Contributions
Black Flag: Five essential albums to get familiar with
When foundational Brazilian death-thrashers Sepultura recorded “Rise Above” as a bonus track for their 2001 album, Nation, they understood the power of that call to arms. Black Flag have always been the rebel music of society’s rejects. The rock ‘n’ roll process has always been an intensification of whatever came before it. Elvis and Chuck […]
Top 15 punk LPs of 1977 that undeniably defined the year
Punk festered the entire ’70s: The Stooges and New York Dolls cleared the field as all the misfits on the margins waited their turn, marinating in a stew of poverty, filth, midnight John Waters screenings, scratchy thrift-store garage and rockabilly 45s, ancient dimestore William S. Burroughs paperbacks and clothes stolen out of Goodwill dumpsters, then […]
5 works by psych elder statesman Roky Erickson you need to know
“In the night, I am real,” Ghost‘s anti-pope, Papa Emeritus II, intones over a slick-if-funereal rock backing on the title track to the Dave Grohl-produced 2013 covers EP, If You Have Ghost. “The moon to the left of me is a part of my thoughts…” Sure, there’s a reference to the protagonist’s desire to have […]
8 punk bands who rocked the ’70s scene alongside the Ramones
“HEY! HO! LET’S GO!” You know the chant well. It’s been shouted at every sporting event since at least the mid-’90s. It is one of the foundational texts of punk, the Ramones‘ “Blitzkrieg Bop.” Of course, Australian punk drumming YouTube sensation Kye Smith has cut a skate-punk arrangement with members of Teenage Bottlerocket. It’s where […]
8 punk rock heroes who shaped the genre before most of us were born
“People try to put us down,” protest punk artist YUNGBLUD snarls over two viciously downstroked guitar chords. “Just ’cause we get around/The things they do look awfully cold/Hope I die before I get old…” “My Generation,” he spits out further before the rest of his band kick in during a live video filmed in the […]
Top 8 videos capturing Britpunk beginnings in all its snarling glory
Britpunk was born out of a movement. However, England no more invented punk rock in 1976 than McDonald’s invented the hamburger. Punk was an idea airborne worldwide across 1975. Local freaks who’d bought Stooges and New York Dolls records formed bands in their image, unaware anyone else shared their disgust with the day’s dominant culture. […]
Punk icons Dead Kennedys drop triple-disc ‘DK40’ set
“Basically, I went through 30 or 40 different shows,” underground guitar legend East Bay Ray says of DK40, the new triple-disc box set documenting the live fury of San Francisco’s Dead Kennedys, the punk band he founded in 1978. The three shows number among the best tapes Ray’s found from across DK’s history: Amsterdam’s Paradiso […]