Give ‘Em the Boot is a series of compilation albums released by Hellcat Records. The first release came out July 29, 1997, and there has been a new release every other year, except for the gap between the second and third releases, which had two years in between. It is similar to the Punk-O-Rama and Unsound series released by Hellcat’s parent label, Epitaph Records.
The series is released to promote bands on Hellcat Records. Because of this, the price of the compilations are cheaper than other regular releases, to encourage fans to buy it and hear bands that may or may not have heard of before.
The title of the series comes from a lyric in “Roots Radicals” from …And Out Come the Wolves by Rancid. The head of Hellcat Records is Tim Armstrong, who is lead singer and guitarist for Rancid.
In 2005, a DVD was released under the Give ‘Em the Boot name. It featured live performances by many Hellcat artists, including multiple appearances by Rancid.
Following the failure to complete a debut album, Warner Brothers withdrew their support for the Modern Lovers, and Robinson left the band. They continued to perform live for a few months with new drummer Bob Turner, but Richman was increasingly unwilling to perform his old (although still unreleased) songs such as “Roadrunner”, and after a final disagreement between him and Harrison over musical style the band split up in February 1974. Despite the original group’s premature break-up, many of its members found considerable success elsewhere: founding member John Felice formed the seminal Real Kids, Jerry Harrison later joined Talking Heads, David Robinson co-founded the Cars, and Ernie Brooks would later work with David Johansen, Elliott Murphy, and Gary Lucas.
Richman continued recording on his own, eventually moving to California in 1975 to begin working with Beserkley Records whose boss Matthew King Kaufman had met Richman when he worked with A&M. While Richman never returned to the Velvets-inspired sound of the original Modern Lovers, the demo recordings made with that group eventually surfaced in various formats. The first of these releases came in 1976 when Beserkley compiled a posthumous LP from the first demo two sessions produced by Cale and Mason; issued on Beserkley’s Home of the Hits subsidiary, the album was simply titled The Modern Lovers and included celebrated tracks such as “Roadrunner”, “She Cracked”, and “Pablo Picasso”. Richman did not recognize this compilation as his “first album,” preferring to recognize his debut as 1977’s Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers, an album pursuing the lighter, softer direction he had in mind with a completely different band. However, The Modern Lovers was given an enthusiastic, critical reception, with critic Ira Robbins hailing it as “one of the truly great art rock albums of all time,” and it influenced numerous aspiring punk rock musicians on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Sex Pistols (who covered “Roadrunner” on The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle).
Lead vocalist and guitarist Matt Pryor had been writing songs since he was a teenager.[5] The band originally planned on calling themselves The Suburban Get Up Kids, until reasoning that there were fewer band names beginning with the letter ‘G’ than there are with the letter ‘S’, and that therefore they were more likely to be noticed in a record store if their name began with a ‘G’.[1] When the Get Up Kids formed in 1995, the lineup consisted of Matthew Pryor (guitar/vocals), Jim Suptic (guitar/backup vocals and occasional lead vocals), Robert Pope (bass), and Nathan Shay (drums). Pryor and Suptic met playing shows in different bands in the Kansas City area. In 1995, Pryor, Suptic, and friend Kevin Zelko saved to put out their very first 7″ on Huey Proudhon Records. However, due to a reluctance to tour, Shay was replaced by Robert’s younger brother Ryan in April of 1996. Soon afterward, the band was signed to Doghouse Records, where they put out their first EP, Woodson. In 1997, TGUK released their debut full-length, Four Minute Mile on Doghouse. Recorded in two days by Bob Weston of Shellac, Four Minute Mile created enormous buzz with a hooky immediacy and DIY aesthetic that was becoming the signature of Midwest emo.[6] They spent the following two years touring with like-minded bands The Promise Ring, Braid and Jimmy Eat World.
Fun Size was a local Richmond, VA Pop-Punk band with several releases in the late 1990’s. They broke up due to their individual musical directions and desires. Their lead singer and bass player (James Menefee) is now heading up another Pop-Punk/Southern Rock group (River City High).
