By 1994, although the music industry at large was still embroiled in grunge’s post-breakout records, with follow-ups from Soundgarden, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and others, it was clear that the magic of 1991-’92 was on the wane, and if the collective machine had its collective head in anything other than a collective pile of cocaine, somebody might’ve been looking for the next thing. Actually that’s not fair, because I’ve known plenty of folks who tried to break heavy rock commercially, both from within the ‘bigs’ and without, and only about half of them were on cocaine.

But the beginning of the decline of what was then a stable radio rock environment hardly sounds like a concern to Fu Manchu on No One Rides for Free (vinyl reissue here). The San Clemente, California, four-piece had spent a few years getting together their lineup and sound, and as the four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Scott Hill, guitarist Eddie Glass, bassist Mark Abshire and drummer Ruben Romano, they made their full-length debut through Bong Load Records. The band had already existed in some form or other for about nine years, beginning as Virulence (discussed here) circa 1985 and hammering themselves into Fu Manchu therefrom in terms of personnel as well as the songs.

And that work can be heard throughout No One Rides for Free, from the immediacy of “Time to Fly” starting in its verse — no intro on your debut album; the creation of a punker urgency that’s underlied Fu Manchu‘s cool-dude groove all the while, because they were punks playing a new kind of punk, daring to grow up a bit — to the cowbell there and in “Mega-Bumpers,” the beach atmosphere and rolling waves behind the drippy strum and noodling of “Summer Girls (Free and Easy),” conveying a bit of Southern Californian sunshine in the atmosphere for a suitable interlude, and the thickened nod of “Shine it On,” which becomes a teachable moment in terms of heft, the album is only 27 minutes long, but it basically lays out a genre template. Not for stoner rock, which by then would’ve barely existed by name — Kyuss released Welcome to Sky Valley (discussed here) in ’94 (their then-drummer Brant Bjork co-produced here, would take his place in the band soon enough), and Monster Magnet and Clutch were both making killer records on the cusp of gaining wider audience attention, as others like Orange Goblin and Electric Wizard began to take shape — but for a different vision of skater/slackerism, ultra-West Coast in the overarching laid back vibe as they gave their first-and-not-last hints of affiliation with van culture in the title and cover photo (credited to Von Lidd) and nonetheless hit it hard.

The longest song is “Snakebellies,” which closes the eight-tracker a bit under five minutes and brings together the fluidity of prior riffing. The semi-spoken vocal delivery of Hill that might’ve felt jarring at the start of “Time to Fly” is by the end of the album a guiding factor through it, and Hill rests well in the fuller mix of the finale while he and Glass — whose shred is distinctive and in a few years would go on to found Nebula with Romano (we’ll get there) — tear it up while managing to blend funk and ’70s boogie rock with the force and immediacy of the punk and late ’80s noise rock from whence Fu Manchu had emerged. On “Snakebellies,” the solo becomes a jam, acoustics and percussion are layered in, and though it seems to go far out, it never actually touches the five-minute mark. This kind of efficiency, which actually begins to show itself in “Time to Fly” and is what makes “Summer Girls (Free and Easy)” sound like the ocean breeze it’s conveying, is rare and essential to understanding who the band would become musically.

Also rare, the chemistry. No One Rides for Free, though celebrated, isn’t often held up among peak Fu Manchu albums. It’s a personal favorite, but I’ll acknowledge too that I tend to reach for later records more. What it shows, however, is that even 32 years ago, this band were on their way to knowing who they were, and that the time they spent leading to their first album was not wasted. In addition to the outright filthy distortion of “Show and Shine,” the lead flourish as the riffs twist around to cycle through again, the shove rampant throughout, the on-point coherence of Fu Manchu even at this still-formative stage is striking. On some level, they’d found the fuzz that would become an essential aspect of their work, and with this lineup that would barely last two more years, executed a first phase that in many ways laid out elements of their sound they’ve continued to refine and revel in all the while.

It’s easy now to look back on it and appreciate “Superbird” or “Ojo Rojo” as precursors to what would come from the band over the next few years/LPs, but put yourself in the position of someone who’d spent the last couple years having grunge shoved down your throat by corporate record labels — anybody remember when selling out was a thing?; I can’t help but think the world might be a better place if people were still held to a standard of their own proffered ideals — and here come Fu Manchu strutting in telling you it’s ‘Time to Fly” with an irresistible nod and start-stop groove that, if you’d never done a stoner softshoe before, just might be enough to get you moving. Something different. Something new. Something else.

A different look from a different underground. An active sound, as if you could put all your surfing and skating into a roll and have it come back as “Mega-Bumpers.” If stoner rock had never learned from another band (and it did), Fu Manchu would’ve been a viable blueprint, but as broad as their influence has been, they’ve remained unto themselves. Hill, Glass, Abshire and Romano were a powerhouse lineup — they wouldn’t be the band’s last — and No One Rides for Free resonates still as a declaration of self on the part of the four-piece. It’s almost too naive to be as arrogant as it should be for as good as it is. What they set in motion here is still going.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

Another week, huh? Terrors persist unabated. I hope I live long enough to see these people hang or die in prison.

