Far-far away, in a galaxy not too far from this,
a guy named Mike, Fat Mike - played his bassguitar
in a punkrock-band called "Me first and the
Gimme
Gimmes". After a few years in the band, he
figured
out that he had a mission - a task to complete on
earth - NOFX. So, in 1983 in L.A. he got together
with two of his friends - Erik Melvin and Erik
Ghint,
and they started a band. What they, at that time,
didn't know, was that what they'd started was to
become a worldwide mass-hysteria simply called
NOFX.
After a
while, the three-guy-band became a four-
guy-band when Izzy Stradlin' (Al Bino) joined in.
They recorded a bunch songs for a guy named Doug
Moody at the local label "Mystic
Records", but
he ripped the guys off - so the band left...
The songs recorded at Mystic Records eventually
became the album "Maximum Rock'n Roll"
and
is an album filled with old-school garage punkrock.
In 1986,
the guys in NOFX decided to make an
album on their own, and they ended up with
"Liberal Animation". The album was
probably not
as good as they thought it would be - and they
didn't make a dime out of it...The producer of the
album, Brett Gurewitz, got the idea of makin' his
own record-company, and ended up with Epitaph
Records. NOFX was asked to sign and they went
straight into the studio to make their second
"real"
album called "S&M Airlines". It was
released in
1989 and is a great album with lotsa great songs
on it.
After a few
years of touring around, playin' at
lousy bars and places like that, they recorded
the album "Ribbed" (´90), which probably
is one of the
best punk-albums ever recorded. The album has
no bad songs and it sounds a little bit different
from
the previous releases. After the album was
released,
NOFX got rid of Izzy and got a new guy, El Hefe.
And with El Hefe came the trumpet, which turned
out to be very useful in the following releases for
the band. In 1992, two albums were released. The
first one is called "The longest line"
and is more
like and E.P. than an album. It's a great record
and
it should be in the hands of every true punk-rocker
on earth.
Fat Mike
felt frustrated behind his bassguitar and
decided to start his own label. He ended up with
"Fat Wreck Chords" but didn't feel like
havin' his
own band on his own label and NOFX kept on
puttin' albums out on Epitaph. The next album in
the line is "White trash, two heebs and a
bean"
and is in my opinion the best album NOFX has
ever made. The title of the album pretty well
describes the member of the band...
The
following tour turned out very well and in 1994,
NOFX went into the studio to record the major
success of the band - "Punk in Drublic".
The album
was a real knock-out on all kindsa charts and NOFX
went on tour all over the world. This album made
the band elite in the punkrock world. When the
album
was released and a year past by, Mike and the guys
realized that the only live-recordings with the
band
available was shitty bootlegs, and they decided to
make a high-quality live-album. And so they did -
"I heard they suck live!" became the name
of it, and
the title doesn't say shit about the album - cuz'
it
proves that NOFX is one of the worlds best bands
live and no one can argue about that...
Another
year past by and the the next album was
released in 1996 - "Heavy Petting Zoo".
The album
itself is not as good as the two previous albums,
but
it hit the charts harder than them. The cover of
the album was found offensive in lotsa
stores, and some stores in france even had
to shut down the bussiness after they'd had
posters of the album in the windows ...sick ha ?
Well, here
we are, it's 1998 and the last album
released in Europe by NOFX is "So long, and
thanks for all the shoes", which was released
in
October 1997( Nov´97 in the states ). It's a
great
album with more of the old punkrock-spirit
that the band kinda left on "Heavy Petting
Zoo"...
Now, after
reading this shit above, you probably
realize that NOFX is a punkrock band worth some
time to listen to. The fact that NOFX are so big is kinda
mysterious since you can't hardly see them on MTV
or hear'em at the radio. They don't commercialize
their albums but somehow the manage so succeed
anyway !? Isn't that admirable ? Offcourse, it's not
the band itself that makes the success, it's me and
you and all the other punk-rockers out there.....so keep on skankin' ! |