Operation Ivy - Hectic E.P.

Six songs, twelve minutes, and an entire genre gets invented. Hectic was Operation Ivy's first release, out in 1988 as the third record ever issued by Lookout!, and it is the founding document of American ska punk.

Jesse Michaels sings like he is being chased, Tim Armstrong plays upstrokes and downstrokes in the same bar, Matt Freeman's bass lines are already doing things bass lines are not supposed to do, and Dave Mello just holds on. "Junkie's Runnin' Dry" and "Sleep Long" set the template, "Here We Go Again" is the one everyone shouts along to, and "Hoboken" is over before you have quite registered it started. Kevin Army engineered at Dangerous Rhythm in Oakland, and the recording is exactly as raw as it should be.

The band lasted two years. Armstrong and Freeman went on to form Rancid, and half the bands that filled Warped Tour lineups for the next fifteen years were working from this blueprint. Gilman Street's most important export.

This Hellcat remastered reissue puts all six tracks on a 12 inch cut at 45 RPM, pressed by Pirates Press with a booklet of liner notes and lyrics. Essential East Bay history.