One Year, 100 Albums: #50 The Living End "The Living End"

The Living End The Living End, 1998

I guess the best way to talk about this album is by first talking about the band Flying With Ralph. I've had many fake bands that I've been in in my life. The main one that I always come back to is, of course, 80-D, with the first album being titled Appetite For Distraction. But in High School I had this idea for a jazz-punk band and my friend Erin and I decided that Flying with Ralph would be a great name for it (It was in reference to a Ralph Wiggum bit from The Simpsons that is escaping me right now).

I was quickly informed by some more musically savvy friends that jazz and punk couldn't exist in the same band because of their opposing time signatures or something, which seemed a really weird reason to me.

Sometime in the same time frame as Flying With Ralph, I found this CD at Hot Topic.....or maybe Waves (which was the CD store at the mall that did NOT last long). And somehow I decided that I would enjoy it. If it was Hot Topic, I know they had a listening station, but if it was Waves, I don't know. I assume they must have had something similar.

Anyways, I loved the way this album was punky and bratty like Green Day, but somehow darker. This is another case where I wasn't well-versed enough in ska to recognize its influence on songs like "Second Solution". I loved it immediately and it became a staple in my car, once I got my car.

One of the last songs on the album is called "Strange". It's fairly typical, lyrically. Stuff about it being good to be different and not fitting in with the crowd. All stuff that spoke to me then and still speaks to me now. But then in the middle of the song, there's a breakdown. A JAZZ BREAKDOWN. And it blew my mind. It was exactly what I was thinking of for FWR! (Later, I'd discover Refused and realize that I was thinking of a sort of hybrid between The Living End and their The Shape of Punk to Come album, but that was several years later)

Looking back, I see that what I was probably mostly looking for in "jazz-punk" was something like Rockabilly but that's beside the point. The Living End came to me at a time when I was looking for something JUST like what they were playing. And I love when that happens.

The album definitely holds up to the test of time. In fact, I think I'll listen to it again today!

The Living End - Second Solution
The Living End - Strange

You can buy The Living End at Amazon, Amazon MP3, and iTunes