I can't think of a punishment much worse than being forced to go to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. Don't get me wrong. I can live with the songs that were in Forrest Gump and Dazed and Confused. After all, I did come of age in the nineties, but come on. Let's get serious. In my prejudiced mind, when I see you walk down the street wearing a Skynyrd tour t-shirt, I'm thinking you failed the litmus test for having any intelligent social or political values, never mind having decent taste in music.
Admittedly, my hatred for Lynyrd Skynyrd has much to do with the modern incarnation of the band. Half the friggin' band died in a 1977 plane crash (including singer/songwriter Ronnie Van Zant). So, when you go see Skynyrd today, you are seeing two out of seven members of the '77 lineup. You're seeing a band that makes up for their lack of current relevance by pandering to the redneck fan base that is foolish enough to give them the time of day. They play the Republican National Convention. They drape the confederate flag all over their merchandise. They've made their sound less rock, more country - perfect for actually finding a place for airplay on Country Music Television.
They write songs like Red, White and Blue where coattail rider Johnny Van Zant (Ronnie's brother) sings "My hair's turning white, my neck's always been red, my collar's still blue, we've always been here just trying to sing the truth to you. Yes you could say we've always been, Red, White, and Blue."
Damn Johnny, you're a poet. Wait, it gets better.
"Ride our own bikes to Sturgis. We pay our own dues, smoking camels, drinking domestic brews."
Smart Sturgis reference by Johnny considering motorcycle rallies, where they play for actual regular Joes, are big gigs for Skynyrd. He forgets that he fell into a goldmine of a gig and didn't pay any dues, but what the hell.
The lyrical gold continues with "My Daddy worked hard, and so have I, paid our taxes and gave our lives to serve this great country so what are they complaining about. Yeah we love our families, we love our kids. You know it is love that makes us all so rich. That's where we're at. If they don't like it they can just get the HELL out!"
We've got your basic love it or leave it crap. Johnny talks about the evil "they." This "they" must be people that actually read a newspaper or watch the news on occasion.
Maybe Skynyrd was a good band at one time. Maybe not, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Now they're a bunch of old dumb asses in leather cowboy hats that look like they should be downing Old Milwaukees at the Moose Lodge instead of being in a "rock" band. Even worse, they're making a buck off a legacy they didn't write and drumming up interest by embracing conservative white trash values.
So, if you were wondering if I want to go to that big Skynyrd show, I think I'll pass.
Growing up in Wyoming, I actually was lucky enough to be exposed to great music. Granted, none of it actually came from Wyoming, but my friends and I immersed ourselves in indie rock and punk. What else is there to do in a small town? Get loaded? Well, we probably did that too, but we listened to lots of good music. Unfortunately, good rock shows rarely came around, and any local music scene usually consisted of some crappy bedroom band that some friend of a friend was in.
In the spring of '98, when I read that the Donnas and the Groovie Ghoulies were coming to Casper, I was totally excited. Now, I wasn't exactly a fan of either band, but I sure was a fan of their record label. Lookout! Records had released some of my favorites by Screeching Weasel, Operation Ivy and the first few Green Day albums. That was enough for me to criss-cross the state with a few friends to make it to that all-ages show in Casper.
The opening bands were almost beside the point. We missed the first band, Laramie's Homeless Wonders (featuring a pre-Teenage Bottlerocket Ray and Brandon Carlisle). We made it to the show just before the Lillingtons took the stage, but we weren't concerned. I might have heard their I Lost My Marbles 7", but I honestly didn't pay much attention.
That all changed when the Lillingtons took the stage. The lights weren't even turned down as they played. They didn't look like much, but they blew the crowd away. The songs had a Ramones influence, and unlike many bands this influence obviously wasn't derived from a lack of talent. This wasn't a cheap parody. These guys obviously had love for this type of music, and the entire crowd was won over.
Afterward, the Donnas and the Groovie Ghoulies almost seemed like an afterthought. I was amazed that some band from Wyoming that almost no one had heard of was so much better than these bands that were getting national attention. I bought Shit Out of Luck, the CD the Lillingtons had for sale that night, and drove the two hours back to Gillette. I had to get back to college, so the next day I spent four hours driving from Gillette to Laramie. I listened to Shit out of Luck the entire way. I realized that my ears hadn't fooled me at that show. The Lillingtons were great, and not just great for being from Wyoming. To me, Shit out of Luck seemed to have this idealistic, fun view of 50's culture as seen through the eyes a guy that probably had as much luck with girls as I did, which would mean none at all. With that songwriting and that voice, I knew the Lillingtons from Newcastle, Wyoming, population 3,000, were going places.
I spent the following year telling anyone that would listen about how great they were, and it didn't take long before my friends were all Lillingtons fans. I even emailed Lookout! Records head Chris Appelgren (He didn't reply, but I won't let my ego become too bruised because, based upon the majority of the output Lookout! produced since he took over the label in 1997, I don't think he'd know a hit record if it hit him in the head).
