Song Of The Week: 4/29/12

Song: "The Devil's Takin' Names"

Artist: The Lawrence Arms

Album: "Oh! Calcutta!"

Year: 2006




"The Devil's Takin' Names" appears to be a song about trying something that you either never had a need to do or never quite thought you would actually ever try. It almost has an attitude of don't knock something unless you've tried it. The Lawrence Arms are a punk band that formed back in 1999 and they are very much a staple of the Chicago punk scene. The band features the dual vocal threat of Brendan Kelly and Chris McCaughan on all of their releases. The band's first two releases, 1999's "A Guided Tour Of Chicago" and 2000's "Ghost Stories" were both released on Asian Man Records. Through these two albums as well as tours, The Lawrence Arms caught the attention of NOFX's Fat Mike who would recruit the band to sign on his Fat Wreck Chords label, where the band remains to this day. The band would release three more full lengths on Fat Wreck, 2002's "Apathy And Exhaustion", 2003's "The Greatest Story Ever Told" and 2006's "Oh! Calcutta!". Between constant touring and their five full length albums, The Lawrence Arms also managed to put out four EP's, a compilation album and also appeared on several various artist compilations as well. The band's last official release was an EP entitled "Buttsweat And Tears" which dropped in 2009. From the mid 2000's till the present, The Lawrence Arms were not quite as active as in their beginning years. Most of this was due to working on side projects. Chris McCaughan formed an acoustic band called Sundowner while Brendan Kelly teamed up with Alkaline Trio's Dan Andriano on a band called The Falcon. Kelly also started working on some acoustic stuff as well. A lot of focus began to be put on these side projects but The Lawrence Arms was never in danger of breaking up. They, in fact, recorded a live show at The Metro in Chicago in 2009 on their tenth anniversary and the video of the performance would be released by Fat Wreck Chords a few years later in 2011. Currently, there is no word on The Lawrence Arms working on any new material out there, with members probably still focused on the solo acoustic stuff as of now.