Naked Raygun “All Rise” 1986. I’m spinning Naked Raygun’s second LP in honor of NR’s bassist Pierre Kezdy who died today, October 9th, at age 58. All Rise was Kezdy’s first Naked Raygun album after joining the band in ‘85. The Chicago-area noise punks had a massive influence on the punk/noise rock scene, including Steve Albini (who is credited with “design” on this album’s production) and Dave Grohl who saw Naked Raygun perform in the Midwest when he was about 13 years old while visiting relatives (according to the obit article in this morning’s Chicago Sun Times). Naked Raygun never had the widespread commercial success of Grohl, of course, and Kezdy had kept his day-job as a plumber. Singer Jeff Pezzati wrote almost all the songs on All Rise but Kezdy has co-writing credits on one track, “Backlash Jack” (one of my favorites on the LP) and Kezdy would contribute more songs on later records, including the band’s most well-known single (I say that in the context that most people have not heard of Naked Raygun, of course) “Vanilla Blue” (1987). My other top tracks from All Rise include “Knock Me Down,” “Peacemaker” and “New Dreams.”