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TromBonus - 65 - The Have Nots
131 Plays6 days ago
It's going to get VERY Boston on this week's CPSC! The crew heads back to the dark ages to shallow dive the ska-influenced tracks of street punkers, The Have Nots! First, Joey picks it up with his recent spat of Faux Doubt shows, then him and Rob dig in on The Have Nots from their not-quite-rancid ska debut to their minor scene hit to their angry-Springsteen second album. Grab a scally cap and get to stompin'!
Host: Rob and Joey
Engineer: Joey
Editor: Joey
Skassociate Producer: Chris Reeves of Ska Punk International
Merch: www.checkeredpast.ca/merch
Patreon: www.patreon.com/checkeredpast
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Theme
00:00:00
Speaker
<unk> wamp w It's another trombonist episode, it's just Rob, engineer Joey in a pocket full of dreams as we grab a baseball bat and threaten domestic abusers with another Dark Ages Scott cult classic, The Have-Naughts on Checkered Past, The Skycast.
00:00:40
Speaker
up, Checkerheads? Welcome to Checker Pass, this God cast with Celine and Rob, the show where ah for whom the Melbourne Scott Orchestra tolls and an old man in the Under to the Sea cover by suburban legends explore the history and impact of a different band each episode and hope to bring in new fans along the way. I'm Rob, and this is my co-host with the most toast, Engineer Joey. Bonjourno. That has something to do with our subject today because those didn't make any sense to me.
00:01:07
Speaker
Full disclosure, I wrote those two two like a month ago at this point. I can't remember what it was. Those are poems slash books from the bell tolls and old man in the sea.
00:01:22
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. I could Google it, I suppose, but you know, it's more fun to just speculate. And I believe the, the have and the have nots is a, uh, reference to one of those books. I think you can't remember. It's all connected. Yeah. Somehow at some point listeners, Google figured out, be like, Rob was onto something with this. He just can't remember. Cause he's, we always advocate doing your own research around here.
00:01:50
Speaker
ah We always advocate doing your own research. Yeah, we're not going to tell you. We're not going to explain ourselves. We're not a podcast to listen to, to gain knowledge from. That's for sure. Not even, not even amongst ourselves. We're like, Oh, that was, that was a month ago. Yeah. I remember that time we forgot, we saw a rancid play and out come the wolves and we talked about them for a whole month.
00:02:13
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's the kind of podcast we are expecting professionalism. beautiful as We pick it up where we left off. Yeah, let's do it.
Joey's No Doubt Cover Band Experience
00:02:29
Speaker
So this is a sequel of sorts because on our last episode with Eichlers, ah Joey was blown. And he was blown because he was playing in a no doubt cover band that following weekend. i was Now and we get to hear the outcome of that said show, said shows. this I did too. Tell us all about it.
00:02:52
Speaker
Yeah, it was awesome. It was a heck of a good time. The first, we played the Friday night and the Sunday night. Um, we had put the band together for the show on the Friday night. It's like a big, every year there's a venue here that, well, every year there's a couple of venues that do like a bands as bands thing. Uh, but the one that does it right, uh, is the starlight room and they did, they have a huge one every year.
00:03:17
Speaker
So we put the band together to do that and then we got a show offer for the second show on the Sunday, which is like a shitty day for a show, but that's okay. we We took it anyways. We learned the music. So yeah, the first night went went great. We played with like a live keyboardist. I believe I mentioned last time, ah Eric of operators, seven, eight, oh, and med bomber society fame came up on stage and he was a blast to play with and it was fucking packed. And, um,
00:03:44
Speaker
Limp Bizkit was there and it was pretty good. And we saw a band play um Oh, what is, what's the, the drugged up guy that is covered in tattoos that Salin loves. Why can't I think of the Niagara boys, Niagara boys. There's a Viagra boys cover band as well, which was fucking awesome. Uh, and another bear and the bend, uh, that you might know called striker who played Aussie songs and they were all dressed up as Mario. And when they played mama, I'm coming home, they sang Luigi. I'm coming home in every course. It was pretty good.
00:04:22
Speaker
Uh, but yeah, that, that show killed. And then we played the Sunday, which was a much smaller, much less organized thing at a venue that our cover band plays at. Um, and the bands that played that were us as no doubt.
00:04:39
Speaker
a band as Green Day, a band as Weezer, a band as Bush, like Glycerine Bush, and Ace of Bass. And I gotta say, all the bands are pretty great, but Ace of Bass went up there and it was like two ladies who play like folk music here in Edmonton like two people who are friends but are separate artists and one of their husband and the husband had built backing tracks for all of the songs but he had
00:05:11
Speaker
uh like random percussion with him he had roto toms he had some bongos he had a snare drum and a high hat he had an egg shaker and he had a tambourine he had all this stuff and he just like played live percussion along to tracks while the ladies sang and it was so fucking sick you guys like i i was the only one standing up after like the first song and i was like yeah this rules and i gotta say scotts fuck For Ace of Base? Ace of Base is Scott. Scott Jason, absolutely. Scott Jason, for sure. And you know, when some of those songs come on and you're like, yeah, Ace of Base, right? They're like ABBA or whatever, and then you listen and you're like, fuck Ace of Base slaps so hard. Yeah, Cruel Summer's fucking rocks so hard. What a great song. All the songs, yeah. So good. Which Faux Doubt song went over the hardest?
