Wretch Like Me

Colorado is eternally linked with John Denver but was also the setting for the Mork and Mindy show which proved the existence of aliens and the fact that despite all the other things he is, Robin Williams is not a homo sapien.

Wretch Like Me don't play faggoty country music or as far as know wear red track suits. They play strong pop punk (with just a little homo) that falls somewhere between Black Flag and The Descendents. Yeah, it's hard not to think of Chad Price era ALL while listening to them.



Nanoo nanoo.

Tonyall - New Girl, Old Story

A reader requested that I re-upped this Im happy to oblige and as most people don't make it past the first page of the blog or find whatever they're looking and leave. Here's what I said last time: "This album is a Descendents or ALL oddity. It features four members of both bands. In some ways that's not a hard feat considering some consider ALL to be The Descendents with a different singer.

TonyALL was an album made for Tony Lombardo (the bass player on The Descendents albums, I Don't Want To Grow Up and Milo Goes To College)
Tony Lombardo wrote all 12 songs on this album. He sings on five songs and his vocals are something of an acquired taste for the average rock fan. However Scott Reynolds(ALL singer at the time) sings on a five tracks and his voice is far easier on the ear. Bass player Karl Alvarez was Tony's replacement in ALL and The Descendents. Karl appears on the track Guitar Case which is possibly the strongest song on this album. Karl's vocals are melodic here and unlike his recent vocals on his Underminer project where years of smoking show their effect.

The song U R Super has a very fifties feel which is emphasized when Tony sings Scoobie Doo. The lyrics are the same style as ALL which are mostly cute songs about getting girls and losing girls. Download TonyALL's New Girl, Old Story here.

If you download this album please comment whether you think it's good or bad. "

Here.

Dag Nasty and ALL videos

Dag Nasty 's first show with Shawn Brown on vocals. I've heard that before joining the Black Flagish Swiz Shawn Brown was kicked out of Dag Nasty because his vocals weren't melodic enough. Watching and listening to this to my ears he seems close to Can I Say period Dave Smalley. I heard this. I heard that. What do I believe?

And here's ALL playing The Descendents' song Coolidge. I did a double take when I noticed who was playing guitar.



There's two full ALL shows from the early nineties on this youtube channel and the sound quality is quite good.

Tonyall - New Girl, Old Story (repost)

Here's a repost for sociologoan who requested it with a more interesting comment than the cliche "Link's dead, can you re-post this?" which is nice since it was the first repost request I've received. Here's the original post with said comment and original write up and here's the album.

A few things all at once

Operation Phoenix records has a really cool zine archive with issues of MRR, Flipside, Cometbus and Heart Attack in PDF format. It's really nice to look at these old zines and not get newsprint hands. Check it out.





As ALL have been mentioned in this blog numerous times here's some news via punknews.org ALL are reforming to play a show at Riotfest in Chicago with Scott Reynolds on vocals. Read more here.





Anthems from the Alleyway recently posted a show which features Keith Morris and Henry Rollins performing Black Flag songs with the Rollins Band. Check it out.
Sticking with Henry Rollins. He was recently interviewed here in New Zealand on the National Programme's Saturday morning radio show since he is doing his spoken word shows here next week. The National Programme has a listening demographic made up largely of over 50's however the interview is very interesting. Listen.

40 Engine

40 Engine are a recording project featuring ALL's Scott Reynolds and Stephen Egerton (from both ALL and The Descendents) and they came to life this past weekend. Here's their song Sunny Disposition. Bass is played by Brian Gorder and the Drums by Brian's brother, Andy. Here's the live youtubage from Fort Collins filmed by Matt from Daghouse.


And She's Got Everything which was a song Stephen Egerton wrote as a Christmas present for his wife.

Lyrics

She's Got Everything.

