Band: RANDY
Genres: Punk / Skate Punk / Melodic Hardcore / Indie Rock / Garage RockRelated artists: The Hives, Asterisk*, The Lost Patrol, Franky Lee, Heffa Klump and Stacs Of Stamina.
Country: Hortlax SWEDEN
Years Active: 1992-present?
Song: "Now and Forever"
Album: "You Can't Keep a Good Band Down"
Year: 1999
For fans of: Choke, Satanic Surfers, Propagandhi, Tricky Woo, Jet, Gob, Osker, Venerea, Cigar, Millencolin, Raised By Apes, Donuts n' Glory, Belvedere, Captain Everything!, Adhesive, Astream, Diesel Boy, Dynamite Boy, The (International) Noise Conspiracy, Abhinanda and The Hives.
Label(s): Fat Wreck Chords / Burning Heart Records / Epitaph Records / Ny Våg / Ampersand Records / Dolores Records / Jimco Records / Victor / Rugger Bugger Discs / Locomotive Music / G7 Welcoming Committee / Inya Face Records / Cage Match Federation / Startrec / Stereodrive! Records / Tralla Records / Busted Heads Records / Must...Destroy!!
This post's artist is from the December 2016 Mix. This is track #7.
This post's artist is from the December 2016 Mix. This is track #7.
RANDY was a band that I was in love with from 1998 to 1999. The Swedish skate punk turned indie rock band boasted two vocalists and very mature songwriting from a lyrical perspective as well as an uncanny ability to create insanely memorable songs with biting, introspective, political and socially conscious messages.
The band's early material, aka the debut 'There's No Way We're Gonna Fit In', doesn't do anything for me and is the adolescent version of what was refined and perfected on 'The Rest is Silence' with a fantastic mixture of lightning fast skate punk with some melodic hardcore and metal influence. I happened across this gem in a Barrie punk shop when visiting high school friend's cottage in late 1998 after being unable to find it at local cd stores for months. The band explained that they had attempted to write the fastest skate punk album ever, and preceded Canadian legend Choke's 1999 masterpiece 'Forward' by three years. The lyrics are overwhelmingly political and delivered in a nearly shoved-down-your-throat kind of manner, but considering I agree with pretty much all they sing about it's no bigee. "At Any Cost" is punk rock perfection with crunchy, melodic palm muting and extremely political lyrics that really gets going after the one-minute mark. It's really fucking catchy and I find myself singing along every time I listen and was most likely the last song they wrote for this record. "Where Our Heart Is" was my first introduction to the band, most likely via the G7 comps. It opens with fingertapping craziness and moves into typical skate punk RANDY afterwards, weaving the metal gods in now and again. On "Kiss Me Deadly" there's an awesome part of this cover of Lita Ford's original where "job" becomes "yob", and this is actually a really fucking good cover and I find myself singing along every fucking time. P.S. the ending sounds like Adam Sandler joined the band in the studio. "Whom to Blame" is a pretty damn epic song for RANDY and the obvious choice for the album's finale. It has a darker tone to it and the finale has a wicked breakdown with some hilariously yet well placed vocals.
'You Can't Keep a Good Band Down' was released in 1999 and was a huge turn for the band as they went for riffy indie rock as opposed to their lightning quick skate punk. The second track "Little Toulouse" is hella catchy and was made into a music video (which seems to have been pulled from youtube), with it being very obvious that RANDY had shed their punk skin (musically speaking) and adopted a rock persona instead. "The Exorcist" great lyrics albeit perhaps a bit cheesy in retrospect while "Me and the Boys" is a rock ready riff factory and would be a fitting drunken raw raw song. "Epidemic Ignorance" is probably the catchiest and most 70s stadium rock oriented song that the band Jet must have heard early on in their career and then cloned it, although I think I may be the first to have pointed this out. "Superstar" is another catchy as fuck song that should have been a single but the lyrics would have angered the entire pop industry. "They Fear Us" is a fantastic song and the intro was what my brother and Luke Hoskin from Protest The Hero used to dance to in our basement. "You are What You Fight For" is a very relevant song right now, and the bass is great along with those beautifully layered dual vocals that close out the song and can be heard again on "Now and Forever". Closer "Working Class Radio" could be used in a punk rock broadway play, whatever the hell that means.
