Fat Wreck Chords released The Songs of Tony Sly: A Tribute today to honor the San Jose singer who fronted No Use For A Name before he passed away in 2012.

The album features 26 songs Sly wrote, performed by many of his peers on the punk circuit, including NOFX, Bad Religion, the Bouncing Souls, Rise Against, Lagwagon and Pennywise.

“I wanted to make a tribute for Tony because he’s one of the best songwriters I know,” said Fat Mike, owner of Fat Wreck Chords, who organized the tribute album and previously released several No Use For a Name and Sly recordings. “I think he deserves a lot of credit for what he did.”

Profits from the release will be donated to the Tony Sly Fund, created to assist Sly’s wife Brigitte and their two daughters.

Track listing:
01. Karina Denike – “Biggest Lie”
02. Mad Caddies – “AM”
03. Strung Out – “Soulmate”
04. Rise Against – “For Fiona”
05. Bad Religion – “Let It Slide”
06. NOFX – “The Shortest Pier”
07. Snuff – “On The Outside”
08. The Bouncing Souls – “Homecoming”
09. Old Man Markley – “Feel Good Song of the Year”
10. Lagwagon – “Discomfort Inn”
11. Teenage Bottlerocket – “Via Munich”
12. Frank Turner – “Keira”
13. Get Dead – “Premedicated Murder”
14. Pennywise – “Devonshire and Crown”
15. Alkaline Trio – “Straight from the Jacket”
16. Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem – ” Capo 4th Fret”
17. Yellowcard – “Already Won”
18. Swingin’ Utters – “Not Your Savoir”
19. The Flatliners – “Fireball”
20. Simple Plan – “Justified Black Eye”
21. Useless ID – “Frances Stewart”
22. Jon Snodgrass & the Dead Peasants – “On The Outside”
23. American Steel – “Dark Corner”
24. Frenzal Rhomb – “Flying South”
25. Anti-Flag – “Toaster in the Bathtub”
26. Joey Cape with Scorpios – International You Day”

More details on the album.

Tony Sly has been heading up San Jose’s most famous punk band for more than 20 years, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s used his solo career to branch out musically (though he hasn’t strayed too far thematically). The real payoff for No Use For A Name fans comes when he applies his new musical interests to some of the band’s classic songs, as he first did in 2004 on his split with Lagwagon’s Joey Cape, Acoustic. That record kind of served notice to fans about Sly’s intentions, and launched his solo career. Now he’s returned to the NUFAN catalogue once again with Acoustic Volume 2, which was released this week.

Once again, Sly rearranges No Use For A Name tunes, while Cape revisits Lagwagon. Besides the five acoustic versions of their respective bands’ songs, both contribute one new song each.

First off, this record simply sounds a lot better than their first split. Maybe they took more time with it, or maybe they’ve just gotten better at producing acoustic arrangements, but it sounds fantastic. Sly in particular has a knack for choosing NUFAN songs that will lend themselves naturally to this type of treatment. The five songs he picks here featured some of his most soulful deliveries on the original versions.

“Black Box,” for instance, doesn’t even sound that different than the original—it’s more deliberate and lush, and the beat is turned way down, but nothing has changed about the core intent of the song.

“Under the Garden” is another good example—just imagine that the original didn’t turn into a blazing punk song 15 seconds in, and you can imagine what he did here.

“Soulmate” and “Chasing Rainbows” both show how an acoustic version can be just as upbeat as the original, even without the layers of electric riffs.

“Pre-Medicated Murder” is the only song that doesn’t translate well, which is surprising because the original had a nice orchestral opening that Sly tried to build on here. But without the double-time beat of the original, the song comes off like a labored, overly long throwaway. The other versions show how Sly’s songwriting talents often get buried under a pile of sound, but “Pre-Medicated Murder” wasn’t one of his best.

The new song, “Liver Let Die,” is a much better showcase for Sly’s style—catchy and upbeat, but melancholy at the same time. He has a talent for building a certain sense of dread, but then letting go of it mid-song and throwing himself headlong into hope, refusing not to celebrate even in the face of certain defeat. It’s one of his best solo songs so far, and the highlight of the record.