00:06:06
Speaker
um you know we we opened up with hella good and on that first night like the venue was like fucking packed um and it was like the show was really like the show started at seven with the first band and it was a a band every like 30 minutes and you was like non-stop music. Like it was, it was a well-oiled machine. It was festival style on three stages in the venue. Um, and it just cycled through really fast. So by the third stage, so you had starlight proper, you had temple and go downstairs and then downstairs and downstairs was a little bit disconnected. It was the smaller bands usually, but it was cool that like,
00:06:51
Speaker
If you weren't really into one of the bands playing upstairs, you could go downstairs and there was something different and there was always music playing. um But by the time we played, ah we played at nine and there had already been two hours straight of bands basically. So people were like,
00:07:06
Speaker
fucking giving her like nine most a lot of people had showed up by nine and people were partying already so like hella good fucking went off when we kicked off our set it was super cool and uh and underneath it all like is just like an undeniable jam that everyone can dance to and we kind of put that in the middle of our set so both of those songs went it really well Surprise like that. it's It's not even like tragic Kingdom songs. It's like fucking the Rocksteady songs that blow up. Hey, yeah, it was crazy. Like we closed with just a girl in spider webs and they like killed like people were loving it. But like I would say the most engaged was like during that and first kicked off with hella good and then underneath it all. I think cause like the people who maybe didn't know a whole lot of no doubt, everyone's heard underneath it all.
Spotlight on The Have Nots Band
00:07:58
Speaker
everywhere right so right and it's a killer song it's good yeah of course good that's the other thing that's sick uh so for today we're going to talk about the have nots joey have you or have you not listened to the have nots i have not heard them aside from what i heard when i was checking out the levels earlier right
00:08:23
Speaker
So this is a band, another, we're we're going back to the Dark Ages. This is another Dark Ages classic. I like the thing that you mentioned about them like beating up domestic Abusers with bats. That's cool. I'm into that. Yeah, we'll get to it. Yeah, it's cool. It is a song of theirs good good So they're a Boston band they were like part of whatever the the Dark Ages Boston Scott scene So if you are familiar with a big D and the kids table, for example, they would have been contemporaneous with them
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah. And you would also know that members of the Have Nots and members of Big D went on to form a certain little band called The Pomps that are kind of blowing up these days. So this is a Pomps adjacent group. um They sound nothing alike, but aside from the ska parts. But like, other than that, it's real line.
00:09:17
Speaker
Yeah, but aside from that, it's like two different interpretations of Scott for sure. um So they released two records on ah on a label called Paper and Plastic. Are you familiar with this label, Joseph?
00:09:29
Speaker
Uh, I've heard the name. I couldn't tell you a band that they're associated with aside from the have nots. Apparently they are. That is Vinnie's label post fueled by ramen. So after fuel by he sold fuel by ramen off and when they were like gigantic, you know, ah which I'm sure was for a pretty penny because they basically found follow boy. So a few feel by ramen I'm sure is but has, and is still doing well.
00:09:56
Speaker
The ramen that they're sold by now is like much ah higher end than the ramen. Higher quality ramen. Yeah. Yeah. ah And so then Vinny went on to form paper and plastic as a little bit even more of vanity label. So ah some other bands. So like Rehasher, which is like um Another Less Than Jake, I can't remember which one, another Less Than Jake member's ah side project ah is on there. um But then they had just like some one-offs from bands like Westbound Train had something on there.
00:10:28
Speaker
um And yeah, the Have Nots were a relatively early ah edition of that label. um And they released two records, both pretty close together. The first one was in 2008 and the second one was in, I'm gonna say 2010, I should get this. I'm sure it'll be important to talk about. Oh yeah, here's some other bands that were on this label. Like Flatfoot 56 was on ah paper and plastic. ah And they were a relatively big ah folk punk band from Chicago.
00:11:00
Speaker
um But yeah, so basically today what I did is I queued up all 18 songs from those two records whoa that have sky in them and it's gonna go real fast because And this is not a slam by any means ah they're they're They're pretty similar sounding And so we'll listen to ah some songs back to back and then quick succession. So maybe we should just kick it off with the very first one that I have from their Daboo album, Surf City
Exploring 'There's Gonna Be a Riot' Themes
00:11:31
Speaker
USA. This is There's Gonna Be a Riot. Okay.
00:11:40
Speaker
I feel like I've heard this song before. You may have. On something. Do you know? I don't believe so. No? But I mean, a lot of bands talk about riots. That's true. That's true. Some of them want to. Rancid had her song. Yeah. Some They have that, like, a vocal thing that they like to do there.
00:12:19
Speaker
the like of the the gang vocal kind of thing. Yeah and just there's just like a certain like I mean Wilhelm screams kind of the first one that pops out to me because they're probably the most popular but it's a very similar like they they have a certain way of yelling. That is right. So Massachusetts.
00:12:40
Speaker
And so as you can already hear from this they're a four piece no horns They owe a lot to rancid. I'd say that that's not an unfair comparison. Mm hmm. This is the kind of band that one of them definitely wears a hat. Like a scally cap type of deal. And in this picture, I'm looking at he's got a pork pie, but I would not put a scally cap back him. But it's like a pork pie and then punk like scaw from the neck up and then punk from the neck down. OK. Yeah, you know that look. Yeah. The Tim Armstrong. Tim Armstrong. Yeah.
00:13:19
Speaker
Uh, so yeah, this is in there. It's political music. So it's called surf city, USA surface spelled S E R F. Cause they're having fun. Hell yeah. So you you get what they're coming from. It's like street punk ska. That's good. I mean, I mean that vibe, this vibe. but there So let's tear you no further and go to frozen heart. Okay. Here we go.
