NOFX

Surfer (2001)

Damien Lynch

This was a pretty highly anticipated release, if you're a NOFX fan I mean. If you were expecting a full album with quality tracks, then you probabaly didn't like this little vinyl. I, however, was a big fan of "Fuck the Kids" (a similar 'lets stick as many tracks as we can onto a 7"')… so I was looking forward to it. The day it came out, I ordered a vinyl copy from Fat's website. Of only 200 blue vinyl copies printed out, I got one. I love rare stuff. Good times.

Anyway, let's get onto the album. They opened up with the sloppy (well, every song was sloppy - which adds to the magic) song "Fun Things to Fuck". This is a very hilarious song, which Fat Mike wrote in under 10 minutes -- which is the case for every song on the EP -- and contains lyrics like "fuck the fans of blink 182 / that's illegal if you're born in '83…"

Like with Fuck the Kids, a couple of these songs might get remastered and turned into an actual song on another album. On Fuck the Kids, that was the case with a few songs… like "I'm Telling Tim" and "Stranger than Fishin'". With this album, "3 on Speed" and "Totally Fucked" and "3 Shits to the Wind" all have potential to grow up and become quality songs. For now though, you can just enjoy their sloppy brilliance.

Other funnies come in songs like "Whoa on the Whoas" with the hilarious line "Between AFI and the Offspring / I don't think we need anyone else to sing / Anymore whoaaaas…." - and as a huge fan of both those bands, I can laugh at that. This whole album is horrible, which is why it's so fun. While you may not appreciate it unless you're a fan of their stupid humor, you have to admit its an interesting idea. 14 songs on one 7" in about 11 minutes. NOFX may be old, but they're still going strong with creative ideas like this one.