(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . IVH: Rancid ...And Out Come the Wolves [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-13 Inside 924 Gilman Street aka the Gilman Street Project, Berkeley, CA. Tonight's selections from Rancid’s third album, 1995’s ...And Out Come the Wolves. First, note that Rancid was the second act for Tim “Lint” Armstrong and Matt Freeman; both were members of the hugely influential Operation Ivy. Op Ivy were the kingpins of the early Gilman scene. 924 Gilman Street is an all ages co-op club/performance space located in Berkeley’s warehouse district. The club ethos is prominently painted in the entryway: ALL AGES, NO SEXISM, NO RACISM, NO HOMOPHOBIA, NO ALCOHOL, NO DRUGS (of course everybody did their drinking or other business in the bushes or between cars on nearby side streets — also the bathrooms at Gilman were usually disgusting; for that reason those side streets also saw a lot of piss ;)). Of all the bands to have come out of the East Bay and the Gilman Street Project, none is more legendary than Operation Ivy. Others sold more records, graced more magazine covers, broke through to the mainstream on a bigger scale [maybe you’ve heard of Green Day], but Operation Ivy was, more than any other, the Gilman Street band. Their existence spanned only two years, their recorded output was limited to an EP, an album, a couple of compilation tracks and a few bootlegs. But they left a legacy that continues to grow with the years; kids who weren’t even born when the band played its last show in 1989 wear Op Ivy shirts and patches and struggle to learn their guitar licks. — Larry Livermore So Op Ivy breaks up after touring the US in a car, sleeping on strangers floors, etc. Ya know, the Our Band Could Be Your Life shit. It takes Armstrong a couple of years to get Rancid up and going. The first two Rancid albums are full of short, energetic punk songs — 90 second blasts but filled with hooks. ...And Out Come the Wolves was a huge leap forward for the band. The songs are bit longer (2½ minutes now), songwriting has greatly improved and some slower tempo and ska songs have been added to the mix. Still, the album includes banger after banger of Clash City Rockers. “Roots Radicals” begins with Lars Frederiksen (who had actually been in a later incarnation of Charlie Harper’s UK Subs before signing on with Rancid) singing “Took the 60 bus out of downtown Campbell / Ben Zanotto he was on there he was waitin’ for me…” about hanging out with his childhood friend, drinking downtown, running out of cash, etc. The song continues with Tim singing about riding the bus drunk while somehow listening to Desmond Dekker on the radio (was it his radio? Does BART have radio playing on the bus? [AlDo: train, but I’ll allow it] How many reggae/ska stations are there in the Bay Area?) — it’s just a song about some shit that happened one time when they were hanging out. This sought-after community reinforced my already latent desire to be a touring rock musician and I think in many ways still underpins the angst I feel for not having stuck with it — when you listen to this record you don’t hear ANY loneliness, urban isolation, self-pity, or anything else out of fuckin’ Durkheim or Weber (they do sing about poverty, drug-addiction, alcoholism, political hypocrisy, and racism) — you hear friends singing about people they know, about “hanging on the corner,” or about meeting someone downtown and when I hear it I think of every day I’ve had with best friends when no one had to work and we were just gonna walk to the record store and then go get drunk in the park — no agenda, no responsibilities, just friends. — So Well Remembered . Roots Radical . Rancid also took a bit of a risk when they reintroduced ska into their sound, something they’d previously only done on the great B-side “I Wanna Riot.” Armstrong and Freeman had done it before, of course, but this wasn’t the hectic, jerky ska-punk of of Operation Ivy. Instead, the ska songs on Wolves are sweet, full-bodied things. The organ on those songs just glowed with warmth, and they never rushed the tempos. One of those songs, “Time Bomb,” turned out to be the band’s first real hit, and maybe their biggest, too. But “Time Bomb” wasn’t just Rancid’s first