Fenix TX (often typeset as Fenix*TX) is an American four-piece pop punk band. The band originally formed as Riverfenix in 1995 in Houston, Texas. They released an EP, G.B.O.H., and an album, Riverfenix, on independent record labels, before having to change their name due to a cease and desist order from the estate of actor River Phoenix. Following the change of name, they signed with major label MCA Records in 1999. On MCA, they released two further albums, 1999’s Fenix*TX and 2001’s Lechuza, which collectively sold over 600,000 units, prior to breaking up in 2002 over creative differences. After the split, bassist Adam Lewis and drummer Damon DeLaPaz devoted themselves to their now defunct side project Sing the Body Electric, while vocalist/guitarist Will Salazar and guitarist Chris Lewis formed the band Denver Harbor.
In September 2005, Fenix*TX announced their reunion. They released a live album, Purple Reign in Blood, and supported it with tours across the United States and Japan.
D.I. was formed by Casey Royer circa 1982. Royer was most well known as the drummer in the Adolescents. (Note: Check out the photo on the cover of the Adolescents’ Welcome to Reality EP. Look very closely at the bible Casey is holding.) Prior to that he also drummed for the Detours (along w/ Rikk Agnew) and Social Distortion (along w/ Frank Agnew.) The name originally stood for Drug Ideology, but before long Royer was saying it stood for all kinds of things: Drunk Idiot, Dead Indians, Doggy Intercourse, Dumb Idea and my personal favorite… Direct Injoyment. [sic] The first D.I. record was a 12″ 5 song EP (featuring the cover art seen on this CD) released by Revenge Records in 1983. The tracks were Richard Hung Himself, Guns, Venus De Milo, Reagan Der Fuhrer, and Purgatory. (4-8 on this CD) The line up was Casey on vocals, Fred Tacone on bass, Tim Maag on guitar, and Derek O’Brien on drums.
D.I. was never an “Agnew bros. project”, they simply ended up in the band eventually because of their relationship w/ Casey. In 1985 their second record was released, a full length LP titled Ancient Artifacts. Though they had a new line up (Rikk and Alfie Agnew on guitar, John Bosco on bass, John Knight on drums,) a few of the songs on the album were recorded by the EP line up, which is possibly the reason for the title. The remaining tracks on this CD were recorded circa 1987 by the 2nd line up, hence the different style and sound; the original EP was quasi-goth punk, while the 2nd line up material had more of the generic “So Cal hardcore” sound. I’ve always liked the original line up’s material the most.
Donuts N’ Glory is one of the greatest punk bands of the new punk era. They progress the punk scene beyond what most bands can do in this day. There songs are fast, short, catchy, and freekin awsome. Buy this album now. Support your local punk scene. Peace out. donuts n glory is fast, hard, and punk. they are the definition of new school punk. the song qusedillas is a rockin song. and the band is really good at playing their instruments. peace, luke.
The songs are incredibly catchy. I was singing along after listening to it twice. This album is my top ten all time greatest CD’s. Too bad the band hasn’t put anything else out. This is an awesome display of pop-punk at it’s best. I usually don’t like pop-punk but this c.d. changed my mind. I wish I could see them live. It’s really too bad these guys didn’t stick around any longer because this is one of the best cd’s of all time. Songs are kind of short but you get plenty. Buy this, you won’t be dissapointed.
This set of short, poppy and punky songs has instant appeal. The three women of Cub have found a formula that suits them: sweetly harmonized vocals, guitars that jangle and roar, and hummable melodies all set to a fast beat. Although they occasionally veer into the realm of snarled vocals and noise for its own sake, they sound more comfortable singing about boyfriends (past and future) and family. They may not be deep, but they get under your skin. An aside: beware the creaking chair sound that closes out the album, it keeps on going. ~ Peter Stepek, All Music Guide
This is their quintessential thid album were we guess it’s kind of u-naneemoss that the teeth are bared and the claws are out. No more Miss Nice Cub? Whatever… It’s twelve awesome pop songs made up good by producer Mass Giorgini that showcases Lisa, Lisa and Robynn’s most thoughtfull, ferocious and beautiful album yet.
