ALL (album)
Encyclopedia
All is the fourth album by the Los Angeles
-based punk rock
band the Descendents
, released in 1987 through SST Records
. It was their first album with guitarist Stephen Egerton and bassist Karl Alvarez
, and their final studio album before singer Milo Aukerman
left the band to pursue a career in biochemistry
. The album is titled after the concept of "All", invented by drummer Bill Stevenson and friend Pat McCuistion in 1980. Based on the goals of achieving "the total extent" and "to not settle for some, to always go for All", the philosophy was the subject of the one-second title track, the two-second "No, All!", and "All-O-Gistics". Following Aukerman's departure the band renamed themselves All
, recruiting singer Dave Smalley
and releasing eight albums between 1988 and 1995 before reuniting with Aukerman to record and perform as the Descendents again on Everything Sucks
.
left the Descendents, Cooper to become a software developer
and Carrion to perform in other musical acts. One week later, on Stevenson's birthday of September 10, Stephen Egerton and Karl Alvarez
moved from Salt Lake City to fill the vacant guitar and bass positions. All was recorded in January 1987 at Radio Tokyo studios in Venice, California with recording engineer Richard Andrews and was produced
by Stevenson. Dez Cadena
sang backing vocals, while Stevenson created the album's cover graphics and Alvarez provided illustrations for the sleeve and liner notes.
The album was themed around the concept of "All", which had been invented by Stevenson and friend Pat McCuistion during a fishing trip on Stevenson's boat Orca in 1980. According to singer Milo Aukerman
: "While drinking all this coffee in the midst of catching mackerel they came up with the concept of All — doing the utmost, achieving the utmost. The more they got into it the more it turned into their own religion; it's partly humor, but it's also an outlook on how to conduct your life: to not settle for some, to always go for All." Stevenson described the concept of "All" as "the total extent", and he and McCuistion had quickly written several short songs that would later be recorded by the Descendents, including "All" and "No, All!", written "in a fit of Allular frustration. The songs were only seconds long, but that was all the time we needed to make the point." McCuistion also shared writing credit on "All-O-Gistics", a musical set of commandments for achieving All, including lyrics such as "Thou shalt not commit adulthood", "Thou shalt not partake of decaf", and "Thou shalt not suppress flatulence". In a June 1987 interview with Music magazine, Stevenson elaborated on the "All" concept:
Aside from the concept of "All", other songs on the album such as "Coolidge", "Pep Talk", and "Clean Sheets" dealt with themes of broken relationships, while "Iceman" was loosely based on the play The Iceman Cometh
by Eugene O'Neill
. The album was released through SST Records
, who had purchased the Descendents' previous label New Alliance Records
that year and also re-released all of their previous albums. All was released in LP
, cassette
, and CD
formats, the latter two containing the additional tracks "Jealous of the World" and "Uranus". The band supported the album with a 60-day Spring 1987 tour, followed by the 50-day Summer "FinALL" tour, so-called due to Aukerman's decision to leave the band to pursue a career in biochemistry
. Recordings from these tours were used for the live album
s Liveage! (1987) and Hallraker: Live! (1989). Following Aukerman's departure the band added singer Dave Smalley
of Dag Nasty
and rechristened themselves All
, a change Stevenson claimed he had wanted to make for eight years:
On December 16, 1987, during the record of the first All album Allroy Sez
, Pat McCuistion died when his fishing boat sank during a storm. Stevenson remarked that "He had 15,000 pounds of fish onboard, so I guess you could say he died in heated pursuit of All. He was always the '5th member' of the band, besided being my best friend, next to Milo." With Smalley and later singers Scott Reynolds and Chad Price
, All released eight albums between 1988 and 1995, with Aukerman contributing occasional songwriting and backing vocals. In 1995 Aukerman would return to record Everything Sucks
with the band under the Descendents name.
that "Pep Talk" was not included on the band's 1991 "best of" compilation Somery
. By contrast, DaRonco's colleague Jason Ankeny referred to All as "lackluster" in his biography of the band. Jenny Eliscu of Rolling Stone
praised Aukerman's growth as a lyricist in several songs: "All is often underrated because of the strange pseudo-arty in-strumental tracks on its second half; nonetheless, the album features three of the band's best songs, 'Cameage,' 'Coolidge,' and 'Clean Sheets.' The subjects are perennial, but Auckerman's sophistication as a lyricist has grown. 'Coolidge' is about accepting one's uncoolness, and 'Clean Sheets' talks of being forced to sleep on the floor after a lover's infidelity sullies the sheets."
