Category: music

Fear Leads to Hate! Will You be a Sycophant or Resist?

Over the past couple of weeks, starting with the news of Rachel Nicole Good’s murder and continuing to the current protests against ICE and the ruling of medical examiner in Texas that ruled that Gerald Lunas Campos, detained at an ICE facility in Texas, was murdered by a guard who performed a chokehold on him, I’ve been listening, on repeat, songs such as the Idles’ … Read More Fear Leads to Hate! Will You be a Sycophant or Resist?

Some of the Most Influential Albums from 1995! Part II

I vividly remember being at church one night in 1995, probably a Wednesday, and seeing a poster on the wall with Christian music artists. The poster was one of those that said, “If you like X then you’ll like Y.” Since, over the previous year, I dove into punk rock with the explosion of Rancid, Green Day, Offspring, and NOFX, I immediately searched for … Read More Some of the Most Influential Albums from 1995! Part II

Some of the Most Influential Albums from 1995! Part I

We all know that nostalgia is a hell of a drug, especially as we get older. In our progression towards succumbing to death, we constantly look backwards, finding comfort and solace in the past. Most of the time, we fail to interrogate that past, choosing instead to look at it through rose colored glasses, hoping to recapture some long lost reality that, in all … Read More Some of the Most Influential Albums from 1995! Part I

The Political Power of Punk: Dead Kennedys’ “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables”

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading some books from the 33 1/3 series, specifically Nick Attfield’s on Dinosaur Jr.’s 1987 album You’re Living All Over Me and Michael Stewart Foley’s on Dead Kennedys’ 1980 album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. Each has been thoroughly engaging, and Attfield’s writing serves, in a lot ways, as a master class on writing about music while Foley’s does an … Read More The Political Power of Punk: Dead Kennedys’ “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables”

The Importance of Cursive’s “Happy Hollow” Almost 20 Years Later

I don’t remember when I actually found Cursive. All I know is that I had a copy of their debut album Such Blinding Stars For Starving Eyes. I probably picked it up because that was around the time I found out about Mineral and other bands on Crank! Records. I played Cursive’s debut a lot, especially the first two songs “After the Movies” and “Downhill Racers.” It sounded … Read More The Importance of Cursive’s “Happy Hollow” Almost 20 Years Later