While most classic punk bands released their best albums during their early years, there are several examples of more recent punk rock bands who had been around for a decade by the time they came up with their best material. There’s the Offspring, there’s Bankrupt, and there are the Dwarves. Continue reading
The Descendents were the Buzzcocks‘ equivalent on the early American hardcore punk scene: they were a lot more melodic than their contemporaries, and they were fronted by a nerd. But they were much more than that. They invented melodic hardcore (or melodycore), paving the way for NOFX, No Use For a Name, and almost every popular punk band in the golden years of Epitaph and Fat Wreck. Continue reading
Here’s our selection of the Top 5 funny punk rock videos. Like all best of lists, this is highly subjective, and we may have also forgotten about some gems, so you’re welcome to comment with your suggestions of what else could have been included here. Continue reading
The Stranglers were strikingly different from any other band on the ’77 British punk scene. They were older (Jet Black, the drummer was 39 years-old in 1977), they had a keyboard player who looked like a shepherd, and their karate freak bass player, JJ Burnel was beating up everybody who pissed him off. And it was quite easy to piss him off.
The same aggression defined the way Burnel played the bass. In his hands it wasn’t an instrument, it was a weapon. Fact is, nobody ever played the bass like him. No wonder he inspired legions of punk rock bass players, including the guy from Bankrupt. Continue reading
The Clash have always been a major inspiration for us. They were the coolest band on the ’77 British punk scene with their catchy melodies, smart lyrics, immense energy, and picture perfect urban guerilla image. They invented the punk version of reggae, so that 23 years later we could write a song called The Bridges Of Novi Sad. Just like Bankrupt, they also had two distinctive singers who complemented each other perfectly. Continue reading