In an effort to start writing more and hopefully turning people on to tunes they may not normally consider or have knowledge of, I’ve decided to start doing a write-up on a new album every week. Music has played a big part in my life since the age of 14 or so (before that I had pretty much sworn off music since the bulk of it I had been exposed to at the time seemed to be so vapid and worthless). Hopefully I’ll be able to meet my self-imposed deadline of having a different album up every Tuesday (the day new releases hit stores).

Without further adieu, I present this week’s “Album of the Week:”

The Thing That Ate Floyd (1988)
This week’s Album of the Week was an impulse buy for me when it was first issued on double-CD in 2002. Lookout Records was one of the first record labels I latched on to when I first got into punk, pop-punk and indie rock in the late 90’s/early 00’s, and with good reason. Their lineup at that time (and during the years preceding it) was fantastic. Lookout still feels to me like the perfect pop-punk starter label, what with bands like the Mr. T Experience, Pansy Division, Crimpshrine, Fifteen, Screeching Weasel, the Groovie Ghoulies, the Queers and Operation Ivy to name a few. (Sadly, due to well-publicized disputes over royalties, many of these releases are now out-of-print or have shifted to other labels).

That said, what The Thing That Ate Floyd presents is not from Lookout’s late 90’s bands, but goes back a decade to the late 80’s, when the Bay Area was literally hemorrhaging great pop-punk, hardcore and ska-influenced punk bands. The thing about compilations is that they’re rarely listenable all the way through, especially the label samplers. TTTAF isn’t like that at all. Instead of focusing on one specific label’s roster, it gives a great glimpse into a scene that folks like me (who were all of 4 years old at the time) could only dream about. For most people, the orange sticker affixed to the shrinkwrap indicating that there was an rare Operation Ivy song inside was enough to warrant a purchase, but that track (”Hangin’ Out”) is so outclassed by lesser-known bands that it’s almost a moot point to even bring it up. Afficionados of pop-punk will find a lot to like here, what with early tracks from bands whose members went on to bands like Samiam, J Church, Green Day (yuck, I know), and Fifteen as well as bands who have made a much bigger name for themselves than they had at the time (Neurosis, No Use for a Name, Steelpole Bathtub, the Mr. T Experience, etc.). Your typical compilation album is generally pretty anemic as far as liner notes are concerned, but Lookout wisely chose to replicate the entirety of the excellent liner notes from the original LP release, giving each band a half-page to list lyrics, lineups, contact info and whatever else they damn well pleased.

Yeah, yeah, so the packaging is good, and the morsel certainly sounds tasty, but how does it stack up with the music factored in? Very well, my friends, very well. Neither disc is vastly superior to the other thanks to an excellent spread of great tunes on both.

Highlights from the first disc:

The Skin Flutes - “Straight Edge Song”
Corrupted Morals - “Big Man”
Cringer - “Cottleston Pie”
Eyeball - “The Incredibly Blue Mustache of Mr. Tinselteeth”
Complete Disorder - “We Must Do Something Now”
The Well Hung Monks - “Product of Misdirection”
Swollen Boss Toad - “Broken Strings”

Highlights from the second disc:

Relief Society - “Abandoned Beer Messiah”
Mr. T Experience - “Boredom Zone”
Sewer Trout - “Vagina Envy”
Sweet Baby - “Andorra”
Surrogate Brains - “Extreme Racial Pride”
The Lookouts - “Outside”
Spent - “In My Past”

Whether you want to get pumped up and punch the floor, have a ridiculously catchy sing-along or hear some of the best pop-punk ever laid to record, you’ll find what you’re looking for here. One of the more interesting things about the album is to see how the bands that are still going have progressed in the almost 20-year timespan since the release of this punk landmark. No Use For a Name’s track in particular is so drastically different from what they’re doing now that you have to check twice to make sure that the track you’re hearing is theirs. The Mr. T Experience track isn’t really different if you’ve traced the world’s best pop-punk band (I’ll defend that statement til death) back to their early days, when their albums were more cynical and a touch less poppy, but for those who are only familiar with the style they’re best known for, it’s an eyebrow-raiser. If I had to pick an absolute favorite from all the songs, and believe me, it’s a fairly close call, I’d have to go with The Well Hung Monks’ “Product of Misdirection.” Rarely has a song so full of pop-culture references and biting social commentary been so spot-on, funny and intelligent all at once.

Sorry to anyone that’s read this far, I promise I won’t be so long-winded next week, but I REALLY love this album. Pick it up. You won’t be disappointed.

Also, as a bonus treat, here’s an HTML version of the booklet for TTTAF. This used to be hosted on Lookout’s site, but when their old site went down in favor of a new one the link to this no longer points to the right place, so I assume it’s fair game for me to upload this myself: The Thing That Ate Floyd (.zip)

Links:
Lookout! Records
The Thing That Ate Floyd (product page)