V1:
It's almost Christmas day, and I can't find a thing
I lay awake at night and I tossed and turned
stared at the computer till my eyes burned
but nothing I can find is making any sense

I hope that she won't be upset

CH1:
But what am I supposed to get for the girl who's got
everything
a laugh that makes you smile
a touch that puts my heart to rest
something in her eyes
and I already bought the diamond ring
she's got everything

V2:
She's not the kind of girl who wants the finer things
doesn't want a closet full of fancy clothes
doesn't need a pile of ribbons and bows
but I want her to know how much she means to me

I don't want to make her upset
cuz I wouldn't ever forget

CH2:
But what am I supposed to get for the girl who's got
everything
the moon, the stars and sky
a touch that puts my heart to rest
something in her eyes
and I've got everything she'll ever need
she's got everything

V3:
Now it's Christmas Eve and I'm still at a loss
it looks a little empty underneath the tree
and I know this reflects pretty badly on me
I really hope she knows I'd give her anything

I hope that she won't be upset
cuz I wouldn't ever forget
and I don't want to regret

CH3:
But what am I supposed to get for the girl who's got
everything
a laugh that makes me smile
warmth that helps me sleep at night
something in her eyes
that shakes me like no thing I've ever seen
she's got everything

ALL reunion show

ALL played a reunion show on 27 January 2008 with Scott Reynolds (who left ALL after the excellent 1992 Percolator album) on vocals. Here's a youtube clip of ALL at the Aggie filmed by Jeff Reese.

TonyALL - New Girl, Old Story

This album is a Descendents or ALL oddity. It features four members of both bands. In some ways that's not a hard feat considering some consider ALL to be The Descendents with a different singer.

TonyALL was an album made for Tony Lombardo (the bass player on The Descendents albums, I Don't Want To Grow Up and Milo Goes To College)
Tony Lombardo wrote all 12 songs on this album. He sings on five songs and his vocals are something of an acquired taste for the average rock fan. However Scott Reynolds(ALL singer at the time) sings on a five tracks and his voice is far easier on the ear. Bass player Karl Alvarez was Tony's replacement in ALL and The Descendents. Karl appears on the track Guitar Case which is possibly the strongest song on this album. Karl's vocals are melodic here and unlike his recent vocals on his Underminer project where years of smoking show their effect.

The song U R Super has a very fifties feel which is emphasized when Tony sings Scoobie Doo. The lyrics are the same style as ALL which are mostly cute songs about getting girls and losing girls. Download TonyALL's New Girl, Old Story here.

If you download this album please comment whether you think it's good or bad.

All - Pummel

Back in the early nineties I intended to do a fanzine and wrote to Bill Stevenson, the drummer from this US pop-punk band, The Descendents and ex-Black Flag asking if he would do an interview). I didn't really expect a reply however Bill wrote back saying to write back with a list of questions and to get them details of a New Zealand promoter so they could tour New Zealand. A year or two late Brian Wafer brought ALL to New Zealand to tour their Breaking Things album and they played a few of the smaller towns. It was fairly shameful that only about twenty people turned up to the Stomach on a Monday night in Palmerston North.

After ALL's Breaking Thing's album which was released on Cruz records in 1993. ALL were signed to Interscope records due to the commercial breakthrough of pop-punk (The Offspring and Green Dayhad become fairly big due to the Dookie and Smash albums. I guess Interscope records had thought something like having a band with three Descendents (one of the originators of the pop-punk sound would become highly successful a decade later). ALL released the album Pummel in 1995. The album wasn't as sucessful commercially as Interscope records had hoped. So ALL were dropped from their roster and moved to the Epitaph records label which specialized in pop punk during the nineties and their next album Mass Nerder was more successful.

Pummel is now out of print. The song opens with a song called Self Righteous which has a SexPistols type riff with melodic vocals and lyrics about how preachers of straight edge annoy ALL.
Million Bucks is a rocking pop punk love song(which is what this band do best).
Miranda is a cool song about a one night stand. Uncle Critic is ALL's reply to music critics. The song Stalker sounds like ALL had been listening to Pantera with its screamed vocals.

All the other songs are cool too except On Foot wouldn't have sounded out place on a glam metal album. A few of the songs are lyrically depressing. The song hetero comes across as homophobic which is at odds with the 'Don't call me homophobic' line
in Uncle Critic.

Pummel is being reissued sometime without the song Hetero and three extra songs. The new cover will feature Chris Shary artwork with ALL's mascot driving a monster truck and a music note car getting obliterated.
Download the original version of Pummel here. Then buy the re-released version when it comes out.



ALL/Descendents guitar player, Stephen Egerton has recently started his own webpage which features projects he is currently working on, produced and has worked on and produced. The 40 Engine material and some of the other stuff he has written with former ALL vocalist Scott Reynolds is great. Click here for Stephen's website