00:13:46
Speaker
I do like the riffs. The riffs are cool. Like I know they're not like anything special, but they're cool sounding. I was going to say, is the, is the saminess a little bit in the tempo? It's just because the songs are so fast and so like, um, like it's just punchy, like, just like bang, bang, bang, bang. When you listen to the record, it's like 30 minutes and it's over. Right. I think they're just like really channeling that, that punk energy of just like, let's not give them a chance to breathe. Totally. And also sometimes like, There's something to be said for a record that's only like half an hour long and is a little bit samey, but is kind of done in such a way that it's like, uh, like this is a set. You know what I mean? Like if you went and saw this band, this would be a set that you saw and like, that's like kind of a cool way to do it, you know, as opposed to. the concept of a record, just be like, this is like a live set that we would do with our new songs, you know? Yeah. And it's what gets the reviewers to say this record has a sense of urgency, which is their way of saying it never slows down all sounds the same. Yeah. That was pretty sick. I love that song. Frozen Heart is like ah maybe one of my favorite songs off this record. It's really, really fucking cool. Yeah, definitely heavier on the ska there than that first song a little bit. Yeah.
00:15:06
Speaker
And so let's jump into the next one SBC suicide by cop One of their favorite topics police in the military and you know working class stuff cuz Boston So the double guitars right click out a real twin guitar energy for sure And they have two vocalists that kind of trade back and forth or like over top of each other, which is always cool Yeah, very much is is kind of like a Boston version of like a Sky or Lars and the Bastards almost more than Rancid, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's actually an interesting kind of thing. I also kind of get a little bit of like Lawrence Arms in kind of that attack too.
00:15:57
Speaker
It's definitely more street yeah south than like, I don't know, I guess Rancid is kind of street punk kind of No, but what do you think is the bastards the bastards are like horse there more stream or oil, right? Yeah, there's a reason why they sound the way they do and Tim Armstrong solo stuff sounds the way it does Right because their interests are completely divided on that. Right? Yeah.
Sound and Production Quality Analysis
00:16:21
Speaker
Yeah Cool. as Yeah, that's on school too. Yeah um And then one in four is the next one that I have queued up. So we're just like burning through cruising still the same record. Oh
00:16:37
Speaker
going a little fast I like their I like their guitar tone a lot it's very yeah right yeah it's very like like oh like old-school crunchy but like still lots of definition good well I gotta look and see who who produced it actually don't know that this bus and kid flips
00:17:08
Speaker
busting so many kickflips. I was gonna say this is like a THPS song. For sure. but Or like it's a very similar in that vein. Yeah. Okay, so they produced it themselves. Wow! Isn't that cool? Good job! Which also didn't kind of maybe explain why like the pumps sound good. You know what I mean?
00:17:35
Speaker
yeah i mean if it's if they were if the people involved were already self producing stuff that sounded this good in 2008 then hell yeah like that would make a lot of sense why in 2024 that fucking palms record sounds like it's a goddamn recorded by like a million dollar studio Yeah, so good. yeah So I'm like prepping for another ah episode that we have coming up here. So i've I've been listening to a lot of seven seconds recently. And I completely missed the side one dummy era of seven seconds because I was just listening to all the old 80s stuff back in the day.
00:18:12
Speaker
It's just whatever. I was like, it can't be like that great because 80s bands in the 90s never really sound awesome. Oh yeah, you get stuck in like an era of a band. Yeah, that's all good. I was so wrong. Their 90s stuff sounds fucking killer. And again, side one dummy, man. Everything sounds good. It's like that's like the hill I'm dying on. Just every record on that label sound because they're in-house producers fucking Bill Stevenson and goddamn Joe Gittleman can't make something sound bad.
00:18:42
Speaker
No, those are two of like the most heavy hitting punk world producers there are. Like Bill Stevenson has made literally some of my favorite sounding records in the last 15 years probably. Yeah. Like the last two Frenzelrom records are like some of the best sounding punk like ever. Just like as for from a recording perspective, right?
00:19:06
Speaker
One of the things that I've really liked, and I think like maybe people can see the through line as this podcast has progressed, that I've started to put way more of an onus on like the quality of a record on the producer.
00:19:18
Speaker
because yeah either you you You know, they'll self produce and it'll sound awesome like these guys or they'll self produce and it sounds like shit right like yep Which they got better right but the first time they tried it by themselves early whoop good try again and and then they got better at it, which is interesting because there's probably a little bit of a generational divide to where like Musicians who kind of came up at a time where you like didn't self-produce like ever like that just wasn't right, you know You are you only self-produced when you were doing demos and stuff and then as soon as you were able to you had a producer to work with or whatever whereas like at a certain point you're gonna be dealing with a lot more bands that have had a lot of experience self-producing right because Home recording ever sure smaller of course do recording studios and people just DIYing became more popular and I
00:20:11
Speaker
Yeah. Well, even like there's a time when like, you know, those local recording studios that they would have would just have some in-house guy that would just produce it for you. Like you'd rent a space for five hours or whatever and there'd be some guy there that would just like half-assed the boards. and The guy with the least hourly pay. Yeah, yeah absolutely. He just like wants to be there for the experiences or whatever. Yeah. yeah Just getting his hours for his ticket. Totally. um All right, next song I have is a anchor for a drowning man.
Boston's Influence on The Have Nots
00:20:43
Speaker
haha Take that drowning man all the way to the bottom.
00:20:50
Speaker
Of course, he needs to have a song with some kind of nautical theme because Boston. You have to. You have to. You can't ship up to that place without writing a song about boats.
00:21:10
Speaker
What is it that, like, makes it sound so Boston-y? Like, that little riff was just so, like, of the area, you know what I mean? And I don't know why. Is it because this song in particular has a little, like, drop kick feel to it? This song kind of built, like, a Scott Up drop kick song? Maybe that's what it is. Yeah.
