Operation Ivy Bio
January 1987, at a party in Berkeley I was walking from the keg with another beer when Crimpshrine started playing their set. The song was "Another Day". I didn't know the title or the lyrics at the time, just the attack and the melody and the way Jeff sang "you learned a lesson" put chills up my spine. The whole spirit of Crimpshrine and the new scene in Berkeley hit me that night. I thought it was cool that a band could play anywhere, anytime at a moments notice. Crimpshrine became my favorite band.
Within a few months Matt, Jesse, Dave and I formed Operation Ivy. We joined Crimpshrine on the lame gig contest. If someone was having a party the first question would be "can our band play?" It didn't matter if it was a living room, basement, laundromat, garage, backyard, Billy Jam's radio show, or a barn with sheep, we did it all. We loved to play together.
As time went on our shows were starting to get more and more high energy. We jumped all over the place like lunatics, and sometimes equipment would go flying. First it was just our friends dancing and getting up on the mike to sing our lyrics with us, but as time went on people we didn't even know or seen before started showing up. That was a big deal to us. This was all new for us because our garage band was being taken seriously. Speaking for myself it was a good and a scary feeling all rolled into one.
We were punx in a punk band playing punk rock. We also played ska songs and because of it some punks hated and gave us shit for them. Fuk 'em. Our ska songs weren't the standard horn/organ pretty sounding ska. We were pissed and hard edged about it. I love ska and we were doing it our own way, and OPIV was about creating your own style. Fuk being safe. Take the crazy risk and ride it till you fall off.
When Eric started throwing the whole record idea around we were pretty supportive. It was basically his project and we went along with him in any direction he wanted to go. The four songs are Punk Rock and picked by Eric.
Soemtimes when life crashes down on my shoulders and every thing lookes like fuk, I turn to music. I use it to realize my anger and unknown energy inside me. After I write a song or play in fron of people I feel better. OPIV had a solid two year run. Not only were those good times, but I did a lot of growing up and learning. It's cool that people are still interested in what we were doing back then.
Operation Ivy- along not to long ago there was this band. And there was something about this band that words would only be misleading. That no matter how much I try there would be no way to describe their potential, their excitement, or the experience I had watching them. I guess that is why we have music, to express the things that cannot be said with words. And even the words have a lot behind them, beneath the surface.
This record is a sample of the band when it was in its growing up stage. All of the members were coming of age, throwing back the past of being a kid or a ger and stepping into bigger shoes. I was about 13 back then and I found everything new and different. The band was around long enough to keep me excited. In fact they played my garage twice at this early stage and my backyard a day before their last show. They are still today one of my favorite bands. And OPIV was a really big deal for a lot of people, a spark in the chambers that got people turned on. I hear a lot about what they could have been and we often overlook what they were. Yes, I believe they accomplished much. The great talent in this band with their fresh ideas was fostered and grown but most important it spread to many other ideas.
The music has gotten me through many times. From staying up on acid to working on Zippo. It has played on the soundtrack for me in a nonexistent movie. It has comforted my head when I walked the halls at school or rode my bike at night. But for me the band goes beyond the music, to something I feel apart of. It goes beyond going to shows or buying records. The rest lies in relating the to the music and enjoying its effect on my life.
To me there is no difference between these early recordings and the later ones. It all sorta blends together after a while and reflects the natural progression of the band on a while. They started really raw, untainted, sloppy and wild. In many ways these aspects were retained and other qualities to top it. To say the least it has left its mark in the pile of bands of yesteryear and tomorrow. For me I prefer this rough recording. These songs recorded on the Gillman board has a definite perfected sound that all the expensive equipment in the world can't produce. It's this record that's unclean, unprofessional. But its this record that will be the most funnest and suprising to listen to. The album and other seven inch has been played over and over almost subjecting one to predictable sounds and formulas. These songs despite its age is as good as new material, like cold water on a waking face. You probably don't want to hear me ramble on any more about them. So I'll just leave it with the fact that the impression they left on me stands and I hope can shape new and interesting things from them. And to quote my friend Annie on an active Saturday nite on telegraph, "They were the best thing to happen to this fuckin' town (Berkeley), I tell you that, next to the Yeastie girls, of course!"