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
-based punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band the Descendents
Descendents
The Descendents are an American punk rock band from Hermosa Beach, California. As of 2011, they have released six studio albums, three live albums, three compilation albums and three EPs. The Descendents broke up and reformed several times over the years, sometimes with different musicians...
, released in 1987 through SST Records
SST Records
SST Records is an American independent record label formed in 1978 in Long Beach, California by musician Greg Ginn. The company was initially called Solid State Transmitters through which Ginn sold electronics equipment...
. It was their first album with guitarist Stephen Egerton and bassist Karl Alvarez
Karl Alvarez
Karl Matthew Alvarez is the bass guitar player for both the Descendents and All, the band that resulted after the Descendents disbanded again in 1987....
, and their final studio album before singer Milo Aukerman
Milo Aukerman
Milo Aukerman is an American singer, songwriter and research biochemist. Aukerman is perhaps most widely known for being the lead singer of the early Los Angeles area punk rock band the Descendents, a group widely considered to be pioneers of modern "pop punk"...
left the band to pursue a career in biochemistry
Biochemistry
Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...
. The album is titled after the concept of "All", invented by drummer Bill Stevenson and friend Pat McCuistion in 1980. Based on the goals of achieving "the total extent" and "to not settle for some, to always go for All", the philosophy was the subject of the one-second title track, the two-second "No, All!", and "All-O-Gistics". Following Aukerman's departure the band renamed themselves All
ALL (band)
All is an American punk band originally from Los Angeles, currently residing in Fort Collins, Colorado, formed by Descendents members Bill Stevenson, Karl Alvarez, and Stephen Egerton.-Formation and Cruz Records Years:...
, recruiting singer Dave Smalley
Dave Smalley
Not to be confused with Dave Smalley Dave Smalley is an American musician, best known as the punk bands DYS, Dag Nasty, All and singer/guitarist with Down By Law. He is known for his influence on pop punk music and his early contributions to the emo genre...
and releasing eight albums between 1988 and 1995 before reuniting with Aukerman to record and perform as the Descendents again on Everything Sucks
Everything Sucks (Descendents album)
Everything Sucks is the fifth studio album by the punk rock band the Descendents, released in 1996 through Epitaph Records. It was their first album of new studio material since 1987's All, after which singer Milo Aukerman had left the band to pursue a career in biochemistry...
.
Background
Following their Summer 1986 tour in support of Enjoy!, guitarist Ray Cooper and bassist Doug CarrionDoug Carrion
From the moment Doug Carrions mom took him to the legendary Light House in Hermosa Beach, California to see Jazz for the first time at the age of 9, his passion became music. He taught himself to play guitar and began his career in music as a musician - playing in underground favorites such as...
left the Descendents, Cooper to become a software developer
Software development
Software development is the development of a software product...
and Carrion to perform in other musical acts. One week later, on Stevenson's birthday of September 10, Stephen Egerton and Karl Alvarez
Karl Alvarez
Karl Matthew Alvarez is the bass guitar player for both the Descendents and All, the band that resulted after the Descendents disbanded again in 1987....
moved from Salt Lake City to fill the vacant guitar and bass positions. All was recorded in January 1987 at Radio Tokyo studios in Venice, California with recording engineer Richard Andrews and was produced
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
by Stevenson. Dez Cadena
Dez Cadena
Dez Paul Cadena is an American punk rock singer and guitarist. He was the third vocalist and later rhythm guitarist for hardcore punk band Black Flag. Since 2001 Cadena has played guitar with the Misfits...
sang backing vocals, while Stevenson created the album's cover graphics and Alvarez provided illustrations for the sleeve and liner notes.
