Sublime post about Sublime

Wednesday. Not too much going on today to talk about. Work as usual. On the way in today I listened to what I consider to be one of the best albums of all time: Sublime's 40oz. to Freedom. I'm serious; I thinkthis one is right up there with the greats like Sgt. Pepper's, Dark Side of the Moon, and Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em. This album is an eclectic mix of all kinds of styles, containing elements of punk, rock, rap, reggae and ska. There's even a nice little acoustical cover of Rivers of Babylon included as a hidden track. There are some other great covers, too, like a version of Bad Religion's We're Only Gonna Die that may be better than the original, and a very interesting take on the Dead's Scarlet Begonias. But there are great originals on this album, too, like Don't Push, Badfish, and the ironic and darkly satirical DateR__ (title partly omitted by author). I have heard that Sublime sold the first 30,000 copies of this album out of the trunk of their car after gigs. That number sounds a little high to me, but I would love to get a copy of one of these discs. Apparently there were some significant changes between the original album cut and the corporate-released version. One change was the omission of the song Get Out! which sampled ACDC without permission. This song was later remixed and released on Second HandSmoke, but I would really like to hear the original. The lyrics to GetOut! still appear on the album sleeve of the corporate release, though, only adding to the mystery behind the track's disappearance.

I would have loved to see Sublime live back in the day. Can youimagine hanging out at some beach party in Southern California with Sublime booked as the band? Man... I guess that will never happen, though, since the lead singer died of an overdose making the lyrics to Pool Shark (not on 40oz.) eerily portentous…