Every Summer Day (MP3)
Hitler's Brother (MP3  )
(Backlash 003) - 11/9/78


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Inside Sleeve
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Every Summer Day (LP version) (MP3)
Slavedriver (MP3)
(Bomp 126) - 1979

All these songs appear as bonus tracks on the CD "LA Explosion"
Click here to buy "LA Explosion" from Amazon

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Every Summer Day (Joe Nolte, August 1976)

I wanna go back to when the world was free
When all my friends were just like me
Southern California 1963

Baby do you wanna take a ride with me
Down to the sand and the waves and the surf and the sea
The sun is out, the waves are breaking big
Baby baby say you'll take a ride with me

And we'll run
Under the summer sun
Ride the summer waves
Every summer day

I got a brand new car and I can take you around
To where the action is I'm gonna take you down
To Hermosa Beach 'cause the gang's all there
And I know that you can make it with your long blonde hair

Then tonight
We can make the scene
Down where the lights are bright
I think you know what I mean

New vibrations
Across the nation a new generation
We're feelin' the motion
A new education

Now I'm here – right where I wanna be
You know this kind of life is lookin' good to me
Dan't wanna grow up, I never wanna leave
Getting old is only gonna bring me misery

Let me stay
Right here with all my friends
The world is ours today
I hope it never ends

I'm gonna follow that sun
And I'm never gonna stop having fun
And nothing's ever gonna change my world
And I'm never gonna lose that girl
...

This girl I knew (who shall be identified as "L" a little later) was a few years older than I, and had gone to see the Beach Boys play at the grand opening of Wallach's Music City in Torrance in late 1963. The Beach Boys at that time were poised to become the biggest group in the country, and 1964 looked promising.

Then the damn Beatles hit.

Now, for me and many others, the Beatles were a necessary diversion after the horror of the JFK assassination. All this girl could think about, however, was "Oh shit – this is gonna destroy the Beach Boys".
Which, relatively speaking, it did.

Judging by recent interviews, Brian is still stewing over it.

So I started with that, and used the "last summer" of '63 as a general allegory for the folly of thinking that youth will last forever. Some 20 years later I don't feel as if I've quite become an adult yet, but I'm quite sure it's coming.

Anyway, it's a tragedy, a very sad song in the guise of a simplistic summertime homage. We almost got Brian Wilson and Dean Torrence to sing backup vocals on the album version, but schedule conflicts got in the way. Pity.

—Joe Nolte
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Hitler's Brother (Jack Reynolds, Spring 1978)

Down in Germany
Back in 1933
There used to live a man
Who looked like Charlie Chaplin
About him we all know
What about his brother though

Ooo Hitler's Brother - ooo what a lover

The war went on and on
While the country sang his songs
They were fighting everyone
While his brother got it on

He split with Himmler's wife
Back in 1945
He hasn't been seen since
Not with anybody's mince
...

This was actually written by our drummer, Jack Reynolds. We were practicing one day and Jack just started spontaneously pounding out the beat and singing this thing – it had come to him on the spot. Recognizing an instant classic, we threw a couple of chords together (literally – this song has only two chords!), and boom – instant song. Ended up as the B side of "Every Summer Day," but unfortunately the acetate got dropped and the result was an annoying scratching sound all the way through the recording. We therefore made it the B side of the "L. A. Explosion" single, as well.

Flipside at the time asked "What's up with the English accent?"

Well, Jack Reynolds is, indeed, from Britain. The accent was genuine.

—Joe Nolte
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Slavedriver (Joe Nolte, February 1978)

I got no time for you time
I got no time
I got no time for you, Mr. Slavedriver

You shout out your directions from the back of a coach
You look just like a shriveled, overgrown cockroach
You always act the same
And if you had your way
I'd work the hardest and you'd get the most

A fraction of your loot would pay my yearly wage
You ruin lives as easy as I turn a page
I hate your mocking bray
I hear it every day
I've got about as much compassion for the Bubonic Plague

Go away, Mr. Slavedriver
Don't want no more Slavedriver
...

Basically a tongue in cheek homage to all bosses. I started out pissed off against my current boss, but was unable to keep the song serious, for obvious reasons. There is an obvious "oh shit" just before the instrumental, so it was rather bizarre when KROQ started playing the thing in the fall of '79. Wow, swear words on the radio.

This was evidently a favorite of the early fledgling O.C. punk rock kids, who used to chant it while skateboarding.

—Joe Nolte
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