The album was themed around the concept of "All", which had been invented by Stevenson and friend Pat McCuistion during a fishing trip on Stevenson's boat Orca in 1980. According to singer Milo Aukerman
Milo Aukerman
Milo Aukerman is an American singer, songwriter and research biochemist. Aukerman is perhaps most widely known for being the lead singer of the early Los Angeles area punk rock band the Descendents, a group widely considered to be pioneers of modern "pop punk"...
: "While drinking all this coffee in the midst of catching mackerel they came up with the concept of All — doing the utmost, achieving the utmost. The more they got into it the more it turned into their own religion; it's partly humor, but it's also an outlook on how to conduct your life: to not settle for some, to always go for All." Stevenson described the concept of "All" as "the total extent", and he and McCuistion had quickly written several short songs that would later be recorded by the Descendents, including "All" and "No, All!", written "in a fit of Allular frustration. The songs were only seconds long, but that was all the time we needed to make the point." McCuistion also shared writing credit on "All-O-Gistics", a musical set of commandments for achieving All, including lyrics such as "Thou shalt not commit adulthood", "Thou shalt not partake of decaf", and "Thou shalt not suppress flatulence". In a June 1987 interview with Music magazine, Stevenson elaborated on the "All" concept:
I'm really into "ALL"' and I've waited a long time to unleash the whole concept on people. And now I'm going to do it [...] It's just a way of thinking, in which there are extremes and there is this goal called 'ALL.' It's a way that I created in dealing with achievement and satisfaction and how the two relate. Basically just to avoid stagnation... going for "ALL" and never being satisfied and just wallowing in your own sameness.
Aside from the concept of "All", other songs on the album such as "Coolidge", "Pep Talk", and "Clean Sheets" dealt with themes of broken relationships, while "Iceman" was loosely based on the play The Iceman Cometh
The Iceman Cometh
The Iceman Cometh is a play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939. First published in 1940 the play premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on 9 October 1946, directed by Eddie Dowling where it ran for 136 performances to close on 15 March 1947.-Characters:* Night Hawk-...
by Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
. The album was released through SST Records
SST Records
SST Records is an American independent record label formed in 1978 in Long Beach, California by musician Greg Ginn. The company was initially called Solid State Transmitters through which Ginn sold electronics equipment...
, who had purchased the Descendents' previous label New Alliance Records
New Alliance Records
New Alliance Records was the record label founded by The Minutemen's D. Boon and Mike Watt and longtime friend and associate Martin Tamburovich after the example of Black Flag's SST Records...
that year and also re-released all of their previous albums. All was released in LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
, cassette
Compact Cassette
The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...
, and CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
formats, the latter two containing the additional tracks "Jealous of the World" and "Uranus". The band supported the album with a 60-day Spring 1987 tour, followed by the 50-day Summer "FinALL" tour, so-called due to Aukerman's decision to leave the band to pursue a career in biochemistry
Biochemistry
Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...
. Recordings from these tours were used for the live album
Live album
A live album is a recording consisting of material recorded during stage performances using remote recording techniques, commonly contrasted with a studio album...
s Liveage! (1987) and Hallraker: Live! (1989). Following Aukerman's departure the band added singer Dave Smalley
Dave Smalley
Not to be confused with Dave Smalley Dave Smalley is an American musician, best known as the punk bands DYS, Dag Nasty, All and singer/guitarist with Down By Law. He is known for his influence on pop punk music and his early contributions to the emo genre...
of Dag Nasty
Dag Nasty
Dag Nasty was a Washington D.C. punk band formed in 1985 by guitarist Brian Baker of Minor Threat, drummer Colin Sears and bassist Roger Marbury, both of Bloody Mannequin Orchestra, and vocalist Shawn Brown...
and rechristened themselves All
ALL (band)
All is an American punk band originally from Los Angeles, currently residing in Fort Collins, Colorado, formed by Descendents members Bill Stevenson, Karl Alvarez, and Stephen Egerton.-Formation and Cruz Records Years:...
