fIREHOSE -- "ragin', full-on"

This was the first album I ever owned where I really felt like I was in on a secret. Though I'd had inklings before, this was the first album after which I firmly realized top 40 and the only alternative to top 40 I really knew--metal--could be left entirely behind, without regret. This was a world where I could flourish. 

Best Song
10 October 1990, the very first time of three I saw fIREHOSE, my younger brother and I (15 and 16, respectively) sat down at the last empty table way in the back of the Ranch Bowl (Omaha) before the show. A few minutes later some guy sat down next to us and began writing down song titles with a big black marker on a sheet of paper. My brother leaned over to me and whispered, "That's Mike Watt." I whispered back, "No way." But of course it was. I asked him if they were "gonna play 'Relating Dudes to Jazz'" and he said, "Ya like that one, huh?" "Yeah." He wrote it down. During the show he broke the E string ("the big one," he said) about ten bars into the song.

'Chemical Wire' is a close second.

Released
1986. When in 1986? SST has never been a label for keeping detailed records.

Acquired/First Heard
Purchased on cassette at either Plato's Tunes or Skinni's (both Norfolk Nebraska), Summer 1989.

Next Closest
Dave Sink once told me he'd play a Minutemen/fIREHOSE mixtape over the store stereo at the Antiquarium and that after a while he couldn't tell the difference. I wouldn't go even close to that far but you should be listening to Minutemen anyway.

Brush with Greatness (note: may include name-dropping)
It's up there under 'Best Song'. I've chatted up Mike Watt many, many times since. George a couple times.