The Nation of Ulysses -- 13-Point Program to Destroy America

Let's just look at that title again there: 13-Point Program to Destroy America. The FBI allegedly had a file on the Nation of Ulysses, which if true one presumes would be because of that title but also, I'd suspect, because their prodigious Marxistish liner notes seethed with talk of revolution, their 5-Year Plan (see what they did there?) garb, and because their debut 7-inch cover art had what looked to be a schematic for some sort of suicide/assassination to be carried out upon either scooter or motorcycle. Also, reflect on the opening sentence on the band's page at Dischord: "The Nation of Ulysses was a violent separatist political party and terrorist group operating out of Washington, D.C. in the early 1990's." Propaganda left around DC announcing the upcoming appearance of a terrorist band conceivably could've raised some Federal eyebrows.
How much of NoU's talk was an act? Who can say, but if it was an act--and really, how couldn't it be--singer Ian Svenonius needs to be credited with stringing along a line longer than even Andy Kaufman's--the man has altered but hasn't broken character in over 25 years, his schtick/non-schtick outlasting NoU and several other of his bands.

Whatever their real intentions, 13-Point Program is an album that makes you really think you might be able to use it to change the world, and not just with its music (a hippie-generation concept they likely derided (I don't have a copy of any liner notes handy)), but by inspiring actual blood-and-riots youth revolution. In 1991 I kind of felt that way. Other punk bands most definitely had political agendas (see: Dead Kennedys, et al.) but the Nation of Ulysses's political agenda was uniquely theirs, and they made an art of it.

Best Song
The only quasi-lull in the churning forward charge of battle occurs at the songs bookending the side break, "Diptheria" and "Aspirin Kid". These are the best songs not because they're slower, but for the way they hide their menace and allow the band to expand (horns!).

Released
July 21 1991 (the 19th anniversary of Bloody Friday; coincidence?)

Acquired
Summer 1991. Actually, that's when my brother got it and when I first heard it and started playing it basically nonstop for a few months. I didn't own a copy until a few years later.

Next Closest
It's often fast and it's often called hardcore punk, but it isn't really. Musically, there is something a little cold, a little European about the sound that I can't put my finger on. Maybe it's that the macho posturing unfortunately present to some degree in all hardcore is completely absent here (despite a song title like "Today I Met the Girl I'm Going to Marry", itself a testament to NoU's encyclopedic knowledge of music). They say The (International) Noise Conspiracy borrowed a lot of NoU's sound and posturing; I wouldn't know.

Brush with Greatness (note: may include name-dropping):
None. I saw The Make-Up in Lincoln many, many years later and Ian was appropriately weird. Probably my single greatest missed-show regret is that I missed NoU and, I think, Bikini Kill in Sioux City not long after this album came out.

dedicated to W.G.