Welcome back to Left of The Dial! This week, we’re taking a look at Energy by Operation Ivy. Operation Ivy (sometimes abbreviated as Op. Ivy) was a ska-punk band from Berkeley, California, consisting of Jesse Michaels on lead vocals, Tim “Lint” Armstrong on guitar and vocals, Matt “McCall” Freeman on bass and vocals, and Dave Mello on drums and vocals. Energy was the band’s only LP, which released in May 1989 following their Hectic EP in 1988. In fact, the LP’s release party held by their label Lookout! would end up being the band’s final show before they broke up (save for a private show in Pinole the next day).
Although the band’s career was achingly short, it proved to be hugely influential in establishing the signature “east bay punk” sound and inspiring many bands in the third wave ska movement. And if you find that you’re hungry for more ska punk like Op. Ivy, Armstrong and Freeman would go on to form Rancid in 1991, which bears a similar style to their previous band. And who knows, maybe you’ll hear about Rancid in a future review? Anyways, let’s not stray too far from the subject at hand. How about we pop Energy onto the turntable and give it a listen?
Side A
Side A contains “Knowledge,” “Sound System,” “Jaded,” “Take Warning,” “The Crowd,” “Bombshell,” “Unity,” “Vulnerability,” “Bankshot,” and “One of These Days.” That’s a lot for one side, but each song averages around 2 minutes, so it’ll fly by before you know it.
“Knowledge” is likely the band’s most popular song, and it was the first Op. Ivy song I became familiar with, since Green Day had covered it on their Slappy EP and continue to cover it at live shows to this day. The song is about growing up and being forced to decide on a path to take when you’re too young to really know. “All I know is that I don’t know” is a painfully relatable statement from the chorus, and Michaels’ hoarse roar of a vocal delivery expresses the frustration that comes with figuring out your identity.
“Sound System” leans closer to ska-punk than its predecessor, which gives it a fun, upbeat vibe. The lyrics describe how important music is for pulling us out of the despairs that come with life, and boy is that ever true! I’m still baffled with how Michaels can rap so fast on this track, so I have to award some brownie points for that. “Jaded,” on the other hand, is darker in nature. I believe it’s about losing passion for the things you love with the monotony of constantly having to do it as a career. But sometimes there’s a beauty to being able to do this thing you love so much, even if you get bored of it sometimes. It’s such a profound and complicated thing, and I appreciate the viewpoint that Op. Ivy takes on this. It’s so common to hear songs about how awesome it is to do the thing you love for a living, as well as how miserable and soul-crushing it is to dedicate your life to a job you hate. It’s rare to hear one that tells it how it is; you’re not always going to love your job, even if it’s one you’re passionate about. But that doesn’t mean you don’t still love it deep down.
“Take Warning” slows down the tempo for a song about standing together and fighting bigotry. This kind of message was so ahead of its time back in ’89, and while it doesn’t specify any particular social issues, it’s open-ended nature allows the listener to apply it to whatever they most identify with. By extension, “The Crowd” touches on a similar point, which is mob mentality. It expresses the dangers of being a slave to the crowd and not thinking for yourself, which is quite a topical issue today with social media and especially politics.
Relieving some of the heaviness is “Bombshell,” a simple track about falling for a girl, only to lose track of her and never meet her again. Clocking in at a little over a minute, it’s the shortest track on the record, and the blistering tempo crams a lot into that short time. “Unity” is something of a spiritual sequel to “Take Warning,” in the fact that it again calls for unity and desires to fight bigotry and division. The slow tempo and verse-chorus composition makes it a great protest song. That statement was proven true with its inclusion in the Rock Against Bush compilation records in 2004, which cobbled together protest songs from a wide variety of punk and alt-rock bands in light of the War on Terror.
“Vulnerability” is about desensitization and a lack of emotional connection to the world around you. Supposedly, the song was inspired by an incident outside of a Ramones concert where a photographer was killed by a drunk driver, and the crowd that witnessed it didn’t have the visceral reaction you’d expect they would. It’s a strange and disturbing story, but the feelings of numbness to horrible things is all too relatable nowadays. It’s way harder to ignore the violence, corruption, and despair of the world now that everything is monitored in real time with social media, so the only way to cope with the unrelenting stream of misery is to build up a tolerance for it to the point that it no longer shocks you.
“Bankshot” is a mostly instrumental song with some vocal tics thrown in, so there’s not much to talk about here. It reminds me a lot of the instrumentals for “Sound System,” especially with its lighthearted sound. Finally, “One of These Days” is a remix of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’” consisting solely of the chorus. It adds a chant of the line “Walk all over you” to further distinguish itself from Sinatra’s song. It’s a nice way to cap off this side of the record, so let’s flip it over and see what’s on the other side.