00:21:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah like you know and band and like it's like a little like folky but not quite right. Yeah, not quite there. Yeah, you know what? I think I think you hit the nail on the head. Alright, next one I got queued up poisoned antidote. Poisoned antidote. Having fun with the oxymorons there. Anchorford drowning man poisoned antidote.
00:22:05
Speaker
This one's a little more chill.
00:22:17
Speaker
have a pretty short summer in Boston, so you only get like one or two summer songs. That's the only thing about this record is it really feels like you get a year-long experience. In like 25 minutes or whatever. season Yeah, every month is like two minutes long.
00:22:36
Speaker
just like Fucking wish it was two minutes. I think spring is like fucking 20 minutes long. Oh, geez. It's got 10 seconds of famous part.
00:22:55
Speaker
Damn. Take that. I love Vivaldi. I'm saying this as a Vivaldi fan. I'm saying, but I do know the songs are fucking long because all those Baroque songs. If you're such a fat.
00:23:06
Speaker
I never see you in wearing any vaulty merch. Yeah, I guess I'm not that big. baby Name three songs. Yeah, name fall, bitch.
00:23:16
Speaker
Winter, I got four. I got four, need four. ah But yeah those in those broke songs, they have this like structure where it's like, it's it's ah the, I forget, allegro, whatever, fast, slow, fast.
00:23:33
Speaker
It has to go in that order, but each section is about five to six minutes long. So like even the four seasons is like, you know, four separate suites of those three parts, right? So they have to go through the whole rigmarole every time. Yeah. And this is pre, um, like this is, this is obviously before the way before the 1800s. So like the whole idea of like leap motifs wasn't a thing. So there was no carry forward. You'd have like a really cool, like,
00:24:02
Speaker
I don't want to call it a riff, or but like a melody. Yeah. But it would be the only time you'd ever hear it. It would never come back. That, you know what? He did that. and So you had to listen to the whole thing again. It'd buy another ticket. I want to hear, I want to hear that one part. That was like 30 seconds. You can't go back on the YouTube. You can't go back back there. You got to go. the whole school yeah ah Um, but you know what? That's how That's how sub genres get made. Someone was like, you know that one little cool part? I'm just going to do that for the whole thing. And then music changed. That's right. That's what like Bach comes along and he's like, you know, you don't need the whole string quartet. You just need a harpsichord. Yeah, man. Fuck you guys doing? Yeah. i mean Let me, let me go over this guys. Yeah. And then we eventually got to the point where, you know, hundreds of years later, it's just like, look, all we need is the slowest heaviest part for the whole song.
00:24:56
Speaker
for eight minutes you know what i mean and that's called funeral doom yes exactly that's where we're right now man ahab who only sings songs about whales man if only if only we had a shtick where we just talked about one thing we do have a shtick where we only talk about one thing joey speaking of which the song is called regression good segue
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. They're like good at writing like engaging hunky riffs. Yeah. They're not reinventing the wheel. No, but they're like, they hit me with a riff and I'm like, that's sick. Keep going.
00:25:47
Speaker
There was like two seconds of sky in there. But I made the cut.
00:25:54
Speaker
That this is also a fun idea to just do like like four bars of Ska and then just piece out on it. Yeah, totally. And like the rest of the band isn't even doing a Ska thing. It's just the one guitar is kind of doing a Ska thing. Yeah.
00:26:13
Speaker
Still counts. Still counts. You know? It's wise on the playlist, man. Up strokes are on that fucking insane ain't so so it's Scott That's you know what I talked to so many people and I know we've gone over this before but you know like I when I was into Scott, like the most of my life, right? Obviously in the in college. And it would be like, yeah, I love Scott. And people would be just like, oh yeah, like a like that like weezer and cake. And you're just like, what are you talking about? Stop should stop shoehorning your taste into my taste. They're two different things. I'm sorry, buddy. All right, next song. Used to be, we're still in Surf City, USA.
In-depth Look at Surf City USA Album
00:27:03
Speaker
Oh, sweet. We haven't, uh, we haven't changed records in one place, man. So an all inclusive resort.
00:27:40
Speaker
It's kind of like a, like a slower suicide machine song. It's kinda. I get it too, and it's about like, ah about punks too, right? Which is always fun. Yeah. Punks songs about punks.
00:27:59
Speaker
Well, it claps. Hand claps. Good stuff.
00:28:04
Speaker
You're never too cool to put hand claps into a song. Never. And they'll win me over every time. You put real hand claps in there? You know what wins me over? Whistling. Fucking love it in a song. Fucking love a whistle. Tambo? Tambo's right up there too. Tambo? I'm not as into the Tambo. It doesn't do it quite for me. If I'm more of a Stax guy than a Motown.
00:28:28
Speaker
You fire up a Tambo during the chorus. I'm in. You're in. Yeah. Oh yeah. For sure. Fire up a Tambo. Wait a sec guys. I'm going to just quickly read this thing up. Just pull on it like a chainsaw. Totally. As soon as I see that happen, as soon as that singer like hunches down by the drum kit and pops up with that little tambourine, I'm just like, Oh hell yeah. Here we go. You know, it's always like, and it's always like band that sounds like the germs or like,
00:28:56
Speaker
Dickies or something? i mean it's like Oh, yeah singing song song about butts or whatever and they come up and just Dude a tambourine song about butts that's like fucking right at the tip top of songs. I want to hear but Do you have another one or are we ready for a break? ah What was last one? We did used to be we did used to be yeah, we have one more. All right army of one. Here we go
00:29:26
Speaker
I love this song. It's one of my favorite songs.
00:29:41
Speaker
I like when the ska rhythm changes chords super fast like that. Like that's cool. That's hard to do. Yeah. There is. that's That's some difficult ska.
