Creative Writing 101: “All I know is that I don’t know nothing.”
So way back in ’87 there was a punk band that called themselves Operation Ivy. The band started in 1987 and ended in 1989, after playing over 180 shows, but that didn’t stop them from becoming one of the seminal influences on later punk and ska-punk.

Scroll forward to 1992. Harley, naïve farm boy, goes to college, finds new friends and new music. A kid down the hall lends us the first Op Ivy album (produced after their breakup). We listen to it for weeks straight. The music is fast, upbeat and aggressive, with lyrics that call for social responsibility (when you can discern them).

Powerful stuff for an impressionable young male. When called in for a conference with the director of the Creative Writing program, I was asked, “What do you want to accomplish with your writing?”

My answer went something like this:

“I want my stories to pick up the reader and throw them across the room.”

I was laughed out of the office, and for good reasons. The power of music and writing are radically different. Still, traces of those original aspirations remain.

Fast forward again, to 2006. Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman, previously of Op Ivy, are now part of Rancid and Lars Fredrickson and the Bastards. Now I’d never ask anyone to listen to either group --- it’s an acquired taste to be sure --- but here is some footage of Rancid doing an acoustic cover of an Op Ivy song. It’s suitable for adult ears, and captures the emotion of the genre.

http://epitaph.com/videos/player/791

That Op Ivy can still has relevance is inspiring. Maybe my old writing goals can still be relevant, as well.


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Edit ... when my little brother got to college, he wrote Op Ivy, neither of us realizing that the band had been non-existent for 4+ years. He received a hand-written reply from the folks at Epitaph thanking him for his letter and encouraging him to check out Rancid.

We did, and things were never the same.