(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Operation Ivy were a ska-punk band from Berkeley, central to the Gilman St scene, the same that produced Green Day and Mr T Experience. They were in fact one of the most influential bands of that scene, perhaps the one that triggered its explosion. They broke up after releasing only the EP Hectic (Lookout, 1988) and the album Energy (Lookout, 1989), later collected on the CD Operation Ivy (Lookout). The six lightning-fast songs on the EP had the explosive drive typical of hardcore, street chants to be shouted at the top of one’s lungs such as Junkie's Runnin' Dry and Sleep Long, but Here We Go Again, Yelling In My Ear, and Healthy Body used ska as propulsion, and the result was irresistible. The album also showcased considerable instrumental skill: the ska-surf instrumental Bankshot is a minor masterpiece, and Bad Town is a syncopated song with jazz clarinet and a pop melody. The playful tone of the ska ditties (Sound System, Smiling, Freeze Up, Artificial Life) and of some novelty songs (Bombshell) complemented the many choral anthems with echoes of the most desperate beach-punk of ten years earlier (The Crowd, Jaded, Knowledge, Vulnerability, Gonna Find You, Big City, Missionary).

After the breakup, singer Jesse Michaels disappeared from the scene (he would return ten years later at the head of Common Rider), while guitarist (and now singer) Tim “Lint” Armstrong and bassist Matt Freeman recruited a new drummer and formed Rancid. Rancid were less original than Operation Ivy, because they drew on riffs and melodies heard dozens of times in the annals of rock, but they made up for it with exuberance, a sense of humor, and catchiness that had no rivals in that scene (they were dubbed the Rolling Stones of Gilman St, with Green Day as the Beatles).

The single Battering Ram is only a taste of this overwhelming style. Driven by the glorious Hyena and influenced by Poison Idea, the self-titled album of summer 1993, Rancid (Epitaph, 1993), unleashes sixteen dynamite songs that make history. Their chemistry is as simple as it is sophisticated: on one side Armstrong’s rockabilly-style guitar slashes, on the other a frantic rhythm section powered by Freeman’s phenomenal bass and Brett Reed’s manic drumming (ex-Smog); on one side Armstrong’s torrents of slogans, on the other Clash-style epic choruses and the ironic counterpoint vocals of the others. The somewhat clownish frenzy of Adina is the first sign that something important is happening on Gilman St. The conversational boogie of Outta My Mind breaks completely out of conventional patterns and announces a new era for punk-rock. Even the angry snarl of Hyena uses syncopated tap-dance rhythms and Clash-style choral refrains that are not typical of Californian hardcore. Rats In The Hallway rattles along at breakneck speed, but the focus is that agitated vocal register. There is something immediately different, yet deeply faithful to punk ethos. The band immerses itself in the desperate marginalization of punks with the street poem Rejected, the pivot of a punk-operetta of drunkenness, stabbings, and clashes with the police. Yet Armstrong rarely limits himself to hoarse shouting over epileptic noise like other punks: the music is already a cut above average for its humor, melodic flair, and epic/grotesque tone.

On the spring 1994 EP Radio Radio Radio, second guitarist Lars Frederiksen makes his appearance. The harangue of Radio (co-written with Billy Joe of Green Day) and the sarcastic round dance of Dope Sick Girl fuel the legend. Above all, the lineup refines its compromise style.

Let's Go (Epitaph, 1994), recorded live over four days by a band expanded to a quartet thanks to the addition of a second guitarist, is the album of consecration: twenty-three songs in the most simple and canonical punk-rock tradition (more British school than American hardcore), played and sung in one breath, twenty-three memorable choruses fired at full speed, each more martial than the last. In the year that consecrates Offspring and Green Day as national radio stars, Rancid present themselves as the incorruptible bards of the true spirit of the genre (rebellious but also playful). Their anthems are called Nihilism (the track that debuted the Armstrong/Frederiksen vocal harmonies that would become their trademark), Burn, and above all Salvation, all driven by solemn melodies and visceral riffs that hark back to the barricades of 1976. Tenderloin and Gunshot mock adolescent romantic troubles with ironic chants and dizzying rhythms. Let's Go and Ghetto Box launch spectacular full-volume charges. Motorcycle Ride and St Mary are rare examples of fiery rock and roll modeled on the breathtaking “call and response” of Summertime Blues. Side Kick and Midnight are tragic ballads of life in the dangerous streets of the modern metropolis. The record is practically perfect, one of the all-time classics of punk rock. At least Gunshot, St Mary, and Side Kick rank among the genre’s greatest masterpieces. But it is a banner before it is a record. As Black And Blue thunders, “For all the souls they broke, mine never cracked.” As they shout in Solidarity, “Set me free with a bullet and a gun.”

In August of the following year came And Out Come The Wolves (Epitaph, 1995), an even more melodic album, propelled up the charts by the Clash-like cadences of The 11th Hour, the power-pop progressions of Roots Radicals (a passionate tribute to reggae), the almost Merseybeat vocal harmonies of Ruby Soho, and above all the boisterous ska number Time Bomb, one of the most fun songs in all of punk rock. The album opens and closes with old-school hardcore (Maxwell Murder, The Way I Feel), but that is merely a nostalgic gesture—much like the nods to the Operation Ivy myth in the ska tracks Daly City Train and Old Friend, and in the melancholy elegy Journey To The End Of The East Bay. The present is something else entirely. Frederiksen, Freeman, and Reed form a powerful, tightly knit rock and roll trio.
Rancid become the new leaders of punk humanity, ready to shed the mask of suburban clowns and don the uniforms of militants.

Life Won't Wait (Epitaph, 1998) features a loud and eclectic production (dozens of musicians, including piano, Hammond organ, and horns) that makes it sound more mainstream than punk, and causes it to lose the overwhelming drive of previous albums. Bloodclot is the only old-style blast, a typical Clash-like anthem, while the other tracks experiment with new song forms. Leicester Square, for example, is another Clash homage but with eccentric rhythms. Even the ska of Life Won't Wait and Cranefist is filtered through a more “songwriterly” sensibility rather than that of a street prankster. By distorting the genre, Armstrong paints paradoxical hybrids, even bluegrass (Lady Liberty) and funk-metal (Cash Culture And Violence). Few songs stick to a simple structure—basically only the passionate fanfare of Backslide and the heartfelt ballad Corazon De Oro.
Armstrong and Frederiksen above all refine the art of delivering their lyrics: the dialectic of their vocal harmonies, reaching new levels of complexity in Coppers, marks a step beyond the Jamaican rap-style “call-and-response” monologue. This album is somewhat their London Calling, the record in which they shed their roles as street jesters and mature as musicians. But emphasis (worthy of Springsteen, proving that, mutatis mutandis, nothing has changed in proletarian rock) and experimentation are not enough to make good songs.