Commentary

For those not in the know, Frank Navetta, the original guitarist for the massively influential southern California pop-punk band (many would argue the original pop-punk band) the Descendents died on October 31st. According to an official statement on the Descendents’ MySpace page, Frank fell victim to a mysterious illness earlier that week and passed away a few day later on Halloween.

Navetta formed the Descendents in 1979 alongside drummer Bill Stevenson (who still plays in the band) and original bassist Tony Lombardo. While the early Descendents recordings sounded more akin to surf-pop than hardcore, by 1982’s seminal Milo Goes To College the band had certainly found their voice. While many would point to the addition of singer Milo Aukerman as the key step that lead to this landmark album, the contributions of all three original players cannot be understated. In fact, alongside Lombardo’s melodic basslines, Navetta’s guitar style, which weaved punk, surf, hardcore and rock into a unique tapestry, helped define the sound of a generation.

Even though Navetta played on a couple of songs on the bands next album, 1985’s I Don’t Want To Grow Up, he left the group before the record was even finished. He was replaced by Ray Cooper.

In 2002, Navetta reunited with Stevenson and Lombardo for a one-off performance at the Stockage Music Festival. It would be the last time the original line-up of the Descendents would grace a stage together.

In honor of Frank Navetta, we present five of his greatest moments during his tenure with the Descendents:

1. Being punk rock enough to fish.

Besides coffee, rejection, and food, fishing was another favorite topic of early Descendents’ songs (see “Mr. Bass” and “Catalina.”) This makes sense because Navetta and Stevenson were both fishermen during that era of the Dents. Eventually Stevenson found a more stable calling on the drum stool, but when Navetta left the band in 1985, he did so to work as a full-time fisherman in Oregon. I guess for some the appeal of the large mouth bass is greater than that of the electric bass, or guitar in this instance.

2. The guy wrote “I’m Not A Loser!

I know everyone has their favorite anthems from the early days of hardcore, but this one seemed to really cut through to the suburban kids. “You think your life is really tough when your daddy won’t buy you a brand new car/Take a girl out she won’t fuck you/You just bought her a gram of coke,” - those lyrics just spoke to me and my fellow geeks in high school because that is what we lived through on a daily basis. Descendents’ albums were always a great soundtrack for the underdogs and “I’m Not A Loser” may in fact be their national anthem.

         Listen to “I’m Not a Loser”

3. He was a key ingredient on the Fat EP.

Released in 1981 on The Minutemen’s New Alliance label, Fat is a notable EP for it’s strict adherence to avoiding any songs about girls, love etc. So what you get are two songs about food, “I Like Food,” and “Weinershnitzel,” one song about bad relations with Pop, “My Dad Sucks,” one song about a fish “Mr. Bass,” and two songs about society in general “Hey Hey” and “Global Probing.” Plus the cover was an illustration of a hamburger with a single bite taken from it - yum!

4. Singing for the band pre-Milo.

On the band’s very first single circa 1979, Frank sang lead on his song “Ride The Wild.” It sounds very different from anything the Descendents would end up releasing with Milo on vocals, (even the soon to follow Fat EP) but it is a cool document nonetheless. If the band had never hooked up with Milo, they still could have morphed into an entertaining surf-pop outfit, skewing more towards new-wave than hardcore.

5. Burning his past when he left the band.

According to legend, Navetta literally set all his music gear on fire before relocating to Oregon. I don’t know if this is really true, or just one of ye olde embellished tales of rock and roll, but I like to think that he actually did it. There’s just something bad-ass about lighting all your equipment on fire before moving up to Oregon to work as a fisherman. I bet you’ll never hear about one of the guys from Good Charlotte doing that!

So rest in peace, brother. You’ll be missed, but your invaluable contributions to music will live in forever.