List O' Music to Rock Out With (An Alphabet Adventure)

I said that I would come back with a list. Sure I could've done a "list o' stuff" on what I've been up to this past few months or maybe something else more meaningful. But I said, the hell with it and make up a list of what I wanted to go and do for a while. Something of a challenge but it's a good fight. It's not a list of the best in any order, but it's a list of alphabetic proportions. Not to say that I couldn't come up with a list of top 26, but the fact of finding something that could list alphabetically is awesome enough. It can be good.

So here's the rules for hopefully an ongoing tag that I can continue with: all bands should start with the corresponding letter and if I can't think of one, well, it'll be excused; and all bands is the top of that letter at the time of posting in my opinion and just that, an opinion. If you don't like it, I'm comfortable with you not liking my opinion, it's still my blog and my list. So without further ado, here it comes...

• A: Authority Zero; because they're a kick ass punk band in my opinion (and that was before I moved to Mesa.)
• B: Barenaked Ladies; because they're the first B-band that I could think of at the time. No, really, that's the only reason.
• C: Charlie Daniels; do I really need a friggin' reason?!?
• D: doubleDrive; if you know me and my past rants on my blog, you know that I friggin' love this band. Too bad that they're broken up. :(
• E: Everclear; and surprisingly, they got better the more sober they became. But I still think that Santa Monica is the best song they ever made (note, they weren't sober during that time.)
• F: Foo Fighters; so much range of talent there that it oozes epicness.
• G: Guano Apes; they're foreign, they're ballzy, and they can even flex a soft side. Talk about range.
• H: HELLYEAH!; because I already got something lined up for M and I can't incorporate Mudvayne. Besides, they got Vinnie Paul from Pantera on there (one more thing that I can't put on an upcoming letter due to it being predesignated), and it's bleeds EPIC WIN!!!
• I: I Against I; this band is so underrated as a punk band that if you don't know them, you're friggin' lame!
• J: James Brown; The Godfather of Soul, the Hardest Working Man in the Business, in other words, he's just that damn good.
• K: KoRn; well, basically before former band members started dropping off the band like flies.
• L: Linkin Park; even though they're pop-ish, they're still kool to listen to.
• M: Metallica; I would be a damn fool if I didn't put them on the list.
• N: Nirvana; what can I say, I like old school grunge.
• O: OK Go!; surprisingly, they're not that bad of a band, and their viral videos are friggin' awesome to boot.
• P: Paw; if you're a fan of the original Road Rash game from back in the 90's, youtube them.
• Q: Queen, only because I needed a Q, and out of all that is out there, that's the best Q there is.
• R: Rage Against The Machine; BALLS!!! And that's all I'm gonna say.
• S: Stone Temple Pilots; they are perpetually stuck in the 90's and I like it.
• T: Tsunami Bomb; I am a sucker for female singers and punk music. This is it's wet dream.
• U: Unwritten Law; to go from punk, to pop-punk, to alternative, to who knows what and still rock it, kudos on my book.
• V: Velvet Revolver; once again, I needed a V, and they're decent for a supergroup, I'm not gonna lie.
• W: Stevie Wonder; who can deny the man his props. He's the Billy Dee Williams of Motown; it's like if Ray Charles had a love child with a can of Colt 45 Malt Liquor (breaking out in dance to Very Superstitious)
• X: yeah, I got nothin' for X, big surprise, huh?!?
• Y: I got nothin' for Y either, dunno why I'm drawing a blank... but,
• Z: ... (after 5 minutes of thinking of something and not putting on Zebrahead because I haven't heard much of them to rate if I like them or not) ... nothin'. Damn.

And that's my list. Hope you like it, if not, oh well, blame the English Language for having only 26 letters. And trust me, I tried to fight off the urge of adding on honorable mentions as much as I could, and this is what I got (outside of the Mudvayne namedropping for HELLYEAH!, I think I did pretty darn well.)

BootLeG sampler.. signing out...

