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Punk Recommendations - Name some Bands/Albums


Cabbage

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I let punk pass me by growing up as I was way too metal for it back then.  I'd like to properly dive in and find some new music, what bands and albums do the people of aberdeen-music recommend I hunt down?  

My wife was a pop punk fan but I never really liked the clean cut/dick jokes thing and found the likes of New Found Glory/Blink 182 fairly uninteresting, I'm looking for something rawer, bit more noise and shouty vocals.  I though I'd go right back to the start and tired listening to some Sex Pistols but though that was just a bit shite, maybe you have had to have been there in '76 to appreciate that.

So any recommendations where to start? 

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Leatherface - Mush.

Took a while to hit me did this record  - didn't like it at all in my teens, Stubbs' vocals take some getting used to, as he sounds like he gargles lighter fluid - but it was worth the persistence when it finally did.

My pick for Best Ever Punk LP probably changes on a daily basis, but Mush would be #1 more times than any other. As would NOFX - The Decline. Polarizing band, who have been largely irrelevant for nearly 20 years now - The Decline being their last GOOD record, and it came out in 1999, and they seem like a bunch of wankers generally, recently coming under fire for saying something shitty about the Vegas shooting, whilst playing in Vegas, idiots, one example off of a fairly lengthy rap sheet of being generally offensive, insensitive and privileged shitheads - but whatever you think about them, The Decline is a great record. Essential IMO. 

Of the more modern/recent stuff, one of my favourite records is The Flatliners - Cavalcade. It floors anything else they've released. They started as a ska band, now they've gone all soft rock, but this is somewhere in the middle, when they were neither of those things.

And here's a few more off the top of my head:

Hot Water Music - Fuel for the Hate Game
None More Black - File Under Black
Dillinger Four - Versus God
Nomeansno - Wrong
Mega City Four - Soulscraper
The Marked Men - Fix My Brain
Good Riddance - Symptoms of a Leveling Spirit
Naked Raygun - Understand?
The Dwarves - Are Young and Good Looking
Husker Du - Flip Your Wig
The Dauntless Elite - More Blood Bad News
Snuff - Snuff Said
Propagandhi - Todays Empires Tomorrows Ashes
Kid Dynamite - Shorter Faster Louder
Trial By Fire - Ringing In The Dawn
Gunmoll - Board of Rejection
Against Me! - As the Eternal Cowboy
Zeke - Death Alley/Dirty Sanchez/Kicked in the Teeth/Basically any of them, they're all great.

And anything by Descendents and ALL.

 

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Top work folks!  Going to wade my way through these.

On 6/4/2018 at 12:08 PM, James Broonbreed said:

Punk is probably as diverse as metal. Are there any bands you've discovered already that you like to aid with suggestions?

What made me think I was missing out on a whole lot of music was Mondo Generator's Cocaine Rodeo album, I have nothing else like it in my collection but its one of those albums I'm always going back to.  I got the Dwarves Are Young and Good Looking album off the back of that but found it pretty forgettable.  

 

 

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57 minutes ago, Cabbage said:

Top work folks!  Going to wade my way through these.

What made me think I was missing out on a whole lot of music was Mondo Generator's Cocaine Rodeo album, I have nothing else like it in my collection but its one of those albums I'm always going back to.  I got the Dwarves Are Young and Good Looking album off the back of that but found it pretty forgettable.  

 

 

If you dig the sound of Mondo more than Dwarves, I'd guess you'd be more into noise rock rather than straight-up punk.

Maybe stuff like McLusky, Fight Amp, Unsane, Godstopper, early-Helmet, almost anything released by Amphetamine Reptile.

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They're all worth listening to IMO. Even the crummy garage-y sounding stuff. Their body of work is quite diverse, but I'm a fan of it all, though I usually stick on 'Young and Good Looking' more often than not, as it's the first I heard, after hearing Everybody's Girl on Punk O Rama 3.

Speaking of Punk O Rama 3, listen to Punk O Rama 3 and hear the best NOFX song that was never on an album.

That breakdown at 1:58. Maaaan.

 

If that 90s skate punk thing was your jam, this doc is pretty fun viewing. Crummy quality, but there's some big hitters in this thing throughout, narrated by Tony Hawk.

 

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PROPAGANDHI - the albums Supporting Caste, Failed States & Victory Lap

Propagandhi are the best punk band of all time imho - I say that as someone who comes from a metal back ground too. Great songs, super technical but never unnecessarily flashy/wanky, and incredible lyrics. They are probably the only band other than Tool whose lyrics I REALLY make a point to listen to and analyse. 

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Dan G said:

PROPAGANDHI - the albums Supporting Caste, Failed States & Victory Lap

Propagandhi are the best punk band of all time imho - I say that as someone who comes from a metal back ground too. Great songs, super technical but never unnecessarily flashy/wanky, and incredible lyrics. They are probably the only band other than Tool whose lyrics I REALLY make a point to listen to and analyse. 

I can take or leave Failed States. I'd swap it with Today's Empires, and that'd be their 3 essential records IMO.

