Album #121: NOFX - So Long and Thanks For All The Shoes

NOFX

So Long and Thanks For All The Shoes (1997)

A few bands (and albums) I've reviewed so far on The LOAD Project have been chosen because of their association with my younger years - a sort of musical time machine, if you will. For whatever reason, they form part of the soundtrack of my teens and early twenties. 

Along with bands like Pennywise, Area 7 and Millencolin, NOFX were a staple feature of Friday night drinks at the wetlands/Patto's house/the Wellsy's/wherever we found ourselves. So Long and Thanks For All The Shoes is the album that I associate the closest; I seem to have a hazy, drunken memory of seeing the Neapolitan ice cream album cover a number of times in the CD pile that constituted the musical selections for these nights out. I enjoyed what I heard, but then again, it was twelve years ago and I was usually drunk.

Today, I'm going to listen to it (I'm not drunk....well not as badly anyway) with a fresh, older, objective ear and see how it ranks in punk terms.

The Album

What you see is what you get with NOFX. There's no pretentious bullshit, no massive overdubs or reliance on studio trickery. There's half an hour of straight up frenetic punk rock, with the occasional detour into ska and reggae territory. Fat Mike's lyrics swing between cynical politics and reflections on drug use (or the lack thereof) and explore other places in between; Fat Mike has always been a decent lyricist who is at his best when he's got a reason to be pissed off, and this album is no different. Musically, the band are four very competent, multiskilled musicians (and in the case of drummer Erik Sandin, he's not so much 'competent' as a goddamned beast). 

From the outset, and the acerbic It's My Job To Keep Punk Rock Elite, Fat Mike and friends lay forth the manifesto of the album. There's none of the commercially-minded pop punk here, just an adherence to the 'old' ways of short, fast, loud. For the most part, that's maintained through rapid fire tunes such as Kids of the K-Hole, Murder the Government and the supremely catchy Monosyllabic Girl (the latter two clock in at less than a minute). The highlight though is Fat Mike's bitter attack on Riot Grrl Kathleen Hanna, Kill Rock Stars, which does punk rock anger right, in both vocal delivery and sonic aggression. Special mention also has to be made of The Desperation's Gone, which bemoans the lack of urgency, anger, emotion and malice in late 90s punk rock.

NOFX also feature several ska tracks that act not only as a welcome change but also emphasise the band's ear for clever, pleasant melodies. All Outta Angst is by-the-numbers fun ska-punk, but its breezy reggae-tinged guitar and bright horns make it an ideal skanking song, and it's proof that you can write a commercial sounding punk tune that isn't remotely commercial. The instrumental Flossing a Dead Horse and the mildly confusing, yet still decent, Eat The Meek, keep the ska theme running (the latter in particular has a great trumpet solo at the beginning from guitarist/trumpeter El Hefe). 

Yet the album's defining track is probably the hardest to genre-pigeon hole; it's like a strange combination of French rock, punk and ska. It's a cover of Les Champs Elysees and I guarantee you'll never get it out of your head. Fat Mike does a fine job of singing entirely in French, and it's toetappingly catchy.

The Verdict

So Long.....is a great slice of the NOFX sound. It's stonkingly good fun and stonkingly good punk, even if a couple of songs frustratingly end before they've seemingly begun. When the album closes with a hidden track of American shock jock Howard Stern decrying the band, stating, "no talent, that's the name of this band" and declaring that it's "just not rockin'", you're left with the distinct impression that Stern really is a fucking dickhead if he doesn't think that NOFX rock.

My rating: 6.5/10

Standout Tracks

Les Champs Elysees

Monosyllabic Girl

Kill Rock Stars