Descendents - Enjoy! Sessions + Mixtape

The Descendents inhabit a weird space for me and indeed in the 80s hardcore punk canon in general. Their sophomore effort, I Don't Want To Grow Up, was one of the first pieces of vinyl I went out and bought when I started collecting and I had already fallen in love with Milo Goes To College and Everything Sucks when I was in my teens. Yet, the phrase "I don't want to grow up" sticks out as a title when I think about the band. Their songs of alienation and a desire to be desired rang true for a young outcast, even when the band veered into the bitter and self-centred on songs like "Sour Grapes". Right or wrong (definitely wrong) those juvenile sentiments were real. The band themselves has disavowed much of their youthful insecurities as time has as gone on but not denied the songs themselves. The songs themselves? Well, when they land, they end up as some of the best written pieces of pop music there is. The band not only has this double edge sword of naivety and quick temper of youth, but that youth played out on their records in toilet humour and experimentation that made their direction suffer.

Descendents' 1986 lineup, photo courtesy of punkygibbon.co.uk

The album that suffered the most from these youthful indiscretions in my opinion was the band's third, Enjoy! from 1986. The album artwork features a roll of toilet paper but the artwork isn't the only thing associated with the toilet as the song "Orgofart" graces the album which is essentially a full-band two minute fart sesh. Brand new band members, Doug Carrion and Ray Cooper also bring some new dynamics to the table with all kinds of metal influences, that given the year, aren't all that surprising as crossover thrash was starting to become big in hardcore circles. Today I'm sharing a few outtakes from these sessions that never made the album and in my opinion are superior to some of those that ended up making the final cut. One song, "Shattered Milo" is the real highlight of these sessions and I guess the band thought so too as it ended up being re-recorded 10 years later by the band's current line-up for the Everything Sucks LP. It didn't make that album either and ended up as a b-side but despite the 80s production techniques I much prefer the Enjoy! sessions version and the back-up harmonies found there-in. I left these bootleg sourced recording as is, with no attempts made to adjust volume or clean up noise in keeping with my desire to provide as close to a "primary source" as possible. The key will be in the comments.

Here you go:

Descendents - Enjoy Sessions


I've also posted a mix re-imagining Enjoy! as a different album that I dub Shattered. I've made an effort to remove the fart joke songs "Enjoy!" and "Orgofart" as well as much of the metal tinged tracks save for "Hürtin' Crüe" which actually works, unlike the other moments. Instead of opening with the wet plurp of "Enjoy!", the album now thunders to life with "Shattered Milo" whose tail-end harmonies flow perfectly into the Beach Boys' "Wendy". In my opinion, this is a much stronger 25 minute album that highlights the strengths and none of the weaknesses of the Enjoy! sessions.