Supporting Caste is just ridiculous though.

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8 minutes ago, Soda Jerk said:

I can take or leave Failed States. I'd swap it with Today's Empires, and that'd be their 3 essential records IMO.

Supporting Caste is just ridiculous though.

I do quite like Todays Empires and Potemkin City Limits, but find both albums have about 40% that like you with Failed States I could take or leave. Both have some absolutely awesome songs on though (Back to the Motor League, A Speculative Fiction, Rock for Sustainable Capitalism to name a few). 

The last 3 albums I love from start to finish however... was initially disappointed with Victory Lap and then 5 listens in I was like "Oh NOW I get it" and love it. 

You're right with Supporting Caste though - just sublime and one of those genuinely life changing albums.

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37 minutes ago, Dan G said:

I do quite like Todays Empires and Potemkin City Limits, but find both albums have about 40% that like you with Failed States I could take or leave. Both have some absolutely awesome songs on though (Back to the Motor League, A Speculative Fiction, Rock for Sustainable Capitalism to name a few). 

The last 3 albums I love from start to finish however... was initially disappointed with Victory Lap and then 5 listens in I was like "Oh NOW I get it" and love it. 

You're right with Supporting Caste though - just sublime and one of those genuinely life changing albums.

I skip a lot of Potemkin City Limits too (usually to the end, to Iteration. Probably my favourite if I was to choose just one individual Propagandhi track out of everything they've done.). I love Todays Empires front to back. I just wish it was recorded better. The guitar is so dry and the levels on the drums are so wobbly. The snare is smacking you in the face one second, then inaudible the next. I'm not normally a fan of remasters, but I'd love to hear them sort out Todays Empires.

First few songs of Victory Lap were instant for me. Then it got to the middle, and there's that song with the CLEAN GUITARS WTF?! And then it ends super strong again. But like you, after a few listens, it all just clicked, and now I love that song about the hunting trip, clean guitars and all. Great record.

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17 hours ago, Soda Jerk said:

I skip a lot of Potemkin City Limits too (usually to the end, to Iteration. Probably my favourite if I was to choose just one individual Propagandhi track out of everything they've done.). I love Todays Empires front to back. I just wish it was recorded better. The guitar is so dry and the levels on the drums are so wobbly. The snare is smacking you in the face one second, then inaudible the next. I'm not normally a fan of remasters, but I'd love to hear them sort out Todays Empires.

First few songs of Victory Lap were instant for me. Then it got to the middle, and there's that song with the CLEAN GUITARS WTF?! And then it ends super strong again. But like you, after a few listens, it all just clicked, and now I love that song about the hunting trip, clean guitars and all. Great record.

I'm 100% with you on both Iteration (great song) and the production of TETA - I've read a good couple of interviews with Chris where he's said he tried to be too controlling yet didn't know what he was doing, and retrospectively hates the likes of the guitar sound on that album. Although one of the reasons I enjoy the more recent albums is the duel guitars...coming more from a background of prog and metal, I'm a fan of layered recordings, complex arrangements etc and Supporting Caste onwards naturally fits towards my personal tastes.

And yeah I was also exactly the same regarding 'Lower Order'... on first few runs through of an album I normally focus on the music as it's far easier to take in the riffs and melodies, rather than concentrating on every word. And when it got to that song, much like you, I'm thinking "oh great, a major key, clean, happy song". But on about play 4 or 5 I start listening to the words, and I remember driving in my car - eyes glazing over, lump in throat about how palpably heartbreaking it was. From that, the lyrics made the music make sense and now I think it's actually my favourite song on the album! Crazy. 

There are hardly any other songs in the world that can make me shed a tear, and in fact the only other one that comes to my head is Potemkin City Limits; Chris paints such an amazingly vivid story about Frances the pig running away from the slaughterhouse... like a darker Disney movie (although having said that, Lion King and Bambi etc were pretty savage). 

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Awesome glad to hear it! I was gutted I didn't go to that one - had all intentions of going when it was announced but my first child was born in February, so priorities and all that. I did see them the last time they played in glasgow on the failed states tour (with comeback kid who I also love). That was amazing - I was up in the front row screaming all the words and generally pretending to be half my age for one of the first times I can remember since I was actually half my age*.

*Misery Signals at king tuts in 2005 was probably the last time I did that, but being 22 back then I guess it was acceptable.

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Hot Water Music (A Flight and A Crash, Fuel For the Hate Game)

Rancid (...And Out Come the Wolves, Rancid)

Green Day (Insomniac)

NOFX (Pump Up the Valuum, Punk in Drublic, Heavy Petting Zoo)

Strung Out (Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues, Twisted by Design)

Alkaline Trio (Goddamnit, Maybe I’ll Catch Fire)

The Get Up Kids (Something To Write Home About)

Jawbreaker (Unfun)

Red City Radio (The Dangers of Standing Still)

The Swellers (Good For Me)

The Vandals (Hitler Bad, Vandals Good)

 

 

 

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