Side B
Side B contains “Gonna Find You,” “Bad Town,” “Smiling,” “Caution,” “Freeze Up,” “Artificial Life,” ‘Room Without a Window,” “Big City,” and “Missionary.”
Are you familiar with those ‘we live in a society’ memes? “Gonna Find You” fits neatly under that umbrella. It’s about the way American society fetishizes conformity and compliance without question. I draw the comparison because I’m desensitized to those memes and the message they try to convey, and by association I don’t respond as well to songs that preach the same thing. It isn’t a bad message, not at all, I suppose I’ve just heard it way too much for it to have any meaning anymore. Don’t let that drive you away from this track though, because it’s still pretty good. It even finds a way to stand out from the others by starting as a spoken word thing before shifting to a more conventional song.
“Bad Town” describes a town that thrives on violence and how that affects the youth growing up there. Kids there have to be prepared to face unbalanced fights against groups of other kids, where they may not have any allies with them. The use of horns on this track is welcome, giving it a distinct composition from the other tracks. “Smiling” is a statement against toxic masculinity, again a profound statement for the time period. As a woman, it’s tempting to view men as objectifying pigs, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Men face a lot of pressure from society to attract lots of girls and keep up a tough image, when in reality that’s a super unhealthy way to live. It’s dumb to chase tail just for the sake of impressing your friends.
“Caution” is about the dangers of hard drugs like meth when you aren’t prepared for the effects it’ll have on you. The lyrics use a lot of clever analogies to describe the caution necessary, such as “Don’t step in the water ‘till you know you can swim,” and “Walked the dog with a real short leash, turned around, saw the dog walk me.” I appreciate that this song has the maturity to stay away from the “don’t do drugs” message that every school at the time was cramming down children’s throats. Let’s be honest with ourselves, being told not to do something at all only makes that thing more tempting. Op. Ivy’s advice instead is “we won’t tell you not to do drugs, but you’d better be prepared and do it responsibly if you choose to do so.”
“Freeze Up” touches on the stagnation of progress in the world. The government is all too eager to go to war and fight others instead of coming together to solve issues like the impending nuclear winter (it’s hard to say whether that refers to climate change or the Cold War in this context). The bleak images of industrialization the track conjures are disturbing, especially in the current day where the issue of irreversible environmental damage is an urgent and terrifying reality that too many government officials and citizens are ignoring.
“Artificial Life” is a statement about the plastic consumerist culture that dominated the 80’s. Sure, many of us romanticize the neon colors, big hair, and synthpop of the period, but we tend to forget that this was also a period of the toy company-driven cartoons and, specifically in this song, the time of plastic pop stars carefully curated by money-grubbing executives. It’s a problem that still plagues our airwaves and social media feeds today, but it’s fascinating to see that the people our age 30 years ago were dealing with similar issues. I’m particularly fond of the line “Life is boring so project theirs onto yours,” because that’s the market’s hook into your brain and wallet. They provide this escapism for all us poor folks that have no hope of living such a lavish life, though their lack of a grip on reality and condescending nature is infuriating for those of us that demand to be challenged by the media.
“Room Without a Window” is a metaphor for the way we wall ourselves into our own beliefs. Division is rooted in a mix of ignorance and an unwillingness to have our beliefs challenged and debated, and this metaphorical room is constructed from denial and blind devotion. I’d say our modern equivalent of the room without a window is the echo chamber, where we only associate with the people that share our same opinions and beliefs. I love the lyrics on this track because of how strictly they stick to the room analogy, using lines like “walls made of opinions, through which we speak and never listen” and “floors made of lives, we’d gladly end to stay inside.”
“Big City” describes the financial divide that big cities create, where some can thrive and drown in money while others starve and struggle. Cities exist for profit, and they don’t care how that profit comes about, even at the cost of the lower class’s welfare. Unlike issues of social division, financial division isn’t easily or quickly solved, which can be discouraging for the average person. That’s why things like charity and voting are important and beneficial tools for working toward solving these issues. Finally we have “Missionary,” which is a sarcastic take on religious extremists who do horrible things in the name of God. There’s an irony to the line “on my way to save the world” when that involves killing the people that don’t agree with you. Most profound is the line “I kill and words will defend it,” which illustrates the way extremists twist the words of the holy book to serve their agenda, when in reality these actions would have never been justified in the eyes of a good and loving god, especially in a modern context.
Overall, Energy is a thought-provoking record that paints a detailed picture of the band’s ideals and beliefs in ’89. Like a lot of punk records on a shoestring, the audio quality is tinny and sloppy, but it adds an air of authenticity to the band’s words when they describe the injustices of the world. My top three tracks are “Sound System,” “Unity,” and “Artificial Life,” with honorable mentions going to “Knowledge” and “Caution.” I don’t have a bottom three this time, though I have to single out “Gonna Find You” for its “We Live in a Society” syndrome.
Rating: 9.5/10
Feature Photo by Becca Fauteux