Operation Ivy

I was listening to a bit of Energy earlier today and decided I needed to look something up on the Operation Ivy Wikipedia page. What did I discover but this other Operation Ivy Wikipedia page. Apparently the band is named after an actual operation, "the eighth series of American nuclear tests, coming after Tumbler-Snapper and before Upshot-Knothole" taking place in the Pacific Proving Grounds on the Marshall Islands.

Two bombs were tested, Mike and King, with Mike holding the distinction of being the world's first hydrogen bomb. And now you know.

Comments

"Tumbler-Snapper"? "Upshot-Knothole"?

Who the hell comes up with these names? They both sound vaguely sexual... darkly disturbingly so.

Posted by raff | March 26, 2008 6:00 PM

I did not know this. Op Ivy was prime grass mowing music back in my high school days. I remember the cassette fondly - it had white casing and a yellow strip before the actual music portion of the tape, which made it physically distinct from all of my other albums. I haven't listened to it years, but I would bet that you could put it on and I'd know 95% of the lyrics as they came through the speakers.

Keep up the music posts - they (somewhat) balance out the depression of the current political discussion.

Posted by Tom in Raleigh | March 26, 2008 6:00 PM

Thank god we had real code names back then. Under Bush and Cheney, the first test of a thermonuclear device would be Operation Boiling Thunder or some crap like that.

A picture of Mike is worth googling -- it was the size of a large building. Richard Rhodes's book on the subject, Dark Sun, is less good than his A-bomb book but still very good.

Posted by Anderson | March 26, 2008 6:12 PM

I always preferred regular old Ivy. That Dominique Durand is a real stunner.

Posted by Seitz | March 26, 2008 6:34 PM

nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Ivy.html

Posted by ragamuffin | March 26, 2008 6:38 PM

She
She
She
She's a bombshell

Posted by Andrew | March 26, 2008 6:44 PM

Thanks for the "Knowledge".

(Yuck yuck yuck).

Posted by Skalite | March 26, 2008 6:50 PM

That Dominique Durand is a real stunner.

I read somewhere that she was "Dominic Durand--" until she got the "operation."

Posted by James Gary | March 26, 2008 7:06 PM

...the rest of the story. Good day.

Posted by Gus Goya | March 26, 2008 7:12 PM

Seitz - yeah, you're spot on with Dominique Durand. Realistic is beautiful guitar pop and, while I haven't enjoyed everything they've done since, "The Best Thing" from Apartment Life is a gem. And, yeah, she's drop dead.

Posted by Tom in Raleigh | March 26, 2008 7:23 PM

Matt,
If you like operation ivy, you will love streetlight manifesto..the best ska punk band ever..formed from the front man of Catch-22 splitting off.

Official band of http://www.politicalinaction.com

Posted by Brian | March 26, 2008 7:25 PM

Brian is correct. Streetlight Manifesto is indeed the best ska punk band ever. I should know...I'm the only person who listens to ska anymore and hasn't transformed in to an emo-kid.

http://www.mitchclem.com/nothingnice/129/

Posted by Skalite | March 26, 2008 8:01 PM

Not sure what this says about me, but I used to love getting stoned and watching Trinity and Beyond. So, yes: I, too, had the same epiphany re: Op Ivy long ago.

Posted by Betty Black | March 26, 2008 8:09 PM

Streetlight Manifesto's frontman also has another band, B.O.T.A.R., or bandits of the acoustical revolution. They have a 5 track listing of songs, 3 new, 2 played by Streetlight, which are awesome. Basically, B.O.T.A.R. is a revolving group of ska punk legends with only a few constant members.

But Streetlight is amazing. My favorite video is here: http://www.politicalinaction.com/2008/03/beats-you-need_26.html

Posted by Brian | March 26, 2008 8:26 PM

I agree with Brian and skalite. Streetlight is great. My favorite band! Operation Ivy rocks though too and it is always fun to see posts about them.

Posted by Anonymous | March 26, 2008 8:36 PM

Operation Ivy wasn't squat. You should check out Tsar Bomba:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiyUSv2Z07A

Fifty megatons of thermonuclear goodness. Shattered windows four hundred miles away.

Posted by calipygian | March 26, 2008 8:37 PM

You're making excellent musical choices today.

Posted by Sean | March 26, 2008 8:52 PM

Who the hell comes up with these names? They both sound vaguely sexual... darkly disturbingly so.

Have you ever seen a girl in a bikini? Consider the origins of that name . . .

Posted by rea | March 26, 2008 9:25 PM

Have you ever seen a girl in a bikini? Consider the origins of that name . . .

She doesn't think so, but she's dressed for the H-Bomb (for the H-Bomb)

Posted by Tom in Raleigh | March 26, 2008 9:55 PM

This just in: Bauhaus was named for an actual architectural style, and the Dead Kennedys were named for actual deceased politicians.

Posted by Grumpy | March 26, 2008 9:58 PM

Bauhaus is actually more than architecture, it was an influential school for all manner of art, but I get your point.