, a change Stevenson claimed he had wanted to make for eight years:
Well, basically, I've been wanting to work with David for a long time; but at the same time, Milo has stuck with me for almost nine years now, so I wouldn't exactly feel right about just continuing to call us the Descendents. In a sense that would be kind of like discrediting Milo's nine years worth of effort. It's kind of like, "Let the Descendents be my and Milo's sacred thing," or whatever. Who knows, at some point later on we might decide that we want to get together and record something.
On December 16, 1987, during the record of the first All album Allroy Sez
Allroy Sez
Allroy Sez is a 1988 album, the first release from Los Angeles pop punk band All.After the Descendents' lead singer Milo Aukerman left the band in 1987, the remaining members chose to continue playing together under a different name and with a new vocalist, former Dag Nasty frontman Dave Smalley...
, Pat McCuistion died when his fishing boat sank during a storm. Stevenson remarked that "He had 15,000 pounds of fish onboard, so I guess you could say he died in heated pursuit of All. He was always the '5th member' of the band, besided being my best friend, next to Milo." With Smalley and later singers Scott Reynolds and Chad Price
Chad Price
Chad Price is best known for being the lead singer for the pop-punk band All and alt-country band Drag the River.He joined ALL in 1993 as the band's third singer, after Dave Smalley and Scott Reynolds. He has appeared on the four most recent studio albums, as well as one live album...
, All released eight albums between 1988 and 1995, with Aukerman contributing occasional songwriting and backing vocals. In 1995 Aukerman would return to record Everything Sucks
Everything Sucks (Descendents album)
Everything Sucks is the fifth studio album by the punk rock band the Descendents, released in 1996 through Epitaph Records. It was their first album of new studio material since 1987's All, after which singer Milo Aukerman had left the band to pursue a career in biochemistry...
with the band under the Descendents name.
Reception
Mike DaRonco of Allmusic gave All four stars out of five, saying that "With this record, not only are they forgiven for the bad spots to be found on here — it's not like they can't be skipped over — but their last release (Enjoy!) will be forgotten." He remarked that the relationship-themed songs "prove that the most creative music comes out of personal tragedy" and called it a felonyFelony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
that "Pep Talk" was not included on the band's 1991 "best of" compilation Somery
Somery
Somery is a compilation album by the Los Angeles-based punk rock band the Descendents, released in 1991 through SST Records. It compiles songs from the Fat EP and the albums Milo Goes to College , I Don't Want to Grow Up , Enjoy! , and All .- Background :In 1987 SST Records had purchased the...
. By contrast, DaRonco's colleague Jason Ankeny referred to All as "lackluster" in his biography of the band. Jenny Eliscu of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
praised Aukerman's growth as a lyricist in several songs: "All is often underrated because of the strange pseudo-arty in-strumental tracks on its second half; nonetheless, the album features three of the band's best songs, 'Cameage,' 'Coolidge,' and 'Clean Sheets.' The subjects are perennial, but Auckerman's sophistication as a lyricist has grown. 'Coolidge' is about accepting one's uncoolness, and 'Clean Sheets' talks of being forced to sleep on the floor after a lover's infidelity sullies the sheets."
LP version
CD and cassette versions
Band
- Karl AlvarezKarl AlvarezKarl Matthew Alvarez is the bass guitar player for both the Descendents and All, the band that resulted after the Descendents disbanded again in 1987....
– bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, drawings - Milo AukermanMilo AukermanMilo Aukerman is an American singer, songwriter and research biochemist. Aukerman is perhaps most widely known for being the lead singer of the early Los Angeles area punk rock band the Descendents, a group widely considered to be pioneers of modern "pop punk"...
– vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments... - Stephen Egerton – guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
- Bill Stevenson – drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, producerRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, cover graphics