When did punk music die?

That's the question that I'm posing right now. I just don't know when exactly did this important sub genre in rock music just either died out, sold out, or even if it's still here and it's not as prominent as it once was back in my day. Seriously, I may be one of the biggest music fanatics out there when it comes to all things rock, but what really burns me up is the decline of punk music. Good quality punk music. The way it was back in the day shouldn't even be compared to the tripe that is considered punk right now. Hell, I don't even think that there is punk anymore, they call it pop-punk, emo, and all that other bullshit. And that amongst itself is barely in my opinion considered music; given the fact that it consists of a chord or two, a tempo to follow, and a relative idea of amalgamating notes to make harmony/melody/rhythm/crap.


I mean there's a few that are out there still and can be considered punk. The biggest out of them that are still rockin' hard has to be Pennywise. These guys rock. They're true to their punk natures since 1991. I've gotten to them from fellow skaters that I used to hang out with while I was in high school and after some kick ass listening to them, I was hooked. These guys knew how to keep the tradition of what punk's really all about. From the super-stardom of The Ramones and Bad Religion to the last great punk acts of Offspring and Green Day (both before circa 1998) no one had done it better during their reign than Pennywise. It had balls, it was harsh yet simple, it had meaning and was true, not any bubblegum-pop prepackaged stale piece of shit that out there now.


Then of course there are some 'punk' bands that are half way decent, almost like hybrids, they're like the E85 ethanol vehicles of 'punk' banks. Taking on some of the old sound of punk and generating a thumbprint for themselves. So in short, they have balls, but not made of steel like their predecessors. Bands such as Authority Zero (Mesa, AZ FTW), Sublime, anything from Blink-182 up to 'Dude Ranch', Unwritten Law only up to and including their self titled album, Pepper, MxPx, Tsunami Bomb, and to a last resort, the first two No Doubt albums. These lighter sounds are an excellent gateway to introducing someone to true punk rock. Don't get me wrong, these bands are/were good in themselves; but if you want to ease someone to what punk really is, then start 'em off with them. You'll thank me later.


And then further down the road, there are bands that claim the title of 'punk'. Trust me, it's about as punk as the likelihood of Toby Keith collaborating with Lil Wayne and Elton John for a song. These abominations that dare to even tread on the brand sickens me like the black plague. This consists of anything that is included into the genre of 'PopPunk.' This is not a genre, it's a spoonful of bullshit that is tried to be stirred into your medicine to put as many varieties of crap and mix it into something that is solid and true to make it more bearable to swallow. It's a joke. These include such lame ducks such as Avenge Sevenfold, Good Charlotte, Plain White T's, and others that if I continue that I would probably drown in my own vomit.


Also those that were punk and then either sold their soul for profit or stardom to produce said crap. Much to the demise of Blink-182, their split-up showed two very different sides of the bands. One of which was Angels and Airwaves which was a lame experiment with Tom DeLonge of Blink and Noodle, the guitarist of Offspring, to produce an emo piece of crap. The other was +44 which was Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker's attempt to be punk again, but it was all for not. But the biggest pain in this is the succession of putrid has to be the rise of Green Day. Somebody tell me how does a band in which their songs were all three chord fast paced 'give em hell kid' music (especially in the success of Dookie), to a bunch of middle aged emo punk wannabes that try to show politico-social-emo *gulps own vomit before continuing* wretched pile of buffalo dung. I think it's safe to say that all of us that remember what good punk music was we would hold Green Day to that standard. But ever since I think Warning with their song 'Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)' that they would just begin to suck it, and suck it hard.


When, I say, when did music begin to die. For my grandparents generation it was told in 'American Pie' by Don McLean. For my parents, music was resuscitating back into its prime. In my generation, it's dying again; and I just want to pull the plug on it and let it die. So for all those artists that are sucking all the goodness out of music in our airwaves, here's two big fat middle fingers in your general direction (( nlm mln )).



BootLeG sampler.. signing out...