Johnny Ramone may be a Republican and Jello Biafra may be... well, completely beyond categorization, but punk rock has always been a primarily liberal movement. Blink-182 and Good Charlotte fans may be surprised to hear this -- nearly three decades ago, punk was more about calling listeners to socio-political action and less about crying over the girl that dumped the frontman for 37 minutes of a 41-minute record. Somewhere along the punk timeline, "My Head Is Hanging Upside Down" and "Holiday In Cambodia" gave way to "What's My Age Again?," and the activism that challenged the angry, young, and bored to become the furious, educated, and driven seemed to be a lost relic of the post-Vietnam subculture. But it's a new world with new issues and new enemies, and NOFX's Fat Mike wants to make sure you know about it. The bands on Rock Against Bush: Vol. 1 want to make sure you care.
This compilation, assembled partially from previously-recorded material but mostly from new and exclusive productions, is a punk rock polemic against the policies of the George W. Bush administration. Yet it's not an anti-war album; in fact, relatively few of the songs deal specifically with Gulf War II. The lyrics are commonly bound by general observations on administrative sticking points such as foreign policy and the corporate automaton. The songs themselves are uniformly above-average in quality, and remarkably, given the album's extended running time (71-minutes) you'll find yourself skipping over very few of the 26 entries.
That's a lot of music for the $9.99 price of admission, and there are some pretty crucial names on this comp. Sum 41, Alkaline Trio, The Offspring, Ministry, Jello Biafra, The Ataris, Pennywise, New Found Glory, NOFX, and Less Than Jake all throw in some terrific tracks. Lesser-known yet utterly fantastic acts like None More Black, The Soviettes, Strung Out, and The Frisk (who sound like the love child of The Offspring and... something completely insane) also provide their musical thoughts. And if you're pressed for something to do while the disc is spinning, the liner notes read like a John Kerry smear campaign.
With so many entries to choose from it's only too easy to assume that some of the newer material from the lesser known acts will be the strongest. Yet those expecting the album's stand-out track to be a career-making contribution from one of the indie bands are in for a disappointment: Rock Against Bush's best three minutes are given to Alkaline Trio's "Warbrain," a haunting, ethereal Cold War lamentation. Running a close second is D.O.A.'s "That's Progress," a 1990 condemnation of corporate America with the one-of-a-kind trills of ex-Dead Kennedy Jello Biafra in utmost evidence. The disc also has some unique and ironic moments; The Ataris were able to cover a Bad Religion song from over a decade ago and have it fit because it concerns the elder President Bush ("King George") invading Iraq.
Surprisingly, the album has very few low points, but a few do exist nonetheless. The RX Bandits provide a reggae track which is dropped carelessly into the program's dead center and sounds noxiously out-of-place -- its four-minute length feels more like an excruciating 12 minutes given that it's lumped in amidst the speedy romps which surround it. And The Frisk's "Basket of Snakes," while a thoroughly enjoyable song, has virtually no contextual relevance, unless I've missed something.
A DVD of informational material (or propaganda, depending on your viewpoints) regarding the alleged iniquities of the Bush administration accompanies the CD, thus making the $9.99 price tag even more attractive. Rock Against Bush: Vol. 2 is already in production for an August release and will feature the contributions of Green Day and No Doubt. The quality -- and success -- of the original might just make Fat Mike's labor of love the subcultural phenomenon of the summer, and regardless of your political ideology, you're not likely to find a more catchy and substantial soundtrack to life this season. What's more, unfortunately for Mr. President, this disc is quite liable to drag a few more punks to the polls this November.
