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35-501: The Descendents' initial recording lineup of guitarist Frank Navetta , bassist Tony Lombardo , and drummer Bill Stevenson released the band's 1979 debut single "Ride the Wild" / "It's a Hectic World" , with a sound that blended Devo -like new wave and Dick Dale -style surf music . Stevenson sold copies of the single to fellow students at Mira Costa High School , attracting the attention of classmate Milo Aukerman , who began attending

70-574: A bass being caught during a fishing trip on board the Orca and being mounted on the fisherman's wall. Navetta drew the illustrations for the front and back cover of the EP. Following its initial release on New Alliance, the EP was reissued in several versions and as part of compilation albums over the next 10 years. In 1985, New Alliance re-released it as part of the Bonus Fat compilation, pairing it with

105-454: A parody version of "Weinerschnitzel", titled "Alberto's", for their album The Recline of Mexican Civilization (2001). Taking Back Sunday covered "I Like Food" on the Tony Hawk's American Wasteland soundtrack (2005). Less Than Jake referenced "Weinerschnitzel" on their song "Channel 4" from TV/EP (2010). Frank Navetta Frank Navetta (March 6, 1962 – October 31, 2008)

140-580: A Loser", "Parents", "Statue of Liberty", and "Doghouse". He also co-wrote "My Dad Sucks", "I Wanna Be a Bear", and "Rockstar" with Tony Lombardo , and "Marriage" with Bill Stevenson . Bass (fish) Bass ( / b æ s / ; pl. : bass) is a generic common name shared by many species of ray-finned fish from the large clade Percomorpha , mainly belonging to the orders Perciformes and Moroniformes , encompassing both freshwater and marine species. The word bass comes from Middle English bars , meaning " perch ", despite that none of

175-582: A fit of Allular frustration. The songs were only seconds long, but that was all the time we needed to make the point. We temporarily put aside all of our so-called "girl songs" and recorded the Fat EP . This is the only record we ever made without a single love song on it. Of these songs, "Weinerschnitzel" was used on the Fat EP while "All" and "No, All!" were later recorded for the 1987 album All . "I just decided to not write normal songs", recalled Stevenson. " 'I Like Food' and 'Weinerschnitzel', I thought that

210-407: A lot of frustration. His songs most certainly bear that out. But he was absurdly generous. He would take his last four bucks and split it with you." Egerton had also said "What struck me about Frank's playing was it reflected very reactionary tendencies -- all downstrokes, all six strings when he could. He didn't really play solos, per se, and there were open chords and minor chords, which was cool in

245-579: A new band, the Ascendants. "We played one show", said Lombardo. "Frank played in his underwear, and I don't mean boxers . It was all a disaster, it was sad, for me anyway." Navetta ultimately quit the band by setting all of his musical equipment on fire and moving to Oregon , where he became a full-time fisherman. Although Navetta had left the Descendents, one song he had written with Lombardo, "Rockstar" (lyrics by Navetta, music by Lombardo),

280-456: A part of everyday Descendents life". "Caffeine makes you hyper", said Lombardo, "In general, it makes you want to play faster." Aukerman later recalled: "We started drinking too much coffee; 'cause of that and the addition of me, the music became very quick and all about bursts of energy. It's interesting: we started very melodic, then moved to hardcore, but melded the two at a certain point and became melodic hardcore ". Another factor influencing

315-472: A whole bunch of songs, mostly Frank's songs. He was a great songwriter. He had such a unique EQ out of his amp. When we recorded later in 2008, we did some more of my songs, but Frank wasn't there for that. We tried to recreate that unique Frank sound. I'd like to think of these as songs that if the Descendents had stayed together, this is what we would have sounded like. Those are in Bill's hands. Milo has said from

350-619: The Minutemen remembered that "Frank's image was kinda neat. It was kinda A-frame , with his legs [spread] and his guitar [held] up high. He was kind of a shorter man, but he was a hard-charger. Greg Cameron of SWA recalled seeing Navetta perform: The second show I ever saw of the Descendents was at the Dancing Waters in San Pedro . They broke into the set and he was playing guitar so hard and so angry that his pants fell down. He

385-471: The 1991 career retrospective Somery . Music journalist and culture critic Greil Marcus used the Fat EP as the introduction to his "Food Fight: Real Life Rock Top Ten 1981", remarking that "if a more perfect disc has appeared this year, I haven't heard it". Rock critic Robert Christgau called it a "punk classic", praising the short, fast songs and calling "Weinerschnitzel" "their masterpiece, eleven seconds of dialogue augmented by two guitar blams. All of