The debut full-length on Asian Man Records from this Chicago 3-piece is hands down, the perfect listening in the wake of a broken heart. Featuring ex-members of 88 Fingers Louise and Slapstick, the Alkaline Trio combines harsh, emotion-filled pop-punk with sappy, heartfelt lyrics that don’t go beyond the point of corniness. The debut full-length from this Chicago three-piece is hands down the perfect listening in the wake of a broken heart. Featuring ex-members of 88 Fingers Louie and Slapstick, Alkaline Trio combines harsh, emotion-filled pop-punk with sappy, heartfelt lyrics that don’t go beyond the point of corniness. Crowd pleasers such as “San Francisco,” “Message From Katherine,” and “Clavicle” define the trio’s sound of catchy pop riffs and the occasional harmonies while having enough energy and pickup to take out the aggressions of anyone’s bad day. In the same package, acoustic-filled angst such as “Enjoy Your Day” and “Sorry About That” can push the right buttons to appeal to any hard guy’s sensitive side. It’s rare that a band such as Alkaline Trio can make love songs appealing without being labeled as “wimpy” or “generic,” and Goddamnit! is the record to erase those labels. ~ Mike DaRonco, All Music Guide
Songs about heartbreak and drinking your problems away have been around since the dawn of rock & roll. And in the case of the Alkaline Trio, they take it to the next level by bringing out more of the grimmer perspectives on lost love. Not that all three members are diagnosed manic depressives — they just have a more honest approach to relating to all those who just got dumped. For Your Lungs Only captures these moments perfectly without crossing into the territory of feeling sorry for themselves, and was influenced by the Descendants, Jawbreaker and Crimpshrine (not to mention They Might Be Giants). ~ Mike DaRonco, All Music Guide
For Your Lungs Only is a CD EP by Alkaline Trio released in 1998 on Asian Man Records. For Your Lungs Only is Alkaline Trio’s first professional release. The song “Southern Rock” was re-recorded and re-released on their first full-length record, Goddamnit. For Your Lungs Only is now out-of-print, but its songs can be found on their self-titled release Alkaline Trio, a compilation of their demos and out-of-print EPs.
You’ve got to wonder that if Jimmy Pursey knew the extent that “When the Kids Are United” would become an anthem for suburban American kids’ unity movements, would he have ever let it out of the can? Specifically looking at 7 Seconds’ version of it, it’s highly unlikely Pursey would have ever recorded the oi! anthem. With 7 Seconds returning to its hardcore roots after oddball explorations through straight-up rock’n’roll, there’s more than a hint of desperation to this live record. Throw in singer Kevin Seconds’ between-song banter that focuses on hardcore clichés such as unity and escapist scene-centrism, and Scream Real Loud … Live! shows just how tired our early hardcore icons are.
There’s something telling about a 30-something hardcore personality singing “Young ‘Til I Die.” He may be young at heart for life, but nothing will keep him relevant. Such is the fate befalling this album: there’s nothing 7 Seconds hasn’t already done that it touches on this record. Loud, angry numbers abound, though the dust that’s settled on the band’s idealism makes most of its songs a reminder of the band’s failure to convert the hardcore masses to its beliefs. You can sing “Walk Together, Rock Together,” until you’re blue in the face and there’s still going to be skirmishes in the crowd of every hardcore show; women will still be mistreated no matter how many times “Not Just Boy’s Fun” is performed. More than anything, these songs remind everyone just how far hardcore needs to come before becoming the underground paradise it’s meant to be.
Audiophiles who sit down with this album will be driven insane by the band’s lack of attention to production values. While 7 Seconds plays its set with enough vigor and ability, its performance sounds like it was recorded on a single track: guitars, bass and drums struggle against each other to find a place for themselves in the mix. Clarity isn’t an option with this record, any anyone tuning into anything outside of Seconds’ voice will be frustrated. Hardcore unity may still be a viable option, but if it is, it’ll be delivered by a youthful, energetic upstart band, not through a tired hardcore veteran singing an outdated British song.
