Sweatin' to the Oldies: The Vandals Live

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Sweatin' to the Oldies: The Vandals Live
Sweatin' to the Oldies: The Vandals Live cover
Live album & video by The Vandals
Released 1991 (re-released 1997)
Genre Punk
Length original: ~58:10
re-relsease: ~1:06:37
Label Triple X Records
Kung Fu Records
Producer(s) Warren Fitzgerald
Professional reviews
The Vandals chronology
Fear of a Punk Planet
(1990)		 Sweatin' to the Oldies
(1991)		 Live Fast, Diarrhea
(1995)


Alternate cover
Slightly altered cover of the 1997 special edition re-release
Slightly altered cover of the 1997 special edition re-release

Sweatin' to the Oldies is a live album and video by the southern California punk rock band The Vandals, originally released in 1991 by Triple X Records. It consists of a live concert recorded at the Ice House in Fullerton, California, as well as interviews with the band members and an overview of their history. The original version was released both on CD and VHS. With most of their back catalogue out of print, the album and video were seen as a retrospective of the band's past, as performed by its most recent stable lineup.

Throughout the set the band performs all 6 songs from their 1982 debut EP Peace Thru Vandalism, as well as a few songs from their first album, 1984's When in Rome Do as the Vandals, and a few from their 1990 album Fear of a Punk Planet. Notably absent from the set list are any songs from their 1989 album Slippery When Ill, which was composed primarily of country-style songs. Partway through the song "Wanna Be Manor," the band breaks into a cover of the song "Superficial Love" by TSOL, another Orange County punk band who were contemporaries of the Vandals in the early- to mid-1980s.

In 1999 the CD album was re-released on the band's own Kung Fu Records label. This "Special Edition" re-release contained 3 bonus tracks not on the original release, which were recorded live on college radio station KUCI 88.9 at the University of California Irvine just prior to the release of their 1996 album The Quickening. The video was re-released by Kung Fu in 2002 as a double-disc DVD with additional performances, band commentary and other bonus material.

Contents

[edit] Track listing

  1. "Anarchy Burger (Hold the Government)"
  2. "The Legend of Pat Brown"
  3. "Join Us for Pong"
  4. "Pizza Tran"
  5. "Master Race (In Outer Space)"
  6. "Wanna Be Manor" / "Superficial Love" [originally performed by TSOL]
  7. "Mohawk Town"
  8. "Ladykiller"
  9. "Girls Turn 18 Every Day"
  10. "Hey Holmes!"
  11. "H.B. Hotel" [originally performed by Elvis Presley]
  12. "Pirate's Life"
  13. "Summer Lovin'" [originally from the musical Grease]
  14. "Urban Struggle"
  15. "Teenage Idol" [originally performed by Ricky Nelson]
  16. "(But Then) She Spoke"*
  17. "N.I.M.B.Y."*
  18. "And Now We Dance"*

*Tracks 16-18 appear on the 1999 special edition re-release only and were recorded live on KUCI 88.9 at the University of California Irvine.


[edit] Performers

[edit] Album information

[edit] Song information

All information listed here is derived from song lyrics, album liner notes, and band member interviews and commentary (particularly those in the video Sweatin' to the Oldies: The Vandals Live).

  • "Anarchy Burger (Hold the Government)" (The Vandals)

"Anarchy Burger" uses a hamburger as a metaphor for the tenets of anarchism and describes several humorous ways by which one can express one's belief in anarchy. The song gained renewed interest when it was mentioned and some of its lyrics quoted in the 2002 Vin Diesel action movie XXX.

  • "The Legend of Pat Brown" (The Vandals)

The song describes a friend of the band who was a notorious drunk known for causing mayhem, and who once intentionally ran over some undercover police officers in a parking lot outside a punk show. Other exploits of Pat's mentioned in the song include robbing a massage parlor after the masseuses there refused to perform sexual acts on him, and various other robberies.

  • "Join Us for Pong" (Joe Escalante & Warren Fitzgerald)

This song is about the home video game Pong, and compares playing it to an act of rebellion.

  • "Pizza Tran" (The Vandals)

This song is the story of a Vietnamese girl named Tran who delivers pizza in Orange County. The narrator in the song has a crush on her.