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420-583: The Descendent's debut single, "Ride the Wild" / "It's a Hectic World" (1979). Navetta wrote and sang on the A-side track. Stevenson's classmate Milo Aukerman joined the band in 1980 as lead singer, solidifying the early Descendents lineup. The Fat EP (1981) included two Navetta compositions, "My Dad Sucks" (co-written with Lombardo) and the fishing-themed "Mr. Bass". The Descendents' debut album Milo Goes to College (1982), so named because Aukerman

455-531: The Descendents again on the 1996 album Everything Sucks , and prior to his death in 2008 had been working on new material with original Descendents members Bill Stevenson and Tony Lombardo . In 2021, the band released this material on the album 9th & Walnut , which has been critically lauded for Frank's songwriting and playing. Frank Navetta and Dave Nolte met as sixth graders at American Martyrs Catholic School in Manhattan Beach, California . "I

490-458: The Descendents, Navetta was known for his aggressive playing and eccentric personality. "I know he had a rough familial thing growing up," recalled Stevenson, "just a lot of familial discord, and I think that can fuel a fire pretty well. I never sat there and went ‘wow, what made this guy so weird? ' " "All three of us—Frank, Bill, and I—came from divorced families," said Lombardo, "so that was maybe one of our bonds of commonality." Mike Watt of

525-497: The band as drummer, and he and Navetta became good friends; as Stevenson later recalled: We really hit it off and we would go fishing every day. I was in awe of all these great songs he'd written, and he would play them on the acoustic guitar really hard, Johnny Ramone style, all six strings. He had this bitter resentment that drenched every step he took and every word that he spoke. His songs were just filled with that envy of people that are better looking, that are more successful. It

560-457: The band to tour, which Navetta and Lombardo were against: "Bill kind of sat down with me and Frank and said something to the effect of we were at a point where we needed to grow by going on the road", Lombardo later said. "Frank said no, and I had to say no also, so he said he had to leave the band and we were both kind of bummed out. I don't think Frank even believed him at first. That was a bad scenario." Navetta, Lombardo, and Cooper tried to start

595-538: The band's practices regularly. Aukerman soon became the band's lead singer after jumping in to sing with them at practice. The addition of Aukerman and the consumption of large amounts of coffee led the band to write shorter, faster and more aggressive songs in a hardcore punk style. Stevenson attributed the change partly to the band's invention of the "Bonus Cup": "We took ⅓ of a cup of instant coffee grounds, added some hot water, threw in about 5 spoonfuls of sugar, and proceeded to play 10 second songs. The Bonus Cup became

630-534: The band's style was the concept of "All", invented by Stevenson and friend Pat McCuistion during a late-night fishing trip on Stevenson's boat, the Orca . According to Aukerman: "While drinking all this coffee in the midst of catching mackerel they came up with the concept of All — doing the utmost, achieving the utmost. The more they got into it the more it turned into their own religion; it's partly humor, but it's also an outlook on how to conduct your life: to not settle for some, to always go for All". Stevenson described

665-561: The concept of "All" as "the total extent", and recalled that "the quest for All became the main catalyst of the band, and we adopted this omni-ambitious way of life, for better and for better". He and McCuistion quickly wrote several very short songs that would later be recorded by the Descendents: Pat insisted that we quit writing "stupid girl songs", and start writing about things that really matter — like food and fishing. So he and I wrote "Weinerschnitzel", "All", and "No, All!" in

700-415: The context of punk. It was a very different kind of a sound, so the rhythmic intent and pulse, what he was going for, cleaner guitar sound... those were the things that struck me overall." All singer Scott Reynolds called him "a very genuine person, crazy in a way that was interesting." Navetta's writing credits with the Descendents include the songs "Ride the Wild", "Mr. Bass", "Global Probing", "I'm Not

735-586: The fifty or so listeners I've subjected to it have had the same basic response: 'Play it again, willya? ' " Ned Raggett of AllMusic gave the EP 3 stars out of 5, calling it "quick, immediate, goofy, fun" and "a hyperspeed trashing of modern youth Kultur circa 1981". In the decades since its release, several artists have recorded cover versions of songs from the Fat EP . For the Descendents tribute album Homage: Lots of Bands Doing Descendents' Songs (1995), Squatweiler with Asteroid Wilhanna covered "I Like Food" while Drew covered "Hey Hey". Manic Hispanic recorded

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770-443: The get-go that he would record it, but he hasn't yet." This project would finally be realized over a decade after Navetta's death in 2021 in the form of the album 9th & Walnut . Navetta died October 31, 2008, after becoming ill over the course of a few days. "What I was told by his family", said Stevenson, "was that he died from a diabetic coma and he never came to, he just died in his sleep. But suffice it to say that Frank

