dag nasty

Top 15 punk albums of 1998? You’d be forgiven for thinking that there weren’t any in the year the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal dominated the news. A quick perusal of Billboard’s Hot 100 singles of the year sees domination by several R&B (Destiny’s Child, Janet Jackson, Usher, Mariah Carey) or hip-hop (Puff Daddy, Master P, […]

1997: All media is declaring the alternative–rock explosion—for which Nirvana lit the fuse—over. This means the commercial pop-punk wave Green Day touched off was over in their eyes, too. That selfsame media could not have been more wrong. Green Day had just issued their fifth album, Nimrod. The Offspring, the band who made the catchphrase […]

Emo (noun): a hotly contested music genre where bands and fans alike refuse to agree on who qualifies for a place in the rankings for all eternity, where no band admits to falling into the criteria of emo, and no fans admit to listening to it either. Of course, the one precursor to belonging to […]

Anybody who claims to be well-versed in emo culture knows how crucial Chamberlain are to the genre. The Indianapolis, Indiana, outfit started as Split Lip, a hardcore band with bigger musical visions than their contemporaries. Their desire to add everything from melodic singing to acoustic guitars helped build the foundation of the post-hardcore genre. After […]

Welcome to Alternative Press’ list of the 15 greatest punk guitarists of the ’80s. As the timeline shifted from the ’70s into the new decade, the music changed. Punk had morphed from stripped-down, high-speed rock ’n’ roll with a nasty attitude. It was now faster and louder than the already fast and loud sound, with […]

Welcome to Alternative Press’ list of the best punk albums from 1988. Which, at the time, would have had most folks scratching their heads. After all, in 1988, the entire world thought punk rock was dead. Look at the charts: Guns N’ Roses and the more lightweight Sunset Strip glam-metal acts were defining “rock ’n’ […]

1986 was a turning point for punk rock. Some people thought it should stay frozen in beer-soaked amber or it should sit the hell down. For a culture that proclaimed there were no rules, it felt like the punk-rock rulebook was going to go into its second or third editions. Fortunately, there were plenty of […]

If there was a punk-rock hall of fame, Bad Religion would certainly belong in it. The long-running California punk outfit have maintained a positive agenda while creating some classic songs. But if the band drove up to the front door of said punk building, they’d probably look through the glass door, look at each other […]

1986 was the year that speed metal and crossover (metal/core a la Cro-Mags’ The Age Of Quarrel) metastasized across the now-stale hardcore scene. The true sound of mid-’80s punk was the seeds of pop punk. Hüsker Dü were the kings of this, although Descendents really are the square root of every band who eventually played […]

Let’s cut to the chase: Brian Baker is an American punk-rock treasure. His immortality in punk was sealed forever as a member of Washington, D.C. straightedge hardcore outfit Minor Threat. When that band broke up, Baker kept on keeping on, with stints in various D.C. acts before ending up in the totally righteous Bad Religion. […]

Has it really been 35 years since a group of well-intentioned Washington, D.C. punk scenesters coined the term “emo”? Because hardcore was cemented in its own realm, new bands and fans were looking for some kind of vernacular to describe a new sense of introspection. But it’s pretty safe to assume that back then, nobody […]

Here at AltPress, we’ve learned a crucial lesson. Mainstream America doesn’t understand that the concept of “emo” is over 30 years old. We know it wasn’t invented in a Hot Topic store. But we also know that the Grammys don’t have a category for “Best Emo Performance By A Duo Or Group With A Minimum […]

Washington D.C. melodic hardcore originators Dag Nasty will reunite in their hometown on December 28. Read the official statement from Salad Days: The DC Punk Revolution” Documentary: “PLEASE JOIN US ON DECEMBER 28 AT THE BLACK CAT FOR A VERY SPECIAL NIGHT! Scheduled to appear: Dag Nasty (and their original Can I Say lineup of Shawn […]

Check out this premiere of DYS' new video for “Wild Card.” The legendary punk band, which features members of Dag Nasty, Slapshot, Scream and others, are in the midst of releasing a series of digital singles, with “Wild Card” being the first of them. It's available from iTunes, Amazon, and B9Store.com.