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So you all know that I’m generally a metalhead and/or rivethead, depending on the day and my mood. But you may be surprised to learn that, like most people back in the early to mid-90’s, I listened to a lot of Sublime. Not because I necessarily sought it out, but because it was on constant rotation somewhere in the dorms at any given time. So while I can’t say that I was ever a huge fan, Sublime did provide a not-insignificant part of the soundtrack to a very fun time in my life so I look back on them with a certain degree of fondness.
Fast forward 30 years. My old college roommate calls me out of the blue a few weeks ago after we haven’t talked in 5 years. Says they just built a brand new outdoor amphitheater right by his house in Colorado Springs and Sublime is playing there in August. He’ll buy tickets for both of us if I make the trip. I haven’t listened to or paid any attention whatsoever to Sublime in decades, but figured that it’d be fun nostalgia and a good excuse to have a few beers with an old friend. So I’m making the trip to see them in early August.
To my huge surprise, a brand new album from them popped up today. Cool! Decided I’d give it a shot and see if it was at least fun and catchy like their stuff from three decades ago.
Oh. Oh no.
Yeesh, this new stuff is remarkably bad. It’s not even fun in the “that’s something catchy to play in the background” sense. It’s more like “ew, someone really needs to go change that station”. The music itself is dull and repetitive and the lyrics have all the maturity and depth of 12-year-old hopped up on Monster Energy Drinks. An example that literally made me LOL in the first song:
And as the day is long
Somethin’ I can promise y’all
That if I was the motherfu(kin’ President
I’d hire twenty strippers for my cabinet
Maybe that’s what Sublime has always been and I was simply more tolerant of it 30 years ago, but I listened through the album once today and have exactly zero desire to ever sit through it again. Methinks I’m gonna need lots of beers to get through that show in a couple months.
This was the only tolerable song that didn’t want to make me want to dump bleach in my ears.
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In a way, your story about Sublime reminded me of an episode of “Dead Like Me” where Mason got to reap his Punk Rock hero. 
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That’s funny, because when I was in training one of my classmates was a huge Sublime fan, and he kept giving me s*** for being a “Deadhead.” Endless banter. Nothing bad, just constant needling about how tired the Dead were, requisite hippie jokes and all that kind of stuff. Then, one day, he was Rocking Out out to a song called Scarlet Begongias, which apparently was one of Sublime’s hits, and I said “Oh, that’s a great song! Do you like it?” He was like like it? Dude, I love it. This band rocks…“Yeah, well, it’s a great song because that song was written by Grateful Dead.” Silence ensued.
He actually didn’t believe me.
Had to look it up on google.
What a putz.
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We saw Bad Religion last summer (AMAZING show) and they played “We’re all gonna die from our own arrogance” off their first album, which Sublime covered at one point.
After their set we were hanging out on the crowded patio having a beer and the guy we went with said, very loudly, “I can’t believe Bad Religion played a Sublime cover. That was so cool! ”
I swear it was like one of those record scratch moments in movies as everyone got quiet and gave him a “dude, are you serious?” look while we slowly slunk away in shame. 
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interesting music mix between NIN and Hans Zimmer.
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I’m not sure how, as I thought I knew every song they ever recorded, and I have the album this song is on, and remember every other track, but somehow, I sort of missed this tune when it was written and originally release, and just discovered it watching the rooftop concert on youtube in the last few years. Regardless, it’s a great tune; better lated than never…
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I believe that was a written tune from Lennon/McCartney ressurected from very early teens
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as it is now Drum Corps season again, here are two of my favorites:
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My wife gave me tickets for my recent birthday, for tonight’s Red Butte Gardens Concert Series performance by Wynton Marsalis and his current traveling band. I am familiar with Marsalis, but mostly from many early recordings I have of his in the early to mid-80s. I"m not at all familiar with any of his more recent stuff.
This was the most exciting Jazz Music I’ve heard live in decades. I had no idea he had come so far particularly with his Jazz compositional capabilities. I was blown away!
I’ll have a lot of his more recent recordings very soon, and I’ve learned that everything I knew in the 80s and 90s, and before, does not begin to define the Jazz genre of today. Time to begin to catch up!
What a night!
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I’m so happy you had a great time @salUTE. Nothing but respect for Wynton and the entire Marsalis family. I have posted this prior, but this documentary will make anyone who was in junior or HS band will cry tears of joy over this documentary. Wynton is a quote machine throughout
Here’s a great clip of Brandon Marsalis discussing his experience playing wit Grateful Dead compared to other jazz legacies.
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Always enjoy Branford, that was a LONG time ago.
Watching Chops is on my todo list.
A couple more comments on the performance at Red Butte:
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Late in the first set, a massive wind blew down Red Butte Canyon and took all a LOT of the sheet music from the stage and blew it dozens of yards away. They found an abbreviated finish to the tune and let the stage for what felt like an early intermission. They returned after an announced delay “due to concern for the weather”. I was certain, after the early performances that most of Marsail compositions REQUIRED sheet music, unlike many small jazz ensembles. I had been blown away by the “prescribed irregularity” of the way they played even standard 12 bar blues, or 32 bar song form tunes. The tunes and their performances were MUCH more composed, in structure than my history with Jazz bands.
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I kept noticing that everyone near me in the audience, “got it”. They weren’t just listing and enjoying, they were musicians. At the break, I spoke with the guy to my left who wa a flugelhorn player who had studied at the U, starting in 1974 when Wolking was still running the department. At the end of the show, I spoke to the guy to my wife’s right, who turned out to be a drummer that had spent time in the Westminster College program under Ladd McIntosh, somtime in the early 70’s
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My Jazz claim to fame is that in 1974, as a high school senior, our voluntary, non-credit early morning Hillcrest High School Stage Band entered the Reno Jazz festival (which was actually fairly prestigious then
) and while the stage band was only moderately successful, I and a group of my close friends took the 1st place small ensemble award (we were competing against all high school and college entrants). We learned on the bus on the way to Reno that there was a small ensemble category. I composed a tune, and played guitar, my two best friends at the time played bass and drums and we enlisted the best trumpet and tenor sax players to join the ensemble, practiced on the back seats of the bus, performed the tune once, and won the category. I cannot recall the changes or the melody, but I do have (somewhere) a couple of photos of a crazy group of young hippies collecting the award.