805-486: The more original thinkers I've ever met in my life. He was clinically insane. It's hard for me to listen to his guitar playing and not hear the madness at work, and that's why his style is so absolutely impossible to imitate, because it's driven by genuine insanity. He gave us so much in terms of that teeth-gritted "fuck you" attitude, and I thought it was a real important part of what Descendents were and are. – Karl Alvarez , Descendents/All bassist During his time with

840-401: The names of various foodstuffs. Several other songs about food were written, but did not make it onto the EP. "We were never organized enough to have concepts", recalled Stevenson in 2013. "The fact of the matter is that I was 250 pounds and obsessed with chili burgers and stuff. And Frank was a little overweight at the time, too. So we were embracing our gluttony". "Mr. Bass" tells the story of

875-474: The song "Doghouse", and also played on the song "Eunuch Boy". In 2002 Navetta and Lombardo joined Stevenson for a reunion performance by the Descendents' original power trio lineup at Stevenson's Stockage festival in Fort Collins, Colorado . According to Lombardo, they also recorded some songs for a potential future release: "We recorded some of my songs in 2006 at The Blasting Room . In 2002 we recorded

910-424: The tracks from "Ride the Wild" / "It's a Hectic World" and "Global Probing" from a New Alliance/ SST Records compilation titled Chunks . In 1987, New Alliance was sold to SST, who re-released Bonus Fat on EP , cassette and compact disc . In 1988, it was paired with the band's debut album Milo Goes to College as Two Things at Once . "My Dad Sucks", "I Like Food", and "Weinerschnitzel" were also included on

945-526: Was an American musician who was the original guitarist of the punk rock band the Descendents , which he co-founded. He formed the band in Manhattan Beach, California with Dave Nolte in the late 1970s and played on their 1979 debut single , the Fat EP (1981), and their first album, Milo Goes to College (1982). Navetta then quit the band and moved to Oregon to become a fisherman. He collaborated with

980-405: Was an odd character, for sure. I can remember standing in line at a Misfits show and all of a sudden he just sat down on the ground and started holding his head like his ears were ringing or something, and said something to the effect of "What am I doing here? Where am I?" So that was Frank. Descendents/All guitarist Stephen Egerton described Navetta as "a complicated guy, for sure, and [he] had

1015-428: Was friends with him straight away", Nolte later recalled, "We both had interest in music, we both started playing guitar at the same time." They decided to start a band, and Navetta came up with the name Descendents , an intentional misspelling of "descendants". In mid-1977 they befriended Bill Stevenson , who impressed them by overdubbing his own backing vocals onto a demo tape Navetta had recorded. Stevenson joined

1050-403: Was in very poor health. Maybe the last ten years of his life, I saw a real decline there [...] Of course, we rekindled our friendship years later in a way that was very ultimate and very real, and it didn't involve the band because he wasn't in the band. He would come out here every year and stay for about a month with me, every year. He did it for years, until he died." I love Frank. He's one of

1085-582: Was just really inspiring to be around someone that just hated everything that much. It was just great. While rehearsing in Navetta's brother's garage in Long Beach, California in 1979, the trio heard Tony Lombardo practicing bass guitar nearby and recruited him into the band. Nolte soon bowed out to join his brothers in The Last , and the power trio lineup of Navetta, Lombardo, and Stevenson released

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1120-467: Was leaving the band to study biology , included five more of Navetta's songs: "I Wanna Be a Bear" (co-written with Lombardo), "I'm Not a Loser", "Parents", "Statue of Liberty", and "Marriage" (co-written with Stevenson). With Aukerman away at college, the Descendents added Ray Cooper as both singer and second guitarist. They performed with this lineup, and occasionally as a quintet when Aukerman would make return visits to Los Angeles. Stevenson pushed for

1155-547: Was recorded in March 1981 at Music Lab studios in Hollywood with producer Spot , and was released later that year by New Alliance Records . "Weinerschnitzel", titled after the fast-food chain , is the shortest song on the EP at 10 seconds, with Lombardo playing the role of the restaurant's counterman while Aukerman shouts his food order at him. The 16-second "I Like Food" also takes food as its topic, with Aukerman shouting out

1190-410: Was the way of the future, like 'yeah, these songs are more cool than normal songs ' ". We were real fat people. I weighed about 240 pounds, and Frank weighed about 190 pounds. We would eat hamburgers and stuff. People thought "Oh, they do this funny thing", but we were really into that. I wrote that song about going to Der Weinerschnitzel because we were all into it. –Bill Stevenson The Fat EP

1225-487: Was used for their 1985 album I Don't Want to Grow Up . Lombardo subsequently left the band as well, and the Descendents experienced more lineup changes and released two more albums before Aukerman left the band in 1987. Stevenson changed the band's name to All , and they continued to tour and release albums. When Aukerman reunited with the band as the Descendents for the 1996 album Everything Sucks , Navetta and Lombardo both participated. Navetta wrote and played guitar on

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