- Matt Schild
Although Wolves in Wolves’ Clothing starts off with a promising bang, NOFX loses footing halfway in and stumbles downhill for the rest of the record. Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise when the first line of the amusing opening track proclaims, “I’m not here to entertain you…I’m here because old habits die hard/And seriously what else am I supposed to do?” But even so, expectations were pretty high coming into the album off their smartly wry EP Never Trust a Hippy, which was released a month earlier. Beginning well enough, the first half of Wolves is full of super-tight, tongue-in-cheek punk rock antics that make one think and laugh at the same time. “Seeing Double at the Triple Rock” is a seriously fun tune with charging guitar riffs that usher in drunken good times over at Dillinger Four guitarist Erik Funk’s popular Minnesotan social club. NOFX’s unabashed distaste for George W. and his cronies emerges blatantly in the thick bass of “USA-holes” and less outwardly in the bouncy, country-ish saunter of “The Man I Killed.” Fat Mike also addresses the war in Iraq differently than just outright attacking the government — a junkie friend successfully cleans himself up by joining the Army, only to later get killed in “Benny Got Blowed Up.” Serious topics (including many attacks on overzealous Bible-thumpers) tempered with NOFX’s trademark sarcastic nature soon become much shorter and less fun near the album’s middle. The trouble isn’t that the songs are just short — quick in-and-out blasts are normally quite satisfying — it’s that these tunes just seem unfinished or plain forgettable. A few exceptions appear, like the brash “100 Times F*ckeder” or the sentimental quasi-elegy to friends lost over the years in “Doornails,” but it’s not enough to make the hodgepodge feeling of filler songs near the end disappear. Thus, Wolves in Wolves’ Clothing simply lacks that cohesive sense of being an entire album to enjoy. It’s not that NOFX have lost their ability to offend, mock, challenge, and entertain in one sardonic, glistening package. Just the opposite, actually: over two decades old, the band really sounds as tight, relevant, and sharp as ever. It’s just that the second half seems a bit lazy overall, which makes the inherent lack of fun all the more frustrating.
— by Corey Apar, Allmusic.com
The influential Swedish hardcore band Refused was formed in 1991 by vocalist Dennis Lyxzén, guitarists Jon Brännström and Kristofer Steen, bassist Magnus Höggren, and drummer David Sandström. Debuting in 1993 with the EP This Is the New Deal, the group issued the full-length This Just Might Be…the Truth later that same year. The Everlasting EP followed in 1994, and in 1995 Refused returned with another EP, Refused Loves Randy. After 1996’s Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent, they issued the EP Rather Be Dead; in the wake of completing 1998’s classic The Shape of Punk to Come, Refused disbanded, unable to reconcile their anarchist leanings with a career in music.
Taking a industry of specifications and expectations and turning it fully on its head, yet holding on to some semblance of what once was. Refused are pure innovation and passion spouting Nation of Ulysses-esque doctrine while fusing together the bite and flavor of fist-raised, Dillinger Escape Plan-style hardcore with ambient textures, jazz breakdowns, and other such deviations. Choppy, beautiful movements, choked thoughts, and feelings of elevation. This is what punk is all about friends, although to the common ear it may not sound like it — and that is precisely one of the reasons why it is so potent.
— by Jason Ankeny & Blake Butler, Allmusic.com
It’s unfortunate that a band so forward looking as Fugazi has been criticized over and over for not remaking “Waiting Room” or “Repeater.” Some have called them sellouts, regardless of the band’s integrity and class, while others consider them elitists, “guiding” the Washington, D.C., scene. This could not be further from the truth. As the film and soundtrack to Instrument proved, this is a band that is only concerned with musical growth, with each album improving on its predecessor. But no album they have put together has the jump ahead that The Argument has. Being both ear-shattering and spine-tingling at once, this is Fugazi at their “musical” best. Incorporating melody with texture and their signature angular approach, the band has raised the bar for themselves and others once again. The first “full” track, “Cashout” (an anti-gentrification anthem), is classic stuff, with a subtle guitar line exploding into a screaming chorus, but this time there is less of an emphasis on the screaming and more on the gentle melody of the verse. Slower tracks like “The Kill” and “Life and Limb” touch on strange new territory. Gentle with sense of swagger, these songs lack none of the power that the band is known for, while the two-drum assault of “Ex-Spectator” (courtesy of Brendan Canty and second drummer Jerry Busher) has just as much potency on disc as it does live. And the final song, “Argument,” with its rolling guitar lines, dreamy breakdown, and vocals that build from gentle to screaming, may be the best closer on a Fugazi record since “Promises.” Listeners may be surprised to hear strings open up the record, or piano guiding the brilliant “Strangelight,” but this is the album that proves once and for all that Fugazi has become a purely musical force.
— by Chris True, Allmusic.com
The Exploited are a punk band from the second wave of UK punk, formed in 1979.
They started out as an Oi! band, before mutating into a faster street punk and hardcore punk band. From about 1987 on (around the time of Death Before Dishonour) they changed into a crossover thrash band. Formed in Edinburgh by ex-soldier Wattie Buchan, they signed to Secret Records in March 1981 and released their debut EP Army Life. The album Punks Not Dead followed in the same year. Despite many lineup changes, the band continued into the 2000s and has developed a worldwide following.
