I just stumbled across this 2004 article (linked from the Dave Smalley Wikipedia page):

Heh heh… just a few minutes ago I posted a (completely reasonable) comment about how I never cared for Earth Crisis but loved Snapcase. Does this mean I'm a 90s hardcore hipster?

Ha! I though 108 sounded familiar and that would be why.

Yeah, I haven't thought about Dag Nasty or Chain of Strength in probably 15 years but you can bet I'll be digging through my old boxes of tapes tonight looking for some of those albums.

I'd say the difference isn't so much that it "rocks" more than the later albums, but that it's "fun". Which is not a word I'd use to describe any of their other records.

One of my friends tells a story about seeing Counting Crows around that time (maybe a little later… like on the follow up album tour?) and their rendition of Mr Jones being played at about 1/8 speed with Duritz reciting the lyrics in a monotone voice and punctuating every line by smashing a giant gong.

Wait, do the wealthy necrophiliacs clone dead celebrities, then kill them, then have their way with them? That seems like a lot of extra steps if the endgame is simple corpse-fucking.

Ah yes, the most mis-attributed song of the Napster era.

Even better if you find the right chair.

It's mine too… all of their other albums have a few songs that knock me flat on my ass surrounded by a bunch of songs that I find pleasant, but AM is great from start to finish.

Not-joke-getting is a pretty shitty magic power for a person, but for a rat? Not too shabby.

My cat is never happier than when he's in the bathroom with me while I take a shit. The other day he was purring so loud my wife could hear him through the bathroom door as she walked by.

This was a particularly bad case of somebody being cut in half.

Walker says you're a Cancer, I just think you're a flu.

No kidding… the only VU album i actually own is a "Best of" compilation and even I know most of the songs mentioned in the article.

I still can't believe Stabler let his daughter go there.

5. Hudson University

Thanks for responding… I still think you're crazy, but I no longer think you're an idiot!

I hesitate to even respond to such an obvious attempt to get a rise out of people, but I'm genuinely curious about how you think metal "ruined" rock. I mean, I know you said "end of story" but would you mind elaborating?

Is Load the '90s alternative rock-ish one with the song that sounds like "I'm a Little Teapot"?