So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes

Overview

The band often find themselves bombarded by footwear while performing live, as it is common practice of punk rock fans to throw shoes lost by crowd surfers on stage. From this, and the title of the fourth book of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, comes the record's title.

The album was recorded at San Francisco's Motor Studios in August 1997 and was produced by Fat Mike and regular Fat Wreck Chords producer Ryan Greene. The liner notes for the album claim it is 'arguably their third best album' (up to that point) although Fat Mike has referred to it as his favourite one on several occasions. Also therein the standard practice of including a photograph of each band member has been mocked, with members of other punk bands standing in for the four NOFX members:

Track 9, "Champs Elysées", is a cover version of the track "Les Champs-Elysées" by Joe Dassin.

The "Kill Rock Stars" song is written about musician Kathleen Hanna, referencing her by name: "Kill the rockstars? How ironic, Kathleen. You've been crowned the newest queen." The song's title is a reference to riot grrrl record label Kill Rock Stars. In response Hanna wrote "Deceptacon", included on Le Tigre's first album, which referred to the NOFX song "Linoleum": "Your lyrics are dumb like a linoleum floor, I'll walk on it, I'll walk all over you".

The final track, "Falling in Love", is reportedly a love song about a friend of Fat Mike and his friend's wife together in a plane in rapid descent, destined to crash. The track has a 'hidden ending' that starts at timecode 4:15. It is a recording of a segment from Howard Stern's radio show in which the host's DJ begins to play the track "Drugs Are Good", from the band's HOFX EP. He clearly dislikes the track and stops it after 36 seconds, effectively labelling it as disco before going on to rename the band 'No Talent'. The first pressing of the cd contains an extended bonus track: 8 min instrumental immediately after this radio show segment, that ends with a 10-second song "Congratulations, you made it through the song, I bet you never thought anyone could play something so wrong".

On the CD it bears the Warning "Unlawful Duplication May be Hazardous to your Health!". This warning might be a parody of Bad Religion albums because some Bad Religion albums (e.g., Suffer, No Control) carry this warning.

Track listing

All tracks written by Fat Mike except where noted.

Contains a hidden track: see Overview, above.

Personnel