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Rikk Agnew is the Orange County Hardcore’s original journeyman guitar player, doing time on key recordings by The Adolescents, D.I., Christian Death, and Social Distortion (I think this was brief). The 80’s beachpunk sound owes more to him than arguably anybody else, and at his peak in the early 80’s he tried going solo, cutting the album “All By Myself”.

The opening cut “OC Life” was later re-recorded by D.I. when Agnew was playing with them, but to me this is the superior version, and one of the great Socal punk lp openers. The song is a condemnation of the yuppie culture surrounding the lower portions of California in the early 80s, with the chorus “OC life is not the life for me/stupid little girls/and egotistical boys” set to Agnew’s patented mid-paced surf punk riffs and overlaid with major-key harmonies. Agnew delivers a clean, mostly on-key, vocal that sounds like a more grown up/mature Tony Cadena from the original Adolescents lp. There’s some smooth backing keyboards to accent things as well, and its clear that even though it’s a punk lp Agnew wasn’t afraid to focus his pop sensibilities more than ever before. When the second song, “10″ kicks in with its prominent keyboard stings, it cements what OC Life had already suggested. However, despite the new wave coloring in some passages most of the riffs could fit in with the early Adolescents material, they’ve just had a couple extra coats of sheen applied here; and why not? At the core of most of Agnew’s songs there is a simple Beach Boys type pop-sensibility, it make sense to emphasize it on his solo debut. What are solo records for, if not self indulgence?

How poppy does it get? Check out the song “Everyday” a sugar coated love song, that despite the ridiculously bad love song lyrics, has a great little chorus. With a different kind of production and a publicist I think it could have charted in the 80s. Maybe it could have been sold to a different singer?

I have to admit, I’m personally fascinated and drawn to solo works by people who are previously known as ensemble players. I think there’s something special about hearing what someone can do entirely on their own, especially when they’re used to relying on others. What they focus on in the song writing, what mistakes they make, and what off the wall triumphs come out of their experiments. All By Myself, like most solo lps is uneven to be sure, but it’s a great look into one man’s interests and tastes at a certain point in time. Here those happen to be epic skate punk ragers with echos of Phil Spector style bombast, and a hint of the darkness.

All By Myself has gone in and out of print over the years on Frontier records, but the best way to tell an original pressing is to look for the lyric insert, and to check that the back of the sleeve doesn’t have a printed barcode. This one seems to fit that criteria so bid away.