The Cokie Monster
Vet punkers NOFX stop in Pomona on their run for the border
By: David Jenison
With a laugh, he adds, “Nothing happened at the time, but it will probably be a cancerous growth in a few years.”
NOFX returns to the IE this week for a show at the Fox Theater in Pomona. Though they probably won’t be ducking falling lights again, the band will be gearing up for the Mexico-Central America tour that starts the following night in Tijuana and heads as far south as Panama. Overall, this is just the latest jaunt in what’s been a very active year.
The band, rounded out by drummer Erik Sandin and guitarists Eric Melvin and El Hefe, started 2009 with 25th anniversary concert celebrations and the release of their 11th full-length, Coaster. NOFX spent the summer on the Warped Tour and headed to Australia and New Zealand with Bad Religion, and they preceded this tour with last week’s new Cokie the Clown EP.
“Some girl called it Cookie. Do I look like a cookie?” laughs Mike. “These are songs that didn’t feel right on Coaster. It is like the Wolves [in Wolves’ Clothing] album. The [Never Trust a] Hippie EP was the outtakes, and it’s better than the album and that might be the case with this one, too. Cokie has a cool feel to it. The EP is shorter, and shorter is always better.”
Fat Mike hedges on that last remark when reminded of the band’s 1999 punk opus “The Decline,” which clocks in at over 18 minutes. “You make a good point,” he says. “The Subhumans did [the 17-minute] ‘From the Cradle to the Grave,’ and we had to beat that.”
The new five-song EP features classic NOFX punk like “Straight Outta Massachusetts” and “Fermented and Flailing,” but the Cokie highlight is an acoustic version of “My Orphan Year.” This Coaster track remake is about Mike losing both parents in a short period of time.
“‘My Orphan Year’ is the saddest song and the most honest I have written,” he explains. “It was intense writing a song that talks that much shit about one parent and expresses so much love for the other. There is another song called “Mother,” the first I wrote since the album, and it’s almost harder to listen to. It’s about the time she asked me to kill her, and I said I would. It’s about my mother dying from ovarian cancer, and I get personal.”
Mike looked back in another way this past Thanksgiving week as well. Accompanying the EP to the retail racks was Fat Wrecktrospective, the first Fat Wreck Chords box set anthology. Mike started the label 20 years ago to put out NOFX albums, and the label soon found a life of its own as the home to several pivotal punk releases.
Mike notes, “My favorite thing is that the set has all the old demos. I loved going back and listening to the original versions of songs like Good Riddance’s ‘Flies First Class,’ which is better than the record. There’s also NOFX’s ‘Punk Rock Elite,” which was supposed to be on the Fuck the Kids EP. The original is hilarious because it’s really bad. Some of the songs feature different lyrics in different parts.”
Still, Mike is most proud of what’s missing from the collection. He continues, “We have been a label for 20 years, and the set shows that we never signed emo or ska or metal. We never went with the flavor of the month. We get different bands like Mad Caddies and Against Me!, but it’s all based in punk rock.”
So what does it mean that NOFX is 25 years old and their label 20? There might be more reflection like “My Orphan Year” and Wrecktrospective, but the band certainly hasn’t gotten any more mature.
“We’re old now, but we don’t act or look that way,” laughs Mike. “We still act like a bunch of 14-year-olds.”
NOFX with Mad Caddies, Dead to Me at the Fox Theater, 301 S. Garey Ave., Pomona, www.foxpomona.com, www.nofxofficialwebsite.com; Fri, Dec. 4. Doors open at 8PM, $27.
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