RANDY then went garage rock and at that point (2000+) I was getting hard into Hopesfall, The Blood Brothers and screamo in general so I cut ties with the band. Check it out if you liked the direction they were going but itching for lo-fi recordings.
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DISCOGRAPHY
1993 - No Carrots for the Rehabilitated & More cdEP/minicdLP
1994 - There's No Way We're Gonna Fit In cdLP (download here)
1994 - Ska EP cd/7"EP
1995 - Refused Loves Randy split cdEP (w/Refused)
1995 - Education for Unemployment cdEP
1996 - The Rest is Silence cd/12"LP (download here)
1996 - At Any Cost cdEP
1998 - Out of Nothing Comes Nothing 7"picdiscEP
1999 - You Can't Keep a Good Band Down cd/12"LP (download here)
2001 - The Human Atom Bombs cd/12"LP
2001 - I'm Stepping Out 7"EP
2001 - I Don't Need Love cdEP
2001 - Summer of Bros cdEP
2002 - The Heebie Jeebies 7"EP
2002 - Cheater cd/7"/10"EP
2003 - Welfare Problems cd/12"LP
2004 - X-Ray Eyes cd/7"EP
2005 - Randy The Band cd/12"LP
2005 - Razorblade cdEP/dvd
(1999) RANDY - "Now and Forever" (from 'You Can't Keep a Good Band Down')
(1999) RANDY - "Epidemic Ignorance" (from 'You Can't Keep a Good Band Down')
(1999) RANDY - "Superstar" (from 'You Can't Keep a Good Band Down') official music video
(1996) RANDY - "Whom to Blame" (from 'The Rest is Silence')
(1996) RANDY - "Where Our Heart Is" (from 'The Rest is Silence')
(1996) RANDY - "At Any Cost" (from 'The Rest is Silence')
(1994) RANDY - "Education for Unemployment, Lesson 1" (from 'There's No Way We're Gonna Fit In')
(1994) RANDY - "Humanalogism" (from 'There's No Way We're Gonna Fit In')
1994 - Ska EP cd/7"EP
1995 - Refused Loves Randy split cdEP (w/Refused)
1995 - Education for Unemployment cdEP
1996 - The Rest is Silence cd/12"LP (download here)
1996 - At Any Cost cdEP
1998 - Out of Nothing Comes Nothing 7"picdiscEP
1999 - You Can't Keep a Good Band Down cd/12"LP (download here)
2001 - The Human Atom Bombs cd/12"LP
2001 - I'm Stepping Out 7"EP
2001 - I Don't Need Love cdEP
2001 - Summer of Bros cdEP
2002 - The Heebie Jeebies 7"EP
2002 - Cheater cd/7"/10"EP
2003 - Welfare Problems cd/12"LP
2004 - X-Ray Eyes cd/7"EP
2005 - Randy The Band cd/12"LP
2005 - Razorblade cdEP/dvd
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(1999) RANDY - "Now and Forever" (from 'You Can't Keep a Good Band Down')
(1999) RANDY - "Epidemic Ignorance" (from 'You Can't Keep a Good Band Down')
(1999) RANDY - "Superstar" (from 'You Can't Keep a Good Band Down') official music video
(1996) RANDY - "Whom to Blame" (from 'The Rest is Silence')
(1996) RANDY - "Where Our Heart Is" (from 'The Rest is Silence')
(1994) RANDY - "Education for Unemployment, Lesson 1" (from 'There's No Way We're Gonna Fit In')
(1994) RANDY - "Humanalogism" (from 'There's No Way We're Gonna Fit In')
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RANDY additional links
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