big hit. It was the first real success for American third-wave ska, a scene that had been doing just fine for itself on alt-rock’s periphery. Before “Time Bomb,” ska’s biggest ’90s pop-culture moments were the Mighty Mighty Bosstones opening up the Lollapalooza ’95 main stage and making a cameo in Clueless. — Stereogum . Time Bomb . One of my favs from the album. Armstrong feeling overwhelmed in New York City, wishing to be back in Olympia with his then girlfriend (Bikini Kill’s drummer Tobi Vail). It’s genuinely touching. Also, hear Armstrong doing his best Joe Strummer near the end of the song. . Olympia, WA . What a lot of people ignore is just how goddamn sad the album is. It’s a quality that’s easy to forget due to the fact that the band helped usher in third wave ska with their massive hit “Time Bomb” and the accompanying images of rude boy punks skanking with mohawks and wallet chains. Tacit sadness permeates Wolves, seething under most moments of triumph. It’s a feeling so lived-in that it’s barely acknowledged. This explains how singer Tim Armstrong could write an upbeat hit like “Ruby Soho” that begins with the solemn image of a man sitting alone while a party’s raging next door. [...] This brand of grimumentary wasn’t new for Rancid. Until that point, the band built their career on earnest tales of street life, urban blight and hard times—all of which I have to believe are authentic given Armstrong’s documented troubles with alcohol after his time playing in the hugely influential ska-punk band Operation Ivy. Suffice it to say, Rancid’s music isn’t the same as, say, Social Distortion’s general meat-and-potatoes songs about being down on your luck or Green Day’s tales of being a frustrated teen; the stories on Wolves are specific, imbued with a verité that’s almost too earnest for comfort, like finding pages torn out from a diary or a faded Polaroid. The album has also inadvertently become an ode to a Bay Area that can no longer exist. Because of this album, I knew Oakland, San Francisco, and Campbell before stepping foot in any of those cities. I could close my eyes and ride the 60 bus with Ben Zanotto (whoever he was), or wait for the Daly City train with other down-on-their luck artists. But can you imagine any of these songs written in the feudal technocracy that the Bay Area has become? Sure, living back then wasn’t easy, but at least there weren’t thousands of techbros pricing you out or inventing apps that will ultimately exploit you. How can anyone even feel Rancid’s on-brand existential disconnectedness when everything’s so connected? — Treblezine . Ruby Soho . Journey to the End of the East Bay references those Gilman years: Reconcile to the belief Consumed in sacred ground for me There wasn't always a place to go But there was always an urgent need to belong All these bands and all these people All these friends and we were equals but What you gonna do When everybody goes on without you? And an oversimplified history of Operation Ivy: Started in ’87 ended in ’89 You got a garage or an amp we’ll play anytime It was just the four of us yeah man the core of us Too much attention unavoidably destroyed us Four kids on tour 3000 miles in a four door car Not knowing what was going on Do you think in a million years it would turn out like this? Hell, no premonition could have seen this . Journey to the End of the East Bay . . And a couple of books if you really want to dig into this era of East Bay punk rock: WHO’S TALKING TO WHO? Jimmy Kimmel: Bill Hader, Jane Goodall, Metallica Jimmy Fallon: Ice T, Stephanie Hsu, Adam Lambert (R 3/1/23) Stephen Colbert: Nicolas Cage, Christine and the Queens Seth Meyers: Nick Kroll, Zoë Chao, Zara Larsson, Urian Hackney (R 3/8/23) James Corden: Ben Affleck, Chris Messina SPOILER WARNING A late night gathering for non serious palaver that does not speak of that night’s show. Posting a spoiler will get you brollywhacked. You don’t want that to happen to you. It's a fate worse than a fate worse than death. LAST WEEK'S POLL: WORST SCOTUS JUSTICE Alito 35% Barrett 4% Gorsuch 0% Kavanaugh 4% Roberts 2% Thomas 50% Other 6% [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/13/2162899/-IVH-Rancid-And-Out-Come-the-Wolves Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/