At the end of next week, The Patient Mrs. begins her new semester, which is always a bummer. I don’t know her schedule yet. I’ve been trying to write as much as I can these last couple weeks, while also trying to hang out — we’re going to Costco in a bit; this is togetherness in your 40s — and it’s always a difficult balance. I also haven’t been feeling super-inspired on reviews and a lot’s been filed for the next QR, which I guess will probably be before the end of February. I’m hopeful that the trip to Las Vegas in a couple weeks for Planet Desert Rock Weekend VI will put me back into it a little bit. We shall see.

Let me actually look at my notes to see what’s coming up next week other then the four Hungarian classes I’ll be doing. News catchup on Monday and likely not much more than that Monday and Tuesday since The Pecan is off from school for MLK Day. I’d like to do something fun with that day, but it occurs to me I’m not fun and don’t actually like doing things. That makes it more difficult sometimes, plus she has OT in the afternoon (I think), so that’s another barrier. Because surely if one thing is slated for later one cannot occupy the hours beforehand with anything other than mounting anxiety about whether or not this is the time she rolls over a kid in the little cart they let her ride around the OT place in.

But I’ll do what I can. It’s not that nothing’s hitting me, necessarily, so much as it’s all out in March and people get mad when you review records like two months before they come out.

Anybody dying for a Zelda update? I know. Too bad. I woke up yesterday at like 5:30, used the morning to bang out most of what’s been posted today, and then took the rest of the day and fucked all the way off, playing a new game in Tears of the Kingdom with Waikuteru’s Randomizer mod on it that, because of some other mod I’ve loaded on there I’m not even sure which one, has no monsters. None. There’s no fighting, no stalkoblins rising out of the ground, nothing in the Depths. I’ve looked just about everywhere. Eventually I’ll want to go back into the files and sort that out so that combat can happen, but for now it’s kind of cool to just get resources, activate towers, shrines, lightroots, and let the Randomizer bounce me from place to place for that. I’ve got an item duplication mod (I think that’s what got rid of the monsters; that’s my theory) that also lets you get more than 999 of most items, and it’s fun to just stand there with the turbo button on and then know that I won’t need to get more big hearty truffles probably for the duration of however long this save file lasts. The last one went for a while.

I also did the Forsaken Fortess in The Wind Waker last night, again on a modded game that has quality-of-life improvements like a faster sail and whatever. I did the part on the pirate ship where you have to jump the platforms; I’ve gotten better since I first started playing the game. Which I never wanted to play, mind you. 20-odd years ago, I was like, “That looks dumb as hell,” and went back to Final Fantasy on PlayStation. Nobody told me it didn’t have to be one or the other, and that’s not something I’ve ever really ever been able to figure out on my own.

I beat A Link Between Worlds though, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Added to the list, that’s The Wind Waker (which I’ve played through twice already), Twilight Princess, Link’s Awakening (remake), Tears of the Kingdom (a bunch), Echoes of Wisdom, The Minish Cap, A Link to the Past, A Link Between Worlds, and Ocarina of Time 3D that I’ve played through since starting this delve. I haven’t gone back to Breath of the Wild, in part because I think I’m spoiled by Tears of the Kingdom‘s easier-to-use menus and more gamebreaking abilities — what even am I without a rocket attached to my shield? — but Majora’s Mask 3D aside, it’s been a roundly positive experience. Good games, some more leaning into being a pain in the ass than others. Tears of the Kingdom might be my favorite of the bunch, though.

Alright, that’s enough out of me. I hope you’re safe and not surrounded by fascist assholes. I look forward to a day when these people are ostracized from everyday society and made to feel the shame they should be feeling now. Until then, stay safe, stay alert, stay hydrated. Back here on Monday for more shenanigans. Have a great weekend.

FRM.

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“Gas, grass or ass. No one rides for free.” — ancient boogie van proverb

Here’s a fun idea: let’s talk about Fu Manchu. The long-running SoCal fuzz rock progenitors have a vinyl remaster of their 1994 debut LP, No One Rides for Free, out direct from the band on their own At the Dojo Records imprint, following reissues of In Search Of, The Action is Go, Godzilla’s/Eatin’ Dust, California Crossing Demos and a collection of their cover material aptly-titled The Covers. Even as they’re currently in the studio working on a follow-up to 2009’s Signs of Infinite Power, however, they’re going back to their van-worshiping roots in repressing No One Rides for Free. The album arrives in gatefold form, quality card stock with photos of the four-piece from that era, pressed either to yellow (300), clear (300) or black (the rest) platter of substantive heft, and sounds even better than it looks, the eight tracks reading like a gnostic text of the heavy that would follow in their wake over these two decades since No One Rides for Free was first issued.

