A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 30th anniversary vinyl pressing of the …Rocks Your Lame Ass LP by Hagfish. It might comes as a surprise, but the greatest problem that a band might face if they happen to release an album during a moment of great interest in a particular music genre isn’t getting caught in the wave, it is appearing after the tide has begun to recede. In 1994, for example, the Offspring, Green Day, NOFX, Rancid, Weezer and Bad Religion all released career-defining albums which helped to completely reshape popular taste – and the influence of which still holds, over thirty years later. Comparatively speaking, 1995 was a very different year; while Rancid would release another album right away [Rancid released Let’s Go in ’94, and then …And Out Come The Wolves came out in 1995 –ed] to great praise, Green Day would release their “scare their fair-weather fans away” album in 1995 too [Insomniac –ed] and bands including Pennywise, No Doubt and Rocket From The Crypt appeared, but the view was far different; the ground had already been broken and so those bands had to try and compete with established peers – not just show up and get noticed – and that competition was stiff. Bands had to work unreasonably hard against an already densely packed field – just ask Hagfish. Formed in 1991, Hagfish released its debut album, Buick Men, in 1993 on Dragon Street Records and then made the big leap to a major label in 1995 with …Rocks Your Lame Ass. It sort of worked, at the time – having Bill Stevenson and Stephen Egerton (of The Descendents) produce the album at punk mecca The Blasting Room helped to associate Hagfish with some punk heavyweights, and the album became positively reviewed and regarded (punknews.org gave …Rocks Your Lame Ass 4.5 stars and Entertainment Weekly gave it a B- rating) and the album yielded two singles; it was a respectable showing all around. It didn’t last though; after their label, London Records, rejected their follow-up album, Hagfish signed with Fat Wreck Chords’ subsidiary label Honest Don’s and released their self-titled album in 1998 but, by then, the world was changing. By then, Hagfish was still capable of generating excitement on the live stage, but the band’s time recording studio albums (or recording at all, really) was up. That has remained true to this day but, now, Porterhouse Records has rescued …Rocks Your Lame Ass from obscurity and released it on vinyl for the very first time.
As soon as needle catches groove on …Rocks Your Lame Ass and “Happiness” kicks open the doors on the album’s A-side, even those who don’t remember Hagfish will recognize the era from which the album sprang on sound alone; with very nasal but melodic vocals, tightly wound, four-chord guitars and an absolutely enormous drum sound, listeners will recognize the formula that Blink 182 turned platinum several times over, and immediately start to feel both the vibe and the power of the music. Throughout “Happiness,” all of the cliches which characterized the pop punk fervour of that moment appear but, unbelievably, the song comes through shining instead of just feeling like a slippery nostalgia trip; singer George Reagan nails the marks as a solid melodic punk singer [that is to say, Reagan overshadows the work that James Newhouse did previously – he was Hagfish’s second singer –ed] and doesn’t try to steal the show so much as simply share the spotlight with guitarist Zach Blair, bassist Doni Blair and drummer Tony Barsotti (who was the “other” new blood on …Rocks Your Lame Ass as well –ed]. Lyrics like, “Pull over and talk to me/ I know you’re much too young to spend all your time with me” try to approach sounding like a slightly older variation of The Descendents (“Pull over” implies a car instead of a bike) and, while the band’s name implies a profuse amount of slippery snot, the musicianship comes off as clean and tight. Granted, that the song features the entire lyric sheet repeated twice instead of trying to write more than one verse leaves a little to be desired, the “in, out and done in two minutes” spirit of the cut makes the lack of further lyrical inclusion perfectly excusable, and leaves listeners hungry for the remainder of the side – because no song on it approaches three minutes in duration.
As short as they are, listeners aren’t really left feeling like they’re being short-changed as the A-side of …Rocks Your Lame Ass progresses. “Stamp” issues a stunning come-on that it takes a second to recognize as such (the band sets up a drink invitation before the girl who offers it says she wants a whole lot more from the song’s hero) while “Flat” rewrites the kind of love song that every punk band did between 1995 and 2005 while the main character in “Bullet” mimics Milo Aukerman in his desire to not be invisible to girls before mimicking the Offspring’s “Self-Esteem” with a “that girl doesn’t care” plaint in “Minit Maid” and once again doing exactly what The Descendents do (talk about food for a minute and a half) with “White Food” to close out the side. Now, it is worth pointing out that, while the Descendents (and, also, Dead Kennedys) looked at the value of food as fuel, Hagfish takes a more figurative tack with “White Food” as they talk about the nutritional value of soul food versus the nutritionally vacant value of “White Food” (or fast food). It’s still impossible to completely discount the earnest power of the song and how hard it drives, here. Even more than that, when the song claps to a close and ends the side, it does so with such force that listeners will rush to flip the record over – begging for more.
…And, while the thinner verses coupled with the generally weaker lyrics which run through “Disappointed” cause the song to live down to its’ name, “Plain” surpasses its’ moniker and redeems the play immediately thereafter. There, the lyrical melody actually veers close to straight-out pop while both the guitar and bass grind against each other in a most satisfying manner. Better still, “Buster” comes close to achieving a sort of poppy genius which could have easily made it a standout song on a movie soundtrack around 1999 or 2000, as the syrupy sweetness crystallizes nicely for the harder candy rock of “Trixi” (a song about a girl who “needs therapy” and “someone to hold”). Granted, many critics who have followed popular trends might say that “Trixi” has aged like milk in the post “Me too” environment of 2026, that the song is followed by the rather coy question of “Did You Notice” could leave a clue that, even when they were originally making …Rocks Your Lame Ass, “Trixi” was going to need some relief.
Finally, Hagfish wraps up …Rocks Your Lame Ass with their own two and a half-minute goodbye, “Hose.” There, Reagan effortlessly intertwines the concepts of sex and “farewell” with one girl’s help as she finds ways to lie so sweetly and flawlessly that our protagonist accepts every word. Here again, it could easily be contended that the lyrics and sentiments haven’t aged well at all, but that “Hose” is where the album ends means that those who run front-to-back with the album have to take it as it is, or start from the beginning again. Whether to start from the top or not is absolutely, positively the listener’s choice, and the decision might be 50/50 – which is perfectly ironic, in its own way. In 1995, listeners were free to take or leave …Rocks Your Lame Ass as they chose because it appeared after the craze had already crested and so the music business at large wasn’t trying to cram it down listeners’ collective throat. The exact same thing is true of this reissue. Sometimes, bands prove that they simply cannot escape their own fate – and that appears to be true of Hagfish. [Bill Adams]
Artist:
https://www.facebook.com/p/Hagfish-100068593773029/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/74KzdiBiTfEUkdnoG5fQUF
https://www.instagram.com/hagfishtx/?hl=en
Album:
Hagfish’s 30th Anniversary vinyl release of Rocks Your Lame Ass is out now. Buy it here, directly from Porterhouse Records.
