louise 7” single. In its' own way, it showcases an ideal in the format; the A-Side is a great song from NoFX' album White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean and the B-Side is a very strong mule in that it does the job very well but is incapable of producing offspring.

That sounded obtuse didn't it? Well, maybe – but it's all an excellent description for what listeners get here; on White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean, NoFX did a great of titillating listeners with naughty things and taboo subjects and, on this single, they take the greatest (at that time) taboo and give it all the spotlight. With nothing to distract from it, listeners can't avoid the talk of fisting in “Liza & Louise” and can't ignore the ham-fisted chords, so they have to take the love story of two lesbians for precisely what it is; no more, no less, just an ugly-bumping good time and that is a fantastic moment in a very sophomoric sort of way. In “Liza & Louise,” NOFX takes the taboo that most every guy loves to fantasize about and throws it way over the top just to watch everybody cheer for a minute when they hear it, and then get a little uncomfortable when the joke runs too long; that is a fantastic moment.

Equally good (although it is supposed to be a farce) is the B-Side that finds El Hefe doing his best impression of Fat Mike and speeding through a demo version of “The Longest Line” – rechristened “The Fastest Longest Line” here because the more punk-identified changes and dynamics, along with a super extended, Axl Rose-ish, whiney end. The track is pure fluff and never had a hope of getting onto an LP, but it is ideal B-side material and that the band knows it is what makes it great; like any good underdog, people cheer for it because someone has to.

The truth about the validity of this seven-inch is that it couldn't be anything else, but that's half the fun of it. For two songs' time, fans can cheer loudly for it and then forget it with a laugh when it's over. That was the original spirit behind the 7-inch single in he first place – it was a tool of instant gratification – but that started getting overlooked around the same time The Beatles started putting out 'Double A-side singles' and FM radio made it reasonable to stretch a song longer than three and a half minutes in the name of artistic integrity. This Liza & Louise single forgets all that shit and just plays by the rules; as this release proves, sometimes that can be fun.

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

Download:
NOFX - "The Longest Line" - The Longest Line

Albums:
All of NOFX' albums remain in print. buy them here on Amazon, or here at Fat Wreck Chords' web store .