The last time I wrote anything was around 3 or 4 years ago in zippo about how to be a couch potato, so someone better do some serious editing on this shit. Around the same time period is when I started getting into punk. I never had my finger on what it was all about (hell, I still don't!) but for me it put rock n' roll back into it's rawest forms. But I was ten years too late, and snoopy was teh rawest you get to a 5 year old boy in 1977.
On New Years Eve in 1987 was the first sold out show I went to at Gillman St. That was the first time I saw Operation Ivy. It caught me off guard because there were all these people on stage. Most of them seemed to be their friends and were singing along with them. They even gave a group of people their own microphone. Ya see, I always thought that up on the stage is where the rock stars are, adn down below is where the fans are, so I thought, "what the hell? The whole place was jumpin with their friends, this ain't no concert!" I thought it was an inside joke that only the people at Gillman understood. And all I wanted to do was be a part of the whole thing, so I jumped on stage with everybody and started to sing along too. And guess what? No one kicked me off. I didn't even know what the hell they were singing, but I don't think anyone did. At one time I thought "Junkies Rinning Dry" was "Dumpty's Coming By" And I think everyone else that was there had their own song titles too.
After the show all my friends packed into a station wagon and took off for home. My friend Mike went home with a BeeGees record he won in the Stikky dance competition. My friend John Santos was picking Isocracy confetti out of his hair for the next three days, and I had "Hellen Drank My Beer" ("Yellin' in My Ear") stuck in my head, as we rode back the suburban shithole we called home.
Thank you BeeGees,
Thank you Isocracy,
Thank you Op Ivy for the catchy tunes,
and thank you mom....... for the station wagon.
"Sometimes every once in a while......"
Sometimes I go through periods when I question myself and become jaded, but one thing that really irritates me is a person who is convinced that the "old days" are better than their present even though they weren't there to begin with. Or even worse are peopl who become burn out (be it 10 months or ten years) and then say that the scene "isn't as fun anymore". Sometimes I have to ask myself why a show by a popular band who is just as jaded as the crowd, where the energy is as fake as the band's politics can sell out a horrible $12.50 a ticket "alternative" rock club, while only 50 people will see a great local band with ten thousand times more spirit and energy. I guess a lot of people are looking for something that is already accepted and unwilling to seek out real underground music. But they'll be the first to jump on the bandwagon when a band is deemed "cool".
Operation Ivy was a band who didn't sacrifice their morals or intensity for money or showmanship. They didn't need anyone to sell their music or shows, the response to both spoke for themselves, with honesty and intensity. Some may see this record as an attempt at hero worship of a band that was huge, a record put out by jaded types to prove that there yesterdays were the best. True Operation Ivy did reach a very high level of populatiry, but they did, as most bands who start out in the garage, and made their way out because of their energy and sincerity. And unfortunately they ended honestly in the garage and just as raw as day one, without becoming what they hated. The grooves on this record contain the early raw tracks by a band fresh and new, before the pressures of recognition. Some would also think that we're out to make money off this record, in fact during the course of making this many people have remarked how we could make alot of money off it. In fact, this record is being sold at cost and is only available at Epicenter and Blacklist, two nonprofit organizations. Its a record put out by friends for friends.
A couple of years ago I was the jaded type I had earlier described, but a certain band had shown me that music can still be raw and hard edged. For this they will always hold a high place in my heart, I mean after all they are my favorite band. OPIV helped me see that great bands can happen anywhere, anyplace, and any time. Now I look to my future a bit more positively, that even though on great band is gone, others will and have replace them, and I'll be in the front row or the pit where the music is real. So this record is my tribute to OPIV and the people that loved them. I can say that we saw a special moment, a moment where 4 people got together and made something special, the exact combination that will never happen again.
This Bio was written by the band, and is on the inside cover of their seven inch. I feel these writings are the most descriptive of what op ivy is and stands for!!!
< BACK