California has been the epicenter of many musical movements over the past sixty years. Surf Rock and Folk Rock were born on the coast of Southern California and the streets of San Francisco in the 60s. Bands like X, Black Flag and the Circle Jerks spearheaded the Hardcore Punk movement of the 70s. Glam Rock and Hair Metal and Heavy Metal bands like Van Halen, Mötley Crüe and Metallica ruled the 80s, and by the 90s, musicians and bands flocked to L.A. to make it in the music business. While hip-hop, grunge and alternative rock ruled the air waves, California was also the home of the punk and ska movement of the nineties. Unlike the punk movements in the 70s and 80s, the punk bands of the 90s generally embraced a lighter, more comedic approach to their lyrics as opposed to singing about more serious issues. The Vandals made their name as the snarkiest and funniest of the punk bands while still maintaining a great punk sound.
Having formed in 1980 in Huntington Beach, The Vandals cycled through members until they settled on their current lineup in 1990. By 1995, The Vandals had signed to Nitro Records (founded by The Offspring’s singer Dexter Holland) and subsequently released their breakthrough album Live Fast, Diarrhea. The title is a play on the old punk saying of “Live Fast, Die Young” and the opening track “Let the Bad Times Roll” starts the album up with fast punk beats and lyrics about celebrating failure and losing. They even included punk covers of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and The Simpletone’s “I Have A Date”. The song “Power Moustache” is a diatribe about not growing a moustache and “Get in Line” is all about waiting in a line for a ride at Disneyland. The song “Change My Pant (I Don’t Wanna)” is a whole song about never changing your pants. This song inspired at least one person in high school to not change or wash their pants all summer (my best friend Billy). And the track “Happy Birthday to Me” is still exchanged via text message between him and I on birthdays, 25 years later.
With the album turning twenty-five this year, Craft Recordings is reissuing the album as a limited-edition vinyl. The vinyl is clear with appropriate “explosive brown splatter” (read as diarrhea splatter). The vinyl pressing not only looks great, it sounds amazing. It instantly transports the listener back to that time in the mid-nineties when bands often didn’t take themselves too seriously. For any fan of punk rock in the nineties, this would definitely be considered an essential album and makes a great acquisition for any vinyl collector that has a soft spot for the nineties.
