Agent Orange “Living in Darkness” 1981. Posh Boy Records. Last night we caught the classic OG/OC hardcore punks perform at Shank Hall here in Milwaukee. We bought our tickets back in late 2019 (I think) for a show originally scheduled for October 2020, which was rescheduled for 2021 and then finally came to fruition almost exactly two years late. I believe that 2020 was intended as a 40th anniversary tour for Living in Darkness. Their debut record mixed the emerging California hardcore punk sound coming out of Orange County with 60’s surf rock to help develop the new skate punk sound; it’s ranked as one of the “10 Best Skate Punk Records of All Time” (I did not know that was a list that existed).

Agent Orange played Living in Darkness in its entirety last night, though with other songs as well (otherwise it would have been a very short show as only one song, the title track “Living in Darkness” clocks in at over three minutes; most tracks hover around the 2:00 mark). Unprompted by me, the bassist (Perry Giordano, in the band since 2006) handed me the set list at the end of the night, though I was totally going to ask for it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This album is such a classic that it’s hard for me to pick my top tracks as I love the whole record and know it beginning to end. But! I adore “Bloodstains” with its anthemic and iconic Cali-punk chorus “Bloodstains, speed kills, fast cars, cheap thrills, rich girls, fine wine” set to a rippingly punked-up surf guitar riff. They go 100% surf with their cover of Dick Dale’s “Miserlou” but then remove all the surfy sunshine on the excellent but very dark “Everything Turns Grey” and “The Last Goodbye.” Then, of course, is “No Such Thing” which is now such a classic skate punk song that it appears in a video game aptly titled “Skate.” Finally, there’s the album opener “Too Young to Die,” which they introduced last night as a tribute to the recent passing of Coolio (I didn’t click record fast enough to get that intro, though):