GOOD
RIDDANCE – Remain In Memory: The Final
Show, Santa Cruz, California (Fat Wreck Chords)
Many years ago, I had the misfortune to be
the guy charged with booking Chixdiggit for
a friend’s wedding. To save the married
couple some money, I put the ungrateful Canadians
up at my house for three miserable days that
turned into a band I loved musically into
people I hated personally.
In 1997, the same thing happened with Good
Riddance, when our local alternative weekly
rag asked me to write a preview article on
GR before their show in my hometown. While
No Use For A Name and the Mad Caddies both
called in for their quotes as opening acts,
Good Riddance never bothered. I took that
opportunity to posit the question as to whether
the band’s vegan diet had left them
so withered and tired after their nightly
45-minute sets that they were just too drained
to do anything else – like promote their
shows.
Frankly, that was merely a slap at the band’s
career-long misguided support of PETA,an organization
that believes my uncle should have been denied
the pig’s heart valves that saved his
life, or that I, recently diagnosed with skin
cancer, should be denied my meds which are
derived from horses (who never get skin cancer
despite constant sun exposure.)
I always admired Good Riddance for their
many political stances (even if some were
misguided,) and their sheer tenacity at touring
small clubs, selling small amounts of records,
and being generally underappreciated and overlooked
while bands like Sick Of It All and CIV were
doing the same things musically but with a
little more compromise and a lo more profit.
Since I was on tour when Good Riddance played
the gig I was promoting for them, I didn’t
get to see them play; but on my return weeks
later, I was regaled with quotes from local
scenesters who told me that Good Riddance
had taken such offense at the article in question
that they had asked several locals where I
was, where I lived, and that they were gonna
“kick my ass.” Which all seemed
reactionary and overblown to me; I couldn’t
understand how a politically pacifist band
would threaten a journalist with physical
violence over a few comment. I took note,
and our paths didn’t cross for several
years.
In
2000, the band toured with Anti-Flag and my
friends Strike Anywhere, and were coming to
Chapel Hill, NC where I was working at the
time. Speaking to the Strike Anywhere boys
prior to the show, they told me that they
had brought my name up in conversation to
Good Riddance, who again reiterated a disdain
for me and repeated their physical threats
(over some comments in a preview article!)
So when the show happened in Chapel Hill,
the Strike boys put me on their guest list
under my real name and only introduced me
to GR as ‘Johnny.’ I admired them
while watching their backstage behavior for
teasing openers Anti-Flag for their “gift
list” on their website, where the band
was basically soliciting presents from fans.
But as I listened to them talk, I began to
realize the threats to me had to have come
from two members of the band who both candidly
shared a couple of show-related stories with
a violent, thug-like bent, more akin to something
a member of the Cro-Mags would be telling
backstage than the quasi-pious vegan politicos
in Good Riddance.
All that said, the band has gone with Chixdiggit
(and Helmet, the Unsane, Sham 69, Leftover
Crack, and others) in my “Great Band/Shitty
People” file. While I question some
of the band’s agenda where stuff like
PETA is concerned, and I heard them tell Strike
Anywhere to their faces they were only chosen
to be on tour for their Pollstar numbers (which
tracks attendance at concerts,) and they have
at least two members who still imagined their
jobs to included some warped punk West Side
Story gang-member mentality, I have always
had a great respect for this band musically,
and particularly for their longevity.
Forever fucking against the grain since 1995,
this band has released seven full-lengths
on Fat Wreck Chords, and the usual plethora
of singles, EP’s, comp tracks, etc.
The band decided to play a final gig to a
sold-out crowd in their hometown of Santa
Cruz on May 27 of last year, the entire 31
songs of which are captured here. What is
so apropos of a final show is that the band
does song from their last proper full-length
(2006’s My Republic) all the way to
songs from their first demo cassette. While
live albums often fall flat sonically, the
one gets a remix from The Blasting Room Studio’s
super-duo of Jason Livermore and Bill Stevenson,
and packs a punch like you were standing right
next to the monitors.
While we always knew bands like the Misfits
and Ramones were total thug imbeciles making
great music, GR is a band that always cloaked
their personnel’s cretinism behind smart
lyrics and a tight hardcore sound. While even
their most ardent fans couldn’t argue
that the band’s departure after 12 years
leaves any sort of palpable gap in today’s
punk scene, this release does hit all the
highlights of a really good band’s important
career. And for all the fans that couldn’t
be there for the final show, this is the best
farewell note you could hope for. Just don’t
criticize them in any way, because even though
they’ve broken up, like the jocks on
the football team, they will still kick your
ass!!!
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