Episode #95 | 2.8.22
Sublime: Hoodlums, Police Helicopters, and Getting Dirty at Denny’s
In this episode
With their newfangled ska-punk, Sublime preached the gospel of Long Beach’s seedy shores unlike any band before them. They also incited a riot at the first show, vandalized their record label’s headquarters, and did unspeakable deeds to a Dennys kitchen with their mobile home’s septic tank. The group’s musical legacy is inseparable from their reputation as hoodlums and hedonists, in part because those are precisely the people Sublime wrote about. Sublime was born in California, raised in California, but before they could get much farther, Sublime died in California, too.
Sources
Sublime’s Brad Nowell: Crazy Fool (Portrait of a Punk) by Heidi Siegmund Cuda
Sublime: Stories, Tales, Lies & Exaggerations
Don’t Start A Riot (OC Weekly)
Sublime’s Last Show: The Oral History (KQED)
Sublime Singer Brad Nowell Dead at 28 (MTV)
A Ten Minute Phone Conversation With Sublime (Beach Happy Magazine)
Sublime Making the Most of ‘40oz’ Success (LA Times)
Sublime's late Brad Nowell could have had it all: family, fortune and rock superstardom. Instead, he hocked it all for a needle and a spoon. (Guitar World)
Ugly Trend of the Year ‘96 (SPIN)
Wrong Way to the Top (Addicted To Noise)
Bradley Nowell: Life After Death (Rolling Stone)
Artist Profile: Sublime (Pollstar)
In Name Only (Slam Magazine)
Sublime Time (The Sonoma Independent)
Jon Phillips Interview (Making It With Chris G. Podcast)
Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Music
Hosted by Jake Brennan.
Written by Victoria Wasylak.
Copy editing by Pat Healy.
Mixed and Engineered by Sean Cahalin.
Score by Jake Brennan.
Disgraceland theme song, "Crenshaw Space Boogie" written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.
*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak