Matts Rancid

Every Album, Every Song
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-78952-567-0
Verlag: Sonicbond Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 144 Seiten

In the 1990s, there was only one real punk rock band still standing. Rancid. Other so-called punk acts had bent the term so much that they were unrecognisable as punk or had become a caricature of the expression. Or even worse, of themselves.
Childhood friends Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman formed Rancid in 1991. Heralding from the punk scene in Gilman Street, Berkeley, they were members of the ground-breaking outfit Operation Ivy. After Op Ivy's demise, the duo recruited Brett Reed on drums and, by the release of their second LP in 1994, the enigmatic Lars Frederiksen on guitar and vocals. In 1994 came the inspirational, platinum-selling ...And Out Came The Wolves, and the band were soon a fixture on MTV, radio and even Saturday Night Live. At this point, many would have disappeared into the stratosphere, but not Rancid. They worked tirelessly in the punk network, giving plenty back and keeping true to those crucial two elements of punk - liberation and unity.
Today they remain the most credible punk band on the planet. Rancid On Track describes their nine studio albums, track by track, and covers compilations, stand-alone singles, splits, rarities, and unofficial releases.

Paul Matts is a part-time writer from Leicester, England. A lifelong punk rock and reggae fan, who fully embraces the DIY ethic, Paul writes for We Are Cult, Something Else and Punk Globe magazines. He is also the author of a novella, Donny Jackal and a novel, Toy Guitars. Paul owned The Attik underground music venue, Leicester, and promoted live shows as 101 Productions. He was also a guitarist with The Incurables. He is married to Georgie, has two grown-up children, and works as a self-employed gardener. Paul's work can be found at paulmatts101.wordpress.com

Autoren/Hrsg.

Matts, Paul

Leseproben

Introduction and Background

Two matters need to be made clear from the outset. Firstly, it’s important to understand the state of music – and specifically punk rock – in the late-1980s. Secondly, it’s crucial to appreciate the relationship between childhood friends and Rancid founder members Matt Freeman and Tim Armstrong.

In the late-1980s, mainstream popular-music artists had gotten lazy, self-righteous and insincere. The well-meant message of Live Aid – with humanity at its core – had given way to formulaic smugness. The sounds of superstars such as Michael Jackson, George Michael and any number of girl and boy bands, were complacent; banal, at best. The same applied to the MTV-friendly hair metal that vomited itself out of every doorway. How had it come to this? Art – especially cutting-edge youth culture – thrives on disaffection. After decades of unease, the Cold War was thawing. Relations between east and west improved, with Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev working closer than had previously seen between US and Soviet leaders. The Berlin Wall came down: Germany was reunified. Things were getting better on the face of it. Populations saw prosperity for those lucky enough to succeed. Greed was good, or so the slogan said – not necessarily the fuel for a healthy, thrusting music scene though.

Record companies held the power in the music industry, as they had for many years of course. In the 1980s, greed and wealth mattered, and record companies were unwilling to take risks. If an artist didn’t promise big bucks in return for investment, it wasn’t gonna happen. Music imitated life, and record companies went where the money lay. For those on the wrong end of capitalism, life is always tough. For every wolf on Wall Street, there were several mutts on shit street: all scratching around in the gutters for the scraps.

Thankfully, the underground music scene had a small, sympathetic, healthy pulse that slowly began to throb with an increasing resonance. It attracted those mutts from shit street. The birth of the indie scene halfway through the decade was significant. It took the do-it-yourself punk ethos championed by the likes of Crass to a new level. Rough Trade and Factory Records in the UK were true independent operations, as was Sub Pop in the US. The focus was the other side of life in the 1980s – songs about isolation, solitude and suffering: the unspoken, uncomfortable, poverty-stricken edgy bit.

In the first half of the 1980s, punk continued its evolution. Several subgenres emerged, each providing their own flag wavers. So, the work of the Sex Pistols, Ramones, The Clash and others was continued by US hardcore pioneers Black Flag, Minor Threat and Dead Kennedys, horror-punk heroes Misfits and Canada’s D.O.A. GBH and Discharge led the UK hardcore scene, with street acts like Cock Sparrer giving their own street interpretation of punk. Tim Armstrong took note. New York had continually grabbed the plaudits and the attention with a succession of bands, and legendary venues such as CBGB. In California, another scene had emerged: more political than its NYC counterpart. Bands such as Dead Kennedys courted controversy with just their name when they started in 1978. Their direct hardcore style inspired another generation. However, as the decade went on, many of these seminal bands, split. Any scene would miss inspirational giants like Black Flag, Minor Threat, Misfits, The Clash and Cock Sparrer. All these bands – incredibly – had called it a day by 1986. With the Pistols long-since imploded and The Damned going goth, the punk scene was soon on its heels. The punk cause seemed in retreat. Sex Pistol and Los Angeles’ number-one punk disc jockey Steve Jones summed it up as only he can in his 2-16 autobiography Lonely Boy: Tales From A Sex Pistol: ‘There was a weird period – the mid-1980s – when no one seemed to give a fuck about punk. Now it’s gone back to being a big deal again, and it feels like it won’t ever go away. But then it just seemed like something that had happened but was now over’.

