Suicidal Tendencies How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can’t Even Smile Today. Well that’s today’s word count done already, just repeat the title twice and I can go on my way.
Which would be a bit of a shame as their 1988 LP is a bit of a corker. So let us just call it How Will I Laugh Tomorrow and stay cyco a little longer.
We hit the ground hard with opener ‘Trip At The Brain’, all hard pumping work out rhythms and Rocky George soloing effortlessly over the top of everything that moves, to great effect. Which is all well and good and then we get to one of my fave things ever the slow-y down moshy bit, always been a sucker for that trick.
The next brace of tracks keep their ends up well, ‘Hearing Voices’ with a wonderfully nasty riff and ‘Pledge Your Allegiance’ taking a slower, more metallic route and siring Ice-T’s Body Count during the first 30 seconds. You can hear the band really having fun hereabouts, they had come a long way since they were the most feared and reviled band on the Californian hardcore scene* and were enjoying their new genre.
Some folks really go to bat for the title track ‘HWILTWICEST’, seeing it as an acute dissection of depression and mental health pressures. Me, I think ST were just happy to use it as an excuse to get really angry, quite gradually. I have an issue with Mike Muir’s singing, I prefer it when he just rages and rages and rages which is his real strength. Again, Rocky George plays it mean throughout, especially when it gets a teeny weeny bit cross at around the halfway point, before an excellent swooping solo takes us away.
How Will I Laugh Tomorrow serves us up the simple charms of ‘Surf And Slam’ on side 2 which is a better vibe than song – altogether now ‘Surf surf!! Slam slam!!’ (repeat). On the other hand ‘If I Don’t Wake Up’ is a bit of a hidden gem, crazed opening leading into some serious C-R-U-N-C-H**.
Unfortunately, the song writing dips a bit until the last track, the excellent ‘The Feeling’s Back’, a real breakneck mosher. The playing is really good throughout, but the production could do with a bit more bottom end^ and the tunes don’t quite measure up.
There’s a lot of stomping, lurching fun to be had in the grooves of How Will I Laugh Tomorrow and the Suicidals were always a damnably good time. Plus they are always good a for a swear, on Spotify How Will I Laugh Tomorrow is batting 11 for 11 on explicit content^^, which is what I call value for money.
How Will I Laugh Tomorrow is the bridge between the Join The Army era ST and the more metallic epoch that was to follow, I have always loved that crossover punk/thrash sound and there is plenty of it here to give me that adrenalin rush I really should have grown out of craving by now.
Plus just how excellent a guitarist is Rocky George? just saying.
1083 Down.
*read American Hardcore by Steve Blush, their (probably quite literally) rabid followers just destroyed anywhere they played.
**we’re all about the crunch here at 1537.
^both things that got, mostly, fixed for 1990’s Lights … Camera … Revolution, Rob Trujillo’s first full LP with the band^*.
^*although it has to be said that Bob Heathcote’s bass playing on this LP is noticeably really good.
^^there’s an extra track on Spotify, pah! Lights … Camera is only 2 from 10, pitiful.
Pretty sure I still have my cassette of this one, which is the way we used to play this stuff, out on the street blasting out of a boombox while throwing ourselves off a launch ramp or unleashing a frontside grind on a curb! Skate or die!
Definitely a spotty release. Probably played the first few tracks off of this one and then switched it out. The deep cuts kinda grew on me a bit while listening with headphones on the bus ride to school but were mostly forgettable.
Was always curious about those other Venice bands like Beowulf, Excel etc. would see the mail order ads for that stuff in Thrasher but never got anything. I would have been about 12-13 at the time so money was scarce and I had to be selective in my choices.
Very cool! I like the title. Ain’t got nothing on Finoa Apple, though.
Rocky George is so underrated is absolutely ummm cyco? And I always thought Mike Muir looks cool as fuck on the cover of this.
Is that why you dress like him?
To follow on from my convo with DeKE below, this is not an LP title I’d want tattooed on my John Thomas. What LP title would you go for?
I’d go for X, the Def Leppard album. But I don’t like it that much.
Fair enough and I’m sorry.
Insert lame ‘gimme a Pepsi’ comment here because I just don’t know much more than that from this band I always meant to check out. Gotta love them high-top sneakers and Vans though!
Great fashion sense all round. Mike Muir manages to toe that rare line between comical and menacing.
Great fun band, good treadmill music.
Not my deal these guys but they got a bit of video play on MuchMusic. I will add that this is one brilliantly named record title.
I’d struggle to get it tattooed on my Johnson though!
Ha! I’m shocked by the fact that its not tatooed there!
Along with the band name.
What would your LP Johnson tat be? PWR/Up?!
Hahaha “Rising Power” is mine thanks for asking!
Good topic for Mike’s thing next Friday?
Your thoughts on Rocky were mine the two times I’ve seen ST live in recent years.
I’ve never seen them, shame. Especially back in the day.
After the brilliant debut and “Join The Army” this sounds already pretty commercial for me. But still with a few good songs: “Trip The Brain” and “How Will I Laugh Tomorrow” are great.