00:29:58
Speaker
yeah it's good they are very good at uh sounding similar to rancid without really like stepping on their toes yeah like it's not like it's very much off ivy rancid kind of rooted but it's like different enough that it's not yeah they don't want to whatever accuse them of being like like bombshell rocks is basically like a rancid cover band in a lot of ways yeah you never accuse them of being the same boat right for sure
00:30:37
Speaker
This band never make it up here? I don't think so. They were pretty regional and they only lasted for like four years. They weren't around very long. Yeah, and I guess this would have been in the period where we were like not having so many of this type of show come through because I feel like this band would have killed an Edmonton if they came through with Dropkick or something like that. This is like a band that Edmonton would have fucking like blown off the roof of a place for for sure. Which when we talk about like flat I remember I remember seeing Flatfoot 56 at Ed's when they opened for real big fish and Edmonton that was the first time they were played Edmonton and Edmonton went fucking ape shit for them. Same like scally cap mandolin like it was it's almost like the look is enough to win the crowd over like when you come up and like you you look at the band you're like that band
00:31:27
Speaker
Like ah one guy's got to have a backwards cap and then it's it's on. Absolutely. It feels at this point, it feels like it's not even generational anymore. It's just like we have just accepted what Edmonton, what Edmonton Punk is all about. Oh, for sure. It's seeped into the culture.
00:31:47
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. There's a certain style of look and sound of a band where no matter where they came from, if they're from 1994 or 2024, if they have that look and sound, they're guaranteed hit in Edmonton. It's wild. Right. Like that band Chaser, that's like, they only came out like five years ago, but they're like absolutely like crimping like penny wise. Okay. You're just like, man, if you guys ever came here to Edmonton, like they would lose their shit.
00:32:20
Speaker
There was a band, just to talk about at the beginning, we were talking about the cover band show. One of the bands played as is Pennywise, and just as I was coming in, they were playing ah perfect people. And I was like, this is my favorite Pennywise song. I've never heard a band cover this. Yeah. And I went on the wrong show. It was very sweet. All right, I think it's time for a break. And when we get back, more have-nots.
00:32:56
Speaker
Welcome back to Checkered Past. Engineer Joey and Rob Checkered Past talking about the Have Nots. So let's continue with where we left off to Muerte de Perros, I think is how you pronounce this, ah on the album Surf City USA. What's, what's dead? Something of death? Is that what it is? I don't know. I don't know. Somebody's going to Google it.
00:33:26
Speaker
Parrots, parrots, death parrots. Is it parrots? Parrots of death. Death of parrots. Death of dogs. Death of dogs. Okay. The dog says here. Death of dogs.
00:33:46
Speaker
Hopefully not you, listener. who you are which case both of you are we both them all differences opinions what makes it makes this country great but i love you your fuck vote better person who's listening yeah vote better just you're making it you're making it scary for us up here difficult. Yeah, it's not fun. That was fun though. That was fun. It's a good song. So far, there's not really a whiff on them because the songs just are so, so punchy, you know? Yeah. getting go are They're all, they all got to be like two to two and a half minutes, right? Like every song. Yeah. And we're only like clipping in like 30, 40 seconds long. Like these are short, short songs. Hell yeah. Like it. All right. like it Next we have Surf City USA. That's the title track. The title track.
00:34:57
Speaker
Both of the guitars are doing a ska thing.
00:35:05
Speaker
Yeah, the hook is outstanding.
00:35:19
Speaker
Lots of woes. Gotta get those woes in there. Surprisingly not that many woes in this foot record. Could've been more. That hurts their street punk credibility just a little bit. Just they didn't say oy or woe enough. Yeah, totally.
00:35:44
Speaker
Oh yeah. That's very nice. This is what it got me going like. This is like fucking let's go rancid, you know? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Which is like, that's my that's my jam. It's my jam. Life on wait. But anyways.
00:36:05
Speaker
We got one last song, My Way from the album Surf City USA by the have nots. Here we go. So we've played 12 songs so far.
00:36:16
Speaker
Guess how many songs are on the album, Surf City, USA? Uh, 14. 12. Oh, sweet. That's all of them. We listened to the entire record. Wow. So I assume the ah next record has less Ska because they are not 12 songs. Yes. But yeah, there's literally Ska on every single song on this record. So the Bonafides are there. Oh, yeah.
00:36:46
Speaker
Do you think My Way is one of the most, like, titles of songs that's used on the most songs? It's gotta get up there. yeah hack Every time when I have to think, is this a cover? Like, that's not good. No, and My Way, there are so many bands, this song is called My Way, and very few of them seem to be covers. I bet we've covered, like,
00:37:10
Speaker
six to ten songs on this podcast called My Way. Probably called My Way. Yeah. Yeah. Almost certainly. Yeah.
00:37:23
Speaker
Oh, they got Oregon on this one. Oh, they got Oregon. I don't know why I said it like that. They got Oregon. Yeah, that was pretty Canadian. Oh, yeah. They got Oregon. They got Oregon. The Oregon is being played by. Oh, appears to be the the guy who mixed it.
00:37:39
Speaker
and played organ for them that's rad that's fun yeah that's a that's like a fun little like uh easter egg oh hey the guy that makes this also played organ the thing he added it and they didn't know while he was mixing it he was like this needs something else they're like fuck now we gotta have an organ when we play this live oh they're just not playing it live guys that's what's happening that's the solution don't cut the organ cut the whole song cut the whole sign we play 11 songs live we don't play that 12th one We gotta write one more song if we want to write one more song. Let's do a cover. Let's do a cover of My Way. The Frank Sinatra one. So that's the record though. Serve City USA. 10 out of 10. It's awesome. Go give it a listen, listener. It's really fucking fun. i ah Yeah, am I listening like the whole thing? As opposed to 30 seconds of each of the songs. It gives you a sense. If you weren't really digging that, you're not going to get anything more from the record. That's all I'll say.
00:38:39
Speaker
but I was digging it, though. That's what I'm saying. No, I'm saying the listener. I'm talking to the listener now. Oh, OK. We're the the avatar. We're the avatar for the listener.
Introduction to Proud Album
00:38:50
Speaker
OK, but now we're going on to their second and final record from 2011. It's called Proud. This is arguably much more popular because it has their biggest hit on it. So that's this first song we have, which is called Louisville Slugger. Oh, this is the have not songs. two
00:39:18
Speaker
man just there are several pump songs that are kind of in the same vein and they would like very little that like lays out what the song is about right up right off the hop than a woman putting makeup over a bird. Like as soon as that's a line within the first three or four lines of the song you're like oh I know this one's about.
00:39:57
Speaker
The production has moved into the angry Springsteen realm for sure. This record moved into the angry Springsteen realm. Yes. Yeah. Definitely. As soon as I, as soon as like the whole mix came in, I was like, Oh yep, they're sounding like American steel.
00:40:16
Speaker
Yeah. it's ah And so that song, I don't know, it's really popular. There's something about the white knightiness of it that I don't love. Like I get the the idea like you should, you know, like obviously if somebody is a victim of domestic abuse, you should be defensive of them. But like if you're like, well, I'm just going to beat this dude with my bat. I don't know. It sounds like a thing that a skinhead would say for sure.
00:40:39
Speaker
Um, but it's also a little like I don't know It's like there's probably a better way to write a song about this subject and or maybe just don't write about it Because a bunch of dudes talking about it is also a little a little suspect, but I've heard use the bat Say again have her use the bat. That's a more compelling story yeah Actually, I'm gonna give you my Louisville slugger. Yeah beat his fucking kneecaps in. Yeah, there you go. Yeah um But that song It's pretty fucking catchy. Like I can see why people like it. it's It's a hook machine. Definitely. And just based on it, I have a pretty solid idea of what like kind of the rest of these songs are going to kind of sound like too. Yeah. And and we're. good For me and part of it is not great because we all know my opinion on the style of production.
00:41:31
Speaker
yeah we're We're three songs in and this is the first ska song. Yeah, there's much less ska. There's 13 tracks overall, only about half of them have any ska in them. So it's definitely more in the vibe of, I guess, yeah, Angry Springsteen. And mixed with like the street punkiness, like it's it's kind of a little bit more amalgamated, less of the just like, we're just playing like you know, let's go era rancid with Scott beats. ah it's ah It's just a little bit of a move in a more modern direction, I guess you could say. Right, right. Yeah. ah So the next song I have queued up is Secret Machines.
00:42:30
Speaker
Oh yeah. Like a kind of slower, kind of almost reggae-y kind of thing. That's it. But the hooks are definitely moving in that kind of like folkier vibe. yeah Almost like like a Woody Guthrie type of thing.
00:42:45
Speaker
Yeah, they've they've traded a little bit of the street for like a folksy folkiness kind of a little bit. Or against me. There's almost like a against me feel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
00:43:07
Speaker
Got a little bit of Oregon in this one, so they must not have been mad at the mixer on the last one.
00:43:14
Speaker
And try to look and see if I can get some production credits on this one. Nah, nothing. Oh, nothing really.
00:43:23
Speaker
Yeah. I wonder if it's still, I wonder if it's still self produced and they were, uh, like just kind of going for a different sound or if it's just like a different producer. That's why it sounds different. I know. Interesting.
00:43:36
Speaker
Could be. um I know they're on the same label, so it's on paper and plastic. And from what I can see, Buddy from Less Than Jake like helped with like the layout of the record. So I don't know if he was involved in the production too. um but could But also, i mean if they were that confident in producing their first record, maybe they were equally as confident with this one.
00:43:54
Speaker
Yeah, they certainly knew what they were doing. It still sounds good. like for Yeah, and and like you said, it seems like ah it's a like a conscious effort to sort of modernize the sound a little bit as opposed to a, this is just kind of how we ended up sounding. like it feel It feels like the shift in the sound was intentional. Intentional, absolutely, yeah. yeah um And here's the next song, it's Anywhere But Here.
00:44:32
Speaker
This one's almost like, got like a new lazy kind of feel. You think so? I feel like there's a little bit of an Americana in this to it. Just the way that bass line is holding like so much of the melody and it's kind of higher up on the neck.
00:44:51
Speaker
It definitely has like a train-operary-americana kind of thing going on too. Yeah.
00:45:18
Speaker
we're doing that thing where it's like the whole band is doing rock but the one guy's on guitar is doing ska again yeah which honestly we haven't heard a whole lot of i don't think like this is kind of the first band where i feel like i'm picking it out
00:45:35
Speaker
The band that does that a a lot is the Dancehall Crashers. like That was like like the band like the album Lockjaw when they had like the two guitarists. is like They did it all the time. like every It was like every member of the band decided when they were doing the ska and you would like it would be at different points of time. Just train it up. Only one person is allowed to ska at a time. We just shift it around.
00:46:00
Speaker
Like, if you listen to, like, I don't want to behave or whatever, and you're just like, I'm pretty sure this is Ska, but I'm trying to figure out which one of you guys is doing the Ska. Is it the guitar? Is it the bass player? I'm not quite sure.
