25 Albums. #08: Album Minus Band by Bomb the Music Industry!

I discovered Bomb the Music Industry! accidentally during my junior year of high school. I used to frequent the GameFAQs Music:Punk message board and BTMI! was all the rage. I was familiar with the Arrogant Sons of Bitches band name, but I had never really listened to them (this was back when you had to rely on Kazaa and Limewire and hope that someone would upload a decent quality song, which of course no one ever did) so my mind was free of making any apt comparisons between the two bands.

Everything is always falling apart. Or something.

It should be noted that at this point in my life, most of the modern punk rock I knew was NOFX or Rancid or Leftover Crack or something. I also pretended to not like Bad Religion because I was that hip of a punk rocker. But I digress.

Anyway, long story short, Bomb the Music Industry!'s "Album Minus Band" was the first real DIY album that I had listened to that wasn't at least 10 years old (and even at that point, most of those had been remastered). It was raw, fast, loud, fun, obnoxious and it was probably the coolest thing I had ever heard at the time. I had downloaded two bootlegs (from the aforementioned Music: Punk message board) of some of the band's earliest shows and they mentioned that everything they had recorded could be downloaded from free on their website, which is how I came to discover Album Minus Band. In my mind, it wasn't until Bomb the Music Industry! hit the scene when punk bands began to truly realize that in this modern age they could record their own shitty albums with ProTools and then put it up on the internet for free. (And then once Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails did it, bands of other genres began to follow, too.) I'll still listen to this album every now and then and think about how awesome it is for something that was pretty much done by one guy in a month. It's pretty inspiring to a 16 year old kid who plays nothing but Green Day covers on his guitar.