These days, it’s difficult to punch a Nazi without getting bogged down in some sort of philosophical debate about whether or not it’s OK to punch Nazis. But back in the early days of hardcore punk, when neo-Nazi and skinhead factions started invading the scene, the conversation was a lot shorter. The general feeling…
Once upon a time, Finn Wolfhard was just that nice, moppet-headed boy who played polite, excitable Mike Wheeler on Stranger Things. But then he picked up that blasted guitar and started palling around with dirty punks like Mac DeMarco and PUP and now he’s out here dunking on the olds. Richie Tozier would be proud.
Most memoirs wait to be written until their writers have lived a full life. At 36, Laura Jane Grace doesn’t need to wait for her twilight years to tell her story. Her experiences in that comparatively brief time have already afforded her a narrative that earns its keep in the rock memoir cannon.
For years, it seemed like time would never catch up with NOFX. The legendary L.A. outfit has always seemed to take joy in living the life of a band that’s lucky enough to play punk rock for a living. That includes the excesses and indulgences that come with it. Early songs like “Drugs Are Good” and “You Drink, You…
Since the beginning of time, filmmakers have wanted to become musicians, and musicians filmmakers. From David Bowie to the Lt. Dan Band, creative types have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to transfer music magic to movies, and vice versa. Oft-overlooked Chicago punk rockers Savage Beliefs were no…
Henry Rollins was recently named one of the faces of Calvin Klein’s fall 2016 global ad campaign, alongside artists like Kate Moss (obviously), Colombian soccer star James Rodriguez, Margot Robbie, Frank Ocean, and Young Thug. Now, that Frank Ocean thing could potentially be seen as annoying, because come on, Frank,…
A new weekly radio show focused on punk rock is launching this week from film studio A24. Green Room Radio will feature music and interviews relating to the hardcore scene that should appeal to old school fans and posers alike. The first episode premieres today, and features Ted Leo sans The Pharmacists; on the show,…
Punk is a pretty difficult thing to quantify. What with all its different subgenres, ideological strains, and the fact it’s existed for roughly 40 years, it’s a genre whose definition has always been hard to pin down. That is until Polygraph, in conjunction with Converse, mined the data of Spotify’s many punk…
“Five years / That’s all we got.” So sings David Bowie with apocalyptic doom in his 1972 song “Five Years.” It’s the opening track of The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, the critical and commercial apex of Bowie’s career as a glam-rock artist. Within a couple of years, glam would be on the…
Permanent Records is an ongoing closer look at the records that matter most.
In Hear This, The A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week: We’re celebrating Thanksgiving with songs about all kinds of pie.
The professor, the prankster, and the poet: It might be too pat of a way to classify Greg Graffin, Ian Svenonius, and Richard Hell, respectively, three legendary punk singers who happen to have new non-fiction books on the shelves. But the shoes fit. Population Wars: A New Perspective On Competition And Coexistence by…
In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week: Some of our all-time favorite covers.
For the coolest kids in the early ’90s, The Kids In The Hall was the more interesting alternative to Saturday Night Live. It was more subversive, weirder, and simply more Canadian, which may actually all mean the same thing. Before the Kids were picked up by Lorne Michaels, Scott Thompson and writing partner Paul…
Few music scenes in history have been as influential—and as misunderstood—as Washington, D.C.’s hardcore scene of the 1980s. After Minor Threat introduced its fierce, anthemic sound and attitude in 1980, the band’s label, Dischord, became the epicenter of a subculture that evolved both musically and ethically as the…
Howdy! Senior Writer Jason Heller here. Over the course of my many years at The A.V. Club, I’ve never exactly made it a secret how much I love ’77 punk, or one of the movement’s first, best, and most boundary-pushing bands, The Damned. Not only did The Damned famously release the first single and the first album of…
The true Clash aficionado has both the 1977 UK release as well as the 1979 US release of the group’s self titled release, The Clash, in their record collection. The Clash’s debut didn’t garner a U.S. release until a year or so after its second record, Give ‘Em Enough Rope, was released in the states. Why did it take…
With the advent of “music television” in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, there was a sea change in how consumers discovered new music. Bands like Zion, Illinois’ Shoes, while never really gaining big time national success, had their videos in heavy rotation on MTV simply because they had shot a few early video clips.…
Of all the variants of punk rock, hardcore always gave the impression of having the most blue collar flavor to its anti-authoritarian vibes. Pulled from the 1982-1989 issues of the infamous punk fanzine Maximum Rocknroll, Hardcore Architecture examines how true that impression is. Cross-referencing the addresses of…
Punk was pretty much dead by the time anyone outside of the underground knew about it, and certainly before they started making after-school specials about it. But it hasn’t lost its power to inspire.
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