D.I. “Tragedy Again” 1989. Triple X Records, orange vinyl. The fourth LP from So-Cal punks D.I. who had a fluctuating lineup but always constant was singer Casey Royer (formerly of Adolescents and Social Distortion). Tragedy Again saw the arrival (and then departure in ‘91, rejoined briefly in ‘99) of guitarist Sam Elliot, who replaced Mark Cerneka. Tragedy Again was the last LP with John “Bosco” Calabro on guitar; Calabro had originally joined on bass in ‘84 but later switched to guitar; he and Cerneka replaced Rikk and Alfie Agnew (Adolescents, Social Distortion). Hedge (formerly of Doggy Style) is on bass and Stevie DRT plays drums (his last studio record; the list of D.I. drummers over the years is typical rock band and way too long to detail here). Tragedy Again is heavy 80′s California punk that veers between the melodic skate-punk sound (ie “On Our Way”), borderline heavy metal (ie “Chiva” and “Nick the Whip” have a total all-out metal guitar solos) and breakneck speed adolescent punk (the title track “Tragedy Again” and “Love To Me Is Sin” with the lyrics “I had a dream, I was this big/I crawled into your bed and did a little jig/I played it cool, I made a wish and when I woke up my whole body smelled like fish…fish!”).

So I’ve written about this before but I can’t write about D.I. without telling the story of one of the craziest nights I ever had in the 80′s. D.I. and Doggy Style played Kutska’s Hall (in Howard, WI just outside of Green Bay) in ‘87 – Hedge played both sets – and after the show the bands (along with their merch guy who happened to be Wade Waltson aka Joe Schmo from the movie Suburbia and then bassist for US Bombs) followed us back to Appleton to party at my friend’s house. Complete debauchery, sandwich meat on the kitchen ceiling, small fires in the living room, band members hooking up with my friends (Joe Schmo with two of them! though not at once). I hung out with Hedge and a couple other guys in the entourage for most of the evening, trash talking, trading jewelry (LOL) but generally keeping out of trouble. The house was beyond trashed; there had to have been at least 75-100 kids and band members there in total. I can’t remember if I stayed the night or not but I do know that I had the unpleasant task of helping to clean up the next morning – wondering how to get baloney stains off of a ceiling – before my friend’s dad got home.