By the mid-1980s, the first wave of American hardcore had also developed problems. The 2017 movie Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk, stated, ‘The once-vibrant local scene became overwrought with violence, corruption and racism’. Things had become dark, metallic, gloomy and restrictive; not to mention uniform. Since when had punk rock ever been about uniformity: literal or metaphorical?

Punk still attracted the misfits, but the arrival of indie music meant punk had a rival for their attention. This gave punk yet another problem – as well as a sudden lack of top-level bands and divisive scenes, its rebel public had more musical choice. It could go for Bad Religion on one hand, or The Smiths on the other. Original punk kids moved into new scenes, often never to return. Punk had to fight its corner.

In the late-1980s, a community over the San Francisco bridge on the East Bay, came together. Its goal was to bring unity and enjoyment back into punk. A volunteer collective centred around 924 Gilman Street, Berkeley, began putting on shows in late-1986 and provided the support network any true scene needs. Diversity in ethnicity, musical style, image and performance, were encouraged. It reinvigorated the very punk ideal: anyone could do it and could play what they wanted. Little did those involved know the impact this would go on to have on punk rock worldwide. It’s fair to say that what followed five years later was nothing short of punk’s second coming. The 1991 punk breakout owed 924 Gilman Street so much. Tim Armstrong helped explain why to Hitlist magazine in October 2001: ‘It was so open-minded, and a great climate to be creative and do some cool shit. Gilman was a climate you could play punk rock and ska and not get moshed on. That’s something you gotta think about’.

Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman first met as young kids in Albany, California. They remained school acquaintances rather than outright friends until they were in the same music class, where they had a crack at ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ to win a prize in a music contest. They didn’t succeed, but more importantly, their partnership began. Picking up punk influences ranging from The Clash to Circle Jerks, they formed a band called – appropriately – The Noise: which mutated into Basic Radio. Tim and Matt were at 924 Gilman Street from the first show on 31 December 1986. In an example of the Gilman camaraderie, Matt – in time – took the weekend’s debris to the local dump, in return for free admission to shows.

Operation Ivy came together in 1987 and featured vocalist Jesse Michaels (Shrik), drummer Dave Mello (Animal), guitarist Tim Armstrong (Lint) and bassist Matt Freeman (McCall). They personified the Gilman punk ideal – Liberty: the freedom to do what you want and break conventions. Talk about being influential. And talk about being creative. Operation Ivy took the joy and energy of 2 Tone and ska music – with its offbeat emphasis – added the ferocity of Bay Area hardcore, and presto! – ska punk was born: a union of The Specials, hardcore and melody. Jesse Michaels described the band’s arrival in an interview with Alternative Music Press in 2017:

It’s kind of a fun challenge to go into a room full of grumpy hardcore people and try to win them over. At that time (the late-1980s), the first wave of hardcore was really sort of tired – a lot of the best bands had broken up, and there were a lot of bands that were doing something a little bit more energetic. It was fun to do something new in that context when everything felt a little burned out.

With Michaels’ politically charged vocals, the band were heroes of Gilman Street, and developed a cult following. Also, they were Gilman Street’s go-to band – if a show needed playing, even at short notice, they’d do it. Matt Freeman told Hitlist magazine, ‘It was like, we’ll be here because we’ll be here anyway. We just have to remember to bring our equipment this time’.

Later in 1987, Maximumrocknroll magazine released two compilation albums, both titled Turn It Around. Operation Ivy’s ‘I Got No’ and ‘Officer’ were included. This now-highly-collectable record was the first time Matt and Tim appeared on any release anywhere. The six-track EP Hectic was recorded soon after and released on Lookout! Records. 1000 copies were pressed and sold out: unheard of for a grassroots band in 1987. Larry Livermore set up Lookout! Records in 1987. Hectic reeks of do-it-yourself: black-and-white cover; information sheet inside.

A United States tour followed; the band and a couple of friends travelling in a 1969 Chrysler Newport, feeding themselves cheese sandwiches out of the vehicle’s boot. Operation Ivy’s popularity grew and grew. They had invented something fresh, something new, and major record labels – not for the only time in Tim and Matt’s live’s – began to take notice.

Work began on the band’s only full album, with a stop/start series of recording sessions with Gilman sound engineer Radley Hirsch. Eventually, the album was recorded in a week at San Francisco’s Sound And Vision studio, and produced by Kevin Army. The result – Energy – is an essential slice of progressive punk rock, and was released in May 1989. It inspired a whole generation of ska punk acts...