ALL YOU CAN EAT

ALL YOU CAN EAT were like an earworm in the early '90s, you couldn't escape them. Danny B, Myron and Devon worked with a rotating cast bass players before landing on Craigums and essentially conquering the world while acting as a life line connecting San Francisco to the rest of the DIY world. You might think that San Francisco, itself a hub of punk to people around the world, didn't need a life line - but ALL YOU CAN EAT connected an entirely new generation of punk and punks to their contemporaries in the far corners of the planet in a way that the (then older) establishment simply couldn't...plenty of parallels to current scenarios and scenes within scenes, but they did it with postcards and letters and handmade tapes, and they formed bonds (for themselves and the people around them...including myself) that would last lifetimes. Europe was easy, the network was there and bands had been using it for a decade before ALL YOU CAN EAT started playing shows....so they never went to Europe. But there were arguably the first US DIY band to tour Japan, they booked tours in Brazil, Argentina, Philippines, Thailand, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand....through the fucking mail. Their energy and antics on stage were epic (also: notably photogenic), and it was the legend of those performances that transcended their recorded output, while their seemingly insatiable lust for adventure and the beauty of international DIY punk transcended the shows themselves.  They presented as a goofy pop punk band, but tracks like "Lucifudge (You Thought It Was Over)" showcases their love for ripping '80s crossover, and the influences run as deep as the list of sub-subgenres that record nerds continue to pull out of their collective ass(es)....ALL YOU CAN EAT were always so much more than they presented. This recording has most of their hits ("I Saw Your Girlfriend In A Movie," "This Die Cast Metal Has Life," "Food Fight") plus a track called "Everything Sucks" that predates the DESCENDENTS track and Danny B said he did not remember writing, playing or recording. My point is that these dudes were very important....these dudes are very important. And not just to me.

STRONGEST MALT