00:46:13
Speaker
ah Yeah, so the one thing I'll say with these guys, though, man, songs are catchy. Like, even like, you know, record to record, like, they up the hooks on the second time. Like, they're like, we know how to make a sing along. We're gonna sing along when we sing these songs.
00:46:28
Speaker
Yeah, and they're not ah the hooks. Sometimes with kind of street punky sort of bands, the hooks are sort of repetitive or contrived almost a little bit. Like they're just sort of like traditional street punk hooks sort of. Whereas these ones are like organic and fresh sounding. Like they're like, they're well written hooks. You know, they're not just kind of reusing stuff that works, I guess, which is kind of how I feel like when I listen to some street punk sometimes.
00:46:56
Speaker
I get you. And it's back to what we were saying before where they're really trying to make the sound their own. And I think you can hear the influences, but they do sound like as as much as they can their own thing. Yeah.
Stylistic Evolution of The Have Nots
00:47:07
Speaker
And this record definitely, although it kind of moves into a Sonic territory that I'm not a huge fan of, they definitely sort of leave behind the immediate rancid comparison.
00:47:18
Speaker
You know what I mean? Yeah, I think I have a harder time comparing them to Rancid on this record than on the last one, for sure. For sure. They haven't moved that far away from their original sound, but they're wearing their influences on the t-shirt under their hoodie rather than directly onto their sleeve. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's just in a note under their scally cap. Yeah, totally. It's one of the pins on their jacket instead of the whole back patch of their jacket. Right.
00:47:48
Speaker
This next song is called Where in the World? about Carmen
00:48:14
Speaker
They should bring back games show Carmen Sandiego. I love that show, man. but get Get rid of Cartoon, Carmen Sandiego. Give me Game Show, Carmen Sandiego.
00:48:30
Speaker
I You do. I always love they call them gumshoes.
00:48:44
Speaker
I was just like a beer drinking song. Yeah. You know what I mean? This is the song that would get them on that drop kick tour, I feel like. Absolutely, yeah.
00:48:57
Speaker
They knew what they were doing. Yeah. Again, intentional, right? Totally. um and Just to circle back on Carmen San Diego for a second. So I obviously played the Broderbund game when I was a kid because I was a huge nerd and that's the kind of thing you would play when you were a huge nerd. Yeah. But my sister, Selene, she had the junior version because she was two years younger than me. And it was like fully voiced dialogue and it was like ah made to look like a cartoon.
00:49:26
Speaker
And it has one of the absolute best jokes I've ever heard, which is that there was a character named Elevator, and the the announcer was like, this is Elevator, the daughter of Ella Fitzgerald and Darth Vader.
00:49:42
Speaker
I remember it to this day. I must have been like six or something when that game was around. And I still remember that joke and love it. It probably shaped my humor, you know.
00:49:56
Speaker
Like the frickin' Carmen Sandiego Jr. had more of an impact than any real comedy ever did. that That joke walked so that the opening pun jam at the beginning of this podcast can run. Absolutely. I don't know where that all came from. It came from that elevator joke.
00:50:14
Speaker
true All right, we got a couple more tracks. This next one's called Some of Mine.
00:50:28
Speaker
Harmonica, the American Monica.
00:50:34
Speaker
Harmonica gang rise up. Please don't.
00:50:43
Speaker
Honestly, I kinda hate harmonica. Me too, I'm not a fan. I just like, what a shit instrument. Sorry, harmonica heads. I feel the same about harmonica, like a lot of people feel about bagpipes, you know how people get real angry when they see a bagpipe? I actually don't hate bagpipes, maybe because I'm Scottish, so I don't really like...
00:51:04
Speaker
It doesn't bother me, but yeah like you're genetically like like I'm genetically predisposed to enjoying it. But when I hear a harmonica, I get like, I like little i don't like it. That Rancid song that has the harmonica in it, Off-Life, Hold Late. It's like the one track on that album that I am not a fan of. It's just the harmonica.
00:51:25
Speaker
The only people who can get away with it are dudes that are also playing a slide guitar or something. You know what I mean? Or they have it strapped around. Yeah. And maybe Neil Young. I'll give him a pass.
00:51:39
Speaker
like up record card he gets the harmonica card and you have those like old fat possum blues musicians that were like 75 when they released their first record they can they can play the harmonica yeah those guys because they were probably talking about like giving 40 ounces to 12 year olds you know what i mean like i'm like yeah you can play the harmonica while you talk about that that sounds awesome that sounds awesome that that was awesome you know you got uh Whatever, of ah an ass pocket full of whiskey or whatever the fuck that's that record was called. You know which one I'm talking about? No!
00:52:15
Speaker
God, it was like is either oral Burnside or Model T Ford was one of those two guys. And I think the I think the John Spencer Blues explosion was the backing band for it. That's right. I think the record is called Ass Pocket Full of Whiskey, which is fucking so good. Like so I'm just like 70 year old blues musicians can do whatever out the fuck they want. But you got this man. You earned it. All right, we got one last song from the album, Proud, and it's called The Years.
Songwriting and Catchy Hooks
00:53:16
Speaker
The other thing with this record is it's not so like overtly political like it has like like secret machines or whatever there's a couple like super political songs but a little bit more introspective like telling a little bit more stories about like people they know a little bit yeah it almost sounds like I don't say like like sad almost yeah like more existentially sad rather than yeah like angry yeah exactly yeah
00:53:47
Speaker
This is just like a pop song. Like this is just like a like pop cookie pop song. I mean like not in a bad way. Like that's just a catchy like mid-paced rock jam. Yeah, it was pretty good. Absolutely.
