Recent article by Tony of the Adolescents in AMP Magazine:

I got a letter a while ago. Faceless, nameless, somewhere in Newfoundland. He said to me: "Your new album sucks. I won't call myself a fan until you make another CD like that first one." I promptly tossed his letter into the circular, but I wasn't done. I'm never done...

First of all, dumbass—it was an LP, not a CD. Twenty-five years ago my friends and I made an album, on a reel-to-reel tape. There was no a-dat. No Pro Tools. A tape. A stupid piece of two-inch reel. We cut thirteen songs, not the 16 track CD you can get at the local CD/DVD/Books-n-Latte, Inc from your mommy who "used to be a punk." And before you ask, yeah, we remember her, and we feel bad for you. Good Luck.

We recorded it on a basketball court in Sun Valley with the wonderful Thom Wilson. Thom went on to record amazing records with bands like the Offspring. It made perfect sense to make a record on a basketball court since I hated sports. In fact, I hated everything: I hated bikers, skaters, surfers, jocks, cheerleaders, scientists, the Man, and the engineer recording the record. Thom immediately kicked me out of the studio on the first day because I set off a fire extinguisher. It was rightfully charged against my first royalty check from Frontier. I feel like I deserved it if, for nothing else, because Thom was such a cool guy about the whole fiasco. Lisa Fancher footed the bill, and fed us. I ate brain tacos for the first time off a taco truck in Sun Valley. Mmmmm, brains.

At that time it was dangerous to admit you liked punk rock, let alone to cut and dye your hair (or your denim for that matter; good luck buying black denim in 1980.) It was social suicide to be caught with a Ramones album, and anyone who knew who Iggy was back then either hated him, thought he was a fag, or would kick yer ass sideways if you made the mistake of playing "Raw Power" at a party. Girls? It was humbling to have a "date" (if you could call it that) end when you're beaten up, thrown into the drum kit, and then literally kicked bloodied and senseless out the front door.

We took a lot of punches to the face for Devo. That's right, to the face. In fact, we were not men, we were "Devo." We were also "punk fags." We were "punk sucks," "fucking freaks," and "little faggots." We knew what "fag bashing" was because we got beat up all the time by people who thought we were gay. Yeah, some of those people are your parents. I hope they treat you better than they treated us!

So. We made a record. Some of the songs had floated around in our neighborhoods for a couple of years. People still fight over who wrote what. It only matters on payday. Payday happens when cash comes in and then the liars and thieves try to imprint their names on songs and harmonies I watched my friends write.

Not back then. Back then we were vermin. We were lice. People begrudged us when we lacked any direction, and then hated us when we got a hint of recognition (sell-outs) from local radio and press. When the police came to our shows and beat us up, it wasn't anything we hadn't already had done to us by the bullies at school, the drunk rednecks driving down the street, or the crew-cutted Neanderthals that were shaving their heads and polluting our scene. Just a different uniform was all.

So we went in and recorded the perfect punk rock record. We borrowed a lot, some unknowingly, from everyone before us, just like everyone borrowed from us later. Still, we left our own unique imprint, one that no one else has ever been able to quite figure out, and we made those songs ours. Forever. The blue record makes a perfect circle, as Steve Soto pointed out to me once. "The generation of hate, making the perfect punk record. It opens with 'I hate,' and the last lyric is fittingly 'I hate them all!' Pretty angry little record"

I read a review of a DVD we made a couple of years ago. The reviewer couldn't get past our weight and the fact that we've aged. Now, if it had been gender, or sexual orientation, religion, or ethnicity that the guy made fun of everyone on Earth would have corrected him in a second. There is something of a beautiful irony in listening to someone make fun of my friends and I for our weight, or putting us down for our age. Their parents did it to us twenty-five years ago. Same old shit, different day. Or year. Or millennium. Whatever.

So. The Adolescents' Blue Album turns twenty-five in April. So What? Big fucking deal. For Nameless in Newfoundland and all you other little gray haired creeps and your seed, vibing what we are, and who we were: it was our record, not yours. Piss off. Get off my planet.

--- Tony Reflex
February 2006