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NOFX

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NOFX is a skate punk band from California, USA. They were formed in Berkeley in 1983 and relocated to Los Angeles shortly after by high school-aged "Fat Mike" (real name Mike Burkett), Erik Sandin and Eric Melvin and use a high amount of "comedy" in their songs.

Contents

Name

The root of their name is commonly attributed to the Boston Hardcore band Negative FX, and Fat Mike has stated that the name has no relation to the Straight Edge movement. The band's 1992 release, White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean, has a joke blues-jazz cover of Minor Threat's "Straight Edge". The band has always been political but have become more pro-active with their left wing views in recent years, as is evidenced by songs such as "No Fun in Fundamentalism" and "Idiot Son of an Asshole".

NOFX are also known for their strong anti-mainstream attitude. They have disallowed radio play of almost all of their albums, and have disallowed repeated requests by MTV to play their videos. Despite this, NOFX has retained a relatively large fan base, which they point to as proof that you can be famous without selling out.

Career

NOFX's first release was a demo from 1983, produced by Germs drummer Don Bolles, which did not sell any copies. They released their self-titled debut EP NOFX on Mystic Records in 1985, which later resurfaced in 1992 on the Maximum Rocknroll CD.

For a year, Erik Sandin left the band and was replaced by Scott Sellers, then Scott Aldahl. Dave Allen was with the group for about 4 months until he died in a car accident. In 1986 the band released "So What if We're on Mystic!" Dave Casillas joined the band on second guitar in 1987 and was featured on the EP The P.M.R.C. Can Suck on This!, a title attacking the PMRC's call for censorship of music. The original cover was an edited S&M photo, but when re-released changed to a photo of Eric Melvin.

Dave then left the band and was replaced by Steve Kidwiller (also known as Steve the Caucasian). They recorded Liberal Animation in 1988 with Brett Gurewitz from Bad Religion. The album was re-released in 1991 on Gurewitz's label Epitaph Records. NOFX had signed to Epitaph by 1989, releasing their second album S&M Airlines.

By 1991, there had been a lot of changes to the band. However, the original three members had reunited and Aaron Abeyta (aka El Hefe) joined to round out the present line-up.

It was not until the 1994 release of Punk in Drublic that the band had a popular breakthrough. The album went half-gold (the only other recording artist to have a half-gold record was Donny Osmond) in the same year pop-punk entered the mainstream with The Offspring's Smash and Green Day's Dookie. NOFX never matched the popularity of other punk bands due to their refusal to sign with a major label, and are among those who achieved popular acclaim in the mid-1990s and still kept their hardcore punk fanbase who reviled other bands that were perceived as sell-outs.

Since 1994, they have consented to very few interviews and have made only few music videos. However, Fat Mike once did an interview for Guitar World in 2003 giving his opinion on the pop punk bands rising at that time. Fat Mike was also interviewed by Australian radio station Triple J in 2004. Their official website features a Q&A section, where they answer questions sent in by fans. Updates have not occurred to the Q&A section, but the archives can still be browsed. NOFX have continued to release independent records throughout their career. An extensive, nearly 20 page interview was done for a 2003 issue of AMP Magazine. The band released The Decline, a fiery and pessimistic social commentary, in 1999. Having a duration of 18 minutes and 23 seconds it is nearly the longest punk song to date, second only to "Yes Sir, I Will" by Crass, which spans more than 22 minutes.

In 2003, NOFX released a CD entitled War on Errorism, an album of snarky political songs. It became the start of their anti-Bush campaign and a rallying point for liberal punks. One song from the album, "Separation of Church and Skate" was featured in the 2003 video game, Tony Hawk's Underground. Since the CD's release, Fat Mike organized the website Punkvoter.com, compiled two chart topping Rock Against Bush CDs on the Fat Wreck Chords label, and kicked off a Rock Against Bush nationwide tour. Their emergence on the political scene has not faded after the election.

The band has also released many EPs (Fuck the Kids, The Longest Line) on Fat Mike's own label Fat Wreck Chords. In February of 2005 they launched the NOFX 7" of the Month Club, a subscription-based service which saw the release of one new EP about monthly from February 2005 to March 2006 (a total of 12 releases). The cover art for these 7-inches were chosen from fan-submitted entries, from which the band selected one submission for each month's record. Billed as "A year long documentation of their songwriting process," the first 3000 subscribers to the club received all of their records on coloured vinyl.

NOFX have recently finished an album of new material, Wolves in Wolves' Clothing, released on 18 April 2006. On March 14, an EP entitled Never Trust a Hippy was released, containing two songs from Wolves in Wolves' Clothing.

Past and present members of NOFX

Current lineup

Former members

NOFX Discography

Studio albums

EPs

Live albums

Splits

Compilations

Videos

Music Videos

[Yahoo! Music]

External links

 

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