00:54:02
Speaker
Yeah, and ah so so that's the entirety of the SCA that the have nots did across the two records that they released between 2008 2011 a band that like their star burnt out before it could even shine like I actually think that they're you know Easy band to have missed, easy band to forget, but one that you probably shouldn't. like they're They're really good. like A really solid band that just didn't get their shine or you know we're in the wrong place, wrong time, or maybe there's band dynamics that prevented them from blowing up any faster. i mean They all went on to do other things and you know that's awesome, but like the the band the the they're themselves, like the have-nots, absolutely both records worth a listen and it's not going to take a lot of time.
00:54:47
Speaker
Uh, how many tracks are on that second record? Cause we got 13 six. Oh, also like half of it's got Scott. Yeah. Still Scott. They had 18 Scott songs across 25 songs. So that's pretty Scott. That's pretty that's it's more than calling. I was going to say that's a heavier density than many bands that we've trombonist. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I call it the milling calling test. It's like, did they have more than milling calling then there's a Scott band.
00:55:16
Speaker
Because that's the bare fucking minimum. It is a weird metric, but it makes sense. That makes sense. The milling colon test. Did they pass the milling colon test and there's scoban? It's like the Bechtel test, but it's for scobans. So, ah which we talked about recently, or I was like,
00:55:37
Speaker
I talked about watching Conclave and I said it failed the Bechdel test 10 ways to Sunday. And somebody we were playing D and&D with was like, oh, well, that's good to know. And then somebody else was like, the fact that you're actually paying attention to it actually is probably okay. But then I'm like, well, I still haven't watched it. yeah I don't know. Just because I noticed it doesn't mean I was any better. Like it's the watch the movie that was almost all dudes.
Local Impact and Anecdotes
00:56:01
Speaker
The one last thing I'll say about the have nots is ah That our friend power up Aaron told a story on disk on our discord um Because Massachusetts obviously Aaron's been in the scene there for decades and so he said when the have nots were around They blew mines because they were the first band to sell their t-shirts for $15.
00:56:27
Speaker
whoa They broke the $10 rule that was like this like unsung rule. And he's like, man, they took such heat for that. People were like so mad at them for selling their shirts for 15 bucks. Like you just didn't do that in the scene. And he's like, turning back on that. That's so funny. Like the idea of selling your shirt for 15 bucks now is just insane. Like you never would do that. Yeah. You'd have to be getting, you'd have to get.
00:56:53
Speaker
You're screen pressing done for free in order to afford to be able to sell a shirt for $15. Even if you're like fricking like knitting the shirt yourself and then screen pressing it, that's still going to cost you more than $15. Oh yeah. yeah it's no like So in 2010, yeah, you would have had to pay 15 bucks for a have not shirt and all the punks would have been pissed. You know what though? like With the exchange rate and everything, I absolutely remember ah like in the kind of the mid-2000s being like, I'm not going over $20. It's not happening. There's no way I'm paying over $20 for it. $20 is usually expensive for a t-shirt. Most touring bands, it was like our usual or a regular shirt with like a single print was about 20 bucks Canadian.
00:57:46
Speaker
Right. But like, yeah, like now it's, geez, you're lucky to get a CD for 20 bucks. Yeah. You're lucky to even see a CD on the table. That's true too. Like, but, you know, but if you see like a big band, like a big band, like a 10 or whatever, you're talking like 50, 60 bucks. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Totally. When I went to Iron Maiden, I was like,
00:58:11
Speaker
We literally were like, we should go look at the merch. And then we walked close enough to see some prices for the merch. And we were like, ah, we could just sit in our seats and not worry about it. Because the prices were way too much money. Which is crazy. Like of all the bands, like the the big bands are the ones that should be able to print some fucking t-shirts for a decent price. Well, and I was going to say the thing with Iron Maiden too is like they generally try to make everything as cheap for possible as cheap as possible for their fans. So the reason that the t-shirts are generally 50 fucking dollars is because they also have to play in the biggest venue in town and the biggest venue in town takes
00:58:54
Speaker
a 50% merch cut so for them to make their business work they have to sell their t-shirts for a hundred dollars to get $50 out of it or what you know what i mean like and that's a good call out like like what they played rogers probably like fuck there's no way like rogers was going to like do any less than 50% maybe more you know what i mean yeah possibly like there's no other option if you're iron maiden where else are you going to fucking play Like, nowhere else they are like they already bring they already bring their own stage, backline, and airplane with them? Do you want them to bring their own venue too? Like, should they just bring a festival stage and do every show outdoors?
00:59:35
Speaker
Even then, like the best like option that they have is the fucking the fan park, which is owned by Rogers. Which still I will remind anyone who listened to us after we went and saw the No Effects last show. It's a parking lot. It is a parking lot that they call a venue. It has no facilities for anything. It is a square of asphalt with power at one end of it. yeah That's all it is. Insane.
01:00:06
Speaker
Anyway, that's the have-nots. That was good.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:00:10
Speaker
It was good. I'm i'm gonna i'm go listen to that first record again. Yeah, it's good. For sure. It's worth a listen, and it's fun. And all the songs are great, super catchy, and you're like, yeah. It's up my alley. The second one was good, too, but the first one's just kind of more my jam, for sure. Absolutely. So thanks for listening to Check Your Past. Hit us up on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok at CheckYourPastPod, or send us an email at CheckYourPastPod at gmail.com. To support the podcast, you can sign up for the Check Your Head Patreon.
01:00:36
Speaker
It's got the episodes uncut in both audio or video format, or you can buy some merch, checkerpass.ca. Our trombonuses are engineered and edited by Joey. me And our trombonus theme was provided by Keelan. Next week on the podcast, we have TBD. And until next time, I'm Rob. And I'm Joey. In the immortal words of the have nots, there's going to be a riot. It starts with this pod.