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B.G.K.: Jonestown Aloha LP (1983, Vögelspin Records / R Radical Records)
This week we’ve been experiencing our annual brief but glorious glimpse of California weather here in North Carolina. Living in the South my whole life, I’ve learned to savor this fleeting moment between winter (which, to be fair, usually isn’t too bad for us) and the scorching summer heat that will make existing outdoors all but impossible until October. I’ve been sleeping with the windows open, drinking my morning coffee on the back porch and, for the first time in many years, dusting off my skateboard.
I’ve been thinking about skateboarding for a while. I skated regularly until my early 30s, when I drifted away from it, for fear of injuring myself and not being able to play music. Lately, though, a few of my friends have been getting back into skating, and I felt jealous. Then I was at the Zorn show in Richmond the other day and I ended up talking to my friend Justin about skating for a while… I met Justin in high school at my first DIY punk show and he’s about the same age as me (it was his first DIY punk show too), so I figured if he could do it, then I could too. It took me a minute to get going because the only shoes I owned were boots and running shoes, but last week I scooped a new pair of Vans and rolled into an empty parking lot to fuck around. It took about 2 minutes to realize how much I missed it. I keep thinking about this sample on Spazz’s La Revancha LP, when someone asks this kid, “What do you love about skateboarding?” And he answers, “the motherfucking god damn freedom.”
Skating has made me want to listen to hardcore, because those two things go together like peanut butter and jelly. I’ve listened to a bunch of rad records since the first time I went out, but one I hadn’t touched in a while is B.G.K.’s first album, Jonestown Aloha. For a band whose discography consists of three fucking killer records, B.G.K. doesn’t get the love they should. Jonestown Aloha is a scorcher, though. It’s B.G.K.’s catchiest record, smoothing out some of the rough edges of the more blistering White Male Dumbinance EP and more streamlined than the more ambitious Nothing Can Go Wrogn. The songs are lean and mean, most of them around a minute and a half long, making their way from a catchy main riff to a chanted chorus and back with no room for fiddly bits. “Race Riot,” “Arms Race,” “Pray for Peace and Kill for Christ…” classics abound.
I have little information on B.G.K. Maybe that’s why they don’t get talked about as much today, because there isn’t too much information about them on the internet and their members aren’t making fools of themselves on social media, selling busted ass merch, and doing lifeless reunion tours (at least as far as I know). But every B.G.K. record rules. Hardcore rules. Skateboarding rules. Get out there and have some fun if you can, because the clock is ticking.