The lineup of guitarist/vocalist Scott Hill, guitarist Eddie Glass, bassist Mark Abshire and drummer Ruben Romano would be a supergroup if they got together today, with Hill having put out some of CA’s finest fuzz in Fu Manchu over the years while the others went on to form Nebula (whereabouts unknown), Romano now good company and good time in The Freeks — never mind Brant Bjork, who produced the thing — but make no mistake, on No One Rides for Free, there were no laurels to rest upon. Fu Manchu had put out a handful of singles between 1990 and 1994, but what’s widely considered their best work lay well ahead of them, and 20 years ago, the laid back, easy-flowing grooves of side A cuts like the opening one-two of “Time to Fly” and “Ojo Rojo” didn’t fit nearly as easily into assignations like “stoner” and “fuzz,” since they barely existed as a subgenre of rock. It’s easy to imagine No One Rides for Free finding an audience among the more baked-out contingent in Southern California’s seemingly perpetual punk and hardcore scene — that’s where Fu Manchu‘s roots lie, as the 2010 Southern Lord release of Virulence‘s If this isn’t a Dream… 1985-1989 (review here) showed, with Hill, Abshire and Romano in that lineup — but it’s not like it came prepackaged with a sticker that said, “Okay kids, this is stoner rock! Get on board!”

And for everyone who wound up doing that (i.e. getting on board), it’s no stretch to figure there were just as many who heard the acoustics and dreamy leads of “Summer Girls (Free and Easy)” — which here starts side B — and had no clue or context for what to make. If it was next-generation surf rock, however, Fu Manchu could easily fit that bill. No One Rides for Free sets in place an allegiance to that culture that continues to be a part of the band’s identity to this day, and a lot of what they’d later turn into the core of their sound is present in these tracks, let alone a lyrical affinity for good times, vans, Camaros, chrome pipes, ladies, and so on. Is it the record that launched a thousand Spicolis? More likely it’s a piece of that burnout puzzle than a sole actor, but Fu Manchu make it plain by the time Romano starts in with the cowbell of “Shine it On” that they know what they’re doing, and that the rolling grooves preceding are no mistake. Hill sounds like a kid on “Show and Shine” and “Mega Bumpers,” but that only adds to the fun of the reissue, and with the interplay of his and Glass‘ guitars in the jam of closer “Snakebellies” — which they still pull back to the main riff before they’re done — it’s easy to hear where a lot of players might’ve heard it and decided to try their hand at something similar. Like everybody.

It’s not a release that needs to justify its own release. Some reissues you wonder why they even exist. For Fu Manchu to be re-releasing their back catalog as they continue to work on new material wants nothing for rationale, and since they obviously have the rights to the material, all the better they’re the ones getting the chance to profit from putting it back out. Its production might sound dated here and there, but No One Rides for Free has a righteousness at its core that Fu Manchu‘s unyielding relevance and enduring influence shows to be timeless, and whether you’re a fan looking for an excuse to revisit their early output or a newcomer just getting to know them beyond preliminary investigations, this LP seems to serve all interests in a manner worthy of the band’s legacy. You can’t really lose.

Fu Manchu, No One Rides for Free (1994)

Fu Manchu on Thee Facebooks

Fu Manchu’s website

After running a contest to give away the test-pressing on their Thee Facebooks page (I didn’t win), Southern California fuzz innovators Fu Manchu have made available a limited run of vinyl for a new remaster of their 1994 debut album, No One Rides for Free. Obviously this is a scenario in which all of humanity benefits.

That’s not sarcasm. Yeah, No One Rides for Free doesn’t enjoy the same kind of landmark status as some of Fu Manchu‘s subsequent outings, like 1997’s The Action is Go or 1996’s In Search Of, but it’s amazing how much of Fu Manchu‘s approach was already laid out by the time they got to No One Rides for Free after a couple of initial singles. Cuts like “Mega-Bumpers” and “Time to Fly” and “Ojo Rojo” lay out the blueprint for what the band would become, and with the lineup of guitarist/vocalist Scott Hill, bassist Mark Abshire, guitarist Eddie Glass and drummer Ruben Romano — the latter three who’d go on to form Nebula — not to mention production by Brant Bjork, who’d later join on drums, the badassery speaks for itself. It’s like they recorded surfing.

Instructions for how to order follow here, and Fu Manchu are also playing Feb. 8 at Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa, CA, with Blasting Concept, so one imagines you can pick up a copy at that show as well. From there, the Fu head into the studio to lay down a new album reportedly for release later in the year. Like I said, everybody wins:

Fu Manchu 20 year anniversary of “no one rides for free” remaster / reissue gatefold LP out now. 300 on yellow vinyl and 300 on clear vinyl the rest on black vinyl. We will be selling the colored copies here. CD’s out soon.

Inside the USA $13.00 plus $7.00 shipping fedex priority. email your order.

Outside the USA contact us for shipping.

Paypal and contact is kingfu666@aol.com

Orders will start shipping out 3rd week of feb. Include order and address with payment.

https://www.facebook.com/FuManchuBand
http://www.fu-manchu.com/

Fu Manchu, No One Rides for Free (1994)