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
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
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”
+ american dream, christian fascism, christian nationalism, christianity, cursive, emo, Happy Hollow, music
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
A few weeks ago, as I was scrolling through my social media feed, someone commented on Chris Smith’s Devo, a documentary on the Akron, Ohio band. The post pointed out that watching the band’s early performances during the 1970s really solidified them within the lineage of punk. Taken together with their ideological positions and aesthetic, Devo embody punk. Inspired by the Dadaist and other twentieth … Read More Why We Need Art!
Interminable Rambling 