Posted by Tom in Raleigh | March 26, 2008 10:12 PM

She doesn't think so, but she's dressed for the H-Bomb (for the H-Bomb)

Just letting you know someone (me) caught the G4 reference.

Posted by James Gary | March 26, 2008 10:15 PM

Sound system gonna bring me back up now!
Sound!
System!
Sound!
System!

Posted by Whiskey | March 26, 2008 10:26 PM

I'm sorta with Grumpy here. This just in: CHICAGO is actually a city! And so is Boston!

The Joy Division were concentration camp sex slaves. The Gang of Four were Chinese political leaders purged when Deng Xaoping took control of the CCP after Mao's death. The New Model Army was an armed group in the English Civil War. The Minutemen were militiamen during the American Revolution.

PS: Yeah, the Tsar Bomba is the biggest, but the best photos tend to be from the U.S.'s Operation Crossroads and the French tests on Mururoa and Fangataufa. Conflict used Crossroads-Baker in their album art for Deploying All Means Necessary. Incidentally, Conflict's symbol, CND, refers to the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament.

Posted by Seth | March 26, 2008 10:32 PM

I knew all this already, so I'm smarter than you.

Op Ivy, anyway, is a band that will last forever. It'll be cool when we're old crap-stained fogeys.

And Spandau Ballet was either the conniptions Zyklon-B victims would go through in the camps, or just East Berlin grafitti.

Posted by eric | March 26, 2008 11:39 PM

The naming "Tsar Bomba" was a very clever American response that pissed the Russians off because it caught on. THEY had named it "Big John", then after the test, the catchier US name caught on.
The American nickname was a double mockery, playing on the 19th Century and early Soviet tendency to make the Biggest Ever this or that - cannon, railroad engine, baby nursery, steel plant, church bell - mainly for show. And using the Tsar designation that was affixed to the 19th Century "Biggest Ever" projects like the Tsar Kolokol and Tsar Pushkin to undermine Soviet prestige by implying it was something the Tsar would have wanted to do.

The Americans then added another successful myth, which was the Soviets wanted to set off a 100 Megaton device but fucked up the design and only got half the bang they expected.

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html

The bomb has a model on display, now commonly called Tsar Bomba even in Russia. When museum staff were asked, they said, yes, there were "incidents" of Russians and foreign tourists wishing to climb up on the bomb and straddle it and "Yell & act like an American cowboy like in the movie. We said it was not permitted, of course.".

Posted by chris ford | March 27, 2008 12:22 AM

No Use For A Name actually had no use for a name.

Posted by Seitz | March 27, 2008 12:54 AM

Ha! My 15 year-old son's "band's" name when he plays Guitar Hero is "Ivy Mike", drawn from just this source.

Posted by hwestiii | March 27, 2008 2:02 AM

someone (me) caught the G4 reference.

You've got that essence rare.

Posted by rea | March 27, 2008 8:07 AM

Interesting discussion of bomb morphology, but the real question is whether you've tried to describe it to the limits of your ability.

Hiyo!

Posted by sefrankel | March 27, 2008 9:44 AM

No Use For A Name actually had no use for a name.

I dunno, I kinda liked their "Let 'Em Out" 7" on the mighty Slap A Ham Records back in the day, but then they became a crappy pop punk band that had no use for a record deal. Not that all pop punk is crappy, mind you - the likes of Crimpshrine, Samiam, Monsula, Pennywise, and Jawbreaker (yes, especially Jawbreaker) can still get me jumping around the room.

Posted by Tom in Raleigh | March 27, 2008 10:00 AM

Thanks for the Op Ivy post. The dual meaning enticed me to go look it up, and now I'll look into the band more.

Also, keep up the occasional music and NBA posts.

Posted by Nick | March 27, 2008 10:09 AM

How is Pennywise listed in the same sentence with ANY pop-punk bands? They're the very definition of 3-chord SoCal skate-punk. Granted many of the people who were in skate-punk bands went to pop punk, Pennywise never did. They couldn't, you need to know at least 4 chords to play pop punk. I still love Pennywise, who brought us the maxim: "If you can't play it well, play it fast as hell."

Posted by Skalite | March 27, 2008 10:23 AM

Thanks for the blast from the past, Matt. I'm going to dig out my Op Ivy CD when I get home and stick it on my ipod. It would be perfect for my 10k this weekend.

Along these lines, I saw NOFX play a free show at SXSW two weeks ago. They played my other favorite album from high school, Punk in Drublic from start to finish. To my amusement, I still remembered all the words to all the songs.

Posted by trza | March 27, 2008 10:48 AM

How is Pennywise listed in the same sentence with ANY pop-punk bands?

I dunno, I guess when I first heard them on the Plan B "Questionable Video" (skate vid from the early 90s) their sound seemed to fit in nicely with all of the other stuff I was listening to at the time, which I largely considered to be pop-punk. I thought that first album was pretty hooky and catchy despite the teeth. At that time, everything hadn't been micro-genred to death so I just lumped them in with the pop-punk crowd. Also, I dare say that the term pop-punk had not been so rigidly defined at that time - at least not in NC.

Posted by Tom in Raleigh | March 27, 2008 11:03 AM