  • "Master Race (In Outer Space)" (The Vandals)

Employing a bit of historical fiction, the song imagines that, at the end of World War II, the Allied powers had put all the Nazis in rocket ships and exiled them to a secret base on the moon.

  • "Wanna Be Manor" (The Vandals)

This song describes the squat houses frequently inhabited by many punks in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas in the early 1980s and the conditions found there. Partway through the song the band breaks into "Superficial Love," an anti-government song originally performed by TSOL, an Orange County band who were contemporaries of the Vandals in the early- to mid-1980s.

  • "Mohawk Town" (The Vandals)

"Mohawk Town" parodies the animosity that existed between skinheads and punks in the Los Angeles and Orange County punk scenes of the early 1980s by describing an old western showdown between the outlaw Mohawk John and law enforcer Marshal Skin.

  • "Ladykiller" (The Vandals)

The song parodies funk and hip hop music to some degree. It describes several characters who go downtown for various reasons and wind up in a fight at a bar. The lyrics sung in this performance are a mix of the lyrics from the original version of the song found on the 1984 album When in Rome Do as the Vandals and a newer version titled "(Illa Zilla) Lady Killa" that appeared on the 1989 album Slippery When Ill.

  • "Girls Turn 18 Every Day" (The Vandals)

This song tells of a man's troubles with his girlfriends, but he is encouraged by the fact that more girls are turning 18 (the legal age of consent) each day.

  • "Hey Holmes!" (Joe Escalante, Warren Fitzgerald & Chris Lagerborg)

The song plays on rap and gang slang words.

  • "H.B. Hotel" (Presley, Durden, Axton)

A parody of the Elvis Presley song "Heartbreak Hotel," with altered lyrics. While the original song pined for the protagonist's lost love, in the Vandals version his pain turns to anger at his former girlfriend for, among other things, giving him an STD, and he describes ways in which he imagines harming her physically.

  • "Pirate's Life" (The Vandals)

This song describes the experience of riding the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland while taking the drug LSD. The band members, especially Escalante, frequented Disneyland as youths, and over the years several more songs would appear on the band's albums dealing with Disney characters and attractions. Several vignetes from the ride are mentioned in the song.

  • "Summer Lovin" (Joe Escalante, Jim Jacobs & Warren Casey)

A parody of a song from the musical Grease. In the original version, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John's characters tell conflicting stories of their summer relationship. While the woman's story tells of a sweet and innocent romance, the man's version is much steamier and full of machismo as he attempts to impress his friends. Underneath, however, it is obvious that they are both infatuated with each other. The Vandals' version begins with the "he said/she said" male/female vocal tradeoff of the original, but then the man's voice takes over and tells his friends how he slept with the girl and then left her. He also tells of other sexual conquests and how he gives the girls a fake telephone number and address. In the end, though, the woman has the last laugh as the man seems to have found someone he generally cares for, but then she leaves him for someone else.

  • "Urban Struggle" (The Vandals)

This song depicts the fighting that occurred in the early 1980s Los Angeles and Orange County punk scenes between the punk rock fans who congregated at a Huntington Beach club called the Cuckoo's Nest and the country music fans who gathered at nearby Zooby's.

  • "Teenage Idol" (Jack Lewis)

A cover of a song originally performed by Ricky Nelson, who was himself a television and music star and teen idol. It tells of the difficulties of being a young person in the spotlight.

  • "(But Then) She Spoke" (Warren Fitzgerald)

This song describes a girl that the singer finds very attractive, but upon speaking to her he finds her to be vapid and very distasteful.

  • "N.I.M.B.Y." (Joe Escalante & Warren Fitzgerald)

"N.I.M.B.Y." is an abbreviation for the phrase "Not in My Back Yard," which was commonly used in the 1960s and 1970s in reference to the construction of nuclear power plants. Many Americans wished to reap the benefits of nuclear power, but because of their fears of radiation and other hazards they did not want them built anywhere near their cities and towns. Hence the phrase "not in my back yard." In this song the same phrase is used by townsfolk in protest of G.E. Smith, the guitarist of Hall & Oates and musical director of Saturday Night Live who wishes to move into their town.

  • "And Now We Dance" (Warren Fitzgerald)

A slightly nihilistic and anarchistic song.

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