For the fifth edition of the "AntiCurrent.com Archives", a
collection of rare albums I'm releasing through this blog, I'm releasing the demos for my FAVORITE album of all time. Click here to view all past AntiCurrent.com Archive Albums.
This is an exciting post for me as Rancid is one of my all time favorite bands and LWW is hands down my favorite album of all time. In 1997, I was 13 years old and living in my hometown of Middletown, Ohio where there was fuck all going on. I was still figuring out exactly who I was as a person and looking for some kind of direction to take my life. It was that January that the movie "Beavis and Butt-Head: Do America" was released, and forever altered the course of my life. In it was a sequence where they used the song "I Wanna Riot" by Rancid W/The Stubborn All-Stars and I was immediately breath-taken. "What the fuck is this music" I wondered. It was loud, angry, talked about rioting.... but it was fast paced and had horns.... it was like nothing I'd ever heard and it was just what a pissed-off little 13 year old me needed.
This being the days before the internet, I immediately went out to CD Connection at the mall and guilt-tripped my father (with what a shit parent he was) into buying it for me. The soundtrack was mostly amazing, but I really just kept "I Wanna Riot" on a constant loop. It wasn't long before I went off in search of more material by this band, Rancid.... Unfortunately, living in a one horse town didn't lend to there being any sort of diverse taste available at your local store and I couldn't get my hands on ANY of their material without special ordering it for a 15% up charge on the product, and being 13, I had zero money.
I kept on a steady diet of readily available music at the time, got huge into Nirvana, huge into the Seattle scene, but was always alluded by the inability to track down any Californian based punk rock... at least that was until Rancid dropped a little album titled "Life Won't Wait" in 1998. I walked by the FYE in our mall and spotted the LWW album, not only in stock, but on the "listening machine" where you could demo the album. I was broke, but I stood in front of the machine for a solid hour and a half listening to every track of this genius piece of music. I returned a few days later with money I had either begged for or stole, purchased the album, declared my self a punk-rocker, and have yet to look back.
Fast forward to years later, I started to get heavily into the bootleg scene. Not bootlegged, readily available albums, that is just fucked up, but I became a huge collector of B-Sides, rarities, and demos. I read on some forum that a guy who's username I will not publish had not only the demos for the album that got me into punkrock, but also an exclusive acoustic show by Rancid that I was able to lie my ass off and attend. At this time, the Life Won't Wait Demos were not readily available and only 3 people claimed to have access to them. Of those 3, two were full of shit. I got the rip of this from the man who himself got it directly from Matt Freeman via a cassette tape in the early 2000's. For this, I traded him 2 bootleg Rancid vinyls, and an original pressing of their debut album.
The demos have since leaked much more aggressively and aren't quite as hard to get ahold of anymore (I may have purposefully played a role in this as I think that everyone should have access to them, not just a select few). This demo was originally accompanied with an additional 6 tracks by the band The Silencers which was Rancid with Vic and Dave from The Slackers. I decided against publishing them with these as I believe the two are best listened to independently of one another.
These demos are great quality and are sure to be enjoyed by any fan of the album. As with any demo, this is a much more stripped down very raw version of these songs. In particular, the song "Brad Logan" that ended up on the South Park soundtrack I feel is a much stronger version of the song, and actually contains female backing vocals (of whom I am only assuming to be by Brody at the time).
If you enjoy LWW as much as I do, I suggest you check out the newly remastered 45 set that just came out. The records were completely remastered to utilize the 45 sound, and although I wouldn't say they sound superior to the original record by any means, I would say that it is an entirely new experience with an all time classic punkrock album. As a side note, i own every incarnation of this album from the CD I had Lars sign in 2002, to the vinyl, to the picture vinyl (which isn't suggested for anymore other than wall-artwork, which mine is, and is signed by the entire band). See folks, I don't just put out free bootlegs in place of buying their music, get out there and support your favorite independent musicians goddammit.
Download The Entire Album and Cover Art Here:
MP3 Zip Archive
The tracklist is:
1: Who Would've Thought
2: The Wolf
3: Backslide
4: Cash, Culture & Violence
5: Things To Come
6: Brad Logan
7: Hoover Street
This is an exciting post for me as Rancid is one of my all time favorite bands and LWW is hands down my favorite album of all time. In 1997, I was 13 years old and living in my hometown of Middletown, Ohio where there was fuck all going on. I was still figuring out exactly who I was as a person and looking for some kind of direction to take my life. It was that January that the movie "Beavis and Butt-Head: Do America" was released, and forever altered the course of my life. In it was a sequence where they used the song "I Wanna Riot" by Rancid W/The Stubborn All-Stars and I was immediately breath-taken. "What the fuck is this music" I wondered. It was loud, angry, talked about rioting.... but it was fast paced and had horns.... it was like nothing I'd ever heard and it was just what a pissed-off little 13 year old me needed.
I kept on a steady diet of readily available music at the time, got huge into Nirvana, huge into the Seattle scene, but was always alluded by the inability to track down any Californian based punk rock... at least that was until Rancid dropped a little album titled "Life Won't Wait" in 1998. I walked by the FYE in our mall and spotted the LWW album, not only in stock, but on the "listening machine" where you could demo the album. I was broke, but I stood in front of the machine for a solid hour and a half listening to every track of this genius piece of music. I returned a few days later with money I had either begged for or stole, purchased the album, declared my self a punk-rocker, and have yet to look back.
Fast forward to years later, I started to get heavily into the bootleg scene. Not bootlegged, readily available albums, that is just fucked up, but I became a huge collector of B-Sides, rarities, and demos. I read on some forum that a guy who's username I will not publish had not only the demos for the album that got me into punkrock, but also an exclusive acoustic show by Rancid that I was able to lie my ass off and attend. At this time, the Life Won't Wait Demos were not readily available and only 3 people claimed to have access to them. Of those 3, two were full of shit. I got the rip of this from the man who himself got it directly from Matt Freeman via a cassette tape in the early 2000's. For this, I traded him 2 bootleg Rancid vinyls, and an original pressing of their debut album.
The demos have since leaked much more aggressively and aren't quite as hard to get ahold of anymore (I may have purposefully played a role in this as I think that everyone should have access to them, not just a select few). This demo was originally accompanied with an additional 6 tracks by the band The Silencers which was Rancid with Vic and Dave from The Slackers. I decided against publishing them with these as I believe the two are best listened to independently of one another.These demos are great quality and are sure to be enjoyed by any fan of the album. As with any demo, this is a much more stripped down very raw version of these songs. In particular, the song "Brad Logan" that ended up on the South Park soundtrack I feel is a much stronger version of the song, and actually contains female backing vocals (of whom I am only assuming to be by Brody at the time).
If you enjoy LWW as much as I do, I suggest you check out the newly remastered 45 set that just came out. The records were completely remastered to utilize the 45 sound, and although I wouldn't say they sound superior to the original record by any means, I would say that it is an entirely new experience with an all time classic punkrock album. As a side note, i own every incarnation of this album from the CD I had Lars sign in 2002, to the vinyl, to the picture vinyl (which isn't suggested for anymore other than wall-artwork, which mine is, and is signed by the entire band). See folks, I don't just put out free bootlegs in place of buying their music, get out there and support your favorite independent musicians goddammit.
Download The Entire Album and Cover Art Here:
MP3 Zip Archive
The tracklist is:
1: Who Would've Thought
2: The Wolf
3: Backslide
4: Cash, Culture & Violence
5: Things To Come
6: Brad Logan
7: Hoover Street
