#439: "Punk In Drublic" - NOFX

Released On:  Epitaph Records, 1994

My last year of high school was spent practically living at the closest thing to a 'punk house' you could get in rural southwestern Ontario.  The guy that ran the local taxi service (which is quite the job in the country, let me tell you) owned a big old house at the edge of town.  He lived there with his two nephews, who didn't like to hold down jobs but who DID like to drink, smoke epic amounts of weed, play Street Fighter and listen loudly to mid-90's hooky post-hardcore punk.  Along with these two were an assorted crew of satellite characters, male and female, who would join in and add their own particular brands of Shenanigans.  There was a lot of feedback, a lot of fucking, and and lot of getting fucked up (to paraphrase the Stooges); oddly, there was also a lot of computerized chess.  It was my second positive experience with punk rock (the first being accidentally getting Stranger Than Fiction for Chirstmas) and, at the risk of sounding like Craig Finn, when I first thought that punk rock might actually be our saviour.  The soundtrack was usually Epitaph/Fat Wreck Chords, featuring a slew of great punk records, but Punk In Drublic stands head and shoulders above all of them.  Out of all the so-called skater-punk bands of the mid-to-late 90's NOFX had the best head for memorable melodies and catchy lyrics, while simultaneously having the best eye for how to best state your contempt for modern society using epic amounts of snark.  Punk In Drublic is the triumph of the Epitaph sound.  It took the effortless hook-machine sound of Bad Religion but dropped the high-minded politics in favour of songs that spoke of a broader experience.  The smart ones got it, but so could the dumb ones (and the drunk ones).  Try NOT singing along to "The Brews", or feeling that punch in the gut when Kim Shattuck shows up near the end of "Lori Meyers".  It's not going to happen.  This was an album to define a micro-generation.  

Where You'd Know It From:  The punk kids in high school always blast it.  Every other NOFX album after it kind of sounds like it, too, making it even more ubiquitous.  

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Track Listing:

1.  Linoleum (2:10)

2.  Leave It Alone (2:04)

3.  Dig (2:16)

4.  The Cause (1:37)

5.  Don't Call Me White (2:33)

6.  My Heart Is Yearning (2:23)

7.  Perfect Government (2:05)

8.  The Brews (2:40)

9.  The Quass (1:18)

10.  Dying Degree (1:50)

11.  Fleas (1:47)

12.  Lori Meyers (2:21)

13.  Jeff Wears Birkenstocks? (1:26)

14.  Punk Guy ('Cause He Does Punk Things) (1:08)

15.  Happy Guy (1:58)

16.  Reeko (3:05)

17.  Scavenger Type (7:12)

("Don't Call Me White")

("The Brews")

("Leave It Alone")