various artists - No Idea & Fueled By Ramen: You Can Taste That Something "Special"

2001 was a very good year for music to come out of Gainesville. No Idea put out all-timers from Planes Mistaken for Stars, Ruination, Gunmoll, and celebrated their 100th release with a tri-colored slab of wax that I still love to pieces. Fueled By Ramen released Frodus's final full-length, EPs from Cadillac Blindside, the Impossibles, and Jersey, along with records from the Stereo and Blueline Medic. Trust me when I say these records were EVERYWHERE. And we were happy for it.

But I hadn't seen this sampler until I added a copy for less than a buck on a recent Discogs order. That blows my mind, considering how many goddamned copies of "Back To Donut!" I ended up owning over the years. The samplers I'd get with my No Idea orders were crucial not only for guiding my listening, but helping me decide what I wanted to book and travel to see over the next five years. So it seems really weird that I wouldn't have had a copy of this until 2026.

Discogs

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various artists - Mailorder Is Fun

Just a killer proto-Warped Tour sampler, featuring a shit-ton of bands from the Asian Man roster, as well as some from the pre-Fall Out Boy Fueled By Ramen lineup. The standouts include lead-off batters Slapstick, who by 1998 were mostly remembered outside of Chicago as being the band that spawned Alkaline Trio and the Lawrence Arms, the aforementioned A3, J.Church covering E.L.O., and Discount.

But, for me, revisiting this 24 years later, what hits me hardest are the lesser-remembered offerings. I recall how stoked everyone was on Link 80 in 1998, seeing them as the heirs to Operation Ivy. I was always excited to see the likes of Slow Gherkin, Johnny Socko, or Animal Chin on the back of a compilation; you knew if was going to be goofy and danceable and just a hell of a lot of fun.

It was all happening so far away from Baltimore at the time. The Fest wasn't a thing yet; the Misfits Of Ska tour hadn't been organized; if anyone hit the mid-Atlantic, they were playing weird, out-of-the-way towns because spaces like CCAS or the Sidebar were still in the future. But we had this, and it was most good.

Discogs

Click here to download.