It’s not easy being the frontman of a Celtic punk band. Shane MacGowan of the Pogues was once so drunk he knocked himself out falling down in the middle of the street—and his teeth actually looked better afterward. Al Barr of the Dropkick Murphys is going to have to sing “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” at every show for the rest of his life.

And then there’s Paul McKenzie of the Scot-inspired Real McKenzies. He knows when people are looking at him on stage, they’re only thinking one thing: What’s under the kilt? All too often, they’re not shy about finding out for themselves.

“I’ve had many hands up the kilt while doing shows,” he admits. “If I were to do that to someone, I’d be in jail. But we prefer not to press charges.”

Those who choose to slide up his cultural pride will quickly discover the answer to the age-old question is what they suspected all along: nothing. As he likes to tell them, “That’s not a microphone, you know, but speak into it if you like.”

The Real McKenzies have one of the strangest stories in punk rock. A Canadian band blending traditional Scottish music and hardcore, they put out their first record in 1995, and found a bigger audience for 1998’s Clash of the Tartans, thanks to its single “Mainland.” They were then signed to Honest Don’s, the subsidiary that popular punk label Fat Wreck Chords reserved for bands that didn’t fit into their trademark sound. When Honest Don’s folded, they were one of the only bands moved to Fat, for 2005’s 10,000 Shots. Their new record, Westwinds, is their eighth.

It’s unbelievable how far the band has come in two decades. Keep in mind, McKenzie’s original idea was to dress a cute punk girl in a kilt and have her sing Suzi Quatro covers for a band called Tart ‘n’ Haggis. But he couldn’t find the right girl, and everyone wanted to spell it “Tartan Haggis,” ruining the criminal joy that can only come with a truly bad pun.

Then one day, while listening to early-20th-century Scottish entertainer Harry Lauder, it all came together.

“I was playing Sir Harry Lauder, and a roommate was playing Sex Pistols, and another roommate was playing Public Enemy,” he remembers. “For a brief moment, it all melded, and I had an epiphany. And here we are today.”

Not that he had any idea he would be. “When we first started the band, we didn’t really take it seriously. We did one record at IFA in Seattle, just to document it, because we knew that no one would believe we had actually existed. That record took off, and that was the beginning of it. And it just never stopped,” he says.

As Rise Against have gone from scruffy Chicago punks to chart-topping mainstream hitmakers over the last decade, they’ve run into no end of blowback from early fans who think they should still be putting out minute-long blasts of hardcore for Fat Mike.

But one thing no one would dare talk smack about is their cred as crusaders. Vegan? Check. Straight-edge? Check. Angry at the Internet? Okay, I made that one up. Still, with their history of supporting indie culture and criticizing corporate greed, it should be no surprise that on their current tour they’ll be stopping in to sign at some local record stores, including San Jose’s own Streetlight Records. They’ll drop in the afternoon before their show at the San Jose State Event Center on April 17.

Tim McIlrath and company got their start as Transistor Revolt in the much-celebrated/criticized Chicago DIY scene of the late ’90s, before changing their name and getting signed to Fat Wreck Chords for their debut album, 2001’s The Unraveling. By 2004, they’d signed to a major label, and two years later they had a gold-certified, top 10 record in The Sufferer and the Witness. Those who had been chanting “sell out” since practically the beginning of the band’s existence were no doubt confused by the fact that The Sufferer and the Witness was far and away their best album, both musically and lyrically. They’ve found more to complain about on the records since, which have pushed the band further into the mainstream, with mixed results.

Interestingly, the band’s message hasn’t changed much, even as their music has. As activists, they’re as hardcore as ever. And their commitment to heavy subject matter is once again affirmed in their most recent release, a cover of Boy Dylan’s “Ballas of Hollis Brown” with an accompanying video that’s more documentary than music clip, packed with facts and figures about American poverty, economic injustice and insanely dangerous farm equipment.

Rise Against sign at Streetlight Records on April 17 at 4:30pm. Their show at San Jose State Event Center starts at 7pm that night, with A Day to Remember and Title Fight opening.

Click here to view the embedded video.