That next year while I was gracing University of Wyoming students with my writing in the college newspaper, the Branding Iron, I met a guy who worked on our website who had gone to high school with two of the guys in the band back in Newscastle. I made sure to inform him of their genius, and didn't think much more of it. He approached me one day and told me that he was surfing around on Amazon one day and discovered that the Lillingtons had a new album coming out. I looked online and saw that it was being released on Lookout! Holy shit, I was doing backflips. This was great news. So, being the ace reporter I was, I called up Lookout! and found out that the record was being distributed by Lookout!, but was actually being released by Ben Weasel's new Lookout! imprint, Panic Button Records. So I called up Panic Button and they gave me Lillingtons frontman Kody Templeman's phone number. I arranged with Kody to drive to Newcastle and interview them in their rehearsal space, which was in the old Newcastle radio station building. The results of this interview were printed in the UW Student magazine, Frontiers, and I also wrote a full page review of Death By Television on the front page of the Branding Iron entertainment section (If I can actually find copies of these, I'll post them on here.)
So, in the years that followed, people outside Wyoming found out about the Lillingtons. How could they not have? I'd say that Death By Television was one of the very best punk rock records of the nineties. Dig around on the Internet a little bit and its isn't too hard to find people who feel the same way, whether it be legends like Fat Mike and Ben Weasel or some kids arguing on message boards. Lyrically and musically, the songs were tighter than ever. Explaining its greatness would require me to ramble much much more than I already am, so if you already don't have a copy or three get on it right now. Unfortunately, the band never got a big push, and they didn't tour much. They released The Backchannel Broadcast in early 2001, and not much else was heard from them. As great as they were, I thought they deserved to be full-blown groupie shagging, MTV Cribs featured rock stars. I'd heard they were all busy working day jobs and were saying the band was over, so I was a bit sad.
After years of no news, the last year and a half have been great. The band finally put their pre-Panic Button releases from small Clearview Records back in print via the 3-CD set Technically Unsound. The set includes a live album and unreleased tracks, but I was most excited for the inclusion of Idiot Word Search. Prior to this release, the Lillingtons half of the Idiot Word Search split LP had only been available on vinyl. This is one of the best things the Lillingtons ever did, and for years I had been stuck listening to a crackly copy a friend had recorded onto CD (actually I still listen to that crackly copy, but it's nice to have a proper copy). Technically Unsound is already somewhat difficult to track down, but scouring eBay for a copy is definitely worth your time.
Clearview also released Get Wrecked, a one-off CD from Sack, a band led by Kody that had more of a straightforward booze-fueled style. The album had been sitting around for awhile, and before its release, bootleg copies were going for a ridiculous amount.
As a fan of what Kody did with the Lillingtons, I was most excited when I heard he joined Laramie's Teenage Bottlerocket. The Carlisle brothers formed TBR in 2001, having given up the ska and progressive tendencies of the Homeless Wonders for a sound that more resembled the Lillingtons and the Ramones. The change worked and they released a great album on their own called Another Way. With Kody on board for 2005's Total, people started paying attention to Wyoming punk rock again. Total was good, damn good! The band got signed to San Francisco label Red Scare Industries, and the album was actually easy to find at Internet CD stores and download sites (Do yourself a favor and go get a copy right now.) TBR has actually toured the past few summers as well. Last June I saw them win over a crowd at the Ottobar in Baltimore (just as I thought with my first Lillingtons show, I thought they blew the other bands off the stage that night).
Red Scare also re-released the Lillingtons' Panic Button/Lookout! releases. The Lillingtons were actually among many bands (including Green Day, Operation Ivy, Avail and Screeching Weasel) that pulled their releases from Lookout! after years of label mismanagement had resulted in late or missing royalty payments. Death By Television even got remastered along with the re-release, and although I'd argue this is completely unnecessary, if it helps sell a few more copies, I'm all for it.
That brings us to right now, the fall of 2006. While not promising a full-on reunion, the Lillingtons recently got together to record The Too Late Show, which Red Scare recently released. I'm practically doing backflips again. Guitarist Zachary Rawhouser is handling more of the songwriting duties, but lyrically, the songs are still perfectly inspired by late night television and regular guy logic in the way the last two albums were. Musically, the album is a mix of catchy but ballsy nuggets that made Death By Television so great and the cleverly dark sound of The Backchannel Broadcast. The mix works. If anything, I want more. With 11 songs clocking in under 24 minutes, the thing is over before you know it, but it's a damn good 24 minutes.
I haven't been back to Wyoming in a few years, but I continue to be proud that music that matters as much as the Lillingtons and Teenage Bottlerocket came out of the old home state. Let's hope it keeps on coming.
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