Allroy Sez

Allroy Sez is the debut album by the American punk rock band All, released in March 1988 through Cruz Records. Following the departure of singer Milo Aukerman from the Descendents, the remaining members—bassist Karl Alvarez, guitarist Stephen Egerton, and drummer Bill Stevenson—recruited singer Dave Smalley and changed the name of the band to All, which was both the title of the Descendents' 1987 album and a philosophical concept invented by Stevenson and friend Pat McCuistion in 1980. Allroy Sez introduced the character of Allroy, who would serve as a mascot for the band and be featured on many of their subsequent album covers.

The concept of "All" was invented by Descendents drummer Bill Stevenson and his friend Pat McCuistion during a fishing trip on Stevenson's boat Orca in 1980. According to Descendents singer Milo Aukerman, "While drinking all this coffee in the midst of catching mackerel they came up with the concept of All: doing the utmost, achieving the utmost. The more they got into it the more it turned into their own religion. It's partly humor, but it's also an outlook on how to conduct your life: to not settle for some, to always go for All." Stevenson elaborated on the philosophy:

I'm really into "ALL" and I've waited a long time to unleash the whole concept on people. And now I'm going to do it [ ] It's just a way of thinking, in which there are extremes and there is this goal called "ALL". It's a way that I created in dealing with achievement and satisfaction and how the two relate. Basically just to avoid stagnation going for "ALL" and never being satisfied and just wallowing in your own sameness. Aukerman left the Descendents after their summer 1987 "FinALL" tour to pursue a graduate degree in microbiology. With his departure announced in advance, Stevenson took the opportunity to relaunch the band afresh under the name All with singer Dave Smalley, meaning for the new band to be the complete fulfillment of the "All" concept. "I've been wanting to change the name of the band to ALL for eight years", he said during the FinALL tour, adding that he had wanted to work with Smalley for some time but that it would not feel right to continue as the Descendents without Aukerman, and that he wished to shelve the name in case he and Aukerman should wish to use it again at some point. Smalley, formerly of the Boston based hardcore punk band DYS and Washington, D. C. based Dag Nasty, had been attending school in Israel on a scholarship. He flew into Los Angeles and immediately began practicing with the band: "I get off the plane and they're all in the van. They drove me to Alfredo's [Mexican Restaurant], we ate at Alfredo's, and we fucking practiced. I'd been in the plane for thirty million hours Alfredo's, practice, go!" "I think that Dave came in strong", said Alvarez. "He got off the plane from Israel and was ready to rock." Stevenson, who wrote "Sex in the Way", "Sugar and Spice", and "Just Perfect", remarked that his songwriting process and motivations were no different for All than they had been for the Descendents: "I wasn't writing for a band name, I was writing because some girl was treating me really poorly and I was expressing myself about it. Catharsis. It had nothing to do with Descendents, All, Dave, Milo, or anything." The restaurant's eponymous proprietor, Alfredo Carrilo, thanked the band by hanging a plaque in the dining area with their picture, a menu, the song's lyrics, and a note of appreciation. "Allthymn" elaborates on the "All" concept, with lyrics "Don't mistake ALL for love or hate / It's not like any other mental state / It's the total extent, when nothing else remains / The utmost possible of possible gains". "He would just push and push and push, and it could be really hard", recalled Egerton. Allroy Sez was dedicated to McCuistion. Allroy was created by Alvarez, based on a caricature he had drawn of Egerton for the Descendents' 1987 "FinALL" tour posters. Allroy Sez was the first album released through Cruz Records, an imprint of SST Records (SST had released the Descendents' 1987 albums All and Liveage! ).

Mike Gitter of Rip magazine said that with Allroy Sez, the band's "previously segregated pop and discordant extremes achieve unique cohesiveness." He praised Stevenson's songwriting, compared Smalley's singing to "a younger Roger Daltrey", and said "Alvarez and Egerton emerge stronger players than contributions with the Descendents or their previous outfit the Massacre Guys would reveal [ ] All's debut effort achieves a unique culmination of Descendents' development and growth to date while hinting at a great deal more."