SNFU
FYULABA (Epitaph)
by Dave Liljengren
If not for ska core, I would have killed myself long ago. Now that I’ve heard it, I consider myself on a mission. Those hell-bent guitars, searing bass lines and crashing drums form the soundtrack to a baby boomer killer spree. We’ve got to weed out boomers before they retire and we spend every waking minute working just to make enough for their Social Security checks. We must hit the obnoxious ones first. The boomer who needs killing most, Geraldo Rivera, will never know what hit him.
In dreams I am on the set of Geraldo for the taping of a show called “People Whose Lives Were Ruined When They Wept Openly on TV.” I feign having a question for the toothless white trash he has dressed up as a panel. He approaches me with a cordless mike and I say, “I don’t have a question. I have a comment really,” and pick up a tire iron from the floor. I smuggled it into the studio by inserting its entirety into my anus, walking stiffly, and saying, “That’s me, boys. Football wound. I got a pin in my hip,” when the entranceway metal detectors beeped at my arrival. Geraldo blankly points the mike at me as I raise high my tool and begin to swing. Recovering my senses suddenly, I realize I could never kill another living thing, not even Geraldo, not even myself. I confess this to the audience. They clap. Geraldo refers me to the counseling service necessitated by his guests. His internal Nielsen detector senses a ratings bump. He smiles. His mustache spreads like a California Condor’s wings in flight. The following week my gripping saga of brinksmanship, confrontation and redemption is booked on Jenny Jones (the woman with the most obviously fake smile in the world), Sally Jessy Raphäel, Gordon Elliott, Dick Bey and the rest. My fifteen-minute fame timer tocks its way to merry obscurity. And then I wake up.
As I was saying, and just as parents nationwide have feared for decades, SNFU‘s recent CD, FYULABA (Epitaph) is the perfect soundtrack for such mayhem sprees, particularly “Bobbitt,” where SNFU sarcastically discusses the firm career options and film career shortcomings of the notorious crime victim/defendant/porn star. The most colorful of these include, “sausage.” A song whose title is even more self explanatory is “Better Than Eddie Vedder.” Don’t hold it against them. “You Make Me Thick” takes on bulimia with absolutely no tenderness. This isn’t the movie of the week after all.
Sonically, SNFU gets down to skankin’ business from the first note and never stops, not even for comic relief of a more obvious sort on a tune like “Dean Martian.” Hailing from Vancouver, Canada, the singer has a clipped, stand up formality about his vocals reminiscent of the Social Distortion dude. Guitars growl with angry aplomb as bass lines bomb the musical landscape. There may be a faster drummer in the Western Hemisphere, but not at a price my money can buy. This CD is rock solid through all 14 songs and 33 minutes. Find some budget cigarettes and give FYULABA a listen.
