Dead Fucking Last: Proud to Be...

Dead Fucking Last: Proud to Be...

1995

Epitaph Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Proud To Be DFL  2. Word Of Mouth  3. Lost Cause  4. Return Of The Knucklehead  5. Mr. Popular 6. Function At The Center 7. Home Is Where The Heart Is 8. Hit The Floor  9.  Club Stupid 10. Minus Adam  11. Better Off Dead  12. S.B.C.G.  13. Free Haircut  14. Society's Pressure 15. Self Pity 16. Action Everybody 17. Sourpuss  18. Insane Authority  19.
Good Cop, Bad Cop  20. What's The Difference 



I consider the mid 90's to be the golden period for Epitaph Records....There was no Screamo or Mall-Punk in sight, and the label was putting out insanely popular albums by Rancid, NOFX and the Offspring, but most of the lesser-known bands were just as good...



I mean, listen to those first couple "Punk-o-Rama" comps...They were incredible! And one of my favorites of those lesser-known bands was DFL (Dead Fucking Last)...

Anyone who's read this blog knows that 80's hardcore is one of my favorite genres, and this record is a loving re-creation of the era...Everything about it is spot on: Breakneck tempos, cracked backing vocals, fucking decent break-downs,..It sounds almost exactly like when the Beastie Boys tackle hardcore, probably due to Ad-Rock's involvement  (he played bass on the band's first album and produces this one in the same gritty, black & white, New York hardcore production style)...

What made the album so memorable was that underneath all that blurred aggression, this was some catchy shit...Once you hear the title track and "Society's Pressure" just try getting it out of your head....Best of all though is "Function at the Center." Maybe it's because I arrived at  hardcore via metal, but I love crunchy, mid-tempo hardcore songs, and the use of dub echo on the vocals is a nice touch...

 Sad these guys weren't around longer...I bought the cassette-only"DFL Tape Show" that came out a coupla years after "Proud to Be..." 

BTW, it's insane to me that the "cassette-only" genre is making a comeback...I'm holding out for the return of digital cassettes, though...

...Around the time of the "Tape Show,"  DFL released another album called "Grateful" that I still haven't been able to find a copy of...

Which is a real bummer cos I never got to find out what the song "300 Lb. Mushroom" was all about...Maybe it had something to do with this, eh? Eh?

 Damn, sorry this post isn't very long today...I guess I don't have much to say about DFL...For some reason I'm having trouble pontificating too much on a bunch of 1 minute hardcore songs, but to fill things out here are a bunch of random words strung together to look like an extra paragraph:

Yarn, blowfish gum wrapper ink-pen banana peel. But will Tuesday sucker punch you today? My guess is whoo-ha diddly widdly bumper-car bindle-boy. Shoes, shoes, where are my shoes? The answer is news, news, newspaper, news. Number 10 whizz-bang oaf-boy bringer-of-bad-clam hambone.  How much for house keys when the floor mats are free? Freedom is a beaded bracelet to which no wrist must ever cling too freely...How much musk melon is too much mushed melon? 

Here's "Function at the Center" Enjoy...