Nobody’s Favorite

White Trash scurried out of the ashes of a Philly band called Nobody’s Favorite sometime in 1986. We played our first show at Abe’s steaks on 40th. street. It was a small room with better than average sound and a truly great crowd of regulars. We rocketed through a set that was largely comprised of songs that we were getting ready to record for our yet untitled EP.

We recorded JETLAG every other Sunday night over the course of three months. We used a borrowed Fostex x-15 four track recorder and two microphones The two live recordings were back to back shows. We played John’s on July 4th 1987 and the Rodman street block party the next day. The show at John’s was basically a drunken loud mess with Steve and Parris fighting early on in the set. The block party was also a drunken mess, but without any fighting. It was our last show ever.
live recordings
John’s:
We turned everything up till it hurt and got shit-faced before the sound check. I remember Steve and Parris arguing about something and thinking that any minute they would start punching each other.
We had more beers waiting to play and by the time we did play we no longer cared about the audience. We opened with Riled by a Nazi playing it so fast that everyone took a couple steps backwards away from us. We basically sucked that night.
Rodman street:
The day after John’s…a Sunday. We drank Iron City beer waiting to play. It was a long wait because we were the last band to play that day. Clouds rolled in and the sunny day turned into that weird yellow-purple pre storm sky. We opened with Love Ain’t Pretty and gently worked up the crowd until there was spinning and crashing in the pit. The rain held off till after we played. That was our final show–we didn’t know it at the time though. Fortunately, we didn’t suck that day.

John-bass, vocals
Dave-mouth
Steve-drums
Parris-guitar

the title quote,
“Mne plevat’ na zritelia”
“I spit on the spectator”
from Dostoevsky’’s Notes From the Underground
Thanks to Dave for sending me all of this stuff.

Audio files

01. Love Ain’t Pretty
02. Act Now
03. Mexarg Soap
04. Webwork
05. Energy Level
06. Why We Die Like Dogs
07. Nouveaugçö Filthy.
08. Her Name
09. Jet Lag.
10. Nothing Else
11. Five O’clock Jet Lag
12. Cruisin’ With Kurt
13. Bite Your Head Off
14. Riled By A Nazi
15. Deep Fried Chicken Backs Police Fun
16. Insults And Punchlines
17. Thick Ankles Spoil Your Appearance
18. Pretty Woman (Live)
19. Zsa Zsa Gabor
20. Purple Haze

MediaFire Zip

Nobody’s Favorite from the CEC in West Philly. I’m not sure when this show was since I can’t find a flyer for it but it was with M-80’s (who I also have some video of for later) and Decontrol (that video is already up). Thanks to Dave who was the singer for sending me a couple of emails with all this info and stories below: Nobody’s Favorite had Robbie Birch who was (Richie) decontrol’s guitar player’s brother in the band. Their bass player John (Wolfinger) went on to play and record with Decontrol until his death in 1990. Their drummer was Steve Malone, who was in the marching band in high school resulting in near perfect timing on his part. He would always raz me for mucking it up. At this show the stage monitors burned out early and we relied on the sound bouncing back from the back wall of the CEC. The video also reminded me ( Rob had a big NF on his shirt) of a show at the Crypt where four guys surrounded me on Walnut street because I had a NF logo on my sleeve and thought I was in the National Front. I was like, no no I’m no fascist as I pointed to a flyer on a pole, I’m with the band. They were about to beat the piss out of me, but we all had a good laugh about it in the end. After they broke up some of the band went on to form other bands including: White Trash and Crash Happy. Hopefully I will get some White Trash audio to put up at some point.