Various - No Approval Needed

Yep, it really is my yearbook photo.

When  I was 16, I went on a one-semester student exchange program in the US (upstate New York, to be more precise). This was basically the best thing that had happened in my life up to that point; the only way it could have been better was if I had chosen to stay for the whole year (which I could have, but didn't, because I was a pussy). I went to an American high school and sat at the nerds-punks-and-freaks table at lunch; I had punk rock friends who had purple hair and cars with which they took me to great underground punk shows and cool parents who let us stay up all night and watch "Clerks" and "Chasing Amy" on the VCR and discuss important life topics because by that point we had it all figured out. I was living in an American teen movie and man, it was the COOLEST time I ever had. This compilation of 23 then-promising, now-obscure bands is one of the tapes that was the soundtrack to this time - well, it was originally a CD, but I had it on tape that my friend Kimb made me ("short for Kimberly, but spelled like DUMB"), and this is a rip of that very 15-year old tape. OK, two of the bands did escape obscurity - Bigwig and Straight Faced both signed for Fat and made it relatively "big", if I'm not mistaken - but I don't think I have ever heard of any of the other bands again. And like all the stuff that I listened to too much because of outside factors (getting a tape stuck in a friend's car's radio made Avail's "4AM Friday" one of my favourite punk albums for driving), I love this tape way more than it probably deserves. Except for a few oddities (the brilliantly-named Squid Vicious with their fun surf-influenced instrumental; Last Day Excuse with their rather embarrassing hip-hop/funky/RHCP-wannabe track), most of it is your standard '90s melodic-but-snotty punk rock of the Epitaph/Fat variety, with some songs being quite nice, and some really great, like Bigwig's track from their debut CD, or the wonderful Screeching Weasel-y "Indie Rock Girl" by the mysterious Pushovers (a Google search for the band + song name yields nothing but the track listing for this CD), or Torture Kitty, Bickley, the wonderfully stupid "Adam Eating" by Kung Fu Grip... Ah, it's a great CD, there's no other way around it! I've actually seen Bigwig around that time somewhere in NY and it was a great, small but packed show; I also remember going to see Reach the Sky and Blood for Blood at a 2 PM matinee for under-21's, promoted with black and white A4 posters made in MS Word... Too bad I don't care much for those bands so I can't really brag about it in a "during the war..." manner - except now, I guess. But anyway, enough rambling, here's the tape:

Track listing:

1. Whitekaps - More Punk (1:43)
2. Bickley - Communication (1:57)
3. Dinosaur Salad - Lifestyles (3:31)
4. Latch Key Kids - Last Ride (3:24)
5. 30footFALL - Boogers for Brains (2:05)
6. Torture Kitty - Problem with Me (2:07)
7. Easy Way Out - My Day (0:36)
8. Splat - Sidewalks (2:30)
9. Sad Pygmy - Dumb as Nails (1:54)
10. Bigwig - Best of Me (2:23)
11. Jimmy Dong & The Human Blockheads - Individual (1:43)
12. Straight Faced - Lit (2:38)
13. River Fenix - GBOH (3:16)
14. The Pushovers - Indie Rock Girl (2:58)
15. Clutch Cargo - 40 oz. (2:08)
16. Mr. Yuck - Their Narrow Minds (3:55)
17. Kung Fu Grip - Adam Eating (2:31)
18. Vitamin - Personality (3:00)
19. UTI - Change Your Minds (2:31)
20. Moobar - Good Food (2:40)
21. Squid Vicious - Deep Eddy (live) (2:59)
22. Yellow 5 - Depression (3:13)
23. Last Day Excuse - What Should I Do (2:22)

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