Punk politics

No thanx to: MTV -- Quit bugging us
Major labels -- Quit bugging us
Commercial radio stations -- Quit playing us
We've been doin just fine all these years without you so leave us the fuck alone! Assholes!

-- From the liner notes to NOFX's Heavy Petting Zoo

But with Bad Religion, the righteous band who deserve much of the credit for keeping punk vital in the '80s, gearing up to release their second disc on Atlantic, the major-label question remains a prickly one. You can also feel it in the pissed-off liner notes of Heavy Petting Zoo (Epitaph), the new disc by So Cal's NOFX, who come to Avalon this Wednesday. NOFX seem bent on proving just how far a band can go without playing the corporate game: they're not doing interviews, making a video, or servicing commercial radio with Heavy Petting Zoo, which was last spotted at an impressive #63 on the Billboard 200. Meanwhile the quiet departure of Bad Religion founding guitarist/songwriter Brett Gurewitz in the transition from Epitaph to Atlantic is no accident. (Gurewitz now runs Epitaph full-time. His replacement in Bad Religion, former Minor Threat/Dagnasty guitarist Brian Baker, would have an impeccable punk record if it weren't for his mercenary defection to the LA major-label metal band Junkyard in '89.)

Longtime fans of Bad Religion won't be let down by The Gray Race (Atlantic), even though it's produced by the not-so-punk Ric Ocasek. Given that Gurewitz provided slightly more than half the group's material, it's remarkable how little impact his departure has had. But then, with the exception of their now out-of-print, synth-embellished 1983 disc Into the Unknown (Epitaph), Bad Religion have deviated even less than the Ramones from their trademark recipe for punk: bristling powerchords, slam-dance beats, uplifting harmonies, and anthemic choruses, all wrapped up in airtight arrangements with sophisticated, polysyllabic lyrics that tackle hefty socio-political topics, and Greg Graffin's signature vocals, at once gruff and tuneful.

Ocasek, a studio nerd with a talent for keeping hooks sharp even in dense, multi-tiered production, is the right man to preside over Bad Religion's symphonic assaults. He provides the powerhouse mix they deserve, a monolithic wall of unassailable rock that fuses the steely-guitar roar from Baker and Greg Hetson, the unwavering boom-bap beat of drummer Bobby Shayer, and the majestic surges of those signature Orange County Boys Choir harmonies. What's more, he does it without crowding out Graffin's authoritative exhortations about what less articulate folks might call shit that's fucked up in the world. Graffin has the intellect to define his terms. As he puts it in the rousing "Punk Rock Song," "Ten million dollars on a losing campaign/Twenty million starving and writhing in pain." That's the kind of strength and vision welded to a singalong melody that we can still count on Bad Religion to deliver, regardless of their label affiliation.

Bad Religion's former labelmates, NOFX, don't need a fancy producer to get the job done (the band name is apt). Their brand of prankster punk is predicated on an absolute disdain for authority and a love for the youthful, renegade spirit of the all-ages-show culture. They've been at it since '84 -- releasing discs with such titles as White Trash, Two Heebs, and a Bean (Epitaph, 1993) and Punk in Drublic (Epitaph, 1994), discs that together have sold more than one million -- and they've yet to lose their infectious, obnoxious zeal. (The cover of Heavy Petting Zoo features a drawing of a man caressing a sheep in a highly questionable manner; the vinyl LP version of the disc is so much more explicit that it required a different title, Eating Lamb.)

Tricky time changes and acrobatic tempo shifts abound on Heavy Petting Zoo. NOFX veer effortlessly from hyperactive thrash to giddy ska to muscular rock, sometimes in the course of one song, always with the aggressive skill of a skateboard champ raging on a half-pipe. They're not as smart as Bad Religion, but they are more fun and they do have issues. The rapid-fire "Hobophobic" and the hard-driving "Freedom like a Shopping Cart" urge compassion for the homeless. "Bleeding Heart Disease" takes an anti-capitalist stance; "Liza" salutes the lesbian punk contingent.

If there's irony here, it's that NOFX's Romper Room ruckus probably has more commercial appeal to the escapist masses then the stark polemics of Bad Religion. But if the world made sense, we wouldn't need punk rock in the first place.