It was apparent to anyone listening that, as they balanced some stock smart-assed songs with some more singer/songwriter-ly and personal fare on Coaster, a change was in the air for NoFX. No longer content to just play court jesters in the punk arena, “Fat” Mike Burkett, Eric Melvin, El Jefe and Erik Sandin were making a vested effort to grow up in songs like “My Orphan Year” and “I AM An Alcoholic.” They didn't go all the way or totally give themselves over to a chin-stroking and collegiate crowd of course, but there was an inkling that it might be where the band was headed in at least a couple of Coaster's dozen songs. The trend continues, in its own way, on the unlikely Cokie The Clown EP – these five songs still aren't straight-faced by any stretch of the imagination (NoFX probably never will be – given that their humor has been a key ingredient to their success for the last twenty-six years) but, from a psychological standpoint, the EP may be getting more personal and closer to Fat Mike than ever before.
Much of the material on Cokie The Clown is archetypal NoFX on the surface, there's no arguing that. The title track, “Straight Outta Massachusetts” and “Codependence Day” all wear that well-honed-with-time-and-us, snide and sarcastic sneer plastered like paint all over their faces and, in typical EP fashion, run a little leaner, a little quicker and a little sloppier but, not in typical EP fashion, there appears to be more weight to this material. Where's the weight? More regularly than usual for NoFX, Burkett seems to actually be singing about himself here; although there are moments when you have to read between the lines to find it. In “Straight Outta Massachusetts,” for example, the singer spends a significant amount of time double-talking himself and off-handedly talking about his upbringing (“I moved from Massachusetts cause I couldn't be controlled/ I moved from Massachusetts cause it was fucking cold… I moved from Massachusetts because my house got sold”) and it's only in the end of the song when it becomes apparent that this event happened at an early age (“I moved from Massachusetts when I was five years old”) and it's a sore spot for him.
Now, for most bands, this sort of song is novel and deservedly belongs on an EP but in the case of NoFX – who has spent a career talking shit about everyone and everything and made their audiences laugh the whole time – that sort of autobiographical admission sounds like a breakthrough. It's willfully dumb and fluffy, but that almost seems like a device used to obscure some long-buried pain.
On the very next song (“Fermented And Flailing”), Burkett seems to be trying to take personal responsibility for the United States' splintering morale as the population continues to fragment away from any sort of unified national identity; that might be reaching a bit, but the sentiment is very much in keeping with the other four tracks on this release. “Codependence Day” sneers at drug and alcohol abuse, but there's some self-loathing laced into the singer's delivery and at least half of the song functions as a personal apology for the poor and dangerous behavior. Combined, the songs make for something profound with the right set of ears and, as the band reprises and re-contextualizes “My Orphan Year” (from Coaster), the acoustic treatment seems to magnify the heartfelt unease and regret at the singer's own conduct as well as the difficulty he has facing his family issues. It's dark and soul baring here, and the emotional state that was only hinted at in the Coaster version of the song is made plain as day here and it's staggeringly candid.
It's at that point that the opening title track of the EP begins to take on a whole new meaning. As the release's cover suggests, “Cokie” is Burkett in bad make-up; he is the clown, he is silly, he's a joke. That's the self-deprecating impression that surfaces and, while it doesn't sound exactly like NoFX, it makes sense if one takes the EP as a whole. Under that rationale, somehow Cokie The Clown feels like the most candid release NoFX has ever issued and the songs in no way suffer for it.
…Or, as the Cokie character implies himself, it might all just be a practical joke played here with malicious glee. It's equally possible that the five songs that comprise the Cokie The Clown EP are simply two-dimensional horseplay done for the sake of another release; that's the trouble with NoFX, one never knows and it's unlikely that Fat Mike will ever tell. Either way though, nothing can take away from the quality of the material; it's fun to run with and listen to. Listeners should be careful though, Cokie likes jokes and the ideas presented here may be genuine razors; they could be real.
Artist:
www.nofx.org/
www.myspace.com/nofx
Watch:
Video For "Cokie The Clown."
Album:
Cokie The Clown EP is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
