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Who Would've Thought

If you're into collecting punk (all sub genres [and some metal in the mix]) records and looking for some stuff that may be off the beaten path Forbidden Beat Distro on IG may be of interest to you. Jimmy was running it by himself for a minute (and expanding my Cure collection exponentially), then he took a break for a minute before coming back recently (I believe with a partner) with some absolute bangers in stock. A few weeks ago he posted some records that I was quite interested in, one was on my list, the others weren't on my radar. Of the ones that wasn't really on my radar was Rancid's Life Won't Wait Demo's. When I slid the post over to see the back of the album I saw that one side of the LP was the Silencers...now that got my attention. Cut to a handful of days later and my order came in, I threw on the Silencer's side first because the lore of the Silencers really intrigued me (it's Rancid with a few other notable musicians, the one that made me really interested was Vic Ruggiero [Slackers]). It's good, I was thinking it'd be more ska but the Silencers was almost split between rock/punk and ska if not a bit more rock than ska..it's more straightforward than I thought it would be. When the Silencers side ended, I flipped on the Rancid demo's side, which absolutely blew my socks off. Life Won't Wait is one of my favourite Rancid albums, the music is cohesive yet quite varied with more ska (or ska adjacent) influence than their other albums...so I'm not really sure why I wasn't expecting the demo's to bang, but dang. They weren't just rough early mixes/versions, the demo's are ripe with ska influence, but that's not really what pulled me in, it was the use of piano instead of organ and (I think I'm naming/hitting this influence properly) skiffle feel to the songs. What I consider to be the Vic influence was even more prominent on the Rancid side than the Silencers. There were different vocal melodies in some of the songs (compared to the LWW proper versions [I really noticed it on Cash, Culture and Violence {and really dug Matt's background vocals}]). Go listen to these demos and if you can get a copy of the LP you won't regret it. 

My wife brought home a bag of Kettle Brand Potato Chips (Limited Edition) Sweet & Spicy GoChuJang flavoured chips. Having no clue what GoChuJang is I had no real expectations for these chips, other than the words sweet and spicy. They have a scent that almost smells meaty, buy like spiced meat. The chips are mid weight kettle cooked, decent crunch. I think I'm tasting tomato in the seasoning mixed with something close to chili powder. They're mid to mid low levels of heat, I'd say like a 4/10 max. There's a bit of sweetness, but it's mostly in the background. Maybe some onion and garlic. Some smokeyness. I finally looked at the ingredients, it doesn't mention tomato but does note red bell pepper, I guess I can see that. Not quite what I was expecting based on the sweet and spicy tag, but a somewhat unique chip flavour that would fit into the bbq family. Pretty good.

Stay hydrated,
Marc

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